1. Compare and contrast Strategic and Tactical Analysis and its application to street crimes such as robbery and property crimes such as burglary. In your opinion is one more suited in addressing criminal behavior?

· Week 3: Crime Analysis: Burglary/Robbery

· Read:

Cozens, P. M., Saville, G., & Hillier, D. (2005). Crime prevention through environmental design (CPTED): A review and modern bibliography. Property Management, 23(5), 328-356. Retrieved from https://search-proquest-com.ezproxy1.apus.edu/docview/213402232?accountid=8289

Famega, C. N., Frank, J., & Mazerolle, L. (2005). Managing police patrol time: The role of supervisor directives. Justice Quarterly : JQ, 22(4), 540-559. Retrieved from https://search-proquest-com.ezproxy1.apus.edu/docview/228177475?accountid=8289

Zhang, C., Gholami, S., Kar, D., Sinha, A., Jain, M., Goyal, R., & Tambe, M. (2016). Keeping pace with criminals: An extended study of designing patrol allocation against adaptive opportunistic criminals. Games, 7(3), 15. doi:http://dx.doi.org.ezproxy1.apus.edu/10.3390/g7030015

Lesson Introduction

After reading this week’s materials, you will be able to define the role of police patrol and its importance as applied to law enforcement intelligence. 

Lesson Objectives

●             Outline and discuss early police and patrol procedures

●             Evaluate modern patrol allocations

Course Objectives that apply to this lesson:

CO: (3) Demonstrate an understanding of the history of police patrol procedures from the days of early policing to modern day policing allocations.

Patrol

There are many ways to determine the best way to allocate patrol resources in a community.  Some of them are covered in our studies but that is not the whole story.  Keep in mind that it is more likely to be a combination of models as well as a sensitivity to specific to regional and demographic considerations.

It is important to take many variables into consideration when determining how best to utilize patrols.  At the same time, we must remember to expect the unexpected and be as prepared as possible to respond.  No two situations, weeks, months, or years will ever be exactly the same.  This is part of what makes a career in criminal justice such a challenge and also so rewarding.

In the early 1900’s and before the work of August Vollmer, there was not much information concerning police allocation.  Vollmer created a list of police functions such as crime prevention, criminal investigation, traffic control, and patrol.  In the early deployment allocation models, the police were distributed based on calls for service and officer workloads.  Although what appeared to be effective at the time, more research began to see potential issues with this model such as police saturation may cause a higher number of arrests.  Other departments in this time frame distributed patrol units evenly without taking into account other factors such as crimes, population, distance, or number of personnel.

Preventative Patrol

As police operations moved forward, other methods of deployment emerged.  In the 1960’s, law enforcement professional started to shift focus on preventative patrol methods.  As discussed in previous lessons, the Kansas City Preventative Patrol Experiment in 1972 sought to determine the effect of random patrol and in the end it showed that random patrol was not effective.

Other patrol methodologies include patrolling by geography which consists of assigning patrol units based upon square miles.  This method deploys officers evenly throughout their jurisdiction.  Forward thinking departments started to look for other methods of deployment such as deploying by hazard which entails gathering data concerning hazards, assigning a weighted score to hazards and using this mathematical score to allocate resources based upon the finding.  Of course this too came under scrutiny based on the accuracy of the math and not including other data to allocate personnel.  This led to querying models which combined the subjective nature of the geography and hazard models with predictive analysis using past incidents to help predict future crimes in a given area.  Police departments broke down the data into area, time of day, severity of the crime, response times, seasonality, etc….  By using past data to predict future crimes, this appeared to be a good model.  In essence the querying model based allocation on wait times of calls or those waiting in que to be serviced.  Those districts with the highest number of calls waiting to be dispatched would receive more personnel.  There were issues with this model such as uncommitted patrol time was not taken into account, averaging the time of patrol officers is not specific, rapid changes in crime could alter the deployment of assets to increase the number of officers unjustly, and finally, there was no priority assessed to the calls for service inputted into the model.

Preventative models such as the simulation model tried to blend the previous models with the probability of crimes in progress and the ability of crimes intercepted by police.  The models focused on travel time and the ability to intercept the crime.  However, this model was more subjective rather than mathematical.  Unlike the above models, the Patrol Car Allocation Model was developed to analyze and optimize dispatch and patrol responses.  It did not try to spread the calls for service out over watches or districts. 

These models are sometimes still used, but in the early 1990’s, the Patrol Allocation Model emerged.  This model was discussed last week, but it should be emphasized this week as well.  This model takes into account several objectives such as visibility of officers, response time, call priorities, and officer availability.  From the Patrol Allocation Model came the Allocation Model of Policing (AMP) and the Model for the Allocation of Patrol Personnel (MAPP).  The AMP was similar to the Patrol Allocation Model, but was based on Microsoft Excel and a change in one criteria automatically changed the final analysis.  The MAPP is comprehensive in deploying assets, but the analysis can also be used by managers in justifying personnel or other resources.  The outcomes show reduces response times, more time for proactive enforcement, and increased visibility.

Reference

Baker, T. (2005). Introductory criminal analysis: Crime prevention and intervention strategies. Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Pearson Prentice Hall.