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 officer’s 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)
•Questions: -No standard among police depts.
-Geographic changes in neighborhoods
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?