Let’s say there are 100 murders — in a certain city in 2021. How many arrests for murder should there be in that city that year?
We can’t know in advance. Setting lagtime aside, consider the other factors. Some of the killers may have killed more than once. Some of the murders may never be solved. Some honest arrests may prove to be mistaken. We can only say: “As many arrests as possible, so long as persons are arrested for murder only if and when there is good cause to do so.”
Properly, one establishes sound criteria for making arrests and good investigative procedures. Not quotas. The same principles apply to every kind of arrest.
“Yes, Paul Jacob. But all this is bleedingly obvious. Why go on about it?”
Alas, what is really basic common sense to you and me apparently clashes with the desire of some within and without police departments for “proof” of effective results. Proof like total number of arrests. (Of course, in a police state, you might arrest half the population, far exceeding any quota, and still get lots of crime.)
The errant fondness for arrest quotas is at least being ended, almost, in Virginia, where the governor has signed legislation to prohibit Virginia agencies and police departments from using them.
I write “almost” because the legislation does not include a ban on quotas for traffic tickets, which are like being half-arrested. Tickets are one way municipalities make money.
Well, maybe we can all just stop driving.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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2 replies on “Injustice By Quota”
I used to have a sign in the LR door window in my car during the last week of the month that said, “Watch your speed, quota time.”
This was back in the ’70s as a young guy.
Amazingly, I was never stopped for it.
Nowadays, I’m not so sure that would fly.
If the long-standing “progressive” dream of eliminating most automobiles in favor of mass-transit is realized (as by the back-doors of outlawing non-autonomous vehicles and practical internal-combustion engines), then I predict that municipal governments will have enough chutzpah to insist that they are entitled to replace the lost revenues of traffic tickets.