CLEVELAND (WJW) – Putting the brakes on traffic ticket quotas, Ohio Senate Bill 114 has become law and will take effect on Tuesday.
“We call it the ticket quota bill,” said State Senator Tom Patton, R-Strongsville. “So that a police chief or supervisor or city administration can not demand a specific number of tickets be written in a particular day, shift or month.”
The bill was unanimously passed in the Ohio Senate earlier in the year and then signed into law by Governor Mike DeWine at the beginning of July.
The law makes it illegal for any law enforcement agency in the state to set, enforce or assign quotas of traffic tickets for officers.
Patton said the new law has strong support from officers across the state and police organizations, including the FOP, OPPA and CPPA.
“They want to do police work and certainly traffic is police work, but to put an artificial number on it is just not appropriate,” said Patton.
Ohio FOP Vice President T.J. Assion said they have been behind it 100% from the start.
“We thought that it was long overdue,” said Assion. “Traffic citations are there to correct behavior. I know nobody wants to hear that, but it’s literally to correct behavior and keep the roads safe.”
He said most departments have never had quotas, including the Ohio State Highway Patrol, but those that did have quotas caused a negative perception of everyone.
“Because it spread throughout and became the norm, ‘oh, you’re just writing me a ticket to make your number,’ and that was never the case,” he said.
Both Assion and Patton said quotas erode trust between law enforcement and citizens.
The new law also gives officers more discretion when writing tickets.
“And when there’s more discretion, that trust is enhanced between the citizen and officer,” said Assion.
So far, there has been very little pushback on the law.
If any department tries to continue requiring quotas, officers can anonymously report them to the Ohio Attorney General, who will then launch an investigation.
However, they want to make it clear to drivers that this is not a green light to break the law. Traffic violations are still illegal and will be cited.
“We don’t want people to think this is your license to speed or roll through stop signs. We still want people punished, but we just don’t think there should be a number assigned,” said Patton.
Suzanne Stratford
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