NCJ Number
212269
Journal
Policing: An International Journal of Police Strategies & Management Volume: 28 Issue: 3 Dated: 2005 Pages: 415-434
Date Published
2005
Length
20 pages
Annotation
This study conducted systematic social observations of the work routines and citizen interactions of suburban police officers, including details on how the officers spent their shift time and the characteristics of their interactions with citizens.
Abstract
Direct observations of police officers were conducted by a research team as part of a larger project. Data were collected over 14 months between April 1999 and May 2000. The observations involved 170 officers employed by a sample of 14 suburban agencies. A total of 425 observations were completed over 3,537 hours, the equivalent of over 442 8-hour shifts. As a whole, officers from the 14 suburban agencies apparently were similar to rural/small town officers in previous studies in terms of the amount of shift time spent in citizen interactions (17 percent of total shift time for suburban officers and 14.6 percent for rural/small town officers, or about 70-80 minutes of a typical 8-hour shift). Certain activities dominated officer shift time across the 14 suburban departments. These "core" activities were routine motor patrol, administrative tasks (primarily writing reports) personal/nonduty activities, and driving to and from locations. These "core" activities tended to dominate officers' shift time regardless of variations within suburban community characteristics. Crime problems consumed an average of 19.1 percent of all encounter time across the 14 agencies, while crime problems involved an average of 19.2 percent of encounter time in prior studies of rural and small town agencies. There was some variation in the amount of time spent on response to crime according to the characteristics of the suburban communities, with middle-income residential communities resembling urban communities. 4 tables, 4 notes, and 43 references