NCJ Number
87736
Journal
Police Journal Volume: 56 Issue: 1 Dated: (January-March 1983) Pages: 19-29
Date Published
1983
Length
11 pages
Annotation
Police resources and personnel can be more effectively used by computer analysis to determine the most cost-effective response to demands, the use of civilian staff to reduce the administrative work of sworn personnel, and the decentralization of decisionmaking.
Abstract
The present use of police personnel in Great Britain has not been effective in maximizing police response to public needs and demands because of the use of inexperienced officers on beat patrol, the large percentage of officer time spent in administrative work, police deployment by geography instead of need, and increased specialization that has removed the police from contact with the general public. More cost-effective policing can be achieved by studying the demands made upon the police and questioning whether the police are organized to make the most appropriate and cost-effective response to those demands. The computer is an important aid in such an analysis. The measurement of demands made upon police resources by using incident logging can be helpful in assessing productivity. Information should be gathered at the local level on a mini-computer to enable local officers to assess local demands, provide current information on crime patterns, and deploy personnel to prevent and detect crime and social turmoil. More productive use of police resources can be achieved by categorizing police calls into 'urgent' and 'nonurgent.' Once calls are managed and graded, response can be more easily distributed through the use of a flexible shift system that deploys personnel according to need. Other means of improving cost-effectiveness include using civilian personnel to perform administrative work now done by sworn personnel and by reducing bureaucratic transmissions by placing most decisionmaking at the autonomous subdivisional level. Fifteen references are listed.