Quotas for Austin DWI Arrests?
“Does the Austin DWI Task Force have arrest quotas?”
I get asked this semi-frequently by folks recently arrested for DWI. I can tell you that the officers will testify, under oath, that there is not.
And, depending on the definition of the word “quota”, that may or may not be true.
It’s almost definitely true that individual officers are not told “You need to make X number of DWI arrests tonight,” or “You must average Y number of arrests per week/month,” etc.
But I do remember** former Austin police chief Stan Knee being quoted in an Austin American Statesman article, March 4th, 2006 as saying:
“This community needs to take seriously driving while impaired…We will make 6,000 DWI arrests in 2006.”
Bear in mind that the article itself had just acknowledged that fewer than 6000 DWI arrests were made in Austin for 2005. I think you can make a pretty good argument that the chief of police was coming pretty close to not just predicting, but mandating an increase in arrests.
What’s the difference between telling one individual officer “You must make an average of 5 DWI arrests per shift,” vs. predicting not only an increase, but a threshold level of expected arrests for the department as a whole? Just a little math and some semantics, I suppose.
[**I usually link to sources, but unfortunately, the Statesman free archive does not go back far enough. Anyone caring to pay a “small fee” to access the article can do so here.]
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