This isn’t news.

“For nearly every New Yorker who has received a summons in the city — caught at a checkpoint monitoring seat-belt use, or approached by a small army of police officers descending on illegally parked cars — quotas are a maddening fact of life.

No matter how often the Police Department denies the existence of quotas, many New Yorkers will swear that officers are sometimes forced to write a certain number of tickets in a certain amount of time.

Now, in a secret recording made in a police station in Brooklyn, there is persuasive evidence of the existence of quotas.

The hourlong recording, which a lawyer provided this week to The New York Times, was made by a police supervisor during a meeting in April of supervisors from the 81st Precinct.

The recording makes clear that precinct leaders were focused on raising the number of summonses issued — even as the Police Department had already begun an inquiry into whether crime statistics in that precinct were being manipulated.

The Police Department’s chief spokesman, Paul J. Browne, did not respond Thursday to three e-mails and three phone calls requesting comments on the tape. He was sent extensive excerpts from the recording.

On the tape, a police captain, Alex Perez, can be heard warning his top commanders that their officers must start writing more summonses or face consequences. Captain Perez offered a precise number and suggested a method. He said each officer on a day tour should write 20 summonses a week: five each for double-parking, parking at a bus stop, driving without a seat belt and driving while using a cellphone.

“You, as bosses, have to demand this and have to count it,” Captain Perez said, citing pressure from top police officials. At another point, Captain Perez emphasized his willingness to punish officers who do not meet the targets, saying, “I really don’t have a problem firing people.”

As a law enforcement member for over ten years in a South Florida city I can tell you that we had quotas. Our officers were to write 30 tickets a month. We had over 50 officers. You do the math. It’s not illegal, and not even unethical. A law enforcement officer’s job is to enforce the law. That means on any given day while out riding in their vehicle they may observe a slew of violations, most of which they don’t or better yet cannot enforce simply because it’s not possible. However, it’s their job to pull over and if warranted cite individuals for infractions of the law.

Many cities derive their revenue from the amount of tickets issued. In towns like the one I worked at this presented a significant portion of their revenue, in our case over$250,000 per quarter. But because Florida doesn’t have an income tax and business taxes are so low there is no other way to generate the income necessary to run the city’s business. Now for me it was over ten years ago, and during another time of economic stress. With cities and municipalities today struggling for cash there is little doubt that they are pushing a little harder for any revenue they can find, which includes ticketing your infractions.

Now some may find issue with that but’s still legal and ethical. Note that you don’t get a ticket unless you’ve violated the law. Of course if you think you are innocent you can always take it to court. However, obey the law and you have nothing to worry about.