WS - E - Analysis of Police Department Staffing

Table 1: ICMA Police Staffing Data Analysis Variable Descriptives Mean Minimum Maximum Population 67,745.7 5,417.0 83,3024.0 Officers per 100,000 Population 201.2 35.3 465.1 Patrol Percent 66.1 32.4 96.8 Index Crime Rate, per 100,000 3,235.1 405.0 9,418.8 VCR (Violent crime rate, per 100,000) 349.3 12.5 1,415.4 PCR (Property crime rate, per 100,000) 2,885.9 379.7 8,111.6 CFS Rate 1,004.8 2.2 6,894.2 Avg. Service Time Police CFS 17.7 8.1 47.3 Avg. Service Time Public CFS 28.7 16.0 42.9 Avg. # of Responding Units Police CFS 1.2 1.0 1.6 Avg. # of Responding Units Public CFS 1.6 1.2 2.2 Total Service Time Police CFS (officer min.) 22.1 9.7 75.7 Total Service Time Public CFS (officer-min.) 48.0 23.6 84.0 Workload Percent Weekdays Winter 26.6 5.0 48.0 Workload Percent Weekends Winter 28.4 4.0 52.0 Workload Percent Weekdays Summer 28.7 6.0 50.0 Workload Percent Weekends Summer 31.8 5.0 53.0 Average Response Time Winter 11.0 3.1 26.9 Average Response Time Summer 11.2 2.4 26.0 While Table 1 provides a list of all the variables that might be examined by ICMA, different studies call for different data, and some data are not available in every community. Population is the first variable, which ranges from more than 800,000 to under 6,000, with a mean of 67,746. The staffing figures were transformed into number of officers per 100,000 population, and while not a useful tool for staffing decisions, it is a useful conversion for analysis. Population influences many variables in this data set; therefore, it is important to control for population size by transforming variables into rates to improve the analysis. For example, the table shows the number of officers per 100,000 and the percentage of offices on patrol compared to the total number of officers in the department. Other variables used in the analysis are the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) index crime rates, and the rate of 911 calls for service (CFS) per 1,000 population. Workload and CFS processing data are key elements as well. Service time represents the number of minutes required to handle the average CFS, Responding units is the average number of police units assigned to a CFS, and Total Service Time is the total number of officer-minutes needed to handle a CFS (number of officers multiplied by the number of minutes). These variables are categorized separately by CFS received directly from the public (labeled “public”), and CFS initiated by the 9