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I was listening to the news on my drive in this morning and heard something that totally set me off.  I am a few hours removed from my initial reaction and trying to think this through logically, but I’m still upset by it as it shows we are moving closer to a police state but now on a local level.  Incidentally, this has to do directly with the Phoenix Police Department.  The story said they department is looking in to issuing quotas for the officers to hit as far as issuing citations to show they are holding a stricter letter of the law.  Now while I get from a practical standpoint this is possible, it’s the theory behind it I find disturbing.  Let’s just assume for a moment that the police implement this plan and for the time being successfully meet their quotas by actually writing citations to citizens breaking traffic laws.  Let’s next assume that this has a positive effect and citizens begin to adhere strictly to the letter of the law. What is going to happen when there are no more violations?  I’m very skeptical of police work to begin with because its judgment based and then turned over to a court to prove or disprove.  Honestly, not everyone is going to judge the same way, even if they have received the same training.  This leads to long, drawn out court cases and expenses incurred by citizens all based upon the officer’s judgment at the time.  Needless to say, if the officer was having a bad day, it can hurt the citizen financially.  Now, if the police are going to have to meet quotas that gray area of judgment is going to get even worse as they will have to nitpick even more to reach said quota.  I just can’t fathom that this is going to be beneficial to the citizens in the long run.  People are going to be more paranoid and probably unjustly accused so that the police can get their quotas and that potentially will cause economic hardships on people who are already economically oppressed.

A second quip from the news story was the police chief asking “what would you rather have, an officer responding to a call or an officer out on patrol potentially stopping a crime before it happened?”  My answer is an officer responding.  Again, this goes back to judgment.  My response to that would be: read up on the Trayvon Martin case.  Just because I look a certain way, doesn’t mean the police should have the right to suspect me.  Until a crime is committed, there is no way of an officer knowing what the intentions are and preventative interference would be detrimental in the long run.  Most people I know are already suspicious of the police department and to be under constant scrutiny would not bode well to strengthen those relations.  What is that old saying?  “When you give up freedom for security you get neither.”  The directions we are going in scare me. Economically, socially….it’s a scary time but like the Romans did, the government is blinding the sheeple with new, shiny things promoted to enhance life.  Luxuries are dangled to distract attention from freedoms lost.  Be careful driving around out there.