Patrol distribution for law enforcement agencies is a very complex problem that requires equally complex solutions. There is not a single end all be all solution. What works in one area may not work in another, or even what works one month may not work the next. There are numerous factors that play into effectively distributing the patrol force. The first important factor is determining the demographics of an area and the police force that is in charge of that area. There are several factors used to determine these demographics. To determine the demographics of an area it is important to know how many people live within the defined area, what is the crime rate in comparison to the population, what time of day and what seasons of the year have greater crime rates. These data points will help drive when are where to distribute patrols. The other side of the demographics is the make up of the law enforcement agency covering the area. Depending on how many officers are available to conduct patrols will determine how the patrols ore distributed (Wilson & Weiss, 2014). The second important consideration is the policies that regulate the specific department. If a department has a policy requiring a certain number of officers are to patrol a certain area that will affect how the patrols are distributed. Other policies such as redeployment policy, scheduling policy, and dispatching policy all will factor into patrol distribution. If a department does not allow for their officers to be redeployed to different areas outside the normal jurisdiction that will affect an areas overall patrol distribution. Scheduling policies will also affect patrol distribution by determining if overtime is authorized or when officers are allowed to take time off. This presents a challenge especially during holidays. Dispatching policy will also determine patrol distribution. If officers already on patrol are authorized to be dispatched to an emergency, it will cause areas to not be covered while the emergency is happening (Chaiken, 1975). The third and possibly most important consideration is budget. The mighty dollar is always a major factor in anything. It is no different when considering patrol distribution. If a department needs more officers to patrol an area but does not have the budget to support more officers, they have to be more creative on fulfilling that need. The budget also affects the equipment that officers can use while patrolling. A department could have all the officers it needs but, if it cannot afford all the patrol vehicles then patrol distribution will be greatly affected. If every police department had an unlimited budget, they could address all the other factors the impact patrol distribution. They could have all the new technology and equipment to ensure they are the best. Since that is not reality, I think the budget of police departments is the most important consideration for determining patrol distribution.

Patrol allocations and distributions can vary somewhat drastically in urban cities in comparison to small rural communities. There are also some similarities that are important as well. The similarities are mostly related to decision making processes and procedures. The patrol allocation and distribution for both urban police departments and small rural departments are going to take into account the same demographic factors. They will allocate their forces to where the most people and most crime is. If there are certain times of the day or year those things will also be taken into account and be used as deciding factors for where to distribute forces. There are also many things contributing to more crime happening in rural areas making them more similar to the challenges in urban areas. It is still urban areas that have the higher crime rates, but rural communities are facing similar challenges (Weisheit, Falcone, & Wells, 1994). There are some very critical differences as well. In urban areas where population is higher and crime rates increase it is common practice to have a schedule of presence patrols. However, this is not always effective because the criminals can learn the patrol patterns and plan around them (Zhang, Gholami, Kar, Sinha, Jain, Goyal & Tambe, 2016). In rural areas these presence patrols are not going to be as common. Another major difference is the number of officers that are even available for patrols. In a highly populated urban area where the budget is very high for law enforcement, patrol allocations can be much greater and distributed more widely. In rural areas there may only be a few officers that cover an entire area and distributing patrols is not feasible. In all law enforcement agencies, they will attempt to apply similar methodology to accomplish their mission. This includes the demographics of the area to include population and crime rates. The differences between urban and rural police departments ultimately comes down to budget. The size of the department will only be able to be as big as the budget they have to fund it. Departments with smaller budgets have to be more creative in how the allocate and distribute their patrols.

Do you agree and why?

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