Woodstock PD - bringing in the big bucks

What's happening within the Woodstock Police Department?

Every month the Chief Lowen makes a report to the City Council. You can read it in the packet that goes to each member of the City Council for the first City Council meeting of the month. If you go to the Library or City Hall, it's there on the Friday before the first Tuesday of the month. If you go to the Library, go to the Reference Desk on the first floor, in the back, and ask for it. You can't check it out, but you can read it there.

General information is sometimes helpful. Raw numbers can be interesting. What really tells the story, though, is the comparison of numbers - the percentage, or the percentage difference.

For example, when January 2009 calls for service are compared to December 2008, there were 105 fewer calls in January. The decrease is 6.8%. Of course, a decline for one month can be off-set by a huge jump in another month.

How about tavern checks: 277 in January, compared to 191 in January. That's a 45% increase. Why? Which taverns are being clobbered with police attention? I wonder what the tavern owners think.

DUIs? Only three in January; none in February. No DUI arrests? Did all the drunks stop driving in January and February? Maybe the increase in tavern checks reduced the number of drunk drivers. But what about all the drunk drivers passing through?

There is a general category of "Other traffic arrests". In December 239 traffic arrests were made; in January, 362! What could account for a 51.5% increase? And this was before the February "initiative" (crackdown) on aggressive and dangerous drivers was announced.

And lowly parking tickets? After slacking off in December and issuing only 160, the troops got busy in January and issued 270; that's a 68.8% increase! Where did they find 270 parking violators in Woodstock? Seeing a grid of locations and times would be interesting.

And the fines for parking violations? $3,625 in December, but only $3,090 in January. A 68% increase in the number of tickets, but a 15% drop in fines. The average fine for a parking ticket in December was $22.66. The average fine for a parking ticket in January was $11.44. Most likely, a two-month period is too short for a valid comparison, due to timing of tickets issued and when they were paid. Maybe fines lag issuance by a month. It does kind of make me wonder about the type of parking ticket issued in January.

Stolen property in December? $24,413. In January, $65,021 - a 166.3% increase! I'll skip the low recovery rate on stolen property.

From the 51% increase in "Other traffic arrests" it appears that the Police Department is becoming a funds generating entity, a money-making department, a profit center for the City of Woodstock. Just what we need; right? Who will be first to order a new license plate: BOUNTY.

I wonder if the City Council is aware of the movement of the police department into a revenue-generation scheme. Or did it direct that movement? Ticket quotas are illegal but, if a beat officer happened to be required to write seven (7) $75.00 tickets on his shift, that's a total of $525 in fines and well over $1,000 in potential court costs, if the drivers go to court and lose. Most drivers will just fork over the $75.00, as I did two years ago, and not take a chance in court - and not take a day off without pay to go to court and fight the ticket.

Think the cops don't have this figured out already? But it's not the street cops, the beat cops, who are making the rules. I'll bet they don't like quotas. I'll bet they even know that ticket quotas are illegal. But how do you argue with your sergeant? If he tells you that your quota is seven, then you'd better not come back in without those seven. Better keep your personal journal up-to-date with who ordered what, and when.

And how about an officer who is detailed to a traffic assignment? All he is supposed to do is write traffic tickets. Let's say he just happened to have a quota is ten (10) tickets on his shift. And let's say he is more aggressive than just writing tickets for failing to use a turn signal in a demand turn lane. He gets busy and writes a few for illegal use of the center, two-way, left-turn lane, grabs one every once in a while for running a red light, gets a speeder occasionally. Maybe his average fine is $100. Ten $100 tickets equal $1,000 in fines, and another potential $1,500 in court costs if they all go to court (which they won't).

So three beat officers (3 x $525) and one traffic car ($1,000) = $2,575/day in fines. Figuring 30 days in a month, that's $77,250/month, and that's $927,000 in a year. Give or take a few $$$. And this is not including court costs!

How much of that filters back to Woodstock from McHenry County Traffic Court? And how much will stay here if a bunch of those are written under Local Ordinances and adjudicated in Woodstock's new Court that was approved at the March 3rd City Council meeting?

Do officers still have discretion to issue a Warning? Or are they now required to issue a ticket on every traffic stop? There's a good way to find out. A FOIA Request should obtain accurate information. Let's see.... how about 1) How many traffic stops were made last month? 2) How many tickets were written? 3) How many written Warnings were issued? Better yet - how about those numbers on a monthly basis for the past 6-12 months?

Has something changed recently at the Woodstock PD?

Ticket quotas at the sheriff's department?

Remember my joke a while back about the deputy who was asked by a driver if his department had a quota system? His reply was, "We don't have a quota. We can write as many tickets as we want."

OK, OK, it was a joke. Only maybe it's not a joke. At least the part about writing as many as they want is a joke.

But what happens if a deputy doesn't write enough tickets? "Oh," you say, "but then he has a 'quota'!"

Apparently, what happens at the McHenry County Sheriff's Department (MCSD) is that, if you don't write enough tickets (and tickets of the right type), then you may just find yourself on probation, subject to disciplinary action, or even terminated.

What about the deputy who was hired to protect and to serve the residents of McHenry County and all with whom he came in contact? If he is under pressure to make his quota, then is he likely to start "pushing the envelope" to write enough tickets? After all, he has rent or a mortgage to pay, mouths to feed, tuition to cough up, just like the rest of us.

So they don't really have quotas at MCSD. Instead, what they have is a "non-quota performance standard."

Is this just lipstick on a pig?

One of the Department's command staff, and reportedly the person who came up with the idea for a "non-quota" quota, is attending a three-month FBI Staff and Command School. All expenses paid, of course, and you know who is paying them. But he is needed back in sleepy, ol' Woodstock to settle some squabbles about non-quotas, so MCSD is going to fly him home for a meeting on February 23 with the FOP. No, that's not Fine Old People. The FOP is the Fraternal Order of Police. The union.

Now, why would the deputies' union be involved? Because a "non-quota quota" system is unfair. If deputies go out and do their jobs (you know, protect and serve), that's quite likely to result in their descending into the Red Zone. Too much time in the Red Zone means probationary status. And, if you don't get your "numbers" (enough of the right tickets) up, then you can kiss your job at MCSD good-bye.

How about statistics at MCSD? Are "No Valid" Hispanic arrests on the rise? What are these?

A "No Valid" arrest is an arrest for no valid driver's license. How does a deputy figure out which car might be driven by a person without a valid driver's license? The deputy just runs the license plate of every vehicle he sees, whether or not the driver is committing any traffic violation. From the in-car computer it is possible to determine if a driver's license associated with the registered owner of the vehicle.

But how does the deputy know whether the registered owner is actually driving the car? He doesn't! So then he looks for any possible violation (and hardly anyone can drive three blocks without committing at least one, even if only very minor, traffic violation). The deputy then makes the traffic stop. Quite likely, he never would have stopped that car for such a violation, if he didn't think the driver might not have a license.

Is it right to run the plate first and then to look for a violation? Or should the deputy only run a plate through his in-car computer if he has observed a traffic violation and intends to stop the car? In this case, the deputy properly wants to know if the registered owner of the car is wanted. Knowing this in advance could save the deputy's life!

Oh, about the "Hispanic" part. Do deputies target license plates to run through the computer to persons appearing to be Hispanic or from Latin America?

Running a detailed analysis of arrest records and corresponding arrest reports might reveal an interesting pattern to traffic stops, especially of relationships between race, nationality and arrest. Of course, deputies would have to admit that they ran the plate first and then began following the vehicle until they observed a violation and exactly what violation it was. But the time of the computer use and the time of the traffic stop would disclose that.

We do not want a fearful public in McHenry County, and we definitely do not want a fearful group of deputies out on the road. Fear causes people to make mistakes. It's a hard enough job without throwing in a new Fear Factor.

Ticket Quotas - Yea or Nay?

The question was, Should cops have ticket quotas?. The results of this survey?

No 26 (46%)
Yes 31 (54%)

Thanks to the 57 readers for participating in this survey.

Early in the week-long survey, the Yes's ran ahead in the voting. Then the No's pulled even, and at the end the Yes's moved ahead again.

Having performance standards is one thing; having quotas is another. With my bent toward traffic violations, I see a lot of them. So writing traffic tickets often seems to me to be a no-brainer. And yet I remember the days when I had time to "hide behind billboards" (that sort of "dates" me, doesn't it?), just waiting for a speeder or a driver to roll through a stop sign or a driver to pass illegally in a no-passing zone.

Where did they all go? Was there a spotlight on my car? Was some kid standing down the block with a sign reading "Cop ahead"?

Seeing traffic violations and not taking action is a "performance" problem and can be corrected through supervision and training.

Coming up to the end of the month 4-5-6 tickets short of your quota is a problem, because it means the cop or deputy then has to write tickets to stay out of his supervisor's crosshairs. And that's where the quota requirement goes awry.

Sometimes a little "roadside counseling" gets the job done, and the cop knows it. The driver understands and acknowledges the error, the cop doesn't believe it to be a "habit", and a Warning will suffice. Then there are times when a driver "cops" an attitude and a situation that might have resulted in a Warning becomes one in which a ticket is issued.

Discretion should be just that. Not favoritism (because the driver flashes his badge at the deputy or because he has an LE or FF license plate or a "police association donation" decal in the back window or because the driver says "my wife (or husband or brother or sister-in-law or best friend's niece's father-in-law's second wife) is a cop in (name the local town).

And discretion must not be taken away from the officer, just because it's the end of the month and he "has to" make his numbers.

Non-Quota Class

On December 4 I wrote about Quota-Free Policing. See below for the article.

Now here is an interesting concept. When is a quota not a quota? Is a rose by any other name not a rose? But what if you don't even change the name?

Deputies of the McHenry County Sheriff's Department have now been trained that there is no quota system at their Department. There is no ticket quota system. Got it? "It's illegal to set quotas for tickets", they have been told. And the class name for the two-hour class? "Non Quota".

And the ten (10) tickets that a deputy is now expected to write each month? (I mean, after the class...) Remember, guys and gals, this is not a "quota."

And if your supervisors push you to write more (say, 20/month), this is not a "quota", either. (Psst, remember; quota systems are illegal.)

And what happens if you don't meet this (non-) quota? You might be lucky enough to get one six-month extension to "shape up" and meet your performance standard. After that? You'll probably want to go shopping for a lawyer. And if you need a good one, call Blake Horwitz.

Where will you find all these lucky folks for your tickets? Be sure to write those tickets on County Township roads. Stay off Routes 14, 176, 31 in the Crystal Lake area. Why? It must have something to do with who gets the $80 that the driver is going to part with.

If you (you know who I mean) don't like this new "Non-Quota System", you might post your comment right here. Go to Google or Yahoo or Hotmail or Comcast.net or SBCGlobal.net or wherever and set up an anonymous email address and post your comment or email it to me at Gus@WoodstockAdvocate.com. Or fax your comments to me at (815) 338-2666.

Are we all relieved now to know that there is no longer a ticket quota system in McHenry County?

Please do keep writing those "good" tickets. Just refuse any "encouragement" to meet your "non-quota."

Quota-Free Policing

Should there be quotas for tickets and arrests in police work? Should law enforcement officers be rewarded for the number of tickets they issue or arrests they make? Is there a Success board at the McHenry County Sheriff's Department, where deputies who are the "Leaders" in ticket-writing top the list and get promoted based on their numbers?

If a deputy writes three tickets to a driver during a traffic stop, including arresting him and transporting him to the McHenry County Jail, is he a top performer? But what happens when that driver goes to court and two of the tickets result in no conviction and the driver gets Supervision on the third ticket -- meaning, if he keeps his nose clean for a few months, then even that ticket goes away? - although the fine and court costs are not refunded!

So the bottom line is - even though that driver was arrested and taken to jail, incurring time and expense of numerous deputies (not just the arresting deputy) - nothing really happened. And what if that arrest was the result of racial profiling?

What if a driver with a brown face drives past a deputy, the deputy runs the license plate and finds that the owner of the vehicle doesn't possess a driver's license, and then the deputy makes a traffic stop? The deputy doesn't really know that a violation exists, because he doesn't know whether or not it is the owner who is driving the vehicle. Is that a valid arrest, barring any actual traffic violation that gives the deputy "probable cause" to stop the driver?

Now the sheriff's department will put deputies through a "Quota-Free Policing" program. Why would something like this be needed, if procedures were not otherwise to start with? Have we been living with "Quota Policing" system up until now?

In McHenry County we have the Law & Justice Committee of the McHenry County Board. What does it really do? The composition of that Committee is changing, due to the recent loss of elected positions by at least two of its members. What interest does this Committee take in the operation of the sheriff's department? Any?

The Committee may be limited in what it can demand of the Sheriff, since the Office of Sheriff is an elected post.

We should want deputies (and police officers) in this County who enforce the laws fair, evenly, equally and impartially. Regarding traffic violations, there are so many now that no quota would be necessary. A driver with sharp eyes can detect many violations along every mile of roadway in the County.

So maybe we need neither quota nor quota-free policing. Policing will be just fine. Deputies know the laws. Once they are properly trained and supervised, there should be no problems with even enforcement. Supervisors should keep a sharp eye on those deputies who produce inordinately high numbers to be certain they are doing their job properly and within legal boundaries.