SALT LAKE CITY — A bill once again cracking down on police ticketing quotas is advancing in the Utah State Legislature.
"We got report after report after report that some law enforcement agencies were still using a quota system," Sen. Todd Weiler, R-Woods Cross, said Friday in the Senate Judiciary Committee. "Some of them called them point-based systems; they tried to avoid the word 'quota.'"
Senate Bill 67 follows extensive reporting by FOX 13 News on claims that police agencies were finding ways around the state's existing ban on quotas.
"Anyone who says this didn’t happen? I know it did happen," Sen. Weiler said. "We’ve had multiple news reports on it. I’m pretty confident as of today that it’s not happening and part of that is because of the pressure some legislators like myself have put to this issue."
SB67 prohibits police agencies from setting any kind of minimum requirement for citations. That would not include overtime shifts or grant-funded efforts to crack down on things like DUIs or speeding. A city would be blocked from requiring any kind of quota to evaluate, promote, compensate, or discipline an officer. Violations could see some funding pulled from a police agency.
"We do want police officers to work," Sen. Weiler said Friday. "We don’t want them to park on the side of the road and watch Netflix all day, which I've been told by some police chiefs happens."
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In order to address that concern, SB67 allows a police department to have what Sen. Weiler called "metric-based interactions." That means an officer can make a certain amount of traffic stops. However, an officer will not be forced to write a ticket. They could give a driver a warning and send them on their way, and it counts as an interaction, under the bill.
Nate Mutter with the Utah Law Enforcement Legislative Committee, which represents police agencies, said they were neutral on the bill in public testimony. SB67 passed unanimously and now heads to the full Senate for a vote.
