Directed Patrol Essay

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Directed patrol is a method that can be effective when the goal of a police department is to reduce or try to eliminate a specific crime (Fritsch, 2009, pg. 82). In this method patrol officers are given specific instructions from the high command about what they need to do during their shift; the specific tasks that are assigned to the patrol officers will help achieve the organizational goals and citizens’ demand of reducing the specific crimes and many times these tasks will take priority over non-emergency service calls (Fritsch, 2009, pg. 85). There has been many experiments that have tried to test the effectiveness of directed patrol; the Kansas City police department experiment was one of them and it concluded that directed patrol can …show more content…

86). The emphasis of this method is similar to the one of some of the earlier allocation models in which service calls were used to predict future crimes; when there is a strong police presence in those areas where future crimes might happen, it can help prevent some of the crimes and reduce response times (Fritsch, 2009, pg. 86). The effectiveness of the hot spot method depends on how well it was planned. If the analyses to determine the hot spot is properly conducted, then the outcomes of the patrol deployment will most likely be positive. If the patrol is deployed to the wrong place, then it will have little impact on …show more content…

The reason to this is because it is probably the one that makes the most sense to the average citizen in comparison to the other methods. Moreover, hot spot can increase response time, which is always one of the main concerns for citizens. Additionally, the hot spot method deploys most of the officers within the dangerous areas of a community, which is where the citizens want to see the police working. The hot spot method works better when the citizens that live in the hot spots work with patrol officers through community policing; in order for this to happen it would require long term patrol deployments to these hot spots (Scheider, Chapman & Schapiro,

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