Managing Citizen Calls to the Police: an Assessment of Non-Emergency Call Systems
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The author(s) shown below used Federal funds provided by the U.S. Department of Justice and prepared the following final report: Document Title: Managing Citizen Calls to the Police: An Assessment of Non-Emergency Call Systems. Author(s): Lorraine Mazerolle; Dennis Rogan; James Frank; Christine Famega; John E. Eck Document No.: 199060 Date Received: February 14, 2003 Award Number: 98-IJ-CX-0067 This project was supported under award number 98-IJ-CX-0067 to the University of Cincinnati by the National Institute of Justice, with funds transferred from the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services, U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not been published by the U.S. Department of Justice. To provide better customer service, NCJRS has made this Federally-funded grant final report available electronically in addition to traditional paper copies. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. MANAGING CITIZEN CALLS TO THE POLICE: AN ASSESSMENT OF NON-EMERGENCY CALL SYSTEMS A (Revised) Final Report Submitted to the National Institute of Justice Grant # 98-U-CX-0067 Lorraine Mazerolle, Ph.D. School of Criminology and Criminal Justice Grifith University Dennis Rogan, Ph.D. President, Statistical Analysis for Law Enforcement Strategies James Frank, PbD. Division of Criminal Justice University of Cincinnati Christine Famega M.S. Center for Criminal Justice Research University of Cincinnati John E. Eck, Ph.D. Division of Criminal Justice University of Cincinnati October, 200 1 This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Our research was made possible by the full cooperation of people from a number of city agencies in each of the four study sites, Baltimore, Dallas, Phoenix, and Buffalo. In each city we were provided access to communications divisions, police departments, computer operations and city personnel associated with the emergency and non-emergency call systems. While many individuals provided us with assistance during the project, a number in each city deserve special mention. In Baltimore, thenPolice Commissioner Thomas C. Frazier fully supported our research efforts. Also, Gordon Witkin of U.S. News and World Reports, and John Cohen provided valuable historical information about the Baltimore call system. We would especially like to thank Colonel Timothy Long0 formerly of the Baltimore Police Department who, during the course of our research, gave us his support and provided us with access to all facets of Baltimore's police operations. Without his assistance we could not have accomplished our research objectives in Baltimore. Sector managers Lieutenant Vandermuellen, Lieutenant Baratta, and Lieutenant Owens and their staffs are worthy of special mention for helping to ensure that all of our observers were able to ride in the randomly assigned posts during the observation portion of our study in Baltimore. Our most important acknowledgements are to the many patrol officers and community officers who allowed us to accompany them and observe their work routines. We also want to thank a number of people who helped gather, interpret andlor transfer electronic and other types of data associated with the Baltimore call systems. Specifically, Major John Reintzell, Major Dawn Jessa, Sergeant Nelson Hermann, Sergeant Womack and Sergeant Sloan, all of the Communications Division provided access to data, along with Lieutenant Wesley Wise (CAD Administrator); William Daniels (Interim 9- 1-1 Administrator); Suzan Smith (Senior Program Analyst); Dave Alonge &AN Administrative Consultant); and Dave Fmquist (Tiburon Corporation). The City of Dallas also provided unfettered access and assistance during the course of our research on their 3-1-1 call system. We owe a great deal of thanks to City Manager Mary Suhm and people from the Dallas Fire Department, Police Department and Communications and Information Services. Captain Raymond Sweeney, of the Dallas Fire Department acted as the Interim Manager of the Dallas call systems during the period of our research project. Captain Sweeney and Richard Taylor (Assistant Manager, Support Services) provided us with access to the Dallas non-emergency call system personnel and data. Armando Rodriquez (Public Safety Manager); Ron Zeigler (Senior Program Analyst); Corporal Eric Garrett (UCR Administrator); Chief Doug Kowalski (Communications Division); and Lieutenant Mark Stall0 helped gather and transfer call system data in Dallas. Finally, Chief Holliday, Sergeant Ronnel, and Sergeant Zihlman were especially helpful in ensuring that the research team had access to police officers throughout the city. These officers took the time to complete our surveys and answer our questions as we sought to gain a complete understanding of the impact of their city's call system on day-today police operations. We also received tremendous assistance hmthe City of Phoenix during the course of our research project Assistant Police Chief, Gerd J. Kurtenbach, of the Phoenix Police Department as well as Carol J. Campbell of the Phoenix Police Department Communications Bureau organized all of the interviews with police and commUnications personnel and supported our research efforts in their city. Mary K. Strickler (Lead Application AnalystRrogramProject Leader) gave us access to all Phoenix data and provided information concerning operation of Phoenix's non-emergency call system. During our work in Buffalo we were fully supported in our efforts to obtain and understand the Buffalo non- emergency call system. We would especially like to acknowledge the support of Paul Gajewski (9-1-1 Administrator), Captain Gerald Schoenle (Director of Communications) and Ken Kroft (System Administrator). We wish also to acknowledge important contributions by members of our research team. The following individuals contributed to the production of this report; R. Cory Watkins (Dallas Officer Survey), William Terrill (Baltimore Citizen Survey), and Steve Holmes (Phoenix Stakeholder Interviews). Several individuals helped with research activities including Marty Floss (Buffalo Field Consultant), Timothy Godsey (Baltimore Observational Study), Maggie Palazzolo (Baltimore Observational Study) and the Evaluation Services Center of the University of Cincinnati particularly Jennifer Williams and Peggy Davis (Baltimore Citizen Survey). I This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. Claudia Scholz, who spent numerous hours on-site in Baltimore collecting data for the research team, deserves special mention. Finally, we owe a great deal of thanks to the National Institute of Justice for their willingness to support this study and especially Steve Edwards, our project monitor. ii This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 9 The University of Cincinnati Evaluation Team compared and contrasted four technological and operational approaches to handling non-emergency calls for police service. We also examined the impact of implementing non-emergency call systems on the quality and quantity of policing in Baltimore (Maryland) and Dallas (Texas). 9 We compared and contrasted the technological approaches to handling non-emergency calls in four cities. Baltimore (introduced their 3-1-1 system on October 1, 1996); Dallas (introduced their 3-1-1 system in December, 1997); Buffalo (introduced their non-emergency number in October, 1996); and Phoenix (introduced their non-emergency number in April, 1992). > We provided an in-depth analytic assessment of the Baltimore and Dallas 3-1-1 systems. We explored police and s'akeholder perceptions, citizen satisfaction, and the changes in the nature and quantity of 3-1-1 and 9-1-1 calls over time. 9 Our interrupted time series analysis of Baltimore CAD data revealed a large and statistically significant reduction of nearly 5,000 9-1-1 calls per week (25 percent reduction) that can be directly attributable to the introduction of the 3-1-1 call system. > The large drop in 9-1-1 calls, however, was offset by the calls placed to the 3-1-1 call system. The 3-1-1 system adopted about 30 percent of the calls that had previously been placed to the 9-1-1 system. Indeed, our time series analysis reveals virtually no change in the number of calls per week being placed to the BPD as a result of introducing the 3- 1- 1 call system. 9 Some categories of citizen complaints migrated in large numbers fiom the 9-1-1 system to the 3-1-1 system (e.g. larceny, parking, loud noise, destruction of property, gambling and suspicious persons). In some cases, however, the introduction of the 3-1-1 system coincided with an absolute increase in citizen complaints for some categories of crime and disorder. (e.g. loud noise complaints). > The number of Priority One (High Priority) calls received by the Baltimore Police Department increased by about 25 percent following the implementation of the 3-1-1 system. The trend increase in Priority One calls began several months prior to the introduction of 3-1-1 and was most likely driven by an increase in reporting of several specific categories of serious crimes (particularly rape, robbery and burglary). We conclude that the observed increase in Priority One calls was most likely spuriously related to the implementation of the 3-1 - 1 non-emergency call system.