Police Patrol

Management Question: How do you most effectively

allocate police personnel? Answered with the tools of
scientific management.
PATROL - the backbone of policing
Majority of officers assigned to Patrol provide the bulk of
police services
Patrol officers as Gatekeepers to CJS
Patrol is the formative part of an officers career
Assignments based upon seniority
New officers start where? Patrol
Street experience is shared among all officers: bonding
Patrol considered least desirable assignment

Police Patrol
FUNCTIONS OF PATROL
Deter Crime
Enhance sense of public safety through
police presence
To make officers available for service
delivery by physically distributing them
throughout space

Police Patrol
ORGANIZATION & DELIVERY OF PATROL
Number of Officers: Police-Population
Ratio
Has little relationship to crime rate or calls for
service
Cities with high crime often have more officers

Allocation & Distribution of Officers to Patrol

Based on workload formulas
Time of Day (more serious crime at night)
Location (crime/disorder more common in poorer
areas; lower income disproportionately racial
minority)

ORGANIZATION & DELIVERY OF PATROL

Assignment to Shifts & Areas

Variety of Assignment Methods
Seniority System
Rotation
Research (PERF) on frequent shifting shows effects
include loss of sleep, health probs, on-the-job
accidents, family probs, low morale

Hot Spots: Areas that receive a

disproportionate number of calls for service
Sherman (1989) Minneapolis Study: 5% of
addresses account for 64% of calls (60% no
calls)
http://www.carltown.net/crmemap.htm

Hot Spots

Mapping and Patrol

TYPES OF PATROL
Most (84%) police patrol is automobile
Cars provide more efficient patrol than foot
Cover more area, pass each point more often
Patrol in an unpredictable manner
Respond quickly to calls for service
Shift from foot to car occurs from 1920-1950s
Consequences of patrol cars
loss of direct contact with citizens (especially lawabiding)
citizens may begin to see police as occupying
army

Police Operations
Foot Patrol
Police-community relations crises of 1960s
restores use of foot patrols
Also important in community policing
models
Costs:
coverage area is much more limited
expensive

Benefits:
gains in police-community relations

More on Patrol as the Modal

method of Policing
Number of officers per patrol unit:
How many officers do you commit to a unit?
1 or 2
Most involve single officer,
though police rank and file have traditionally called for
more 2 officer units. Why?
Rank and file concerns about 1 officer units unfounded:
Assaulted less often
Made more arrests
Wrote more crime reports

Styles of Patrol
Individual Styles of officers are important
Amount of work accomplished (productivity:
volume of arrests, response to calls for service)
depends on officer work style
Active
Officer-initiated actions (stops, questioning, traffic,
frisking)

Re-active
Citizen initiated work: Officers may be passive or
active in their response to complaints

Styles of Patrol
Supervisory Styles also important
How closely is patrol work scrutinized by shift supervisor?
Expectations for appropriate police behavior &
productivity impact patrol
Research on Patrol Sergeants supports this idea
Active role of Sergeants often is in terms of suggestion:
protection of discretion as a fundamental part of police
work

Organizational Styles
JQ Wilson: 3 Styles:
Watchman: emphasizes peacekeeping; not aggressive in law
enforcement; little control over officers
Legalistic: aggressive crime-fighting; greater control over officers
Service: responsiveness to community expectations; more
common in low-crime communities

How effective is Patrol?

Aspects of evaluating the effectiveness of police
patrol:
Response Time is the gold standard for police &
Public
Response time should increase likelihood of arrest
Should increase satisfaction with police

Research does not support Response Time

Little direct impact on clearance rates
Largely due to cold crime phenomena
Discovery time by citizens
Reporting time to police
Both are largely beyond police control

Use of Time on Patrol

How is patrol time utilized by cops?
Largest breakdown is b/t committed vs.
uncommitted time
Lots of contradictory evidence about how
much time is committed time
Regardless, police presence is always
provided by patrol, even if officers are
evading duty.

How effective is Patrol?

Random Patrol
Kansas City Preventive Patrol Experiment
1972-73
Landmark event in American policing
1st scientific experiment of patrol effectiveness
Funded by 3rd party (Police Foundation)
Research Design
15 Beats divided into 3 groups
Reactive Beats: no preventive patrol, officers only respond
Proactive Beats: beats patrolled 2-3 times normal rate
Control Beats: normal level of patrol

Measured impact of different levels of patrol

Patrol Effectiveness
Research Design
Measured impact of different levels of patrol
Criminal Activity
Reported Crime
Arrest
Victimization Survey
Community Perceptions and Attitudes
Officer Behavior and Dept Practices

Findings & Implications

No significant effect on:
criminal activity
citizen feelings of safety
citizen attitudes toward the police
crime rates
citizen recognition of different levels of patrol

Patrol Effectiveness
Explanations for non-findings?
Patrol spread too thin
Crimes occurring indoors unaffected
Phantom effect of patrol
Levels of patrol were only thing tested, not officer
activities

Stimulated interest in application to tests of Foot

Patrol (Newark Foot Patrol Experiment 1978-79)
Similar design
Findings:
Little or no impact on measurable serious crime
Significant improvement in community perceptions:
less fear of crime
More positive attitudes about police (vice-versa)

Police Operations
Police Investigations
1) Police are expected to help prevent crime (most frequently
through patrol)
Basic element of COP & POP
Rejects traditional model that police are responsible for
crime control
2) Apprehend Criminals
Requirements:

a. learning of a crime
b. official recording
c. attempt to ID and arrest

Police Operations
Police Investigations
Factors influencing the reporting of crime:
Learn through reactive response most common
Citizen reporting highly discretionary (gatekeepers)
Police rarely discover crimes in progress
Victims report roughly 35% of the time
Influences on reporting: seriousness, violence, injury,
expense of loss
Reasons for not reporting: crime unimportant,
pessimistic about anything being done, crimes as private

Police Operations
Police Investigations
Myths about Detective Work: The CSI
complex: Exciting, Requires courage/skill, all
crime is solvable
Organization of Investigations: located in
different unit, size varies tremendously
Detective Position: high status, discretion,
autonomy, no uniforms, defined measures of
performance
Status varies by unit (homicide highest)

Police Operations
Police Investigations
Investigation is 2 Staged Process:
1) Preliminary Investigation (5 Steps)
- ID and arrest of suspect
- Aid to victims (medical)
- Securing crime scene
- Collecting physical evidence
- Preparing preliminary report
Patrol makes 80% of all arrests (suspect
near the scene)

Police Operations
Police Investigations
2) Follow up investigations
case is assigned to detectives for follow up
- routine activities: interviews, crime scene
- secondary activities: canvassing witnesses,
discussing case with super., collecting evidence
- tertiary activities: discussion of case with
other officers, interviewing suspects, checking
records, conducting stakeouts

Police Operations
Police Investigations
Arrest discretion: arrests occur in only about
half of the situations where sufficient
evidence exists to arrest (Black 1984)
Officers influenced by situational factors:
severity, evidence, victim behavior,
victim/suspect relationship, suspect
demeanor

What is an arrest?
4 Perspectives:
1. Legal: When a suspect is not free to leave
2. Behavioral: may include command to stop;
physical restraint (cuffs)
3. Subjective: Citizen perception
4. Official: arrest report filed, records vary in
different departments and at different stages
Consequence? Many people believe an arrest has
occurred when no record of an arrest exists

Success/Failure in Crime solving

From a police standpoint, success is when an arrest is
made
Most important factor in successful arrest is knowledge of
suspect identity
Most common: violent crime; V/O relationship
21% of all reported Index Crimes are cleared
Much of this is due to structural factors of the case.
Evidence is mixed on whether police can have an impact
on investigation success
Technology is not as useful a tool as culture views it (3% of
NYPD cases with usable fingerprints result in an arrest)

Improving Investigation & Special

Techniques
Encourage more Cooperation:
Between police and citizens
Between patrol and detective units
Special Investigation Strategies:
Undercover work
Problems: socializing officers to lie, going native, weakens ties to
conventional others, lack of supervision

Informants
Especially useful in victimless crimes (drugs); basis of exchange
creates appearances of conflicts of interest; integrity of police;
quality of informant info

Crimes that define Contemporary

Police Work
Drugs
Crack has been the defining influence on police work in
the past 20 years
Business competition in illicit markets creates violence
Decrease over the past decade

Proactive Approach is somewhat unique relative to

police responses to other kinds of crime

Contemporary Police Work: Drug

Enforcement Strategies

Supply Reduction

Buy & Bust: undercover officers pose as buyers

Trading Up: (Identify kingpins through lower level dealers as informants)
Penetration of Drug Networks through long-term undercover work
Crackdown: intensive enforcement in specific areas (neighborhoods)
Effective? Generally no
Threat of arrest is not effective as a deterrent why?
Replacement effect in network
Trading Up ineffective

Demand Reduction
Drug Education Programs (DARE)
Largely ineffective

Continue to operate proactively

Generate positive publicity
High profile busts create the appearance of effectiveness

Crimes that define Contemporary

Police Work
Drugs continued:
Impact on Minorities in the War on Drugs?
Minimal Racial differences in drug use
Significant differences in drug arrests

Hate Crimes
Gangs
Domestic Violence?