WS - E - Analysis of Police Department Staffing

however, that the department needs more sworn officers. In your mind, there needs to be an objective and empirical way of understanding police staffing. Although you trust the Chief’s judgment, his opinion, combined with accurate data, would give you the information you need to make this important, expensive, and irrevocable decision. Fortunately, you are not alone. City and Town Managers/Administrators around the country wrestle with this very scenario on a daily basis. How many officers does my police department really need? Communities faced with difficult budgetary decisions often look at public safety agencies for potential cut-backs. To be sure, no one wants to cut public safety resources and risk harm to the community. On the other hand, some communities are growing at a rapid pace and are finding it difficult to provide sufficient services to the growing populace. And in the middle, there are numerous communities looking to make the “right” decisions in the interest of “good government.” Collectively, the decisions to be made are critical ones, and providing the “right” level of police staffing is probably the most difficult and important one a City Manager can make. With these issues in mind, you begin to ask the harder question: Is there an objective standard for making this determination? Should my Chief be using some form of performance metrics to make the request for additional staffing in addition to his or her professional opinion? And the answer is a resounding “YES!” The size and style of a police department and the types of services that it provides are a reflection of the character and demands of that community. The challenge is to determine the appropriate allocation and deployment of officers to meet that demand. Once the personnel are allocated properly, the next questions focus on how they are “deployed.” The analysis that is necessary should attempt to build upon this discussion and answer the “how many” and “how to deploy” questions that are the essence of police operational and personnel resource decisions. II. Staffing Models Police staffing models in the U.S. are generally determined by one of five common methods. Departments traditionally have used crime trends, a per-capita approach, minimum-manning levels, authorized/budgeted levels, and least-commonly, workload-based models to make staffing decisions. As the police professionalized in the early 20th century, the primary goal of police operations became crime reduction. Crime levels and trends became the benchmark for police staffing. The more crime, the more police officers hired to combat this crime. On face value this approach seems appropriate, but in actuality it is an inefficient approach to staffing. When the police are ineffective at combating crime, this approach calls for adding more police. When the police are 5