Patrol Operations

Patrol OperationThe
Backbone of Policing

© 2011 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

 The Central Role of Patrol
 Majority of police officers assigned to patrol
 Gatekeepers of the CJ System and therefore
most important decision makers
 Experience on patrol formative part of police
officer’s career
 Least desirable assignment

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 The Functions of Patrol

 To deter crime
 To enhance feelings of public
safety
 To make officers available for
service

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 The Organization and Delivery of
Patrol
 Factors affecting the delivery  Types of Patrol:
of patrol services
- Foot patrol
– Number of sworn officers
 Police-population ratio Automobile patrol
– Assignment to Patrol
– Distribution of Patrol Officers - One officer versus two
– One versus two officer cars officer cars
– Work styles of officers  Staffing Patrol Beats
 “Hot Spots”
– An area that receives a
- On any given night, no officer
disproportionate number of is available for many patrol
calls for police service/ has a beats
high crime rate
- Police patrol is very
expensive

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 Styles of Patrol
 Individual Styles
– Officer-initiated activity
 Includes stopping, questioning, frisking suspicious
citizens, stopping vehicles, writing traffic tickets,
etc.
 Amount varies between departments
 Supervisor Styles
– Also affect an officer’s level of activity

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 Organizational Styles
James Q. Wilson identified three distinct organizational styles.

1. The watchman style emphasizes peace-keeping without

aggressive law enforcement and few controls over rank-
and-file officers.
2. The legalistic style emphasizes aggressive crime-fighting
an attempts to control officer behavior through a rule-
bound, “by the book” administrative approach.
3. The service style emphasizes responsiveness to
community expectations and is generally found in
suburban police departments where there is relatively little
crime.

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 Patrol Supervision
 The Role of Sergeant: Patrol supervision
is usually accomplished by the sergeant
on duty.
 The principle of span of control holds that
a supervisor can effectively manage only a
limited number of people.
 The recommended span of control is one
sergeant for about every eight officers.

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The Communications Center
 The Nerve Center of Policing
 117 Communications center
 Citizen-dominated
 Reactive
 Incident-based

 117 Systems

 Processing Calls for Service

 Operator-Citizen Interactions

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 117 Systems
 Introduced by PNP in support with POLICE
2000
 117 and TXT 2920 systems contributed to
increase in calls for service
 To handle this increase, departments assign
priorities to incoming calls based on
seriousness of problem
 Police able to more efficiently manage delayed
responses to non-emergency calls
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 Processing Calls for Service
 Communication center operators
– Obtain information from caller and makes decision
about appropriate response
– Exercise tremendous discretion
– Only ½ of all calls to 117 result in a dispatch
– Operators ask questions of callers
– Operators assess situation
– Operators decide how many and which officers to
dispatch
– Patrol officers responding to calls experience great
uncertainty

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 Operator-Citizen Interactions
 Need to provide officers with as much
accurate information as possible
 Interactions lengthy, involving many
questions
– Some questions are a threat to caller’s
trustworthiness
– Others are a threat to caller’s personal
character/judgment

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 The Systematic Study of Police
Patrol
 Patrol is point of most police-citizen interactions
 Studying patrol is difficult and expensive due to
decentralized nature of the job
– Studies of police patrol include:
 American Bar Foundation Survey (1956-1957)
 President’s Crime Commission (1965-1967)
 Police Services Study (1977)
 Project on Policing Neighborhoods (1996-1997)
 Standards for Systematic Social Observation
– Designed to provide accurate, representative picture
– Trained observers follow officer everywhere the officer goes
– Take field notes which officer can then read

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 The Call Service Workload
 The Volume of Calls
– Depends on the area
 Types of Calls
– Order maintenance calls
– Service calls
– However, many situations are ambiguous

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 Aspects of Patrol Work
 Response Time
– 1. Discovery Time
 Cannot be controlled by officers
– 2. Reporting Time
– 3. Processing Time
– 4. Travel Time
 Reasons why citizens delay calling
 1. Need to verify crime occurred
 2. Regain composure
 3. Call a friend or family member first
 4. Decide whether to involve police
 5. Telephone not immediately available

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 Aspects of Patrol Work Continued
 Officer use of patrol time
– Project on Policing Neighborhoods (POPN) studies
routine police work
 Found that regular patrol officers spend only 20 percent of
shift interacting with citizens
 Rest of time spent on general patrol and traveling
 Evading duty
– Delay in reporting the completion of a call
 High-speed pursuits
– A situation where a police officer attempts to stop a vehicle and
the suspect knowingly flees at a high rate of speed
– Highly dangerous situation
– Decision to engage in pursuit based on judgment of officer

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 The Effectiveness of Patrol
Initial Experiments Kansas City
 Operation 25 Preventative Patrol
 Methodologically Experiment
flawed  Controversial
results
Newark Foot Patrol  Challenged
Experiment traditional
assumptions
- Crime about patrol

- Citizen 16
 Improving Traditional Patrol
 Differential Response Calls
– Classifying calls according to
seriousness
 Telephone Reporting Units
– Handle 10-20% of calls on
some shifts
 TXT 2920 Non emergency
Numbers
 Non-English 117 Call
Services
 Reverse 117
– Allows police to call citizens
 Computers and Video
Cameras in Patrol Cars
– Increase accountability
Police Aides or Cadets
- Unsworn officers
Street Skills Training for
Patrol Officers
- High-risk, low-frequency
events
Directed Patrol and “Hot
Spots”
- Look for specific crimes or
people, patrol certain areas
Customer Feedback
Beyond Traditional Patrol
- Taking more proactive
measures
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