NCJ Number
84732
Date Published
1982
Length
16 pages
Annotation
Meaningful police planning can occur only when the police are viewed as a human service organization whose principal purpose is to enhance the well-being of those directly calling upon it for assistance rather than the well-being of the public as a whole.
Abstract
The traditional orientation of police service delivery and planning for it assumes the primary beneficiary to be the community as a whole; however, the urban poor are actually the disproportionate consumers of police services. The planning method should assume that police efforts to control crime are overwhelmingly dependent on the reactive tactic (responsive to specific requests for service), that crime-related police services are but a fraction of urban police services, that police planning is primarily suited to social planning, and that planning for urban policing should be based on the direct consumer demand principle. The planning method is centered on the analysis and projection of police reactive workload, the servicing of various citizen calls for assistance. A number of advantages derive from such a planning approach. Police organizational goals are stated in a more realistic, more measurable manner. Sound projections of future police workloads are more readily derived. The integration of the budgetary and planning processes is rendered more facile. All such advantages give rise to the principal benefit, which is that police planning becomes a useful instrument for administrative decisionmaking and for police productivity improvement. Twenty-four references are provided.