Police officer Adhyl Polanco reported that one way his supervisors in NYPD’s 41st Precinct in the Bronx attempted to manipulate crime statistics was by instructing him to slap handcuffs on teenagers guilty of nothing more than a boisterous walk to school. (‘No Room For Dissent In A Police Department Consumed By The Numbers’, By Michael Powell, The New York Times, May 7, 2012)
By making many arrests for very minor offenses, NYPD could show that it was clearing the streets of lawbreakers. And when they instructed officers to change reports of felonies like burglaries and attempted murder to far less serious charges of trespass and reckless endangerment, NYPD could show the people of New York that it was making them safer. On paper it would appear that New York’s crime rate for serious offenses was going down.
I had lunch with a law enforcement friend yesterday. When I told him about Polanco’s suspension for exposing wrongdoing by NYPD brass, including arrests of teens for being boisterous, he told me that is known as a ‘Duck Hunt’.
Patrol officer productivity is measured by the number of arrests made. Near the end of the month, if the number of arrests made by an officer that month is low, his supervisors will instruct him to go out and bring his arrest rate up to par by busting people for very minor offenses that would ordinarily be ignored. The same applies when the rate of traffic citations is low – make it up by writing tickets for any violation an officer may observe.
My friend told me that during the last week of a month, I should be very careful driving along a highway because the DPS is usually on a ‘Duck Hunt’ at that time. He said that DPS troopers will cite people for a burned out taillight at that time, a violation they probably would have disregarded earlier in the month.
I suspect that such shenanigans go on everywhere, not just in New York and Texas. So all you ducks out there, beware!
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