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Place, Jerry (2007) Evaluating Police Department Policy Decisions Using a Simulation Model of Sworn Officer Deployment.
International Journal of Police Science & Management, volumen 9, número 4. Thousand Oaks, California, Estados Unidos.
Sage Publications. Páginas 341 a 356.
Jerry Place
School of Computing and Engineering, University of Missouri — Kansas City,
570J Flarsheim Hall, Kansas City, MO 64110, USA. Email: placej@umkc.edu
Received 21 July 2006; accepted 11 December 2006
Keywords: simulation models, police manpower planning, police
deployment
Page 341
workload. They wanted to know how deployment does not appear to be balanced
sworn officers spent their shift time. Police across patrol divisions — some patrol divi-
officials wanted to commit more officer sions provide better service than others sim-
time to COP but before those commit- ply because the resources allocated to those
ments could be formalised, a thorough divisions resulted in less time spent in hand-
understanding of current duties was essen- ling calls.
tial. This study showed that officer work- Also of serious concern to officials and to
load was very high measured by the time the general public were the times when no
spent answering calls for immediate service, officers within a division were available to
eg 911 emergency calls. This measure was answer calls. These periods were unfortu-
particularly important because department nately named ‘blackouts’ by the press when
officials had set a goal that no more than 35 the study was released. The study indicated
per cent of an officer’s workload would be that blackouts occurred in every division
committed to answering calls for service, and on almost every day in the week.
with the balance of shift time dedicated to Motivated by problem areas highlighted
COP. by their quantitative study, but also con-
From Figure 1 it can be seen that officers cerned by the lack of quantitative support
in the five divisions of the Patrol Bureau — for strategic manpower planning, police and
Central, Metro, East, North and South — city officials jointly commissioned the
spent much more than the goal of 35 per development of a simulation model of
cent of their time answering calls for ser- sworn officer deployment called the Police
vice. In several observation periods, over 60 Deployment Model (PDM). The PDM was
per cent of the average officer’s shift time commissioned to support both tactical day-
was spent responding to calls for service. to-day officer scheduling as well as strategic
Also, Figure 1 indicates that the patrol force analysis of future manpower requirements.
Figure 1
Average committed time
percentage for all
divisions
Page 342
Specific objectives developed by police functions such as crime analysis and preven-
and city officials for the PDM were: tion. Sergeants supervise patrol officers in
the field and perform administrative and
● tactical planning support for the reduc- supervisory duties in the patrol stations.
tion of officer shift time answering calls Captains serve as watch commanders, one
for service. Police officials established a per division for each of the three shifts. A
goal of reducing officer shift time spent major commands each patrol station.
answering calls for service to no more The number of patrol officers on duty
35 per cent. Remaining shift time was varies by time of day and day of the week.
to be spent interacting with citizens in More officers are added in the evening
the division with the primary objective through Rapid Response Teams. Patrol
of reducing criminal and anti-social officers work eight-hour shifts and about
activity; 1.6 officers are needed for each on-duty
● tactical planning support directed to position to allow for days off, vacations, sick
reduce blackout; leave and court appointments. The depart-
● strategic planning support directed ment’s patrol deployment plan called for
toward estimating future manpower 263 patrol officers with about one-third
needs; and scheduled each shift.
● estimating the budget requirements for Dispatchers classify 911 calls for service
these needs. and then dispatch units to handle calls that
require a police response: the dispatch unit
In the following sections of this paper we is the police car. Dispatchers classify calls by
describe the Patrol Bureau organisation type and assign a four-digit code to the call.
which the model was designed to support. The number of units dispatched to the call
We also describe the Police Deployment depends on the call type. Call types and the
Model and its parameters. We go on to standard number of cars to dispatch are
present the model baseline and validate that shown in Table 1. However, this number
study and we describe several proposed varies from division to division.
strategic policy decisions about police Dispatchers use a computer-aided dis-
deployment and use the Police Deployment patch system to maintain information on
Model to analyse these policy changes. The activities. Among the data items recorded
final section presents our conclusions. for each incident are:
● date/time call received;
PATROL BUREAU ORGANISATION ● phone number call received from;
The Police Department Patrol Bureau pro- ● count of cars dispatched to call;
vides service to the public primarily by ● time that car was dispatched and subse-
responding to calls for service; by patrolling quently returned to patrol service for
assigned areas; and by conducting commun- each car dispatched to call;
ity policing through special units that ● call code;
include community action network centres, ● location of the incident.
community action teams and foot patrols.
More than two-thirds of the police POLICE DEPLOYMENT MODEL
department’s law enforcement positions are
assigned to the Patrol Bureau. Police Earlier modelling work
officers are assigned to regular patrol duties, Analytic and simulation models have been
community policing activities and other used extensively to support strategic police
Page 343
administration. Larson (1972) describes the and Linux could be used to tailor a simula-
use of M/M/m queueing models: models tion for the specific needs of decision-
with Markovian (Poisson) arrival and ser- makers at a reasonable cost.
vice distributions and m servers to deter-
mine, given a desired response delay, the The PDM simulation model
number of cars to dispatch to calls for The police deployment model was devel-
service. oped using a process-resource simulation
Several self-contained simulations were (Law & Kelton, 2000). In a process-
developed and made available to police resource simulation, ‘events’ are written as
agencies in the 1970s and 1980s. The Rand self-contained software processes in the
Corporation designed the Patrol Car Allo- simulation programming language. Our
cation Model (PCAM) as a self-contained model supports four classes of calls for ser-
FORTRAN program for determining the vice and these service calls are implemented
number of patrol cars that should be on as distinct processes initiated according to
call statistics developed from dispatching
duty at various times of the day in each
records.
geographical area of a city (Chaiken &
Simulation resources are dispatchable
Dormont, 1975a, 1975c, 1975b) and the
units, ie cars with police officers. Resources
work is summarised by Chaiken and
are allocated to processes on a modified
Dormont (1978). Another published model
first-come-first-served basis. If no cars are
was created for a subdivision of the greater available for dispatch, class 1 and 2 calls are
Manchester area in Great Britain (Freeman, queued while class 3 and 4 calls are blocked
1992) using the programming language and cleared: these lower priority calls are
SMALLTALK. The author studied 29 dif- not queued for service. Resources are allo-
ferent activities related to crime and other cated to queued calls based on class: all class
events such as serious traffic accidents. 1 calls are dispatched before any class 2 calls,
Simulation systems are widely available then queued class 2 calls are dispatched
and run effectively and efficiently on com- before any class 3, and so on.
modity hardware. Systems such as ARENA A 911 call for service is simulated by
(Kelton, Sadowski, & Sturrock, 2004) are starting an instantiation of the simulation
inexpensive and straightforward to use. We process corresponding to the class of the
built the PDM using a low-cost system call. The call process reserves resources,
called CSIM (Schwetman, 1996) running police officers, and holds them for the
under the Linux operating system. Our duration of the call. When the call is
simulation software is readily available and resolved, the allocated police officers are
inexpensive, USD1,000 for a site licence, returned to the resource pool. If no officers
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Table 2: Metro Division on-duty staffing and average call inter-arrival and service
times by call class
Units Avg. Arr. Svc. Arr. Svc. Arr. Svc. Arr. Svc.
Hour sched. crew time time time time time time time time
supplied parameters. If there are no units no more than 35 per cent of the duty day
available for dispatch, IR calls wait in first- answering calls for service.
come-first-served (FCFS) queues and calls Model output includes the average num-
from the other call classes are blocked and ber of officers available for dispatch as well
cleared, ie not answered and thus lost. As as the percentage of each officer’s shift spent
the simulation proceeds through the answering calls. The average queue length
24-hour day, statistics are collected about for class 1 and class 2 calls is also presented
the number of units available to answer calls as the average period between the time a
and the queue time for those calls, ie the call is taken and when officers are dis-
time that elapses until officers can be dis- patched to the call. Officer response time is
patched to handle the call. Additionally, the call queue time plus drive time. The PDM
percentage of uncommitted time, officer also counts class 3 and class 4 calls that were
utilisation, is also computed. This is an blocked and cleared.
important measure as a major goal of the Table 2 presents inputs supplied to guide
police department is for an officer to spend PDM execution. For each hour of the day,
Page 346
the units available for dispatch are shown that simulation results are statistically in
along with average call inter-arrival and accordance with specified model control
service times in minutes for each job class. parameters.
Also in Table 2 can be seen average call
inter-arrival and service times for each hour
of the average duty day, eg at 16.00 the MODEL BASELINE STUDY
average call inter-arrival time is 4.9 minutes
and the average service time is 32.7 minutes Model verification
for class 1 calls. Thus officers dispatched to Model verification is the process of ensur-
an IR call during this hour will be unavail- ing that the model code is correct and that
able for other assignments for an average of events that transpire in the model are con-
32.7 minutes. sistent with model design attributes. Model
Additional parameters are available for verification was a continuous process dur-
each division specifying the distribution of ing PDM development. Model code was
units dispatched to each call by call class. verified to be syntactically correct as well as
Unit distribution for the Metro Division is to represent the stated function of the
shown in Table 3. When officers are dis- underlying system being modelled.
patched to a class 1 call, 31 per cent of the
time one unit is dispatched; 47 per cent of Model validation
the time two units are dispatched and so on. PDM model validation differed from the
Clearly, there is no ‘steady state’ for our usual model validation techniques. Since
model because model parameters change the police department cannot ignore emer-
every hour, simulation runs were conducted gency 911 calls, when officers are unavail-
for 60 ‘days’ and the performance statistics able for dispatch, extraordinary measures are
for each ‘day’ were then averaged either by used, eg sergeants are dispatched, officers
hour or by shift depending on the perform- are ‘pre-empted’ from lower priority calls,
ance metric. This is called the batched etc. Since the purpose of the model was to
means technique (Law & Kelton, 2000) study the impact of change at the policy
and is a recognised mechanism to ensure level on blackout and officer availability
rather than to replicate the dispatching
process, extraordinary dispatching measures
Table 3: Distribution of units dispatched were not built in. The model was designed
for each call by call class for the Metro to represent a true stochastic process. Thus
Division we validated the model using the ‘validate
by eyeball’ process (Law & Kelton, 2000,
No. Class 1 Class 2 Class 3 Class 4 p. 347). As the basis for validation of the
units calls calls calls calls PDM, we selected a time frame that
included significant blackout periods.
1 31.0% 85.2% 90.1% 63.3% We ran the simulation with the baseline
2 47.0% 11.7% 7.8% 24.0%
3 15.2% 2.7% 1.3% 7.3%
parameters and examined the number of
4 5.4% 0.2% 0.6% 2.8% officers available to be dispatched for calls.
5 1.0% 0.0% 0.2% 1.7% Figure 3 compares officer availability for
6 0.3% 0.2% 0.0% 0.3% shift 2 over an average day from the simula-
7 0.1% 0.0% 0.0% 0.6% tion model and officers available deter-
8 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0%
mined from dispatching records noted as
9 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0%
10 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% ‘observed’ in the plot. The notion of shift
as used here is just a way to divide the
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Figure 3
PDM distribution vs.
observed distribution of
units available for
dispatch for the Metro
Division for shift 2
24-hour day into three equal size units. successful t test would imply precision that
Shift 1 is from 0.00 until 8.00; shift 2 is was not present. Dispatching records were
from 8.00 until 16.00; and shift 3 is from often incomplete and error prone.
16.00 until 0.00. Actual work hours for
officers may start at any time and are called Some example policy questions
tours of duty and do not conform with the supported by the PDM
notion of shift as used here. The error bars We used the PDM to measure performance
on the simulation results are ±1.5 per cent. changes resulting from several contemplated
Clearly, in most instances simulation results policy changes. We present examples of
compare favourably with actual values, even how the model could be used to provide
though the simulation study does not pre- quantitative support for policy decisions.
empt officers for dispatch to critical calls These examples also offer insight about
nor does the simulation model take the how the policy decisions might be trans-
availability of supervisory personnel into lated into parameters for the model.
consideration.
Since the PDM distribution of units Baseline shift staffing schedule analysis
available for dispatch is ‘numerically close’ The first study presented here is an analysis
to the actual distribution of units available of patrol officer staffing. We used the PDM
for dispatch and since the two distributions to analyse current officer scheduling and
have the same shape, we consider the PDM suggest scheduling modifications that might
to be a valid model of dispatching officers reduce blackout with minimal new
to calls for service. We did not use tradi- resources.
tional statistical techniques, ie t tests, to If we look at the 10.00 to 16.00 period
compare the two distributions because we from Figure 4, we see a steadily increasing
felt that such tests would be misleading. A call arrival rate while unit staffing changes
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Figure 4
Baseline officer staffing
vs. class 1 call arrival
rate over the average
24-hour day for the
Metro Division
very little until just before 16.00. Another response time distribution for class 1 calls
factor in these figures is the total number of and the distribution of units available for
units available over the shift. For the base- dispatch resulting from the execution of the
line schedule of units (see Table 2), there is a PDM with the original Metro staffing
total of 469 man hours per day of which 36 schedule. From Table 4, 13 per cent of class
per cent of shift 1; 52 per cent of shift 2; 1 calls during shift 2 wait more than 5
and 60 per cent of shift 3 time is spent minutes before a unit can be dispatched
answering calls. Tables 4 and 5 present the while 1 per cent of the class 1 calls wait 25
Page 349
Figure 5
Revised officer staffing
vs. IR call arrival rate
over the average 24-hour
day for the Metro
Division
to 35 minutes for a unit to be dispatched. these tables, it is clear that the new on-duty
From Table 5, 22 per cent of the time staffing schedule will dramatically reduce
during shift 2, there are no officers available blackout probability over shifts 2 and 3: on
to be dispatched to class 1 calls. shift 2 blackout probability was reduced
Suppose we want to estimate the impact from 22.3 per cent to 5.1 per cent and on
of a new staff scheduling policy on blackout shift 3 blackout probability was reduced
and call dispatch waiting time. We create a from 22 per cent to 6.6 per cent. Addition-
new on-duty staffing schedule so that more ally, at least 96 per cent of all class 1 calls can
officers are available over the 24-hour day be expected to be dispatched within five
and we better match the levels of on-duty minutes, across all shifts.
staffing to the arrival pattern of class 1 calls
in the division. Our revised on-duty staffing
schedule against class 1 call arrival rates is Table 6: Probability distribution by shift
presented in Figure 5. From 6.00 through with the revised Metro Division staffing
23.00, unit staffing closely follows the in- schedule
crease in call arrival rate. We then executed
the PDM simulation with the new staffing Shift 1 Shift 2 Shift 3
schedule for the original call arrival and
0 8.0% 5.1% 6.6%
service rates. 1–3 13.6% 12.4% 11.3%
The additional units available for dispatch 4–6 18.7% 19.3% 14.1%
and the more timely scheduling of units 7–9 20.1% 21.9% 17.4%
throughout the day produced an average 10–12 22.2% 20.0% 16.9%
distribution of units available for dispatch as 13–15 11.2% 12.9% 15.0%
16–18 4.3% 5.9% 10.5%
shown in Table 6 and class 1 call waiting Over 19 1.9% 2.3% 8.2%
time distribution as shown in Table 7. From
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Page 351
Figure 6
Distribution of false
alarm calls as a
percentage of all calls
over average day for the
Metro Division
Figure 7
Blackout reduction as a
result of eliminating a
percentage of false alarm
calls
Page 352
Figure 8
Distribution of Metro
Division non-injury
accident response calls
over average day
due to non-injury traffic accidents, ie database and hourly mean call arrival and
instead of using sworn officers to investigate service rates were recomputed for 0 per
all traffic accidents, if there were no injuries cent through to 100 per cent elimination of
from the accident, allowing the parties to the calls and the PDM was executed for this
exchange insurance information and to file arrival/service rate combination. Figure 9
an accident report at their local police sta- shows the impact on blackout probability
tion. Officials were interested in the effect for shifts 1, 2 and 3 when these calls are
that this policy change would have on eliminated for the Metro Division.
officer availability and blackout. While the elimination of these calls does
Figure 8 shows the distribution of non- reduce blackout probability, the reduction is
injury accident response calls as a per- small — blackout probability is reduced
centage of total calls. From Figure 8, we from over 15 per cent with none of the
note that these calls are not distributed
non-injury calls removed to just over 13 per
evenly over the 24-hour day, rather they
cent with all of these calls removed. Thus,
tend to clump during the morning and
for the Metro Division, this policy change
evening rush hours. Also, the distribution of
would not have a significant impact either
these calls varies from division to division.
Non-injury traffic calls are a significant per- on blackout or on officer utilisation.
centage of calls in the North Patrol Division
but much less significant in the Metro Divi- Committed time reduction due to
sion, hence the impact on blackout prob- staffing increases
ability will be uneven across districts. Finally, officials were interested in deter-
As with false alarm calls, non-injury mining the relationship between staffing
accident calls were removed from the call increases and average shift committed time,
Page 353
Figure 9
Blackout probability
reduction due to
elimination of non-injury
accident response calls
Figure 10
PDM analysis of officer
committed time
percentage as officers
are added to staffing
schedule for the Metro
Division
Page 354
ie the average time spent answering calls for performance goals such as no longer requir-
service. Department officials wanted a ing patrol officers to respond to intrusion
sworn officer staffing level in each division alarms or no longer requiring patrol officers
of the Patrol Bureau that would require the to respond to non-injury traffic accidents.
average officer to spend no more than 35 The PDM is a strategic planning tool
per cent of his or her shift time answering that allows policy-makers to evaluate the
calls for service. A call-time utilisation ceil- impact of their policy initiatives quantitat-
ing of 35 per cent was a department goal, to ively in terms of officer staffing levels. The
allow officers to spend the majority of their tool is fairly easy to use with input prepared
shift time in community policing activities. from an Excel spreadsheet. Model output is
Thus the PDM was used to analyse shift organised for graphical presentation from
staffing levels against officer call time for the several plotting tools including Excel.
average day in each patrol division. For this We believe that the PDM is a powerful
analysis, we increased the number of offi- tool that will enable planners to establish
cers assigned to each shift by one from zero broad performance goals within known
through to twenty and executed the PDM budget constraints, or to establish budgets
for each staffing level increment. Figure 10 that are capable of supporting a specified
summarises the output from these simula- broad performance objective.
tion studies for the Metro Division. This
figure provides police and city officials with
a quantitative way to estimate the cost of, REFERENCES
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