2 November 2011

CPO slapdown for the CT on traffic quotas

| johnboy
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cpo tweet

The Chief Police Officer has chosen to tweet a rebuttal to a Canberra Times story on quotas for traffic police.

Given that the crux of the story is police concern an officer was given out too many fines this all seems a bit peculiar.

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reality_check8:27 pm 04 Nov 11

eh_steve said :

Richard Curie they say? As in, the Richard Curie that was allegedly pressured to issue a warning and not a ticket to a speeding colleague? http://the-riotact.com/australian-federal-police-officer-escapes-traffic-fine-traffic-was-light/28860
No wonder they wanted him to issue less fines, to lower the chance of catching another colleague travelling at 120 in an 80 zone!

Perhaps if he had the ability to investigate actual offences, which was his primary function as a general duties Police Officer, as opposed to hiding behind multiple simple traffic tickets, he may not have found himself in this situation…

krats said :

The Question Still Remains “Was He Or Was He Not Wearing Hi-Vis”

Sweet cross-polination! 🙂

eh_steve said :

Richard Curie they say? As in, the Richard Curie that was allegedly pressured to issue a warning and not a ticket to a speeding colleague? http://the-riotact.com/australian-federal-police-officer-escapes-traffic-fine-traffic-was-light/28860
No wonder they wanted him to issue less fines, to lower the chance of catching another colleague travelling at 120 in an 80 zone!

The Question Still Remains “Was He Or Was He Not Wearing Hi-Vis”

Richard Curie they say? As in, the Richard Curie that was allegedly pressured to issue a warning and not a ticket to a speeding colleague? http://the-riotact.com/australian-federal-police-officer-escapes-traffic-fine-traffic-was-light/28860
No wonder they wanted him to issue less fines, to lower the chance of catching another colleague travelling at 120 in an 80 zone!

Why is anyone giving this ex-cop, who is currently in “dispute” with his former employer, any sort of credibility at all? Vested interest much?

EvanJames said :

I think the thing they’re saying is, he wasn’t a traffic cop, he was general duties, but he was focussing on traffic and not doing the other stuff. I’d say, put a traffic hat on him and turn him loose on the traffic!

I do like that initiative where the cops are doing tweets, cuts through the bureaucratese they use in their official written releases

CPO ACT has been tweeting for ages. He also actually responds when you ask a question.

I think the thing they’re saying is, he wasn’t a traffic cop, he was general duties, but he was focussing on traffic and not doing the other stuff. I’d say, put a traffic hat on him and turn him loose on the traffic!

I do like that initiative where the cops are doing tweets, cuts through the bureaucratese they use in their official written releases

There’s a big difference between using metrics to measure activity and having set quotas. It seems completely reasonable to me that traffic cops, will, over a period a time, issue a number of TINs. Measuring the type and amount of TINs issued is a good way to identify situations where the number of TINs issued by a given officer varies from the norm, so as to allow review of such a situation. It also provides data about locations of TINs issued that could be used to determine patrol routes or areas to target.

I’m not a cop, and am just guessing here, but it seems to me that keeping stats on TINs is a good way to ensure traffic cops are deployed as effectively as possible.

Contrary to your front page report, ACT Policing does not set quotas for police officers to issue traffic tickets. The matter on which your article relies to make the claim that we set quotas relates to one historical incident where a frontline supervisor was appropriately managing a probationary constable to ensure he was diversifying his on-the-job learning and not focussing all of his probationary time exclusively on traffic duties. I have widely publicised view however that all police, regardless of rank or role, including me, contribute to traffic enforcement where they observe breaches. – Posted by Chief Police Officer, 2/11/2011 7:47:09 AM, on The Canberra Times

It’s quite obvious that Curie was neglecting other duties by focusing only on traffic, which is why it was an issue. If he was handing out 50, 60 or 100 TINs a month, it wouldn’t have mattered if he actually did other work.

Anyway, no doubt he will post on this thread in the near future.

“[I]t is expected that members issue roughly 10 traffic infringement notices per month, time and other priorities permitting.”

How can they deny that when it’s in writing? I don’t care if it’s a probationary officer or not, why was the police worried about a guy issuing 50 fines a month? Surely it’s not that much work. I’d guess you could easily issue 5 fines a day, and do the paperwork, and still have half of the day left.

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