DUI arrest quota rescinded in Roswell
Roswell police have rescinded a quota on drunken driving arrests for officers who work the overnight shift.
Chief Ed Williams said on Thursday that he was not aware that the shift supervisor, Capt. Donald Moss, in January began requiring officers who work between 11 p.m. and 7 a.m. (known as the morning shift) to make 25 DUI arrests a year.
"I didn't know he had done it, simple as that," Williams told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. "I wasn't aware of it until I got your open records request."
Williams said quotas are bad policy. He has directed his staff to make sure they are not imposed on any other shift or unit.
The police department drew criticism from several defense attorneys and a municipal judge last month after the AJC exposed an internal e-mail pertaining to DUI arrests. The Jan. 11 e-mail from a supervisor to officers on the morning shift said, "the DUI goal of 25 DUI's a year is now mandatory, and your evaluations will reflect if you are meeting this goal or not."
DUI lawyers critical of the quotas said they opened up the department to legal challenges and pressured officers to make arrests in marginal cases.
The number of DUI arrests made by morning watch officers rose by 67 percent (from 144 to 241) between January and April of this year, compared with the same time frame last year.
Meanwhile, reports of other types of nighttime mischief plunged over the first four months of 2010. Automobile break-in arrests went from 62 between January and April last year to 14 during the same time frame this year. Burglary arrests went from 62 to 15.
Williams said those declines were the result of the department's overall strategy of increasing traffic stops, DUI arrests and field interviews. "Officer-initiated activities" such as these are proven to deter crime, he said.
However, Williams said that putting a focus on only DUIs distracts officers from larger public safety goals.
"If the performance evaluation of an officer is heavily weighted toward a particular type of activity, in this case DUI, then that is what the officer will concentrate on and miss the larger goals of safety, the maintenance of peace, and crime interdiction," Williams explained in a memo to his command staff.
Roswell City Councilwoman Nancy Diamond, who is a liaison to the police department, said that the department has learned it needs to be careful when setting measurable goals.
"We appreciate this coming to light, because the last thing you want is to get down the road and have anybody's job review affected by this," Diamond said.
Ben Sessions, a DUI attorney who practices in Roswell, said a cloud of suspicion might linger over the department for a while despite the corrective steps it has taken.
"It's hard to say that the taint of it is removed just because you rescinded a policy," Sessions said. "Only time will tell if in fact that does influence officers' decisions in the field."
