Abolish The Quota System! Now!

During arbitration on a matter between the police union and NYPD management it emerged that cops actually do have a quota system — or, as the Post calls it, the City’s “Dirty Little Secret”:

A city arbitrator confirmed yesterday what cops have long insisted — that they are forced to meet ticketing quotas.

Ruling in a case brought by the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association, arbitrator Bonnie Siber Weinstock found that the Police Department maintained an illegal traffic-ticket quota system at the 75th Precinct in East New York, Brooklyn.

The NYPD violated state labor law “by establishing and maintaining a summons quota for traffic violations in the precinct and by penalizing officers for failing to meet the stated number of traffic violations,” Weinstock wrote.

“The city shall cease and desist from maintaining a vehicular traffic quota.”

Evidence presented by the PBA showed that precinct cops had the following monthly quotas: four parking violations, three moving violations, three quality-of-life summonses, one arrest and two stop-and-frisks.

Weinstock, who works for the city Office of Collective Bargaining, said that only the first two categories fell under state law when the case was filed last June.

The law was amended in September to make quotas illegal only for moving violations.

. . .

“The arbitrator finds that a preoccupation with ticket-writing to the detriment of ‘fighting crime’ is exactly what labor law was designed to prevent,” she said.

In response, NYPD spokesman Paul Browne said the precinct “has been instructed not to establish specific, numeric quotas for summonses linked to performance evaluations.”

However, he said, nothing in the ruling prevents commanders from “productivity goals that include summons activity.”