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
–Raises questions about the causal order of Crime/Police
connection
•Recent research suggests that the number of
officers in a city is related to:
–The % racial minority population (higher P/P Rates
–The level of political influence within cities & the PD
Police Patrol
ORGANIZATION & DELIVERY OF PATROL
•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
• (Sheppard’s chapter -DA8 – will focus on these effects later)
– 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 informal resolutions; 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)
Effects of Gun Seizures on Gun
Violence (Sherman & Rogan, 1995)
•
Hypotheses?
•
Research Design?
•
Does police action affect crime?
– Under what circumstances?
– What is the causal mechanism?
– At what cost in terms of democratic ideals?
Patrol Effectiveness
• Effectiveness of Patrol can be improved
• Crackdowns and Directed Patrol
– Hot Spots Patrol in KC (Sherman & Rogan –B/B)
• Focused on specific type of crime - Gun Crimes
• Spatial concentration of gun crimes:
– 3% of all addresses account for 100% of all gun crimes
– At 7 gun calls, the probability of a future gun call is 100%
• Crackdown upon illegal possession: Terry Stops
– Terry v. Ohio (1968): Person may be stopped and frisked if it is
reasonable suspicion that the person is armed or poses a danger
• Did this type of patrol reduce specific crimes? Reduce all crimes?
• Was deterrent effect constrained to hot spot areas?
• Did adjacent areas experience increases in crime? (this “spillover”
idea is known as displacement)
While we’re at it…
• Dangerousness of police work…
– DA29: Brandl & Stroshine
– How dangerous is policing for officers?
• In absolute terms
• Compared to other professions
• How should you measure danger?
– Is danger a function of…
• Assaults?
• Other causes?
• Which are more dangerous?
– How does this jibe with media imagery of police & portrayals
of risk? Risk is empirically confirmed, but the character,
intensity, frequency, and severity of risk is SOCIALLY
CONSTRUCTED.
Crimes & Contemporary Police Work
• Drugs/Gangs
• Crack has been the defining influence on police work in
the past 20 years – replaced by others?
• Business competition & no legitimate channels for
grievance/accountability in illicit markets creates violence
• Decrease over the past decade
– Proactive Approach is somewhat unique relative to
police responses to other kinds of crime
– Significance of Terry stops (Terry v. Ohio, 1968)
• Basis for police intrusion (stops & frisks) lowered to the
standard known as “reasonable suspicion” (as opposed
to probable cause)
Terry continued…
• 4th Amendment: The right of the people to be secure
in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against
unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be
violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon
probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation,
and particularly describing the place to be searched,
and the persons or things to be seized.
– Reasonable Suspicion:
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Based upon “objective facts” & logical conclusions
Tied to the circumstances or “context” of the encounter
Lower legal standard than “probable cause”
May be developed from information that is not reliable (hearsay)
Theoretically requires officers to articulate the basis of suspicion
Bottom line: increases state power to conduct field investigations
Chambliss: Policing the Ghetto Underclass
• RDU (rapid deployment unit)
– Tactical unit committed to fighting crime
– Tactics of RDU
• Rips (undercover)
• Vehicle Stops (use of traffic law as pretext)
• Search Warrants (warrant execution related to race)
– Moral Panics & the Culture of Crime & Fear
• Useful for the Law Enforcement Industry
• War on Drugs has been great for “business”
• Unprecendented growth in the criminalization of the
American population since the 1980s
• Disproportionate impact on racial minority communities
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
Research on Police Investigations
• Are some PDs better able to solve crimes?
• What explains differences in investigation
outcomes across cases / investigators /
departments?
• 2 Studies interested in those questions:
– Chaiken et al. (B/B) CANCELLED
– Brandl & Frank (B/B)
• Triage Hypothesis – what is it? What kinds of cases can
investing resources in detective pay off?
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)