Law Enforcement - The Few Who Serve Many

Roughly 424,000, or 60%, of full-time state and local sworn employees were patrol officers or other uniformed officers whose regularly assigned duties included responding to calls for service. Uniformed officers are assigned a specific area to patrol, such as a section of a downtown area or a residential neighborhood. They may work alone, but in large cities they frequently have a partner. During their shift they observe and resolve problems in the community, pursue and arrest suspects, identify potential hazards, and enforce traffic laws. State patrol officers (sometimes called state troopers or highway patrol officers) arrest criminals statewide and are best known for issuing tickets to motorists.

Less than half a million officers are available to answer calls for service — for a nation of 275 million people. What is the ratio to population? The per capita ratio of uniformed officers, whose regular duties include responding to calls for service, is just 151 per 100,000 people nationally.

For most local law enforcement agencies, roughly half of the force is devoted to responding to service calls. The New York City Police Department has 39,099 sworn officers; 21,142 of them (or 54%) respond to calls for service from the 9.3 million residents of the city. The Los Angeles Department has 9,573 officers; 5,000 of them (or 52%) respond to calls for aid from the 9.5 million residents. How many calls for service do agencies receive? It varies, of course, but even large departments and cities may find themselves devoting considerable time and resources to dealing with the public. For the year ended June 1999, the California Highway Patrol received more than 4 million 911 and non-emergency calls. Chicago operators, by one count, must field 15 million emergency requests every year.

Approximately 1 in 9 officers perform duties related to jail or court operations. Nearly 44,000 officers had duties primarily related to jails, a figure down about 5.5% from 1996. The number of officers whose primary duties involved administrative or training work increased 36% between 1996 and 2000.

The personnel whose primary duties were in court operations increased 60% between 1996 and 2000, from 22,560 to 36,109 officers.² More officers were needed to provide security at the nation's overburdened court system. The 1980s and 1990s saw the rise of night, family, drug and even mental health courts to address citizens' needs. Indeed, many of the 300 plus drug courts in the country came into existence just in the early 1990s (see Chapter 10 for more information on the court system). Law enforcement personnel were needed to serve papers and documents, to provide security at entrances and throughout the building, to protect judges, and to provide escort services.

What about those who really actively work to solve the cases? Only 15% of sworn personnel (about 105,000) are devoted primarily to investigations. The number of officers represents a 6% increase over the figure for 1996. Some investigators, according to the Department of Labor, may work on special programs to combat specific crimes. Most of the others spend time doing what one sees on numerous police shows: interviewing suspects, reviewing documents, observing suspects, conducting raids, and making arrests.

Between 1996 and 2000, there was a 36% increase in officers performing administrative or training work. More personnel are involved in helping the legal system to run. This is important, to be sure. But when one considers how few crimes are actually cleared by arrest (about 20%), one wonders: should the police be better funded? Should more officers be on the street?

Sources: U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics, Census of State and Local Law Enforcement Agencies, 1996 and 2000; Law Enforcement Management and Statistics, 1999; court data comes from U.S. Department of Justice and job data from the Department of Labor.