Chapter 7 SG Flashcards
What are the roles and functions of patrol ?
functions of patrol are as follows:
- To deter crime.
- To enhance feelings of public safety.
- To make officers available for service.
Kansas city prevention
The Kansas City Preventive Patrol Experiment (1972–1973) was a landmark event in American policing.
It was the first experiment testing the effectiveness of patrol that met minimum standards of scientific research. The Police Foundation, a private and independent organization, funded the experiment, provided the expertise in research design, and ensured that the evaluation was independent and objective.
Newark foot patrol experiment
The design of the experiment was similar to the Kansas City experiment. Some beats received additional foot patrol, others received less foot patrol, and others served as control beats. The experiment tested the effect of differ- ent levels of foot patrol on crime, arrest rates, and community attitudes.
The Newark Foot Patrol Experiment found that additional foot patrol did not reduce serious crime
Different levels of foot patrol did, however, have a significant effect on citizen attitudes. Citizens were “acutely aware” of the different levels of foot patrol, and residents in beats with added foot patrol consistently saw “the severity of crime problems diminishing in their neighborhoods at levels greater than other areas studied.”
Aspects of police work include
Quick response: time to calls of policing
Evading duty: assumes an officer is busy until calls has been completed. Officers can create free time
High speed pursuits: situation in which an Police officer attempts to stop a vehicle and the suspect flees at a high rate of speed
Response time: it goes from discovery time, reporting time, processing time, till travel time
What are hot spots ?
an area that receives a dispropor- tionate number of calls for police service and/or has a very high crime rate.
One officer vs Two officers
A 1996 proposal in New York City to convert from two-officer to one-officer patrols in low-crime districts caused a predictable outcry.
One-officer patrols are more efficient than two-officer patrols: two one-officer cars can patrol twice as much area and be available for twice as many calls as one two-officer car.
Foot patrol
Foot patrol involves a difficult trade-off between efficiency and community relations. An officer on foot cannot cover as much territory as an officer in a patrol car.
This inefficiency is offset, however, by positive gains in community relations. They can have more personal contact with neighborhood residents, and this can help build trust. The Newark Foot Patrol Experiment, meanwhile, found that an increase in the number of foot-patrol officers in an area resulted in people having less fear of crime and more positive attitudes toward the police.
