Wednesday, March 12, 2014

National watchdog group questions Forest Service ticket quotas

A Washington, DC based watchdog group is blasting top management at the US Forest service for asking forest service law officers to fulfil a quota of 100 violation notices per year. According to a press release, a PEER spokesperson said: "In a November 6, 2013 email, Aban Lucero, the Patrol Commander for the Southwest Region of the Forest Service, reiterated to his patrol captains that LEI&I Director David Ferrell is serious about law enforcement officers issuing a target number of violation notices (VNs are citations for minor offenses, such as traffic and camping violations): "Understand, Director Ferrell has clearly indicated his expectations of LEOs issuing a minimum of 100 VNs per year, and as you can see we have approximately 70% of LEOs…who fall below that number. For FY 14, I expect these numbers to increase substantially." After an Albuquerque newspaper broke the story, PEER officials said forest service officers got another memo from a different official telling them to ignore the directive. Jack Gregory, a retired US Forest Service Special Agent in charge of the Southern operation said, he had never experienced quotas during his tenure with the department, but he was aware of the concerns among his colleagues. "Nobody in the law enforcement sector likes it, it's ridiculous. Some of us who are now retired are shocked over this. This happens to be an issue with top leadership in Washington right now," said Gregory. Daniel Patterson, a regional director for PEER said the group was calling for the US forest service to clarify it's directives and to respect rangers on the ground. "They're getting these contradictory messages. We want you to write more tickets. We want you to stay in the office more, we don't want you out driving around, it costs money," said Patterson. He added, "It's a unique law enforcement position to protect public land, protect our nature and forests, we shouldn't be turning them into ticket dispensing machines to focus on minor city cop type crimes," said Patterson...more

A little more info than in yesterday's post...and damn, I have to agree with PEER.  Forest Service, how could you do this to me!

There's also this:

Officials with the Coronado National Forest and the Regional US Forest Service office in New Mexico said they were unable to answer our questions in regards to this quota, and directed us to contact their headquarters in Washington, DC.

Want to know why the Regional office wouldn't answer questions?  Because these LEOs don't report to the Regional Forester.  In 1993 they were stripped out from under the line officers and placed under Law Enforcement & Investigations in the D.C. office.  They are a completely independent organization, reporting only to the chief (and I recall one Congressional hearing where it was determined they seldom reported to the chief).  Its time to bring them back under the line managers and make them once again part of the Forest Service.

Here is the email referred to, clearly indicating they have a quota system in place.


From: Lucero, Aban -FS
Sent: Wednesday, November 06, 2013 9:56 AM
To: FS - -pdl r3 lei captains; Orona, Martin-FS; Dobson, Aaron W-FS
Cc:Poague, Robin-FS
Subject:FY 13 Officer Statistics
Good morning Captains, please see attached FY 13 Officer Statistics Report generatedthis morning. Please take a look at the numbers and share with your LEOs.You know better than I do if there is reason for concern. You know what LEOs were on details,light duty, had  recruits and so forth.Again, please address any issues yousee. Understand, Director Ferrell has clearly indicated his expectations of LEOs issuing a minimum of 100 VNs per year, and as you can see we have approximately 70% of LEOs(excluding BZ) who fall below that number. I know for FY 13 we hired new LEOs, had LEOs doing collateral duties as FTOs, LEOs on light duty and other circumstances. 

For FY 14, I expect these numbers to increase substantially......If anyone has any questions, please feel free to call me......Thank you......ABAN 
Aban Lucero
Regional Patrol Commander
Law Enforcement & Investigations
USFS Southwestern Region
Albuquerque, NM 87102
Office (505) 842

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