Realities of Patrol

Use of Time by Patrol Officers

• Police Services Study (PSS): A study that resulted in finding out that 2/3 of patrol shifts are unassigned and that only 38% of encounters involved crime as the primary problem

Productivity Measures

• Response Time: This is the amount of time it takes for an officer or emergency service to reach you after you call.

  • Speed is important but not all the time

  • Only 25% of calls involve an ongoing conflict between two parties usually it’s a call for the aftermath.

The Patrol Function

• Objectives of police field operations/patrol

  • Protection and defense of lives and property

  • Repression of criminal and delinquent behavior

  • Identification, apprehension, and conviction of offenders

  • Traffic flow and collision reduction

  • Maintenance of order and public safety

• Non Mutually Exclusive types of interaction

  • Information gathering: This refers to gathering evidence for an investigation or any information that may help law enforcement better serve the community.

  • Conflict resolution: Resolving fights in the community

  • Maintenance/restoration of control: Making sure people follow rules

Types of Effectiveness of Patrol

Random, or Routine, Patrol

• Random/Routine Patrol: This is when an officer is assigned an area to patrol but they move around in that area randomly.

  • Incident Patrol: This is a major part of random/routine patrol. Usually, an officer will arrive at the scene after the call was made or in the aftermath of the crime. It’s unlikely that while patroling they will stumble upon an active crime scene.

Directed Patrol

• Directed Patrol: This patrolling focuses on officers going to places that have been known to have a lot of crime or they focus on watching a single person/suspect.

• Proactive Patrol: The practice of deterring criminal activity by showing a police presence

• Differential Response: A management tool that broadens the choices for responding to police service requests.

Aggressive Patrol

• Aggressive Patrol: This is when police officers will increase patrol and constantly stop people from breaking the law even if it’s the simplest thing. This will help reduce crime including minor crimes.

• Kansas City Gun Experiment: A police patrol project that was aimed at reducing gun violence, drive-by shootings, and homicides. They increased patrol in high gun crime areas and focused on investigating more gun-related crimes.

Saturation Patrol

• Saturation Patrol: Placing extremely high levels of patrol within a narrow geographic area.

Effectiveness of Patrol

• Integrated Patrol: This combines random patrol with another patrol depending on what is needed for the community.

• Kansas City Patrol Experiment: Routine preventive patrol in clearly designated police cars have minimal utility in reducing crime or fostering a sense of security among the populace, and resources often devoted to these tasks could be safely diverted elsewhere.

• Reactive Beats: Random patrol is suspended and officers only respond when something is called in.

• Control Beats: Allowing patrols to function as they had prior to the intervention

• Proactive Beats: Having an increase in random patrol (about 3 times more)

• Place-Based Policing Movement: A strategy based on the idea that police should prevent crimes from happening in the first place by proactively addressing long-term issues

Patrol Methods

Automobile Patrol

• One Officer Car: This type of patrol can cover about twice as much area as a two-officer deployment. They are also involved in incidents.

• Two Officer Car: This type of patrol is more safer because criminals are less likely to attack.

Foot Patrol

• Network Foot Patrol Experiment: This study showed that increased foot patrol does not in fact have a significant effect on overall crime levels.

Other Patrol Methods

• Motorcycles: These are used to help regulate heavy traffic because it’s easier to move around on them since they are small.

• Bicycles: These are better to use for community problems that would be harder to reach in a car also it’s faster than foot patrol.

• Horse Patrols: This was used for places that a car cannot reach or usually this means parks or forests.

• Harbor or Water Patrol: This is where officers use boats to patrol the water and it’s usually used in states that are closer to the shoreline.

Patrol Department

• Patrol Deployment: The determination of what officers should be where and when they should be there.

Rotating v Assigned Shifts

• Rotating shifts: Refers to moving officers across different work hours or divisions in the department.

• Assigned shifts: This involves officers staying in the same workout or department for a long period of time.

Time of Day and Hour

• 8-Hour Shift Structure: This is when officers work 8 hours a day for 5 straight days and then get 2 days off.

• 12-Hour Shift Structure: Refers to when officers will work 3 days straight for 12 hours and then get the next 4 days off.

• 2-2-3 Plan: This is when the department has 12-hour shifts where officers work 2 days on, 2 days off, and then 3 days on, 3 days off.

Fatigue

• Fatigue: This is a feeling of constant tiredness or weakness and it is a result of a disruption of the circadian rhythm.

• Circadian Rhythm: This is a human’s biological clock. At least 6 months are required for your body to adjust to a shift.

Foot v. Automobile Patrol

• Beat: This is the location that an officer will patrol/police

• Tour: This is when officers are assigned a sector each shift during their roll call.

Balancing Proactive v. Reactive Models--Integrated Patrol

• 1994 Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act: This provided funding for 100,000 more officers nationally to increase the availability of officers for foot patrol and other community policing functions.

Traffic Goals and Enforcement

• Traffic Division Functions

  • Eliminating accident causes

  • Identifying traffic problems

  • Regulating parking

  • Investigating property damage and accidents

  • Spreading awareness about how to properly use automobiles

  • Arresting offenders for traffic violations

• Moving Violation: These are violations by drivers while the car is moving/

• Routine Traffic Stop: These are stops for minor crimes such as speeding or not wearing a seatbelt.

• High-Risk Traffic Stops: Refers to stops where the officer knows that the person stopped has committed a felony.

• License Plate Recognition (LPR): This system reads the registration license from pictures or cameras.