[newjersey]

Find the money somewhere. Take it out of the police chief's pay for all I care. In fact, I don't think just returning the money is enough. The money should be returned with interest as if it were put into a municipal bond.

The worst part is that every time this happens, the taxpayers are on the hook. I think nothing will change as long as wrong decisions doesn't hurt the decision-makers. I don't know how to implement this but something has to give. When in doubt, officers should err on the side of not writing tickets.

Unrelated but our police officers need stronger protection from the insanity of things like quotas. Make it immensely profitable for an officer to whistleblow situations where they are required to collect $n in fines or write n tickets. Make it a federal law and take that money ($10MM per incidence per officer sounds like a good start, the point is it has to be high enough that there won't be peer pressure for an officer to "get in line") from the department. If they can't pay, too bad. The municipality/county doesn't deserve a police force.