In May, the NYPD started a pilot program that, according to most interested observers, is as boneheaded as they come. Partly because of a spike in the number of stopand- frisks by police officers — and an accompanying increase in complaints — officers have been instructed to hand out informational cards to people they stop, explaining possible reasons for doing it.

It’s not just a coincidence that the policy had been a recommendation of the Rand Corporation report commissioned in reaction to the Nov. 25, 2006, shooting of Sean Bell. Rand found that cops weren’t racially profiling but expressed concerns about officers failing to explain why people were being stopped.

Of course, the real reason for the increase in stop-and-frisks — and so for the ill-considered policy — can be summed up in one word:

Quotas.

And our reaction to that is:

We told you so.

In a column in this space exactly four years ago – under the headline, “Stop-and-frisk quotas: a time bomb ready to explode” – we pointed out that in “operation impact” hundreds of eager and/or relatively inexperienced rookies were flooding the streets with strict orders to police aggressively.

They were and are being ordered to issue summonses, conduct stops and make arrests.

Failing to do so, they are threatened with penalties, including unfavorable performance evaluations, reassignments and transfers.

As we pointed out before, we know that UF-250 quotas exist and believe they’re doing great damage to officers and the department. In fact, the quotas are irresponsible because they encourage multiple civilian stops each month and create negative police-citizen interactions that often result in unnecessary civilian complaints. Then, after acting on a superior’s orders, the officers are the ones who suffer, getting placed in the arbitrary and illegal Performance Monitoring Program based solely on unsubstantiated, unfounded and even exonerated civilian complaints. No explanatory card can cure that injustice.

This is all part of what the city calls “doing more with less,” but what we more accurately describe as policing on the cheap — a combination of revenue-raising through summons quotas and wide-net-casting through the use of mandated stops. When we had 5,000 more police officers, there was no need for these practices.

A recent Daily News analysis showed that “the overwhelming majority” of those stopped “are let go without even a summons... only six percent of the 744,087 individuals stopped and questioned in a recent 18-month period were arrested. And of the 1.6 million stops from 2005 through June of last year, only 2.6 percent uncovered a weapon or other illegal items”

The key is to use the tool appropriately without violating rights. That means keeping officers trained in what constitutes a legal stop-and-frisk and recognizing and rewarding them for doing it properly and not punishing them for not indulging in gratuitous stops. The “informational” cards are, to put it politely, beside the point. And they have done nothing to pacify their recipients.

“That card doesn’t mean anything,” one recipient told the New York Post.

“I think that’s ridiculous,” another told the Daily News. “It’s not really changing nothing. Like we want the card?”

“They are just giving you a piece of paper. It doesn’t change anything,” a selfdescribed parolee told the Post.

This is a sample of what interested observers are saying about the policy. I don’t have to tell you what New York City police officers are saying about it. But I can tell you what I say about it: We told you so. And get rid of summons and UF-250 stop-and-frisk quotas.

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