Fort Worth Police Department Strategic Plan
A review of these factors using available data to analyze staffing levels provides a more accurate optimal staffing level.
Personnel Allocation Model
One model, the Personnel Allocation Model (PAM), was produced by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration in the early 1990s, and has been updated to an automated format which allows calculations of staffing levels after the user enters localized data. The model consists of a series of worksheets that require data on operations, workload, roadways, administrative time, reactive and proactive time, average officers on duty, special assignments, field supervision, and total staff requirements. Most of the information was gathered from the FWPD’s Computer Aided Dispatch (CAD) system, but some of the variables require policy decisions on types and level of service provided to the public. Service level variables includes how many minutes per hour are allotted for self-initiated activities (or community policing), patrol intervals by roadway type, and span of control. The assumptions are the following: Self-initiated activities are activities carried out by patrol officers who are not assigned a call by Police Dispatch (e.g., officer initiates an action due to suspicious behavior, observes a traffic violation, conducts follow-up, or looks for suspects). Community Oriented Policing (COP) activities are those in which officers exit their vehicles and interact with residents (e.g. walking in a neighborhood, talking to business owners, attending neighborhood meetings, or park and ride police bicycles). Patrol intervals are the frequency that an officer passes a given point on the roadway, or the average time a stranded motorist would have to wait for an uncommitted officer if they did not call for service. Span of control is the number of officers per field supervisor, or patrol sergeant. For the model scenarios below, we defined span of control as the ratio of 7:1 , or seven officers per every field supervisor (sergeant) 1 . The below six scenarios are examples equations that assume the FWPD use of the required number of officers and sergeants. The total time required by all patrol units to respond to and handle calls for service is considered reactive time. Proactive time includes all other activities, including self-initiated, community policing, and preventive patrol. Scenario 1 – This scenario divides the average patrol officer’s time approximately 50/50 between reactive and proactive time. o Self-Initiated Time Per Hour 12 minutes, Community Policing Per Hour 12 minutes o Interstate and highway roadway patrol interval 2.33 hours, arterial roadway patrol interval 2.33 hours, and residential and neighborhood collector roadway patrol interval 49.6 hours (the patrol intervals are the average of agencies across the nation that participated in field tests when PAM was
1 Iannone, Nathan F. and Marvin P. Iannone, 2001. Supervision of Police Personnel, 6 th ed . Publishing, Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall. http://www.policetrainingstore.com
How Growth Affects the Fort Worth Police Department
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