WS - E - Analysis of Police Department Staffing

effective at combating crime, fewer officers are needed. Therefore, using this model essentially provides incentives for poor performance and disincentives for good performance. Additionally, crime rates are influenced by many other factors than just the response by the police. In fact, many criminologists discount the role of the police entirely when it comes to crime rates in a community. So, using crime rates to staff a police department is not the recommended approach. Fortunately, this model of staffing is rarely used anymore. Another very popular approach to staffing is one based upon predetermined minimum- manning levels. Generally determined by past practice, policy, supervisory judgment, or a combination of the three, personnel staffing is set at a certain level. Typically, this approach is also used to determine the number of officers required to work each shift. Departments establish “hard” and “soft” minimums, wherein hard minimums cannot be breached without calling other officers in to work on overtime, and soft minimums occur where supervisors can use discretion to maintain staffing below a predetermined level. However, departments often memorialize these staffing levels in collective bargaining agreements and the staffing becomes part of the labor- management context and thus difficult to modify. Equally popular is the per-capita approach to staffing. Departments across the country look to officer-to-population ratios as an easy method to determine appropriate staffing. Although the International Association of Chiefs of Police does not recommend this method, IACP nonetheless published a directorate on just this very topic. A recent IACP “Perspectives” article presents Bureau of Justice Statistics data on local police department officer-to-population ratios. The source is a 2003 BJS study that reports the average ratio of full time officers per 1,000 residents. Departments are categorized by size of population served, ranging from 250,000 or more, to communities of 1,000 to 2,499 residents. According to the article the ratio of full-time officers per 1,000 residents ranges from 2.6 per 1,000 to 1.8 per 1,000, with an average ratio of 2.5 full-time officers per 1,000 residents. Many communities rely on this model to make staffing decisions. As easy as it is to comprehend and apply, this model is equally inefficient and unreliable. The authorized/budgeted approach to staffing is a variant of the minimum-manning model. In this approach the city or town predetermines a specific level of staffing that fits within the budget of the community. Essentially, this is a “What can I afford?” model as opposed to one that is based on actual community needs. Again, this is a fairly common approach to police staffing, and it places the determination of personnel levels on the community’s budgeting process. It is also a fairly simple approach wherein the previous year’s budget is examined in context with the current financial situation and staffing decisions are made. The danger here is that staffing decisions can become politicized or predicated on an artificial figure. The ability of a community to pay for services in previous years, or a change in political administrations, is not necessarily a sound foundation on which to make police staffing decisions. 6