Understanding Police Response Times
Recently, I have been a part of a variety of discussions about police response times to calls for service. Historically, response times have been used as a means to measure police performance. Theoretically, the quicker the police respond to calls for service, the better the level of service and satisfaction will be realized by the caller. Some of us in law enforcement still measure the effectiveness of our performance by whether we are responding to calls for service faster this year or month than the last year of month. Beyond the sense that “help has arrived,” does this really make any sense?
In a life and death emergency, the importance of quick police response is readily apparent. I can assure you that when these calls are received, officers have every desire to get to the scene as quickly as possible. In fact, in most cases, the officers are authorized to respond in an emergency mode (i.e., “lights and siren”) to clear their way to the call. When an emergency call is received, the call is generally assigned to the closest available officer. It is not uncommon for the closest officer to be handling another call when an emergency call is received. Oftentimes, this officer will explain the emergency to the person he/she is helping, assure the person that he/she or another officer will return once the emergency situation is under control, and leave to respond to the emergency call. Most of us understand this idea of prioritization and are forgiving when this occurs.
As a bit of information based on research, let me share with you that response time generally has little to do with law enforcement’s ability to solve crime. Interestingly, most property crimes are discovered sometime after the fact – for example, you wake up in the morning to learn that someone vandalized your car or stole the stereo from the vehicle. Whether an officer arrives right now or 30 minutes after you call will have little to no bearing as to whether the crime will be solved. In these cases, identifying the suspect depends much on physical evidence. Also, crimes against persons (e.g., an assault or robbery), the victim can generally provide suspect information, and, depending on the circumstance, may even personally know the perpetrator. Another interesting fact is that it is common for victims of crime to call a friend or relative first before calling the police. Think about it, sometimes we cause further delay by our own actions (i.e., calling a friend to ask what we should do) than simply making the first call to the police.
Even in the best of economic times, and as much as we would like to have more police officers in our communities, the fact remains that it is not feasible to put an officer on every block. As such, response times are greatly impacted by the concept of supply and demand. The more the demand for service (i.e., calls for assistance), and the fewer the supply to respond (i.e., officers on the street), it only makes sense that response times will increase over time.
With this said, let me share a bit of philosophy we employ out of the Perris Station. Certainly, emergency calls for service take priority over everything else; however, we encourage our officers to “provide good service” on each of their calls and not be focused on the fact that other calls are pending. In other words, we do not want our officers worried about “beating the clock” to clear calls quickly to reduce our overall response times at the expense of customer service. With a simple and courteous apology for a delayed response and an explanation that it has been a busy shift, most of us understand and are happy to be receiving a higher level of service than being placated to and brushed off by an officer who is more concerned about getting to their next call. We all know that it is better to get it right the first time than it is to have to do it twice. Nothing can be more time consuming than having to address a dissatisfied customer and sending another officer out to clean up what should have been done in the first place.
James P. McElvain
Chief of Police