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Committee hears sponsor testimony for ban on ticket and arrest quotas; questions on supervision and metrics
Summary
House Bill 131 would ban written or unwritten ticket or arrest quotas for law enforcement. Sponsors said the change protects officer discretion and public trust; members asked how supervisors could evaluate performance without numeric targets and about fine disposition transparency.
Representatives Kevin Miller and Rose Sweeney presented House Bill 131, a bipartisan proposal to prohibit law-enforcement agencies from imposing written or implicit quotas for tickets or arrests. Sponsors said the bill would preserve officers' professional discretion and reduce perverse incentives to generate revenue through citations.
Representative Kevin Miller argued quotas "encourage officers to focus on the number of tickets they write rather than the quality of their police work," and said the bill does not prevent supervision or setting expectations but bars mandates on the number and the required disposition of stops. Representative Sweeney added the bill enjoys bipartisan support and has backing from some law‑enforcement and reform advocates.
Members sought details on how supervision would function without numeric targets, whether departments could still use aggregate work‑group expectations, and how fine revenues are distributed. Witnesses and sponsors said supervisory review could rely on holistic performance measures and that statutory dispositions determine where state trooper fines flow, while municipal citations often fund local governments.
No vote was taken; sponsors said the committee could further refine language on supervisor guidance and transparency in disposition of fines.
