LESSON 2/TASK 1
coming January.
These might include projected increases or decreases in troop strengths, for
example.
A PM, knowing only dates and times that crimes or complaints have occurred, has limited information
concerning the number of offenses or work load to be effected in future months. More precise
projections can be made if it is known how the offenses varied from the previous year by day of the
week and hour of the day. The PM may want to give additional "weight" to selected offenses, such as
robberies and assaults, since these usually take more time to resolve. Consideration should also be
given to such historical data that traditionally paydays, Friday, and Saturday nights are usually busier
than other nights.
A 24-hour day, 7-day week is used to develop a frequency distribution table. Figure 5 is an illustration
of such a table. The resulting display of data shows that a large part of complaints occurs on Friday
and Saturday. The pattern shows a low of complaints on Sunday of 10% and a high on Saturday of
18.2%. Friday and Saturday account for 35.4% of all weekly offenses.
Once the high complaint days of the week are known, the high offense hours of the day should be
determined. The assumption is made that prior patterns should occur in the future. These may be
subject to uncontrollable variables which must also be considered. Some of these variables may
include such things as troop strengths changing or weather. For example, during a severe snowstorm
or cold spell, complaints will probably go below what might otherwise be "normal." Over an extended
period of time, however, these factors begin to even out. As can be seen from the chart, complaints
begin to rise in the late afternoon, and then decrease sharply after midnight. From this type of
information, we can determine required patrol shifts and distribution by days of the week.
Determine Patrol Shift Distribution
From the data obtained in steps one and two, and keeping in mind the policy decisions that have been
made, the distribution of MP for the various patrol shifts can be made. The following paragraphs detail
a simplified method of doing this. Several assumptions have been made that would not be valid in the
field. This was done to illustrate the procedure and will be noted where appropriate.
36
Previous Page
