1. Briefly describe the difference and similarities between smaller law enforcement agencies and their urban or suburban counterparts as related by Sims.
Salary: Rural and small town police are paid significantly less than urban or suburban officers, typically, the larger the agency, the larger the salary and vice verse.
Education: The larger the agency, the more years of education the average individual officer is likely to have, possibly due to the more attractive salaries larger agencies offer for college study.
Training: Larger agencies tend to have more training than smaller ones. Limited budgets, resources, and staff seem to limit the amount of training smaller agencies receive as they are less likely to ask or demand federal monies to cover these expenditures.
Age: Lower turn over rate and longer tenure of rural and small town police officers could account for the older age in these areas.
2. Describe some of the job-related factors that compel officers to transfer out of the patrol division and into higher management positions.
Patrol divisions operate twenty-four hours a day, every day of the year meaning officers assigned to patrol must work more weekends, nights, and holidays than many of their counterparts in other units. On days off patrol officers might spend them making court appearances, in turn missing valuable time with their families or participating in other activities not work related. Patrol work can be very dangerous as they are the ones who respond to crimes in progress or those that have just been committed and the financial rewards and professional status in most police departments are reserved for managers, these are some of the reasons patrol officers transfer into higher management positions.
3. Discuss some of the findings of the Kansas City Patrol Experiment as well as some of the patrol alternative strategies utilized since the study.
Some of the findings of the Kansas City Patrol Experiment include...