Effectiveness of Police Patrol

By: Ryan Glover

CJ-1010 Final | April 30, 2015

There are many tasks to what a police officer does as a part of their job title. The
responsibility of the police are to enforce laws, provide services, prevent crime and preserve the
peace (Gaines, Miller, 2010, p.156). Those four responsibilities entail a lot of different activities
making police officers add a lot of value to each community. They are the people in the law who
respond to emergencies, protect the community, reduce and prevent crime. They are able to
accomplish these things merely by their presence in society. The question however, has been
raised if police officers should adopt the fire department roll which means no routine patrols and
remaining centrally-stationed then responding after someone calls in reporting trouble.

Experiment
An experiment was conducted by the Kansas City Police Department from October 1,
1972 to September 30th, 1973 to determine if routine preventative police patrol was effective in
the community. The experiment consisted of fifteen patrol officers in Kansas City divided into
different groups. Five were designated as a control group (no changes were made to their daily
routine), five were designated to be reactive (all routine preventative police work were
eliminated meaning they would respond only to service calls), and the last five were designated
as proactive beats (two to three times the level of routine preventative patrols were assigned)
(Swanson, Territo, & Taylor, 1998, p.10).
After the twelve month experiment was done, it was time to review the results. The
researchers concluded decreasing or increasing routine preventative patrol within the range
tested in (the) experiment had no effect on crime, citizen fear of crime, community attitudes
toward the police on the delivery of police service, police response time, or traffic accidents
(Kelling, Pate, Dieckmann, and Brown, 1974). After the study, Karl Klockers (1983, p.1) stated
It makes about as much sense to have police patrol routinely in cars to fight crime as it does to

have fireman patrol routinely in fire trucks to fight fire. Based on this experiment that would
mean we would reduce these law enforcement officers duties to only provide services. Is that
really safe for each community?
In the public mind, the primary role of the police officer is to enforce societys laws
hence, the term law enforcement officer. In their role as crime fighters, police officers have a
clear mandate to seek out an apprehend those who have violated the law (Gaines, Miller, 2010,
p.156). This statement alone gives us reason to disagree with the experiment results. The mere
presence of an officer can make a person feel intimidated and/or safe. The public knows a law
enforcement officers duties. We know that wherever they are, they are doing one of their four
responsibilities mentioned previously. We have the knowledge that a number of officers are
dedicated to each city so they can cover a lot of the area. Does having that knowledge make us
think twice about our actions as we never know if an officer will be around the corner? Or what
about a law enforcement officer helps them prevent crime and preserve the peace? What would
happen if we removed patrol from officers duties like the experiment suggests and notify the
community of this change?

The purpose of patrol

Patrol officers are considered the most valuable members of the force but they are also
the lowest on the hierarchical stepladder. Patrol officers are required to handle many different
difficult situations and be able to maintain a controlled emotion. As these patrol officers are on
duty, they strive for three purposes; deterrence of crime by maintaining a visible police presence,
maintained of public order and sense of security in the community, and the twenty-four-hour
provision of services that are not crime related. (Gaines, Miller, 2010, p.192-193). These three

purposes of patrol are the reasons that our community feels safe. Lets dive a little deeper into
the purpose of each of these three purposes.

Maintaining a visible police presence

Maintaining a visible police presence in the community is a huge deterrent for those who
are thinking about committing a crime and so important to those in the community. These
officers can maintain their presence by either by being in a car or on foot. When an officer is
visible to society, the crime rate goes down. If a rapist is dissuaded from attacking a solidary
woman because a patrol car is cruising the area, then the police officer behind the wheel has
prevented a crime. (Gaines, Miller, 2010, p.156).
As people in a community, we make a mental record of when we see an officer and
where we see them whether it was on the road or on foot. For example, when I see an officer on
off to the side of the road, the next time I drive that road I am a little more cautious about the
speed I am going to ensure that I dont get caught and get a speeding ticket. Their presence
makes us think twice about what we are doing and if we are abiding by the law to avoid trouble.
The presence of an officer is used to benefit situations everywhere; sport games, concerts,
events, neighborhoods, stores, etc.
Recently in my neighborhood someone started to check doors and basement windows to
break in at night. Almost every house in my neighborhood has a unfinished basement so
breaking into the basement was the easiest way. My neighbors basement is finished and that
night his daughter walked into her room and a man was trying to open her window. She started
screaming and he went to the next house. Luckily, shortly after a police officer drove through our
neighborhood and the family watched the man run as fast as he could away from our
neighborhood. But yet, we still think that officers should only respond to calls?

Maintained of public order and a sense of security in the community

The purpose of maintaining a public order is intervene illegal activities but to also
prevent crimes from happening. As discussed earlier, patrolling maintains police presence. While
they are on patrol, they are also doing preventative work. Preventative work can be work in
schools, on the internet, giving guidance to citizens, arranging security for an event, and security
for cars, department stores, etc.

Twenty-four-hour provision of services that are not crime related

Police officers spend nearly a quarter of their time responding to 911 calls for emergency
service or other citizen problems and complaints. (Gaines, Miller, 2010, p.193). People know
that when they need help, a police officer is only a phone call away. People call police officers
for various reasons, many times the situation does not require a police officer. We as a
community feel safe when an officer is around. Due to the fact we know they are a phone call
away, we get comfortable with the thought that they will be there in times of an emergency.
Although officers may respond slower to not as critical calls, they still show up which is what we
rely on.
This twenty-four-hour provision of services that are not crime related is something that
absolutely could be managed as the fire fighters respond to calls. As stated by professor Carl
Klockars earlier in the experiment results It makes as much sense to have police patrol routinely
in cars to fight crime as it does to have firemen patrol routinely in fire trucks to fight fire.
(Gaines, Miller, 2010, p.206). Since officers use the differential response strategy when they
receive service calls, they could absolutely be stationed central in the city and drive to the
location where the service is needed. If it is an emergency, officers have ways of getting to
locations faster, which I think is what they should do.

These officers go through different shifts with certain areas. If we are worried about
officers out patrolling their whole shift, maybe the shift should be divided in chunks of time
where they focus on a different thing in each section. This would allow the officers to stay at a
central location for a section of their shift and not be out in their cars. The benefit of this would
be that we would still maintain the public appearance, public order and sense of security and
deliver on the twenty-four-hour provision of services.

Conclusion
The question still remains of what is the effectiveness of police patrol? Could omit patrol
like the experiment results imply? Based on the research discussed, I believe that answer is we
need officers in the public patrolling.
The problem with the experiment is that the public was unaware of the experiment. They
hadnt realized that police patrol was missing. Maybe some people realized that police officers
stopped patrolling, but it definitely wasnt announced to the public. We dont always see officers
while we are in public, however, we assume that they are around and will be minutes away from
helping us when an emergency comes up. There are many reasons that drives someone to a state
of mind where they want to commit a crime; poverty, unemployment, immorality, inequality,
lack of education opportunities, etc. If we were to go through with the experiments results, get
rid of patrolling and announce the change to the public, what is going to hold these criminals
back from committing the crime?
The three duties a patrol officer is to create a safe environment. These patrol officers
deter and intervene crimes just by walking or driving by. So why would we stop the patrolling
and have them respond to calls? There currently is more evidence and examples in history

proving that police patrol benefits each city and reduces crime. Removing police patrol will only
create an unsafe environment.

Bibliography
Gaines, Larry, and Roger Miller. Criminal Justice Salt Lake Community College. Sixth ed. Mason: Cengage
Learning, 2011. 156, 192, 193, 206. Print.
Kelling, George, Tony Pate, Duane Dieckman, and Charles Brown. The Kansas City Preventive Patrol
Experiment: A Technical Report. Washington: Police Foundation, 1974. Print.
Swanson, Charles, Leonard Territo, and Robert TaylorTaylor. Police Administration: Structures, Processes, and
Behavior. Eight ed. Prentice Hall, 2011. 10. Print.