Scott Mourtgos, Ian T. Adams,Ph. D., and Justin Nix recently released important and exciting research about the importance of staffing and response times in #policing. This is relevant work that police leaders must understand (and use) to form policy and advocate for good policing.
I’ll be honest—based on the previous research, I was of the mindset that response times were not all that meaningful to police effectiveness except for the most serious crimes. Such a mindset challenges arguments about how additional police staffing equals faster response times, which, in turn, reduces crime.
However, Mourgos, Adams, and Nix’s study shows that increasing the number of police officers actually reduces response time. Their work cites other promising research that decreased response times “significantly influences crucial outcomes.”
So, how can we use this research? It supports the idea that if we can hire more cops, we will reduce response times, improve public trust through improved service, and likely assist the well-being of our officers by relieving the incredible stress and pressure that results from call-to-call shifts.
Also important is the emphasis this research places on the value of patrol. We all say that “patrol is the backbone of the department,” but we need to show it. Additional officers and staffing must be directed at the patrol division. Using more cops to create specialty units is likely less impactful than having a well-staffed, highly-trained, supported patrol division.
Great work to these awesome policing scholars. Thank you for this valuable contribution. Note that all three are U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs (OJP) #NIJ #LEADS Scholars!
See more from the authors here: