Crime & Safety

Chief Brown: Workload Analysis is a Tool for Scheduling, Not Staffing

The police chief presented results from his eight-month workload analysis at Thursday's Police Committee meeting.

Rumors have flown since Police Chief Ernest Brown announced he would conduct a on the .

But as Brown presented the full eight-month report during Thursday’s Police Committee meeting, he said that it’s not meant to help determine the number of police officers on staff.

Rather, he plans to use the analysis to efficiently schedule officers during the times of the day when they are most needed. 

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The level of 911 calls is generally low, for example, from 2-7 a.m., he said. 

“It’s counterintuitive to maintain the same staffing levels as when we know we’re getting a lot of calls,” he said. “If we’re getting the lion’s share of calls from residents (during a different time), we have to be as responsive as possible.” 

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Resident calls make up the highest percentage of police activity during the third shift, which runs from 3-11 p.m. daily. During that time, 911 calls account for 71 percent of time officers spend responding to events. On the overnight shift from 11 p.m.-7 a.m., 911 calls account for 39 percent of their time.

Because this is the first time the department has conducted such an analysis, there isn’t historical data to compare with the eight months of 2011 included in the report. 

Brown noted crime trends in neighboring suburbs, however, show an increase in activity. Though crime levels in Darien are low, he said that they’re probably following a similar trend.

“We have to be vigilant and take a proactive approach,” he said.

The analysis will help with that by highlighting when officers might have more time to spend on proactive police activities, such as patrolling businesses prone to burglaries or identifying crime patterns, he said.

During March and April, for example, there were a in Darien that shared common characteristics, he said. 

In response to patterns like that, Brown said officers might then use their discretionary work time—time when they’re not actively responding to an incident—to patrol those specific areas and reach out to make sure the public knows what’s been happening. 

“The true measure of success is the absence of crime,” Ward 6 Alderman Sylvia McIvor said. “If we can take that discretionary time and prevent those events from happening, then we’re far superior from having those crimes and having to respond to them.” 

Brown’s report covered May through December 2011, the eight-month period after Darien closed its dispatch center and transferred those duties to DU-COMM. 

To read the full report, click the photo box next to this article.


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