WS - E - Analysis of Police Department Staffing

IV. The Preferred Approach to Determining Police Staffing Our discussion will now focus on a sample demand analysis conducted by the ICMA-CPSM. This is not a hypothetical example, but an actual case study in which the data from the department’s CAD system were extracted to conduct the analysis. We’ll call the department the “Victory” Police Department; the VPD is representative of many police departments in the U.S. and is perhaps the most representative department from the 61 departments that we have studied. Patrol Staffing and Deployment Uniformed patrol is considered the backbone of policing. Bureau of Justice Statistics indicate that more than 95 percent of U. S. police departments roughly equal in size to the VPD provide uniformed patrol. Officers assigned to this important function are the most visible members of the department and command the largest share of departmental resources. Proper allocation of these resources is critical to having officers readily available to respond to calls for service and to provide law enforcement services to the public. Understanding actual workload requires reviewing total reported events within the context of how the events originated, such as through directed patrol, administrative tasks, officer-initiated activities, and citizen-initiated activities. Performing this analysis allows the activities that are really “calls” to be differentiated from other types of activities. Understanding the difference between the various types of events and the resulting staffing implications are critical to determining deployment needs. In our sample department, we’ll look at the total deployed hours of the police department with a comparison to the time being spent to currently provide services. From an organizational standpoint, it is important to have uniformed patrol resources available at all times of the day to deal with issues such as proactive enforcement and community policing. Patrol is generally the most visible and most available resource in policing and the ability to harness this resource is critical for successful operations. From an officer’s standpoint, once a certain level of CFS activity is reached the officer’s focus shifts to a CFS-based reactionary mode. Once a threshold, or saturation point, is reached, the patrol officer’s mindset begins to shift from a proactive approach in which he or she looks for ways to deal with crime and quality-of-life conditions in the community to a mindset in which he or she continually prepares for the next CFS. After saturation, officers cease proactive policing and engage in a reactionary style of policing. Uncommitted time is spent waiting for the next call. The saturation threshold for patrol officers is believed to be 60 percent. Earlier, we discussed the “Rule of 60,” which can be applied to evaluate patrol staffing. The first part of the Rule of 60 maintains that 60 percent of the sworn officers in a department should be dedicated to the patrol function, and the second part maintains that no more than 60 percent of patrol time should be “saturated” by workload demands from the community. 13