Republican Gov. Mike DeWine has signed a measure prohibiting law enforcement agencies in the Buckeye State from mandating ticket quotas.
Senate Bill 114 prohibits law enforcement officials and agencies from implementing plans that use quotas for evaluating, promoting, compensating, transferring, or disciplining officers. The measure, which was similar to House Bill 131, another measure lawmakers considered, also prohibits requiring or suggesting that an officer is expected to meet a quota and offering an officer a benefit based on their quota.
Under the measure, sponsored by Ohio Reps. Kevin Miller, R-Newark, and Bride Rose Sweeney D-Westlake, the attorney general would need to develop a form that police officers can use to report violations of the new prohibition. The state’s top law enforcement officer would be empowered to investigate alleged violations and issue cease-and-desist orders for any violations.
It also allows police officers to decide whether to submit the report anonymously or disclose their identity.
The Ohio Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association and the Fraternal Order of Police raised ticket and arrest quotas as an issue following reports of “a few bad actors.” While much of the response to the measure has favored the quota ban, some, like the head of the Central Ohio Chiefs Association, oppose it.
According to a finding from the Ohio Legislative Service Commission, the measure could “result in minimal costs for law enforcement agencies to update policies and procedures related to measuring performance of employed officers.”
“The Attorney General will incur minimal costs to establish a form on its website for officers to report the use of quotas and to investigate, likely few, alleged violations,” the LSC found. “There will be no discernible impact on the operations or costs for any court that may be involved with enforcing a cease and desist order issued by the Attorney General.”
Among those who advocated for the quota ban was former Independence Police Lt. Leonard Mazzola. The city agreed to pay Mazzola nearly $1 million following a lawsuit that alleged retaliation by the city’s former mayor, police chief, and law director after the city mandated ticket quotas.
“Ticket and arrest quotas are generally viewed negatively across the board; both the public and the officers who are subject to them view them as unethical, likely unconstitutional, and patently unfair,” George Sakellakis, director of organization with the Ohio Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association, said in prepared testimony earlier this year. “I can speak for the Ohio law enforcement officer when I say that street-level officers, like the rest of the public, want Ohioans to be assured that any citations or arrests are only with the appropriate and legitimate interests of public safety in mind.”
Sakellakis told lawmakers that most Ohio agencies don’t have quota mandates. Most that have one in place do not call them quotas but instead refer to them using seemingly innocuous terms like “performance standards.”
“Sometimes they are as blatant as a written policy mandating a certain number of tickets,” Sakellakis said. “Often, they are not in writing at all, and are enforced arbitrarily against officers who wish to remain on a specialized unit, get promoted, get a positive performance review, maintain their work schedule or even just their employment. This bill would prohibit the use of quotas for those reasons, no matter what they’re called or how they’re concealed from the community.
“There is no safety-based justification to quotas,” Sakellakis added. “In fact, officers who have quotas imposed on them inevitably get into very negative, needless and oftentimes dangerous interactions with the public. They are connected to citations and arrests for minor violations that would normally never even merit a stop, and unfortunately, in other jurisdictions, have been linked to situations where an offense did not even occur. This is why quotas bring up serious constitutional questions of due process.”
