No cop hating here (the good ones), we NEED them.
Many of my references are in the police force in all ranks.
Yes you must be a regular PC for 5 years before going into a specialty department.
One of my former instructors was a member of the organized crime squad/ Youth gang squad and as a PC he maybe wrote a handful of tickets max, one time his staff sergent asked him “why aren’t you writing tickets?, you have none this month” his reply “I’ll do better this month sir” so what did he do? wrote 1 ticket… thats 1 more than the last month lol he was fucking with the staff sergant and his staff sergant never harassed him about that shit again but he was doing work in other areas.
His whole outlook, he knew he already got the job and couldn’t be fired for not writing tickets (union) so he was like fuck tickets I want to make a difference and actually do something with my position. This guy made a record number of arrests of actual criminals.
I have another instructor that was a detective and he rarely ever wrote tickets when he started as a PC.
I also used to train with a ETF/Riot squad member… and he rarely ever wrote tickets when he started out as a Police constable.
I noticed a trend with people that move on into specialty units and people that really move up in the police force, they look into other ways to boost their job performance rather than the easy way out and throw out abuncha tickets.
I could understand what your saying with new officers tho, if you are on the probationary period they probably don’t wanna overstep their boundaries and get noticed by issuing tickets.