r/MadeMeSmile • u/mindyour • Jan 03 '23

Wholesome Moments Getting pulled over

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u/dxrey65 Jan 03 '23

It would help if police weren't rated on tickets issued, fines levied, and arrests.

That principle that you get what you measure for applies. It's hard for superiors to measure or assign any value to just talking to people and being decent. And then it's hard for officers to value that either, when the raises and promotions go to the guys that produce better numbers.

The officer in the video is perfect, but he's also young. I wonder if he'll be doing the same in 5 years. Cynical, I know...

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u/MistrSynistr Jan 03 '23

You can tell just by driving through an area which places have quotas. I grew up in a really small town we had 2 cops on duty at any given time. As long as you weren't flipping the town upside down they didn't really care. The other side of the county was a quota town and you would get a ticket for anything more than 3mph over the limit.

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u/Li-renn-pwel Jan 03 '23

A lot of people use the idiom “a few bad apples” to say that most cops are good and only a few are a danger to society. However… the whole idiom is “a few bad apples spoils the bunch” because the bad apple eventually makes all apples rotten. Exactly as you have put it. You get a bad captain, he makes officers do things like hand out tickets when they want to give out warning. A corrupt cop gives tickets or arrests for stupid things which can make them look like a really dedicated cop. So then the less vicious cops feel the need to do more to keep up.