Troopers at the Maryland State Police’s Golden Ring Barrack in Baltimore County were incentivized with candy bars to make more traffic stops.

“Here’s my thoughts,” a sign read over a box of Hershey’s bars, Kit-Kat bars and Reese’s peanut butter cups. “Candy = $1.50 or 10 traffic stops in one day or 15 in two days.

“If you prefer another type of goodie,” the sign continues. “Let me know.”

A trooper who asked for anonymity because he was not authorized to share the photo said the candy box showed that troopers are still being evaluated on the number of traffic stops they conduct per day.

In 2022, The Baltimore Banner reviewed leaked documents showing troopers in Maryland State Police barracks across the state operating under a quota-like “expectations system.” Emails and messages sent to troopers and their supervisors laid out in writing how certain numbers of traffic stops and DUI arrests could lead to rewards such as new vehicles or, in the other direction, disciplinary actions.

In response to The Banner’s reporting, Maryland State Police Superintendent Lt. Col. Roland Butler described the system then as “blatantly wrong” and said agency leaders were unaware of the quotas until The Banner published articles about them.

The Maryland General Assembly heavily restricted the use of law enforcement quotas in 2006, though some lawmakers have attempted to tighten the ban in recent years.

A spokesperson for the Maryland State Police said the agency “is aware of a ‘candy box’ that was previously in place at the Golden Ring Barrack.”

“Preliminary information is that the box was placed there by a commander who purchased the candy with her own money, with intentions to motivate her troopers to conduct traffic enforcement in an effort to reduce traffic crashes,” the agency said in an emailed statement. “The ‘candy box’ that was purchased on her own and without approval by her supervisors, has since been removed.”

The agency added that the candy box “does not place quotas on any trooper” and that its policies “strictly prohibit the use of quotas when setting expectations or when assessing a trooper’s performance.”

The trooper who anonymously shared the photo with The Banner said that he felt the incident shows troopers are still being judged by the number of traffic stops they make, despite the “expectations system” no longer being “on paper.”

David Jaros, a criminal law professor at the University of Baltimore, described the photo of the candy box and its implications as “disturbing.”

He said the 2006 law passed by state lawmakers made clear that the General Assembly does not want police agencies using quotas “formal or informal” to incentivize officers to make a particular number of arrests or citations.

“They recognized the harm that this does by incentivizing officers to make arrests when it might not be justified or issue citations when it’s not in the public’s interest,” he said.

The law specifies that quotas may not be used “as the sole or primary criteria for promotion, demotion, dismissal or transfer.” Jaros said the candy box is “clearly a violation of the spirit of the law.”

“While this kind of informal incentive may not directly contravene the law because it’s not being used for promotion, it sends the clear message that these are the things that we will value, and probably suggests to the officers that this will not only get them a Kit-Kat, but also help them get promoted.”

Del. Robin Grammer, an Essex Republican who first revealed the leaked documents exposing the expectations system, said he will continue his efforts to tighten the ban on law enforcement quotas.

Grammer said the candy box clearly functions as a quota, and has the number of expected traffic stops written in plain language right on it. The language about other “goodies,” was also a “red flag,” he added.

“There is clearly an internal political incentive to gin up the numbers,” Grammer said. “Despite claims from Roland Butler himself saying they don’t use quotas, they still use quotas, it’s just mostly behind closed doors.”

The lawmaker said tightening the ban on quotas should be an issue both Democrats and Republicans can agree on. He added that troopers and police officers he’s spoken with, who carry a “sense of meaningfulness” about being a law enforcement officer, are uniformly uncomfortable with and annoyed by metrics-based evaluations and incentives.

“They hate the fact that they have to thrive in an environment where people who don’t have as good of an intent are rewarded for just going out and ringing everybody up,” Grammer said. “That’s not the spirit of law enforcement.”

Michael Scott, the director of the Center for Problem-Oriented Policing at Arizona State University, said he just recently discussed the trickiness of abolishing law enforcement quotas with his students.

Scott, a former police chief, described the candy box at the Maryland State Police barrack as a “humorous and relatively innocuous illustration of that point.”

“Police supervisors and administrators will always have — and necessarily so — managerial incentives and disincentives that they can dispense to influence police officers’ activities,“ Scott said. ”Whatever those incentives/disincentives, supervisors and administrators will always be able to link them to enforcement activity, if they so choose.“

For that reason, Scott continued, “it’s critical to determine the original source of the pressure on police to issue citations, and if it is deemed to be improper, figure out how to change the incentive structure such that it incentivizes efforts to achieve desirable police objectives, such as reducing traffic crashes and preventing crime, and not merely police activities for their own sake.”