At least 26 states have laws prohibiting police departments from enforcing ticket and arrest quotas, but many states say pressure continues.
parking ticket
Veteran parking enforcement officer Lenny Hill talks about his 30 years writing tickets on Columbus streets.
Barbara J. Perenic, Columbus Delegation
What was supposed to be one of the happiest times in Brianna Longoria’s life turned into a years-long nightmare.
The day after Longoria got married in December 2024, she was pulled over by a police officer in Phoenix. She thought her ordeal would be over once she passed a breathalyzer test, but was shocked to learn that she had been arrested for driving under the influence.
At the station, candid moments were captured of the officers processing her, which Longoria said revealed what was really going on.
One police officer worried aloud that he would be removed from the team if he didn’t “drink and drive.”
“But I feel like I can’t come up with that. I tried,” Annette Hanna can be heard saying in the body camera footage.
“I can do it, I can do it,” replied Mary Metheny, the officer who first stopped Longoria.
The charges against Longoria were dropped, but she is pursuing a lawsuit that could take years to resolve.
The exchange reflects the sentiment being felt in many police departments across the country. Quota or not, police officers face all kinds of pressure to hand out tickets and make arrests.
In the worst-case scenario, that pressure could lead to police officers stopping people for no good reason or cracking down on minor violations as a money-making tool for local governments.
Phoenix Police Department spokeswoman Mercedes A. Fortune declined to discuss specific details of the case, but said the department “does not have a DUI assignment.”
But part of the reason quotas are banned in some parts of the country is fear that they could go awry. At least 26 states and Washington, D.C., have laws prohibiting police departments from enforcing quotas, according to the Brennan Center for Justice.
According to a 2021 analysis by Sean Osei Owusu of the University of Pennsylvania School of Law, the patchwork of laws is diverse, with some applying only to specific police actions, such as traffic tickets, and others applying only to express quota prohibitions.
Some say the law has loopholes that are easy to exploit. New York City passed an anti-quota law in 2010, but NYPD officers remained under pressure to meet new “performance goals” for arrests, tickets, and suspensions.
Former district court judge Sheila Scheindlin criticized this practice in 2013, writing that judges “have a hard time seeing the difference between performance goals and quotas…”
Advocates like Alexandra K. Block, director of the ACLU’s Criminal Justice and Policing Project, want anything resembling quotas to be abolished, “and it should happen soon,” she says.
Some police leaders oppose appropriations specifically aimed at generating funds for local governments. But some say banning quotas makes it impossible to set clear expectations and evaluate employees, a point recently made by the Central Ohio Chiefs Association.
“Suppose a police officer didn’t arrest a single person for the entire year. Even if they didn’t arrest a single person,” the group said in a statement about the new anti-quota law. “Under this bill, if a supervisor notices and responds, it could be considered imposing a quota.”
Are you rushing to meet your ticket quota at the end of the month? That may be a myth.
One study of state highway patrol officers found that when quotas are in place, the number of tickets issued tends to peak near the middle of the month, but without quotas, the number of tickets issued remains relatively stable throughout the month, said co-author Griffin Edwards, an economics professor at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.
“I think our study is interesting in that it at least dispels rumors that ticket numbers will increase near the end of the month,” he said.
Myths have existed since ancient times.
“People were actually yelling at me from outside the window, saying, ‘It’s the end of the month, the cops are out, everyone move your cars,'” said former New York City police officer Jillian Snyder.
She said that when she first joined the NYPD more than 20 years ago, officers were expected to make a certain number of arrests and write a certain number of tickets for traffic and parking violations.
Meeting the criteria could help officers secure transfers to more specialized units or requests for leave, she said.
Snyder said those expectations can influence executives’ decisions.
He said the quotas could affect whether officers respond to minor offenses with stern warnings or full-scale arrests, especially during the winter months when street crime is low. And the practice strained relations between the community and police, said Snyder, who has since retired.
Quotas remain a ‘little secret’ for some departments
Snyder said law enforcement expectations are changing dramatically as more states ban quotas. Her brother, a new Westchester County police officer, “doesn’t have any specific numerical goals,” she said.
“His agency makes recommendations on what it thinks is reasonable to expect from patrol officers in any given month,” she said.
However, removing explicit quotas does not necessarily solve the problem. In fact, Edwards’ recent analysis found that when several states passed laws restricting police assignments, the rate at which state highway patrol officers issued citations actually rose.
The Baltimore Banner reported in October that Maryland, where arrest and citation quotas are prohibited, offered state troopers in one barracks candy bars as an incentive to make more traffic stops. The revelations come three years after the outlet reported that police officers across the state are subject to a set number of traffic stops, which could result in larger rewards, such as new cars, if arrested for drunk driving, and disciplinary action if the numbers are low.
Maryland State Police spokeswoman Elena Russo said the box of candy was purchased by the commander without permission and was later removed.
“Although no quotas were imposed on any service member in this incident, MDSP policy strictly prohibits the use of quotas in setting service member expectations or evaluating service member performance,” Russo said.
In Illinois, state Rep. Patrick Sheehan, who worked as a law enforcement officer, said that current law prohibits police from setting citation quotas, but departments get around that by pressuring officers to make a certain number of “contacts,” or stops that may not result in a ticket. Sheehan has garnered bipartisan support for legislation that seeks to correct what he called a “dirty secret” in the state.
Asked if he had ever had to meet such a quota, Mr. Sheehan said, “I don’t want to comment on that for fear of retaliation.”
Advocates say ticket allocation is not only cumbersome but also dangerous.
In California, where anti-quota provisions were added to the state’s vehicle code in 1976, attorney Matthew McNicholas said he has handled six cases in recent years from police officers facing quotas. McNicholas said the quotas are not only illegal, but also dangerous.
“When you set a quota based on the law, police officers will go all out to make sure they fill that quota and take chances not to ride a motorcycle because their livelihood depends on it,” he says.
Some say the quota could also be dangerous for civilians. Eric Wilkins, a Chicago resident, said he goes out of his way to avoid certain areas of the city that he knows police regularly target to meet their quota for traffic stops. As a result, black and Latino drivers are more likely to be stopped and have physical force used than white drivers, according to data cited in Wilkins’ lawsuit against the city.
The complaint says Wilkins is stopped by police on average once or twice a year, including at least once after filing a complaint against the city. The father of two and community activist said encounters range from the embarrassing and annoying to the downright terrifying.
“Are you going to go home, go to jail, or get killed?” he said. “These things pop into your head instantly while the police officer is behind you.”
During a stop in Arizona, newlywed Longoria said the de facto DUI quota led to her arrest and changed her life forever.
She had been diagnosed with cervical cancer at the time and had to skip a doctor’s appointment to appear in court, according to the lawsuit she filed against the officer and the city of Phoenix. The money that was supposed to be spent on a honeymoon to New York went toward legal fees.
And although the charges against Longoria were later dropped, she worries that a DUI arrest will make it nearly impossible for her to achieve her dream of becoming a nurse.
“DUI enforcement missions are based on operational needs,” Phoenix Police Department spokeswoman Fortune said, adding that officers must act based on “observed driving behavior, signs of impairment, and the totality of the circumstances.”
In response to Longoria’s lawsuit, the city denied all allegations. As the case drags on, Longoria said, “I can’t help but feel stressed.”
“I just want to get back to normal life,” Longoria said.
