Why are cops more interested in givng out tickets than catching real criminals?

Question

Here in Canada, I've noticed that police officers are always on the prowl to give tickets to people driving over the speed limit, etc. (by the way I've never gotten one, and probably never will...am a good citizen, so don't even go there lol)
But yes, I know someone who got one for jaywalking!!
I just have to wonder why cops will tend to sit in their cars waiting for the next guy to make a "small" screw up, while real, dangerous criminals are going free?
I would personally feel much safer if those offenders were behind bars...anyway, I was wondering, if psychologically, these cops are just afraid of getting into a scary situation and that's why they avoid it? or is it just eaiser to sit in their car and hide around a bend, waiting for a speeder, than to go out there and chase down a criminal?
I'm asking in all honesty, because I see this a lot and have always wondered about psychological motivations for police officers? (not to offend anyone, just curious). Thanks :)

Lol solidsnake, you don't even know me!!

Answer 1

I don’t think that the general public realizes that the officers on the street issuing violations for motor vehicle offenses are the backbone of all police agencies. Traffic enforcement is just one of their many jobs but it should be noted that stopping cars for traffic violations often times leads to other arrests, such as driving while intoxicated, possession of drugs, or possession of weapons are made not to mention that the traffice enforcement that you’re talking about prevents accidents and protects lives. Traffic enforcement is a double edge sword in that if you do it you’re not out there ‘fighting the real crime’ but if you don’t do it people will *****, moan and complain that cars are speeding all over the place, crashes would inevitably increase and everyone would wonder why are the police aren’t doing their job.
Traffic enforcement is proactive police work and unfortunately most crimes are reactive which means that the police can only react to the crime after it has been committed. It would be nice if the police had ESP and could anticipate criminal activity in advance but unfortunately we don’t possess that power.
The truth of the matter is the officers that you criticize are the eyes and ears of the rest of the police department. Statistically more crimes are solved by the first responding officers (and not the detectives) who observe, listen, and protect the crime scene. The patrol officer is the first responder whenever something serious occurs. You want to know the psychological motivations of an officer? They often times put their life on the line to protect your life and when a call comes in, whether violence is involved or not they rush to the scene while others people have to choice to run and hide and often times they stand face to face with individuals that would frighten the life out of normal people.
I can’t imagine how many lives have been saved by the police over the years not only because they intervened in violent cases but because they are often times first responders where a person was in need of medical assistance.
In 2005 alone, 155 police officers paid the ultimate sacrifice to protect people like you.
You want to know what it’s like ‘psychologically to be a cop?’ Well one minute you’re giving out tickets and the next you’re at a domestic dispute where some guy has just punched the crap out of his wife. The police officer can’t run, and won’t run away to leave you to fend for yourself but will do whatever is necessary to arrest that individual. An hour later you’re taking a complaint about a missing person and then rushing to a bank alarm where you don’t know if you might come face to face with a bank robber who will have no problem putting a bullet in you to make his get away or if it’s just a false alarm. For eight to twelve hours a day an officer will from one call to the next and never know what to expect. What would that do to you psychologically?
I’ve seen what the police do because I’ve been there as one of them for twenty-five years. I’ve faced people with guns and knives. I’ve broken up more fights than I can remember. I’ve investigated so many car accidents that I long ago lost count. Once we had a restaurant explode in my town from a gas leak and on my hands and knees I worked my way across the top the debris while pockets of gas continued to explode beneath me pulling out the survivors.
How many times have you done something like that? How many times in your life have you saved another person’s life? How many times have you put yourself in harms way to protect someone?
For you to say that the police are giving out tickets simply to avoid confrontation is an insult to police officers all over the world. When they are needed they rush to the scene and always, always put the citizen first.
It’s obvious that you’ve never been in a situation where you’ve really needed the police otherwise you wouldn’t be asking such a stupid question but one day when you or a family member or a friend does need us (and statistically it will happen) I want you to think back to the question that you asked and then ask yourself, realistically who else could you have called that would have rushed to your aide to protect you, help you or serve you when no one else could.

Answer 2

Some of it the work environment. Like any job, the better you do, the more likely you are to get promoted. Well, the sad fact is that a cop with one incident handled in a month looks like a slacker compared to the cop with a dozen incidents handled in the same month, even if the one incident was tracking down and arresting a suspect and the dozen incidents were traffic citations. How much did revenue did each officer generate for the county--cause where I live, all fees go to the county even when a city officer wrote the ticket. Any government agency or department likes having better funds. So, even if there isn't a real quota--and I don't think there is an agency that truly has any--the officer with more incidents looks to be more on the job. Sad, but that's politics for ya.

Also, traffic offenders are a serious concern. As far as US highways go, there are approximately 42,000 traffic deaths per year. A large part of those can be directly attributed to excessive speed and/or intoxication. I can't count how many tickets I have received in my life [even as the son of a local PD SGT], but I know I deserved every one of them cause I was, in fact, speeding. Well, okay all except for that one where I was doing 31 in a 25MPH section of road. :P
But, I was 16 and cops love citing teenagers.
Also, in some towns, there just may be nothing else for the cops to do. In my city, we'd look at people funny if they called the PD for a cop to come out and get the dead squirrel out of their driveway, or I'd simply hang up on them and try to remember to laugh AFTER I hung up. [I was a 911 operator/dispatcher for 8 years.] But in a town just to the south of us, that's a complaint that will get an officer dispatched.

Answer 3

I don't know about cops in Canada but I'm guessing they're not much different than cops in the U.S. where I work.

Writing tickets is not their sole concern, believe me.
There are officers who happen to enjoy working traffic
and believe they are doing their part to help keep the
public highways safer for all of us. Sometimes, officers are assigned to "traffic" and have no choice but to work in that area. Other times, they might work traffic just to give themselves a different "scene" as occasionally it actually gets boring out there.

Real dangerous criminals are the subject of scrutiny by the police but you don't readily see
that because in many cases those people are
taken off the streets through the use of "investigations." And because cops don't want the
bad guys to know that they are coming close to
being arrested, the cops try to remain as sneaky
as they can when conducting those "investigations" so that they don't "tip their hand" and have the
bad guys leave the area and thus make it much
more difficult to find them.

This was the short answer to your questionand I
hope that it might give you a little better understanding of how cops work and why they do what they do.

Answer 4

Cops are not out to get you. In fact, they have a lot of procedures, etc. that they have to go through. Writing tickets is not actually worth their time if they are looking for somethign easy to do. NOTHING is easy. Catching criminals is jus ta part of the deal. Besides, writing tickets is supposed to help deter people from dangerous situations. Running a red light- no biggie?? What if you are crossing an intersection when you get slammed by someone running red? Or you jaywalk and a car comes out of no where? You think that is rare? It's not. Give cops a break. Help them to help you. They're trying to do their jobs to keep you safe and what you people actually do is make it harder for them. Then you have the nerve to criticize them?? Something's not quite right. We have to be better educated citizens.

Answer 5

Let's put it this way, if you're a cop on a 12 hour shift don't you think you would see at least one violation per hour? That would be 12 a day. If the supervisor ask you at the end of your shift what did you do today and you didn't write one single ticket, don't you think he ha a duty as a supervisor to tell the patrolman that he wants to see him writ at least two tickets the next day. Do you call that a quota ? If there not written I think that is a neglect of duty.

Answer 6

That is the way that a lot of "real criminals" are caught. Serial Killer Ted Bundy was caught when a police officer stopped him for a routine traffic violation in Pensacola Florida. Terry Rudolph, who evaded the FBI for years was apprehended by a rookie police officer for dumpster-diving. Millions of dollars worth of illegal drugs and drug proceeds are found by police on traffic stops every year.

Police encounter "real criminals" or "scary situations" periodically. In the meantime, we don't need to just sit around and do nothing until the next "real criminal" situation comes along. Also there are different levels of police work. There are those officers who are assigned to traffic detail and that is their primary duty. There are those who are assigned as homicide detectives, vice squads, regular patrol, and the list goes on. Highway Patrol, for example, usually have the primary job as traffic law enforcers. They work mostly vehicle accidents and enforce traffic laws on the highway. That is their primary job and that is what they mostly do.

As far as being afraid of "scary situations"; more police officers are killed on traffic stops than any other type call. This is one of the most dangerous aspects of our job. We encounter more "dangerous criminals" here than anywhere else, and what makes it so dangerous is that we usually do not know if the occupant of a vehicle is a dangerous criminal, or just some average Joe on his way to work.

Answer 7

The money the city gets from the tickets is how the police get paid. This revenue is why cities are able to put and keep cops on the street. I, m sure the money is used for other purposes also, just like taxes.
On a personal note here, i don,t personaly agree with the so called QUOTAS that alot of them are supposed and sometimes pressured to meet in a month. This would account for alot of the often petty types of tickets, especialy towards the end of the month.

Answer 8

Three reasons. One, they enforce laws no matter how big or small. That's what they are paid to do. Two, there are specific Officers assigned to traffic duty and nothing else. Three, they catch a lot of serious criminals by doing minor traffic stops. Example. In Texas, a man was pulled over for a broken tail light. Because this minor violation was not overlooked, the driver (who had been wanted in Indiana for murdering a college professor and dumping his body in a river) was finally arrested and extradited back to Indiana to stand trial. This is not an uncommon occurrence.

Answer 9

The problem is your perspective, not what the cops are actually doing.

When driving around you are more likely interacting with traffic cops than anyone else in the police department. It's their JOB to issue citiations for driving offenses, not track down burglars, rapists, murders, drug dealers (unless you'd dumb enough to display when stopped for speeding on the Queenway) and other social misfits. There are detectives who work those crimes and generally do a pretty good job at it.

If a traffic cop horned in on the drug squad or homicide he'd probably get tossed off of the force for not doing HIS job, which is traffic enforcement.

And as another responder correctly pointed out, "simple" traffic stops DO reveal other more serious crimes in progress and / or lead to the apprehension of dangerous crimminals. Policing is synergistic effort. The average citizen only sees 5% of the total work most of the time.

Answer 10

Sometimes, when a cop is out looking for traffic violations, they will end up finding someone who has a warrant for other things.

Traffic enforcement "tickets" are important too. Look at the all the idiots you see on the road. I've stopped people for speeding and found out they were piss drunk....over 2X the legal limit.

Also, some cops are in special units like traffic in which their job is to write tickets.