“Nobody Likes It When Police Focus On Quotas. So Why Do They”

Interesting commentary about the NUMBERS game.

Thank you for the interesting article. Its quite easy to sue the police. They are not immune. Take the matter to civil court. Make sure you have everything documented in a Statement of Claim. My family has experienced the over zealous cops. The most irritating ones are the ones who seem to enjoy dishing out misery. I wouldn't like to take a guess at how many revenue traffic tickets are conjured up.

Benjamin Button wrote:Thank you for the interesting article. Its quite easy to sue the police. They are not immune. Take the matter to civil court. Make sure you have everything documented in a Statement of Claim. My family has experienced the over zealous cops. The most irritating ones are the ones who seem to enjoy dishing out misery. I wouldn't like to take a guess at how many revenue traffic tickets are conjured up.

Police officer do not get a "cut" of the revenues from traffic tickets so I'm not sure what the inference you're trying to make here is.

Also, I don't think it's actually that easy to sue the police. What action would you bring for an officer who gave you a ticket you felt was unjustified? Malicious prosecution? That is a fairly high standard to meet. You are certainly correct though that police are not immune from being sued, if the circumstances warrant it.

hi Simon, You would sue the police as you would sue anyone who abused you. Insofar as a traffic ticket, should an officer say assault you or cause you loss or injury at that time or threaten you or cause you distress etc you would have grounds to sue. I suspect many unjustified traffic tickets are given out and the fact that someone is being extorted for money by way of a trumped up ticket would be as criminal as accusing someone of stealing and making them pay for it when they hadn't stolen it in the first place....that is a crime is it not ?

I didnt suggest that a police officer got a cut of any fines. I dont believe they get that type of bonus although I expect they will get some credit of sorts for bringing in the revenue. thank you for the reply Simon

Benjamin Button wrote:I didnt suggest that a police officer got a cut of any fines. I dont believe they get that type of bonus although I expect they will get some credit of sorts for bringing in the revenue.

Correct, absolutely no "cut" of fines and "no" percentage".

Nor do we get any "credit" for writing tickets.

What we have to do is be accountable for our time (as in what we are being paid to do).

Here is one example

(ie: theft incident, code the theft to an activity sheet, but there are subsequent fields to choose from such as: initial, assist, follow up, court, brief preparation etc.., then you have to enter the time spent on that activity)

there are hundreds of incident types to choose from...different admin type, community services, different criminal offences, different provincial offences, variety of traffic related types.

After our calls for service are caught up or between calls and we are patrolling, we focus on the "leading cause of death" which is vehicles on the highway. If we see an infraction we take action, if we don't, keep on driving.

I agree with hwybear's comments above.

On this issue:

Benjamin Button wrote:You would sue the police as you would sue anyone who abused you. Insofar as a traffic ticket, should an officer say assault you or cause you loss or injury at that time or threaten you or cause you distress etc you would have grounds to sue. I suspect many unjustified traffic tickets are given out and the fact that someone is being extorted for money by way of a trumped up ticket would be as criminal as accusing someone of stealing and making them pay for it when they hadn't stolen it in the first place....that is a crime is it not?

You still need a to plead a specific cause of action against the officer, as you would anyone you sued. What I was asking was, what cause of action would you plead in civil court if an officer gave you an "unjustified" ticket? It doesn't seem likely that ticket would be accompanied by an assault or a threat so there's no cause of action there. Again, if it's just that the ticket was "unjustified" what cause of action do you have?

Also, I don't think that an unjustified ticket amounts to extortion or any other offence under the criminal code.