Enforcement on highways down
State police stops have plummeted in pandemic; COVID-19 fears, morale may be part of problem
HARTFORD — New statistics show that traffic enforcement by the Connecticut State Police has dropped by more than half since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Despite vehicles driving faster, enforcement is down sharply in several major categories, including total stops, tickets issued, and warnings given to drivers.
Traffic stops by troopers peaked most recently in 2014 with nearly 235,000 stops, according to statistics from the Institute of Municipal and Regional Policy at Uconn in Hartford. That total fell to 157,007 in 2019 and then 75,988 in 2020 — the year that the ongoing pandemic started. The total dropped further to 59,891 for the first 10 months of this year.
Andrew Matthews, a retired sergeant who serves as executive director of the state troopers union, said the three key reasons for lack of enforcement are a drop in staffing by at least 300 troopers, concerns about the COVID-19 virus spreading to troopers, and low police morale that was caused by the new police accountability law that many officers opposed.
“Now, more than ever, there’s an anti-law enforcement movement at the Capitol with the legislators’‘’ Matthews said in an interview. “Our troopers saw it with the police accountability bill. When you don’t feel supported, you’re not eager to go out and self-initiate motor vehicle stops. When you feel like you’re not going to be supported by the legislature, when you feel you’re not supported by the command staff, and you’re going to be attacked and have internal affairs complaints and go through all that.’’
He added, “We have cars that go by our troopers on the highway at 100 miles per hour. … They’re not stopping for us. They could not care less.’’
Despite the reasons cited by Matthews, Gov. Ned Lamont said Friday that he does not attribute
part of the enforcement drop-off to morale problems from the police accountability law.
“I don’t think so,’’ Lamont said. “We’ve got a good flow of folks that want to be state police. I know that. I think all across sectors of our economy, people are still having a hard time recruiting.’’
Rep. Stephen Stafstrom, a Bridgeport Democrat who helped write the accountability law, said that short staffing is an issue but dismissed the idea that the police accountability law translates into fewer traffic stops.
“To blame a piece of legislation that clearly does not prohibit anyone from doing a job that they would be assigned to do is pure political sour grapes and nothing more than that,’’ Stafstrom said. “I am not a proponent of pulling over folks for going a few miles over the speed limit. But I think we have all seen a fair amount of reckless driving on our highways that folks should be pulled over for, where you’re going 20 or 30 miles per hour over the speed limit, weaving in and out of the four lanes of I-95. That’s a different story.’’
He added, “So what are the troopers doing with their spare time?’’
Besides the number of total stops, the new statistics show that stops with tickets issued also dropped by more than 50% from 105,000 in 2019 to slightly more than 45,000 in 2020. Tickets dropped further again to 27,596 for the first 10 months of this year. Stops with warnings from troopers fell from 2019 to 2020, but then rebounded in the first 10 months this year at more than 27,000 warnings, surpassing all of 2020.
For both state and local police, the combined number of stops statewide dropped from 512,000 in 2019 to about 188,000 in 2021.
Democrats who supported the police accountability law and Republicans who opposed it have remained divided over whether the measure will improve policing across the state. At the same time, police chiefs and rank-andfile officers say they are concerned the new law will lead to difficulties in recruiting new officers and prompt some older officers to retire at a time of low morale.
The detailed law mandates that all officers must wear body cameras, bans the use of chokeholds in most cases and creates a new independent inspector general to investigate deadly use of force by police.
An overriding issue is staffing at the state police. The total of troopers peaked at 1,283 under Republican Gov. M. Jodi Rell about 15 years ago, and the number has dropped below 900 at times due to retirements. Currently, 65 troopers are being trained at the police academy.
“I want to bring our state police force back to where it was 10 years ago,’’ Lamont said when asked by The Courant. “We’ve obviously slipped over the last decade. We’ve added additional classes of state police every year I’ve been here. The number of state police is growing, but we also have retirements coming up over the next six months — so I’ve got to watch that very carefully.’’
An estimated 276 troopers will be eligible to retire by July 1, 2022 — when changes in the cost-of-living adjustments in state pensions could prompt a large number of retirements. Attrition at the younger levels is an issue, too. State police made 127 offers last year to candidates, leading to 120 starting in the academy, officials said. But only 83 graduated because many dropped out due to the rigorous training process.
Regarding the sharp drop in enforcement totals at the start of the pandemic and throughout 2020, Lamont said, “There was certainly no formal pullback. Maybe people felt a little more cautious about stopping people during the worst of COVID, trying to avoid faceto-face encounters. But I haven’t heard that.’’
“I think it’s a well-known fact that after 12 months of quarantine, some people are driving like a bat out of hell,’’ Lamont said. “It’s not for lack of enforcement. The police are doing everything they can. I take it they’re going to get even stricter on it because it could be a dangerous situation.’’
Brian Foley, a top aide to state police commissioner James Rovella, said Connecticut is seeing the same trends as those around the country.
“There is an industrywide move across law enforcement to shift on the prioritization of traffic stops, especially for your low-level violations,’’ Foley said in an interview. “There is an absolute decline in motor vehicle stops around the country. … I don’t think we’ll ever return to the numbers in traffic enforcement that we saw in 2014.’’
Foley said the decline in enforcement is not due to the state’s accountability law.
“Every police department in the country is facing morale issues, and that trips down into traffic stops,’’ Foley said. “If you look at all the external pressures on police officers, you can understand that.’’
While the year-end figures will not be available until next year, Foley cited an uptick in enforcement in the four months leading up to Halloween.
“In this moment, where we are today, it’s a police commander’s greatest challenge on how to motivate his staff or troopers and that goes toward motivating them to get guns off the street, preventing stolen cars, and motivating them to increase traffic enforcement,’’ Foley said. “That’s the greatest challenge right now with morale issues all across the country.’’