RCMP Surrey Ride Along Study: General Findings Dr. Darryl Plecas, Amanda V. McCormick, and Dr. Irwin M. Cohen Table of Contents List of Tables and Figures .....................................................................................................................iii General Duty Study: An Analysis of Resource Requirements .............................................................. 1 Methodology ........................................................................................................................................ 2 General Information ....................................................................................................................................... 2 Surrey Ride-Along Characteristics .................................................................................................................. 3 General Member Demographics .................................................................................................................... 5 Results .................................................................................................................................................. 7 Main Activities that General Duty Members Engaged In ............................................................................... 7 Time Spent on Specific Actions..................................................................................................................... 12 Nature of Files .............................................................................................................................................. 18 Future Analyses ............................................................................................................................................ 24 Conclusion .......................................................................................................................................... 26 Appendix A: Codes ............................................................................................................................. 27 Appendix B: Code Book ...................................................................................................................... 31 Appendix C: Data Entry Training ........................................................................................................ 35 Appendix D: Code Explanations ......................................................................................................... 40 Appendix E: UCR Categories and Common Codes ............................................................................. 43 Appendix F: Minutes Spent Per UCR Category Over Day And Night Shifts ....................................... 45 Appendix G: Detailed Methodology .................................................................................................. 46 Recruitment and Security Clearance of Research Assistants ....................................................................... 46 Training ......................................................................................................................................................... 46 Coding Instrument Development ................................................................................................................. 49 Coding Manual.............................................................................................................................................. 49 Codebook...................................................................................................................................................... 50 List of Tables and Figures TABLE 1: POLICE WATCH AND SHIFT CYCLE ...........................................................................................................................3 TABLE 2: MEMBER DEMOGRAPHICS ......................................................................................................................................6 TABLE 3: TIME PER SHIFT SPENT ON MAIN ACTIVITIES ..........................................................................................................8 FIGURE 1: DAYS OF THE WEEK THAT THE RIDE-ALONGS OCCURRED......................................................................................4 FIGURE 2: DISTRIBUTION OF RIDE-ALONGS BY ZONE .............................................................................................................5 FIGURE 3: DISTRIBUTION OF MAIN ACTIVITIES ......................................................................................................................7 FIGURE 4: DISTRIBUTION OF MAIN ACTIVITIES BY ZONE IN AVERAGE MINUTES PER SHIFT ...................................................9 FIGURE 5: DISTRIBUTION OF MAIN ACTIVITIES BY DAY OR NIGHT SHIFT IN AVERAGE MINUTES PER SHIFT .........................10 FIGURE 6: DISTRIBUTION OF MAIN ACTIVITIES BY GENDER IN AVERAGE MINUTES PER SHIFT ............................................ 11 FIGURE 7: MAIN ACTIVITIES BY YEARS OF SERVICE IN AVERAGE MINUTES PER SHIFT ..........................................................12 FIGURE 8: RESPONDING TO CALLS FOR SERVICE OVER THE DAYS OF THE WEEK ..................................................................14 FIGURE 9: RESPONDING TO TYPES OF CALLS FOR SERVICE WITH, WITHOUT, AND AS BACKUP ........................................... 15 FIGURE 10: AMOUNT OF MINUTES TRANSPORTING & BOOKING SUSPECT BY ZONE ...........................................................16 FIGURE 11: AMOUNT OF MINUTES TRANSPORTING & BOOKING SUSPECT BY UCR .............................................................17 FIGURE 12: TOP 10 FILE TYPES ..............................................................................................................................................19 FIGURE 13: TOP 10 UCR GROUPS .........................................................................................................................................20 FIGURE 14: TOP 10 FILES FOR DAY VERSUS NIGHT SHIFTS ...................................................................................................21 FIGURE 15: SPECIFIC ASSAULT OFFENCES ............................................................................................................................22 FIGURE 16: DAYS OF WEEK OF ASSAULT FILES......................................................................................................................22 FIGURE 17: SPECIFIC ASSISTANCE OFFENCES .......................................................................................................................23 FIGURE 18: DAYS OF WEEK OF ASSISTANCE FILES ................................................................................................................24 General Duty Study: An Analysis of Resource Requirements Over the past thirty years, the public has increased their demands for police services which has contributed to RCMP detachments taking on additional responsibilities. At the same time, changes in policing technologies and Canadian case law have increased the number of steps and the amount of time it takes police to perform many of their routine activities. For many RCMP detachments, an increase in the number of members and other resources has not kept pace to the changes to the job of policing or the demands for police services. A common claim from police managers and general duty police officers is that by not adequately increasing resources, there are simply not enough members to do the job. As a result, general duty members claim that they have little to no discretionary time during their shift. In effect, there is a perception within detachments that general duty police officers are so busy responding to calls for service or dealing with paperwork that there is little time for proactive policing or other critical activities. The purpose of this study was to quantify the typical shift of a general duty police officer in Surrey, British Columbia, how often general duty members perform specific activities, the amount of time it takes, on average, for members to perform their daily activities, and the proportion of time out of a typical full shift these routine activities consume. This current report is the first in a series of reports that will examine general duty officers. While this report will focus on the methodology of the study, an analysis of the main actions and activities that general duty officers engaged in, and the amount of time it takes, on average, to perform these activities, subsequent reports will focus, for example, on officer maintenance and health, general patrolling and police driving, and investigative activities. The results provided in this report, as well as the reports to follow, will serve on-duty patrol members as well as those in administrative roles by informing them statistically on the time and task demands of general duty officers. Very few studies have been conducted on police resourcing. To date, none have collected the vast extent of data as collected in the current study. Although the study results specifically provide Surrey RCMP with a detailed picture of the everyday work life of their general duty patrol members, and a detailed picture of the time and resource requirements associated to many calls for service, this study will be of substantial importance to other RCMP and municipal departments across Canada in informing them of the resource requirements faced by police agencies today. 1 Methodology General Information In the spring of 2009, 26 undergraduate students from the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice at the University of the Fraser Valley were recruited for this study which involved them participating in a number of full shift ride-alongs with RCMP general duty officers in Surrey.1 During these ride-alongs, the researchers were required to record every action the member took, how long they were engaged in the action, and what the circumstances were in which the action was taken. Researchers could complete their ride-alongs in any of the five districts in Surrey, namely Newton, Whalley, Guildford, Cloverdale, and South Surrey. They were not assigned to any particular member in advance; this decision was left to the Officer in Charge of each station. Once a student arrived for their shift, they would typically be assigned to a member for the entire 12-hour shift; however, they would be assigned to a different member for the next shift. The bulk of the data was collected between June 15 and August 1, 2009. Over this time period, each student completed 24 ride-alongs. For the purposes of the current report, the data from 441 full shift ride-alongs with general duty members were available for analysis. The codebook was designed by the lead investigators and tested during a ride along. In addition, one of the lead investigators conducted several focus groups with RCMP members to review the available codes and to add any additional ones they thought would be useful. A sample of the codes assigned to different information is available in Appendix A. In brief, the codebook was designed to collect information about: who initiated the activity the member was engaging in; where the member was for each minute of their shift; the role the member was taking on a call for service; the central purpose of the member’s activity during any particular minute; and the specific actions that the member took in relate to the main activity. Throughout the shift, students collected information for every single minute of the member’s time. For each minute, the student could record up to 15 pieces of information. A sample of the codebook used to collect the data is presented in Appendix B. Researchers also collected some basic demographic information on each member that they rode along with, such as the member’s gender, age, and years of service. They also collected some shift information, including date and day of the week, time of the shift, and weather conditions. A page was also provided for students to record what food and drink the member consumed during their shift. 1 For a detailed accounting of the recruiting, training, and development of the research instruments, please see Appendix G. 2 Surrey Ride-Along Characteristics In total, 441 ride-alongs were conducted with 171 different RCMP members. The Surrey RCMP detachment is divided into four watches (A watch through D watch). The 441 ride-alongs were nearly equally divided between these watches (see Table 1). Surrey detachment has a two day shift, two night shift, followed by four days off general duty work schedule. Again, the ride-alongs were nearly evenly distributed between the four days that members work (see Table 1). Given this, it was not surprising that the ride-alongs were also nearly equally divided between day and night shifts. Specifically, of the 299,358 minutes that comprised this study, 49.9% of the minutes were during the dayshift and 50.1% of the minutes were night shift minutes. Table 1: POLICE WATCH AND SHIFT CYCLE % of Ride-Along Minutes 25.1% 25.5% 22.6% 26.4% 24.8% 25.9% 25.2% 23.9% A Watch B Watch C Watch D Watch 1st Day of Shift 2nd Day of Shift 3rd Day of Shift 4th Day of Shift In addition to the distributions outlined in Table 1, the days of the week distribution for the ridealongs was also fairly even. As demonstrated in Figure 1, the lowest proportion of ride-alongs occurred on a Sunday (11.8 per cent), while the highest proportion occurred on a Tuesday (15.7 per cent). In other words, with the fewest ride-alongs, Sundays had 52 ride-alongs, while Tuesday, with the largest number, had 69 ride-alongs. 3 Figure 1: DAYS OF THE WEEK THAT THE RIDE-ALONGS OCCURRED 15.7% 14.1% 15.3% 15.3% 14.8% 13.0% 11.8% Sunday Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday In addition to the four watches, the geography policed by the Surrey detachment is divided into five zones. These zones are Whalley, Guildford, Newton, Cloverdale, and South Surrey. Historically, the zones with the most crime and calls for service, and therefore the highest proportion of members, are Whalley and Guildford. Conversely, the lowest crime zones are Cloverdale and South Surrey. Given this pattern, it was not surprising that of the 441 ride-alongs, nearly one-third (32.4 per cent) were in Whalley, a similar proportion occurred in Guildford (31.1 per cent), and only a small proportion were conducted in Cloverdale (5.9 per cent) and South Surrey (4.1 per cent) (see Figure 2).2 2 It is interesting to note how similar the proportion of ride-alongs per zone was to a previous study conducted by these authors on calls for service in Surrey. That study, which examined all calls for service to the Surrey detachment in 2005, found that 32.2% of all calls originated in Whalley, 21.3% in Guildford, 26.7% in Newton, 9.2% in Cloverdale, and 10.5% in South Surrey. 4 Figure 2: DISTRIBUTION OF RIDE-ALONGS BY ZONE 32.4% 31.1% 24.9% 5.9% 4.1% Whalley Guildford Newton Cloverdale South Surrey Given these findings, the ride-alongs were very evenly distributed by watch, shift cycle, dayshift and nightshift, and days of the week. Moreover, the ride-alongs reflected the calls for service and proportion of members by zone in Surrey. Given the large number of full shift ride-alongs conducted for this study and the distribution of these ride-alongs, it would appear that the sample is an excellent representation of the Surrey RCMP detachment. General Member Demographics As mentioned above, a total of 441 full shift ride-alongs were included in this analysis. These 441 ride-alongs were undertaken by 171 different members. Among these 171 members, 80.7% were male, which was very similar to the gender distribution (80.1 per cent) among the 441 ride-alongs. Similarly, the average age of the 171 members was 30.6 years old, with a range of 20 to 46 years old, while the average age of the member for the 441 ride-alongs was 29.8 years old with the same age range (see Table 2). In terms of months of service, although the range was 3 months to 146 months, or 12 years, the members who participated in the study had approximately two years of service; however, the amount of service was slightly lower when considering all 441 ride-alongs (22.4 months compared to 24.3 months). In terms of member ethnicity, a large proportion of members (81.2 per cent) were Caucasian. Very few members were Asian (7.1 per cent), East Indian (6.5 per cent) or Black (1.2 per cent). In addition, a slight majority of members (52.0 per cent) were either married or living in a common 5 law relationship. A large minority (44.4 per cent) were single. However, there were slight differences when considering the ride-along population. Here, nearly half of participants (49.5 per cent) were single, while 48.6% were either married or in a common law relationship. In effect, it would appear that those members who were slightly younger, had slightly less experience, and were slightly more likely to not be married or living in a common law relationship did more of the ride-alongs. Table 2: MEMBER DEMOGRAPHICS MALE AVG. AGE AVG. MONTHS OF SERVICE CAUCASIAN MARRIED OR COMMON LAW 171 MEMBERS 80.7% 30.6 YEARS OLD 24.3 MONTHS 81.3% 52.0% 6 441 RIDE-ALONGS 80.1% 29.8 YEARS OLD 22.4 MONTHS 84.7% 48.6% Results Main Activities that General Duty Members Engaged In As mentioned in the Methodology section, researchers coded the main activities that members engaged in during each minute of their shift. These specific activities were then grouped into eight categories for analysis. As indicated by Figure 3, the type of activity that comprised the largest proportion of minutes was investigative activities (35.7 per cent), such as taking statements, writing reports, working on pre-existing files, gathering evidence, and conducting surveillance. The next most common main activity was the category of protecting activities (30.1 per cent), which included patrolling, guarding a scene, and responding to calls for service. A very small proportion of a member’s time was spent on court-based activities (0.6 per cent), such as attending court or preparing for disclosure, or in assisting or being assisted by other police agencies or members (2.9 per cent). Figure 3: DISTRIBUTION OF MAIN ACTIVITIES 35.7% 30.1% 9.8% 7.8% 6.9% 5.9% 2.9% Investigative Protecting Preparation Maintenance Suspect Talking to Another Officer Assistance 0.6% Court In terms of the actual number of minutes per shift spent engaged in these main activities, a calculation was performed working from the basis that one shift was 12 hours or 720 minutes long. Using this figure, a member spent, on average, 257 minutes or 4.2 hours of their shift engaged in investigative activities, 217 minutes or 3.6 hours engaged in protecting activities, and 56 minutes on maintenance activities (see Table 3). Again, on average, only a few minutes of each shift was spent on providing assistance to other police agencies (21 minutes per shift) or court-related activities (4 minutes per shift). 7 Table 3: TIME PER SHIFT SPENT ON MAIN ACTIVITIES INVESTIGATIVE PROTECTING PREPARATION MAINTENANCE SUSPECT TALKING TO MEMBERS ASSISTANCE COURT MINUTES PER SHIFT 257 217 71 56 50 43 21 4 HOURS PER SHIFT 4.2 3.6 1.2 0.9 0.8 0.7 0.4 0.1 A significant finding regarding main activities involved the proportion of time spent on member maintenance, which reflected the average amount of time a member spent eating or drinking, taking a coffee break, or having a bathroom break. In a typical 12-hour shift, members are entitled to 85 minutes of maintenance time, which is the equivalent of 11.8% of their shift. However, the study data indicated that members spent only 7.8% or 56 minutes of their shift on these activities. Two-thirds (65.2 per cent) of this time was spent on food breaks, while coffee breaks (18.1 per cent) and bathroom breaks (16.7 per cent) made up the remaining maintenance time. The most common actions associated with taking a food or coffee break were sitting outside of the car (74.8 per cent) and talking with other members (60.5 per cent). Thus, it appears as though when members took a food break, they often did so with other members and spent it outside of their car, for instance, in a restaurant or coffee shop. However, some members spent some, if not all, of their break in their vehicle and/or engaging in other activities, such as working on their mobile data terminal or talking with complainants about their case. These activities will be analyzed more specifically in a future report concerning member maintenance. In addition, while members spent an average of 0.9 hours in maintenance activities, this does not indicate that they spent their maintenance during a single period of time, or whether it was spread out over their shift. This data will also be considered in a future report. Finally, the future member maintenance report will also consider other shift variables, such as when in the shift the member was able to spend time on a break. It would appear that, on average, the amount of time spent per shift on each of the main activities did not differ substantially by zone (see Figure 4). In other words, members spent approximately the same amount of time engaged in each of the main activities, regardless of the zone in which they were providing service. In considering those few cases where there were some differences in the average amount of time spent per shift, in terms of real minutes, the differences were not very substantial. For example, the difference between Newton and Whalley for the proportion of time spent engaged in investigative activities was 36 minutes out of a 12 hour shift. In effect, on a typical shift in Whalley and Newton, general duty members in Newton spent 36 minutes more of 8 their 12 hour shift engaged in investigative activities compared to general duty members in Whalley. The second largest difference in time spent by zone was related to protection activities. Here, the largest difference was between members in South Surrey compared to members in Cloverdale. Again, this was a difference of 35 minute in the amount of time spent engaged in protection activities over a 12 hour shift. With respect to suspect-related activities, the largest difference was between Whalley and Cloverdale (30 minutes), while the largest difference between zones for assistance related activities was an 18 minute difference between Cloverdale and South Surrey. Interestingly, members in South Surrey spent at least 10 minutes less providing assistance to other agencies than members in each of the other 4 zones. There were similar time differences between these two zones for preparation activities (17 minutes), while members in Cloverdale, on average, spent 20 minutes more of their 12 hour shift talking to other officers compared to members in Newton. Of note, when it came to maintenance activities, members in Cloverdale spent less time (ranging from 15 to 19 minutes less) than members in each of the other 4 zones. Figure 4: DISTRIBUTION OF MAIN ACTIVITIES BY ZONE IN AVERAGE MINUTES PER SHIFT South Surrey 254 37 243 9 Cloverdale 264 36 208 27 39 Newton 267 37 229 24 54 71 34 Guildford 269 60 210 19 58 70 48 21 58 70 50 Whalley Investigative 231 Suspect 66 Protecting 219 Assistance Maintenance Preperation 56 64 81 40 54 Talking to Officer The main activities were also examined to determine whether there were any substantial differences in the amount of time devoted to certain activities between day shifts and night shifts.3 3 For this analysis, day shift was defined as 6:00am to 5:59pm, while night shift was defined as 6:00pm to 5:59am. 9 As demonstrated by Figure 5, there were only very minor variations between day shift and night shift. The largest difference was in the amount of time members spent preparing for their shifts. Here, the day shift spent 86 minutes compared to 57 minutes for the night shift; a difference, on average, of 29 minutes over a 12 hour shift. In effect, it would appear that members spent more time during the night shift engagaed in suspect-related activities (15 more minutes over a 12 hour shift) and protecting-related activities (13 minutes), while day shift members spent more time, as mentioned above, on preparation activities when compared to night shift officers. Figure 5: DISTRIBUTION OF MAIN ACTIVITIES BY DAY OR NIGHT SHIFT IN AVERAGE MINUTES PER SHIFT 256 258 211 224 86 45 60 57 22 Investigative Suspect Protecting 54 57 Maintenance Preparation 45 47 20 Assistance Day Shift Talking to Officer Night Shift In terms of gender differences, with respect to the proportion of time spent per shift, there were very small differences for each of the main activities (see Figure 6). For the most part, male and female members did not substantially differ in terms of how much time was spent engaged in the full range of activities that filled their respective shifts. However, males did spend slightly more time per shift on investigative actions than their female counterparts (22 minutes over a 12 hour shift). Similarly, female members spend slightly more time on shift preparation actions (87 minutes), such as preparing for the shift, vehicle maintenance, and attending meetings, compared to their male counterparts (67 minutes). This difference accounted for 20 minutes over a 12 hour shift. In effect, male members spent slightly more time per shift, on average, engaged in investigative, suspect-related, court-related, and assistance-related activities, while female officers 10 spent slightly more time than their male counterparts on maintenance, preparation, and talking to other officer activities. Figure 6: DISTRIBUTION OF MAIN ACTIVITIES BY GENDER IN AVERAGE MINUTES PER SHIFT 262 240 217 217 87 55 56 47 21 5 Investigative Suspect Protecting 58 67 45 51 19 1 Court Assistance Maintenance Preparation Male Talking to Officer Female There were some interesting trends when considering the amount of time an individual had been a member and the amount of time spent per shift on each main activity (see Figure 7). In very general terms, the longer a member had been with the RCMP, the less time they spent on investigative, suspect, court and protecting-related activities, and the more time they spent on maintenance, preparation, and talking to other member activities. A possible explanation for this finding is that more experienced members can complete many of the tasks associated with investigative, suspect, and protecting activities more quickly than less experienced members. For example, while the difference was somewhat small, new members (those with 12 months or less of experience) spent, on average, 270 minutes of their 12 hour shift engaged in investigative activities, such as taking statements, writing reports, working on pre-existing files, or gathering evidence, while the more experienced members spent, on average, 241 minutes engaged in these types of actions; a difference of 29 minutes per 12 hour shift. When it came to suspect-related activities, the more experienced members spent, on average, 11 minutes less than the least experienced members and, when it came to protection-related activities, the more experienced members spent, on average, 12 minutes less than the least experienced members. 11 Similarly, for those activities in which the more experienced members spent more time than their less experienced counterparts, the increases were extremely small when considered in actual minutes over a 12 hour shift. For example, members with more work experience would spend, on average, longer than less experienced members on activities related to preparing for the shift (77 minutes compared to 62 minutes), member maintenance (63 minutes compared to 48 minutes), and talking to other officers (50 minutes compared to 41 minutes) (see Figure 7). Figure 7: MAIN ACTIVITIES BY YEARS OF SERVICE IN AVERAGE MINUTES PER SHIFT 270 257 241 227 57 56 210 215 48 46 3 Investigative Suspect Protecting 3 62 76 77 50 41 47 22 22 20 8 Court 12 Months or Less 59 63 Assistance Maintenance Preparation 1 -2 years Talking to Officer More than 2 Years In effect, what the data tended to demonstrate was that RCMP members in Surrey engaged in very similar activities, which typically took about the same amount of time regardless of the member’s gender, years of experience, which zone they worked in, or whether they were working a day shift or a night shift. Time Spent on Specific Actions As discussed above, investigative activities comprised slightly more than one-third (35.7 per cent) of a member’s shift, or approximately 257 minutes of a 12 hour shift. As indicated by the code book, 16 different actions were part of the Investigative activities category. The actions that comprised the largest proportion of the investigative actions were report writing or report updating (42.2 per cent), working on pre-existing files (20.1 per cent), and talking to other people (12.1 per cent). In effect, during a typical 12 hour shift, general duty members spent, on average, 12 approximately 162 minutes writing or working on reports and files. In future reports, an analysis of the average duration of time a member spends reviewing or updating files will be discussed, as well as an analysis of where the member was spending time updating their files (e.g. in the office versus in the patrol car), and at what point during their shift this occurred (e.g. during the shift, towards the end of the shift, as well as certain time periods throughout the shift, such as the early morning hours). Members often worked on pre-existing files while sitting in the office (65.5 per cent) on a computer workstation (59.2 per cent), or on their mobile data terminal (18.6 per cent) while idling in their police vehicle (19.8 per cent). In terms of writing activities associated with working on preexisting files, members were most likely to be writing an occurrence report (23.9 per cent), writing a report to crown counsel (7.3 per cent), or writing information on PRIME (6.6 per cent) When members engaged in investigative activities, they most commonly were working on assaultrelated files (15.1 per cent); mainly common assault or assault not otherwise specified (46.5 per cent), followed by a domestic dispute (21.1 per cent), assault with a weapon (12.5 per cent), or aggravated assault (11.2 per cent). The remaining assault files investigated by the RCMP included other assaults, such as a fight (5.8 per cent), assault causing bodily harm (2.1 per cent), stabbing (0.8 per cent), and assault on a police officer (0.1 per cent). The next most common type of call investigated were calls for assistance (12.6 per cent). Overwhelmingly, these calls were primarily unspecified assistance or assist general public calls (79.1 per cent). The remaining one-fifth of calls for assistance were to check the well-being of an individual (6.7 per cent), to deal with an unwanted guest (6.3 per cent), to investigate an abandoned vehicle (2.9 per cent), animal-related calls (2.7 per cent), assist with pre-trial (1.2 per cent), or landlord-tenant disputes (1.1 per cent). An additional 30.1% of a general duty member’s shift was spent engaged in protection activities. Nine actions made up this category. The majority of time (54.4 per cent) spent on these activities involved general patrolling, with another 28.2% of time was spent responding to calls for service.4 During a typical 12 hour shift, a general duty member spent 118 minutes engaged in general patrol and 61 minutes responding to calls for service. It is important to note that general patrol reflected any period of time the member was not engaged in another activity, such as when returning to the station or walking to court. For instance, students recorded the members as on general patrol for the minute or two they spent driving away from the scene of a call for service before idling their car while updating their reports on the call. In reality, though the member could potentially be considered as free to take another call, they were not truly on general patrol, but were driving to another location to spend time working on their mobile data terminal. Future analyses will 4 Responding to calls for service indicates physical getting to the call for service. 13 consider whether the member was actually engaged in general patrolling or whether they were engaged in another activity or purpose during that period of time. Members spent a total of 24,701 minutes responding to calls for service. With the exception of Sunday, the proportion of minutes spent responding to calls for service was generally consistent across the days of the week (see Figure 8). In terms of the time of day, members spent slightly more time responding to calls for service during the night shift (52.9 per cent) than the day shift. Figure 8: RESPONDING TO CALLS FOR SERVICE OVER THE DAYS OF THE WEEK 14.2% 14.4% 14.5% 15.4% 15.7% 15.4% 10.4% Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday When responding to calls for service, members responded on their own nearly three-quarters of the time (71.7 per cent). They responded as backup in nearly one-fifth (18.4 per cent) of the remaining calls, whereas they were the lead responder and had backup with them in approximately one-tenth of files (9.8 per cent). When members were providing backup for others, generally they were the only additional police car present (52.6 per cent). Similarly, when they were responding with backup, there was an average of 1.21 police vehicles in addition to their own; most commonly, this involved only one other police vehicle (68.2 per cent). As shown in Figure 9, members spent the most time responding to calls for assistance (18.6 per cent); this was far more common than the next category of abandoned 911 calls (9.4 per cent). When considering just the calls the members responded to without any backup, assistance files were still the most common (20.0 per cent), followed by abandoned 911 calls (8.7 per cent). When the member was responding as backup, the calls continued to primarily concern assistance (16.6 per cent), but assaults became the second most common offence (14.8 per cent) and 14 abandoned 911 calls (13.5 per cent) was the third most common call type. Interestingly, when members responded with backup, provincial acts were the second most common type of call after calls for assistance. Thus, it appeared that members perceived themselves to be in need of assistance when dealing with provincial offences, which were primarily unspecified provincial acts (49.2 per cent) or mental health act/suicide (39.7 per cent), whereas they were more likely to provide back up in assault files. Figure 9: RESPONDING TO TYPES OF CALLS FOR SERVICE WITH, WITHOUT, AND AS BACKUP 20.0% 18.6% 18.3% 16.6% 14.0% 14.8% 13.4% 13.5% 9.4% 8.9% 8.7% 7.0% 6.2% 3.7% 3.4% 2.4% Responding to Calls Responding Alone Assistance Responding As Backup Abandoned 911 Assault Responding With Backup Provincial Acts Nearly all calls for service that members responded to were initiated by dispatch (94.2 per cent); very few calls were initiated by the member themselves (2.9 per cent), other members (1.6 per cent), or supervisors (1.2 per cent). In contrast to the time spent responding to files, a much shorter amount of overall time (6.9 per cent or 50 minutes of a 12 hour shift) was spent engaged in activities involving suspects. The specific activities which took the largest proportion of this time included: talking to a suspect or a person of interest (29.7 per cent of all suspect time or 15 minutes of a 12 hour shift); booking a suspect (18.7 per cent of all suspect time or 9 minutes of a 12 hour shift); and transporting a suspect (16.1 per cent of all suspect time or 8 minutes of a 12 hour shift). 15 Given that time spent transporting a suspect to cells and booking them in represents time a member is unavailable for calls for service, it is important to consider this activity in more detail. A combined variable indicating time spent transporting or booking a suspect was created. There were a total of 7,486 minutes associated with this activity; when divided by the 441 shifts, it appeared as though members spent an average of 17 minutes each shift transporting and booking suspects. There were slight variations on the amount of time spent in this activity between male and female members, with males spending on average, 19 minutes transporting and booking suspects compared to approximately 14 minutes by females. When considering the effect of zone, there also appeared to be some differences as members working in Whalley and Guildford took longer, on average, to transport and book suspects than members in Newton, South Surrey, and Cloverdale. In general, there was a 17 minute difference in time between the zone that spent the most time and the zone spending the least time on this activity. However, this difference likely reflected the greater distance and traffic issues that the Whalley and Guildford zones present to members. Figure 10: AMOUNT OF MINUTES TRANSPORTING & BOOKING SUSPECT BY ZONE 24 21 12 9 7 Whalley Guildford Newton South Surrey Cloverdale There also appeared to be some variation depending on UCR code, with some file types, such as warrant/summons/peace bonds, liquor act offences, breach and bail violations, breach of probation or parole, drugs, possession of stolen property, theft, breach of peace, mischief, and 16 assault resulting in the greatest proportion of time spent transporting and booking a suspect. Interestingly, only the time of day seemed to have no effect, as generally the same proportion of time was spent with transporting and booking suspects in the day (16 minutes) as night (19 minutes). Figure 11: AMOUNT OF MINUTES TRANSPORTING & BOOKING SUSPECT BY UCR 194.4 187.2 164.9 120.9 99.4 88.6 79.2 55.4 52.6 Member maintenance comprised 7.8% of all the minutes recorded in this project. As expected, the action most commonly engaged in under this category was taking a food break. This took up nearly two-thirds (65.2 per cent) of all the time associated to member maintenance. However, when considering a typical 12 hour shift, members spent, on average, 37 minutes on food breaks. It is important to note that this finding reflects a total of 37 minutes of a food break within a 12-hour shift, and does not indicate that the 37 minutes was spent in one uninterrupted period of time. In fact, the 37 minutes could involve several food maintenance breaks over the course of a shift. In effect, a member could take several 10 or 15 minute maintenance breaks over a 12 shift, rather than one single period of break time. Moreover, it is important to keep in mind that, at this point, the analysis did not include what other actions the member was engaged in while on a food break. This information, in addition to an analysis of the average duration of each maintenance break during a shift, and a nutritional analysis of the member’s food and drink consumption, will be available in a future report. 17 Finally, member preparation comprised 9.8% of all the minutes a member spend during their shift, or, on average, 71 minutes of a 12 hour shift. The three main actions that made up this category were attending meetings or briefings (27.6 per cent of the preparation time or 20 minutes per 12 hour shift), shift preparation (36.4 per cent of the preparation time or 26 minutes per 12 hour shift), and office activities (24.3 per cent of all preparation time or 17 minutes). Using the actions related to driving or being in the vehicle (Actions 100 through 107, with the exception of Action 105, from Appendix A), a variable was created to indicate the proportion of time the member spent in the car versus outside of their car. Based on this analysis, members spent just under half (47.7 per cent) of their entire shift in their police vehicles, or 343 minutes (5.7 hours) of their 12 hour shift. A slight majority (52.1 per cent) of this time, members were idling either with (3.8 per cent) or without (48.3 per cent) their emergency lights on, while the remainder of the time (47.9 per cent) was primarily spent driving normally without lights or sirens. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the most common activity the members engaged in while in the car was general patrolling (31.4 per cent), followed by report writing or updating a file (21.8 per cent), and responding to calls for service (15.1 per cent). Thus, the bulk of time spent in the police motor vehicle involving driving to and from calls for service and idling in the vehicle while updating reports. In addition, members used their mobile data terminal more than one-third (37.0 per cent) of the time while driving their vehicle; however, it is important to note that although the data suggested that they were driving normally, with lights and/or siren on, or in pursuit, the data does not actually indicate whether the vehicle was in motion or was stopped at a light or stop sign. Thus, it is unclear from the data whether the member was using their on-board computer while driving, or while stopped or idling in traffic. Nature of Files Data was available on 3,070 unique files, virtually all of which occurred in 2009 (98.1 per cent). However, 49 files were from 2008, six were from 2007, and one was from each of 2005, 2006, and 1998. Wherever possible, students collected data on the nature of the file by using UCR codes. As previously mentioned, if the student recorded a file number, but the UCR code was missing, the UCR data was retrieved at a later date. Through this manner, approximately 80% of the files had a UCR code assigned. UCR codes were aggregated at both a very specific level (e.g. theft under $1000, shoplifting) and also combined into a general category (e.g. theft). When examining the unique files, the most common type of files was assistance-related files (16.5 per cent or 487 files). The next most common type of file was assault (10.8 per cent; 319 files). There were fewer than 250 files for any remaining UCR code. The UCR codes that generated the top 10 files are presented in Figure 10, while Appendix E provides the file counts for all 3,070 files, as well as the most common codes composing each UCR category. While reviewing the top 10 file types, it is 18 important to consider that, whenever possible, attempts were made to avoid sending members with students to extremely serious and/or potentially violent calls, such as homicides or gangrelated files. Given this, the data reflected in the current report is not necessarily indicative of the general nature of files that members attended in the summer of 2009. However, the data remains useful in providing general information about the amount of time and resources spent on a variety of less serious criminal activity. Figure 12: TOP 10 FILE TYPES 16.4% 10.9% 8.4% 5.1% 4.7% 4.2% 4.0% 3.9% 3.8% 3.2% In total, members spent 169,124 minutes or 56.7 per cent of their shift time associated to files. In other words, on average, a member spent 408 minutes or 6.8 hours of their 12 hour shift working on files. Not surprisingly, given that these were the most common types of unique files, the members spent most of their time on files related to assault offences (13.9 per cent) and assistance-related calls (13.0 per cent). A summary of the top 10 UCR groups the members spent time on is provided in Figure 11; all other UCR groups composed less than 3% of the members’ time. 19 Figure 13: TOP 10 UCR GROUPS 13.9% 13.0% 4.9% 4.9% 4.9% 4.8% 4.5% 4.0% 3.2% 3.0% As shown in Figure 12, the most common calls for service differed slightly between the day shifts and the night shifts. Assistance and assault related calls were the most common type of file the members worked on during the dayshift. Interestingly, theft of vehicle and missing persons were also among the top 10 files worked on during the day; however, these were not among the top 10 files worked on during the nightshift. Instead, while assistance and assault calls continued to be the most common files members worked on during the nightshift, the top 10 files at night also included bylaws (primarily noise) and causing a disturbance call, neither of which were particularly common files for the dayshift. 20 Figure 14: TOP 10 FILES FOR DAY VERSUS NIGHT SHIFTS 15.7% 14.0% 12.3% 11.8% 5.7% 5.5% 4.3% 4.2% 4.5% 5.7% 5.6% 4.4% 4.4% 4.3%4.7% 4.2% 3.7% 3.6% Daytime 3.9% 3.5% Nightime When examining the various types of files, it was apparent that certain files were more commonly worked on during the day shift than night shift, and vice versa. For instance, there were a total of 2,747 minutes associated to Sexual Assault files; over half (60.4 per cent) of these minutes were spent during the day shift. In contrast, shots fired files were nearly exclusively worked on during the night shift (94.2 per cent). Appendix F provides a summary of the total number of minutes spent working on a file type and the percentage of that work that occurred during the day shift as opposed to the night shift. Given that two types of UCR codes were involved in more than 10% of all files, these two UCR groups will be analyzed further beginning with assault files. In total, members spent 18,945 minutes dealing with assault offences. Nearly half (44.5 per cent) of all assault offences involved a common assault or an assault not otherwise specified, followed by one-fifth (22.0 per cent) of assault calls specifically concerning domestic incidents (Figure 15). 21 Figure 15: SPECIFIC ASSAULT OFFENCES 44.5% 22.0% 12.2% 8.4% 8.3% 2.4% Assault NOS Domestic Assault w/Weapon Aggravated Other Assault Assault CBH Assault 1.7% 0.5% Stabbing Assault Police Officer Very few assault files originated in either South Surrey (2.7 per cent) or Cloverdale (6.1 per cent); instead, they were typically originated in Guildford (33.1 per cent), Whalley (32.9 per cent), and Newton (25.2 per cent). In general, assault files were most likely to occur on a Thursday (17.2 per cent) and least likely on a Sunday (10.7 per cent) (see Figure 13). Moreover, members were most likely to work on assault files during the night shift (58.1 per cent). Figure 16: DAYS OF WEEK OF ASSAULT FILES 16.6% 17.2% 15.1% 13.9% 14.0% 12.6% 10.7% Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday 22 Friday Saturday Sunday Members spent a total of 17,671 minutes working on assistance-related files. As demonstrated in Figure 14, overwhelmingly, these files involved an unspecified request for assistance or a request to assist the general public (79.3 per cent). A much smaller proportion of files involved all the other types of assistance requests. Figure 17: SPECIFIC ASSISTANCE OFFENCES 79.3% 6.9% 6.8% 2.6% 2.1% 1.5% 0.8% Over one-third (36.5 per cent) of assistance files occurred in Whalley followed by slightly more than one-quarter in Guildford (27.2 per cent) and Newton (26.8 per cent). Again, very few assistance files were generated in South Surrey (5.0 per cent) or Cloverdale (4.6 per cent). As shown in Figure 15, Tuesday (17.7 per cent) was the most common day of the week for members to work on assistance files with the least frequent day being Monday (12.2 per cent). In addition, members were slightly more likely to work on assistance files during the night shift (54.4 per cent). 23 Figure 18: DAYS OF WEEK OF ASSISTANCE FILES 17.7% 15.6% 15.3% 14.0% 12.7% 12.2% Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday 12.5% Friday Saturday Sunday Future Analyses The data presented in this initial report reflect the general trends in police activities over the summer of 2009 in Surrey, British Columbia. In a series of future reports, the lead investigators will continue to analyze this data for more specific trends and practices. As mentioned above, one of these reports will focus specifically on member maintenance activities. It is of interest to the RCMP to determine how often their members are able to engage in self-maintenance activities, such as eating and drinking, or otherwise taking a break. The initial results indicated that general duty members were not engaged in this activity to the extent they should. The member maintenance report will explore this issue further by determining at what point during a shift is a member typically able to take a break and whether this differs between day and night shifts, what the member does during that break, where they take the break, and what food and drink they consume throughout their shift. In addition, demographic and other personal information, such as gender, years of service, whether the member has children, and the estimated hours of sleep prior to the shift were collected; these factors will be compared to member maintenance activities to determine whether they have an effect. Another upcoming report will more specifically analyze general patrol activities. As mentioned above, general patrol was recorded during the times members spent when not responding to a call for service, and when they were potentially looking for criminal activity. Thus, in the minute or two spent driving away from a call for service prior to idling and writing a report on the call, the member was considered to be engaged in general patrol. However, this definition was not truly reflective of general patrol activities which are intended to represent a member who is looking for suspicious activity while waiting to receive a call for service. Thus, the data will be recoded to more 24 accurately reflect whether the member was actively engaged in general patrolling or whether it would be more accurate to consider them as otherwise in service. In addition, the average amount of time a member spent engaging in general patrol, as well as whether the frequency of this activity and the amount of time spent on it varied depending on time of day, day of the week, or any other demographic variable specific to the member will be analysed. As mentioned in this report, data on role status was collected to reflect whether a member was responding to a call alone, as backup, or with backup. This data will be analyzed for a future report with consideration given to the relationship between role status and type of call using UCR groups and specific codes. In addition, the number of members responding to different types of calls will be reviewed, as will other potentially influencing factors, such as time of day, day of the week, and member demographics. The current report contained a brief discussion on the proportion of time members spent in their police vehicle and the activities they engaged in during that time. A future report will involve a more detailed analysis of the member’s “life in the car”. This is a particularly important report, as the data indicated that approximately half of their full 12-hour shift was spent in a car, primarily while patrolling or writing reports. As noted, members appeared to frequently use their mobile data terminals while driving their vehicle; this finding will be explored in more detail in the upcoming report. This report will also consider the nature of police vehicles and recommendations to improve conditions in the vehicle, such as providing space for beverages to support member maintenance activities. A series of reports will be produced focusing specifically on the different types of main activities engaged in by members. For instance, one such report will review the investigative activities in more detail. Specifically, the actions engaged in while investigating, such as talking with complainants, updating pre-existing files, or re-examining the scene will be analysed. The particular UCR code associated to these offences will also be reviewed. Demographic variables, such as gender and years of service, and shift variables, such as the day of the week and time during the shift, will also be analysed in greater detail to determine any possible effects on member participation in investigative activities. Similar reports will be produced for the other Main Activity groups. Another report will explore the various activities associated to UCR code groups. For instance, members spent 4.9% of their time dealing with calls for service involving break and enter offences. Within this report, a number of critical offences, such as break and enter will be analysed. As part of this review, an analysis of the activities associated to break and enter offences, such as responding to the call for service, writing reports, and talking to suspects and/or complainants will be included. In addition, the various specific types of break and enter offences will be reviewed in relation to these factors, as well as in relation to other factors like zone and watch. Other 25 commonly occurring UCR codes or those of particular interest to the RCMP will be included in this report. Conclusion The current report summarized the general trends in police activities over the summer of 2009. Given this general analysis, it would appear that on a typical 12 hour shift, a general duty member in Surrey could expect to engage in nearly 3 hours of report writing and working on pre-existing files, which were most commonly assault or assistance-related, nearly 2 hours engaged in general patrol, one hour driving to attend calls for service, and slightly more than half an hour eating a meal. The rest of the time, the member would likely be engaged in other investigative, protection, and preparation activities. Very little time would be used providing assistance to other police agencies or court-related activities. This data will continue to be analyzed in a series of upcoming reports, each with a specific focus on particular activities of interest to the RCMP. 26 Appendix A: Codes RCMP Ride Along Study 27 Code Manual Initiation of Assignment Member Location Role Status (Column 3) (Column 4) (Column 5) 1 = 911/Dispatch 1 = At Station 1 = Alone 2 = Supervisor 2 = At Scene 2 = As Back-Up 3 = Other Member 3 = En Route 3 = With Back-Up 4 = Citizen 4 = Otherwise in Service 4 = Not applicable 5 = Self-generated 5 = Main Detachment 6 = Other supervisor (e.g. courts) 28 Main Activity (Column 7) Investigative Activity Court Activity 1 – Securing Scene 40 – Discussing with Prosecutor 2 – Examining Scene 41 – Attending Pre-trial Matters 3 – Searching for Evidence 42 – Attending Trial 4 – Gathering Physical Evidence 43 – Preparing Disclosure 5 – Securing Evidence 44 – Post-Court Activity 6 – Logging Evidence 45 – Reviewing Files (pre-court prep) 7 – Canvas Neighbourhood Area 46 – Curfew Checks 8 – Doing Surveillance 9 – Executing a Warrant Assistance Activity 10 – Background Invest/Query Information 50 – Assisting Other Police Agency 11 – Report Writing/Updating 51 – Seeking Assistance from Other Police Agencies 12 – Taking statement 52 – Assisting Non-Police Agencies 13 – Arranging photo line up 53 – Seeking Assistance from Non-Police Agencies 14 – Writing GOA File 54 – Providing assistance otherwise 15 – Work on Pre-existing files 55 – Waiting for Assistance from Police 16 – Talking to other 56 – Waiting for Assistance from Non-Police (e.g. tow truck, EHS, Suspect Activity Mental Health) 20 – Searching for Suspect 57 – Training other Police (e.g. recruits) 21 – Chasing Suspect 22 – Arresting Suspect Maintenance Activity 23 – Detaining Suspect 60 – Vehicle Maintenance (gas, inspections...) 24 - Transporting Suspect 61 – Member Maintenance (pit stop) 25 – Booking Suspect 62 – Member Maintenance (food break) 26 – Interviewing Suspect 63 – Member Maintenance (coffee break) 27 – Talking to suspect/POI 64 – Office Activities/Maintenance (fixing equipment, photocopying, Protecting Activity printing) 30 – General Patrolling 65 – Shift prep 31 – Proactive Patrolling 32 – Guarding Scene Supervision Activity (Corporals) 33 – Guarding Victim 70 – Providing Guidance to Members 34 – Waiting /Guarding Victim at Hospital 71 – Manpower Resourcing (e.g. staff shortage) 35 – Guarding Suspect 36 – Guarding Suspect at Hospital Other 37 – Traffic Control 80 – Meetings / Briefings 38 – Responding to Call for Service 81 – Talking to other members 39 – Traffic stop 29 Actions 1 through 6 (Columns 9 to 14) Driving Physical Activity 100 – Normal Driving 200 – Sitting (not in car) Talking Writing/Typing Using Equipment 300 – Dispatch 400 – Occurrence Report 500 – Using Radio 301 – Other Members 401 – Info to Obtain a Warrant 501 – Using Cell phone 201 – Standing (under 30 seconds) 102 – Code 1: Lights Without Siren 202 – Standing (over 30 seconds) 303 – Complainant 103 – Code 3: Lights & Siren 203 – Walking (under 30 seconds) 305 – Uncooperative Victim 105 – Other Travel Mode (e.g. helicopter) 106 – Flipping lights 107 – Idling with lights 204 – Walking (over 30 seconds 205 – Running (under 30 seconds) 206 – Running (over 30 seconds) 302 – Supervisor 403 – Report to Crown 306 – Witness 307 – Chargeable Suspect 308 – Other Suspect/POI 309 – Emergency Services (e.g. fire/ambulance) 207 – Climbing Stairs 208 – Climbing onto and over Obstacles 311 – Other Interview 210 – Lifting over 50 lbs 402 – Arrest Report 304 – Cooperative Victim 310 – Personal Communication 209 – Lifting under 50 lbs 600 – Verbal 601 – Tussle 101- Idling 104 – Pursuit Use of Force 404 – Search Warrant 405 – MVA Report 505 – using flashlight 406 – Writing a Ticket 506 – radar 407 – Coroner’s Report 507 – camera 408 – Admin/HR Reports 508 – workstation computer 602 – Wrestling 603 – Dragging 604 – Full Scale Fight 605 – Baton (Hand On) 606 – Baton (Taken Out) 410 – Querying Information 411 – Taking Notes 412 – Other 313 – talking to other agencies 503 – Using MDT 504 – Using other equipment 409 – Entering Info onto PRIME 312 – Other Talking 502 – Using Landline 607 – Baton (Used) 608 – OC (Hand On) 609 – OC (Taken Out) 610 – OC (Used) 611 – Tazer (Hand On) 509 – voice recorder 612 – Tazer (Taken Out 613 – Tazer (Used) 614 – Firearm (Hand On) 615 – Firearm (Snap Open) 616 – Firearm (Drawn) 617 – Firearm (Pointed) 211 – Bending 618 – Firearm (Discharged) 212 – Kneeling 619 – Used Vehicle 213 – Swimming 620 - handcuffing 214 – Crawling 215 – Jumping 216 – frisking suspect 217 – searching suspect belonging/ vehicle 218 – gaining entry 30 Appendix B: Code Book Surrey RCMP Project General Duty Patrol and Investigation Study: An Analysis of Resource and Organizational Requirements Coding Manual Patrol Study (Baseline Data Component) 31 Student Date of Shift (mm.dd) |____|____| / |____|____| MEMBER DEMOGRAPHICS # Code 1. 2. 3. Variable Name Coding Member ID # Age The member’s regimental number How old is the Member? # of years (round to closest) Gender of the Member 0 = Male 1 = Female Gender 4. feet/inches Height Members Height. 5. lbs Weight The Member’s weight. The Member’s ethnicity 1 = Caucasian 2 = Asian 3 = East Indian 4 = Hispanic 5 = Black 6 = Other The Member’s marital status 1 = Single 2 = Common-law 3 = Married 4 = Divorced 5 = Widowed Does the Member have any children? 0 = No 1 = Yes Member’s total months of service (may include multiple detachments/departments) 6. Ethnicity 7. Marital Status 8. Member Family 9. Member # Months Service Member’s Current Position 10. 11. Member’s current position 1 = GD Constable 2 = Detective 3 = Corporal What time is the shift staring? 24 hour clock Where is the current shift in the Member’s shift cycle st nd rd th 1 = 1 shift 2 = 2 shift 3 = 3 shift 4 = 4 shift 5 = Overtime If the scheduled shift is an overtime/extra shift, which day of the days off would this be? st nd 1 = 1 day off 2 = 2 day off rd th 3 = 3 day off 4 = 4 day off 5 = vacation day 6 = N/A (not on overtime) # of days since last shift How many hours of sleep did the member get before this current shift? (please round to closest hour) Which watch is the Member with? 1 = A Watch 2 = B Watch 3 = C Watch 4 = D Watch What zone is the Member working in? 1 = Whalley 2 = Guildford 3 = Newton 4= Cloverdale 5 South Surrey What is the general weather like at the start of the shift? 1 = Clear 2 = Cloudy 3 = Raining What day of week is the shift on? 1 = Monday 2 = Tuesday 3 = Wednesday 4 = Thursday 5 = Friday 6 = Saturday 7 = Sunday Time of Shift 12. Shift Cycle 13. Overtime Shift 14. 15. Days since Last Shift Sleep Hours 16. Watch 17. Zone 18. Shift Weather 19. Day Week 20. 21. 22. Cst total: Cpl total: Det total: Start End # Members on Watch Number of Members on the watch KM Total # KM at start/end of shift Overtime Checkmark in box provided on left if member worked overtime after you left 32 Nutrition Information In the table below, please record what FOOD and DRINK the member consumed during the shift. Examples – 1 large coffee, 1 fast food sandwich, 1 energy drink, 1 granola bar, 1 glass water, etc. Food Item Item Item Item Item Item Drinks Snacks 33 Time Not w/Member: Column 1 Column 2 Column 3 Column 4 Column 5 Column 6 Column 7 Column 8 Column 9 Column 10 Column 11 Column 12 Column 13 File Cleared: checkmark UCR/10 Code File # 09-_ _ _ _ _ _ Initiation Location Role Status # Other Cars Main Activity Action #1 Action #2 Action #3 Action #4 Action #5 Action #6 600. 601. 602. 603. 604. 605. 606. 607. 608. 609. 610. 611. 612. 613. 614. 34 Appendix C: Data Entry Training Surrey RCMP Project General Duty Patrol and Investigation Study: An Analysis of Resource and Organizational Requirements Data Coding Manual Patrol Study (Baseline Data Component) General Data Entry Comments • • • We need to distinguish between missing data and data that is not applicable o Whenever you SHOULD HAVE recorded information but you forgot, this is missing data – please enter -99 into the database whenever this occurs o If something does not apply (e.g. you did not have a file number because you were on general patrol) leave the cell blank You will need to enter the minute AND the time into the database for each coding sheet o Minute: in this column, type in 1 and continue through to 720 (a 12 hour shift works out to 720 minutes) o Time: in this column, type in the time associated with each minute o E.g. if you started recording data at 1835, type in 1835 next to minute 1, 1836 next to minute 2, etc. Member info o You will need to enter in the page 1 data on the member for Minute 1 – you should then copy and paste this data all the way through until the last minute of your shift 35 Student enter your first name Date of Shift (mm.dd) |____|____| / |____|____| enter year also MEMBER DEMOGRAPHICS # Code Variable Name Coding Enter the number Member ID # The member’s regimental number Enter the number Age How old is the Member? # of years (round to closest) Enter the corresponding # (0 or 1) Gender Gender of the Member 0 = Male 1 = Female 26. Enter this amount in INCHES (12 inches in a foot) Height 27. Enter weight rounding to the closest total number Weight Enter the corresponding # Ethnicity Enter the corresponding # Marital Status Enter the corresponding # Member Family Enter a whole number Member # Months Service Member’s total months of service (may include multiple detachments/departments) Enter the corresponding # Member’s Current Position Member’s current position 1 = GD Constable 2 = Detective 3 = Corporal Enter the 3 or 4 digit # using 24 hour clock (e.g. 635 or 1810) Time of Shift What time is the shift staring? 24 hour clock Enter the corresponding # Shift Cycle Enter the corresponding # Overtime Shift 1 = 1st day off 3 = 3rd day off 5 = vacation day Enter a whole number Days since Last Shift # of days since last shift Enter a whole number Sleep Hours How many hours of sleep did the member get before this current shift? (please round to closest hour) Enter the corresponding # Watch 1 = A Watch 3 = C Watch Enter the corresponding # Zone 1 = Whalley 4 = Cloverdale Enter the corresponding # Shift Weather What is the general weather like at the start of the shift? 1 = Clear 2 = Cloudy 3 = Raining Enter the corresponding # Day Week What day of week is the shift on? 1 = Monday 2 = Tuesday 3 = Wednesday 4 = Thursday 5 = Friday 6 = Saturday 7 = Sunday Cst total: Enter a whole number Cpl total: Enter a whole number Det total: Enter a whole number # Members on Watch Number of Members on the watch KM Total # KM at start/end of shift Overtime Checkmark in box provided on left if member worked overtime after you left 23. 24. 25. Members Height. The Member’s weight. 28. The Member’s ethnicity 1 = Caucasian 2 = Asian 3 = East Indian 4 = Hispanic 5 = Black 6 = Other The Member’s marital status 1 = Single 2 = Common-law 3 = Married 4 = Divorced 5 = Widowed Does the Member have any children? 0 = No 1 = Yes 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. Where is the current shift in the Member’s shift cycle 1 = 1st shift 2 = 2nd shift 3 = 3rd shift 4 = 4th shift 5= Overtime If the scheduled shift is an overtime/extra shift, which day of the days off would this be? 35. 36. 37. 38. Which watch is the Member with? 39. 41. 43. 2 = B Watch 4 = D Watch What zone is the Member working in? 40. 42. 2 = 2nd day off 4 = 4th day off 6 = N/A (not on overtime) Start Enter the number (round) 2 = Guildford 5 =South Surrey 3 = Newton End (round) 44. If checkmarked, enter a 1 If not, enter a 0 36 Time 615. 616. 617. 618. 619. 620. 621. Not w/Member: Column 1 Column 2 Column 3 Column 4 Column 5 Column 6 Column 7 Column 8 Column 9 Column 10 Column 11 Column 12 Column 13 File Cleared: checkmark UCR/10 Code File # 09-_ _ _ _ _ _ Initiation Location Role Status # Other Cars Main Activity Action #1 Action #2 Action #3 Action #4 Action #5 Action #6 When there is a checkmark enter a 1 in the “cleared” column. In the next column “stacked” please enter the number of calls stacked. If you forgot to write it down, please record a -99 622. 623. 624. 625. 626. 627. 628. If the member is away from you (i.e. coded with *) please enter a 1 into the variable “away” for all minutes where you are away from them. Otherwise, leave this column blank Enter the numeric code OR If you do not have a UCR number, type -99 into this column AND in the next column “UCR_ other” write in the description of the event -e.g. trespassing If not applicable leave this blank If you have a file number, enter this in EXCLUDIN G the 09 If the file is from another year, enter this into the “file_year ” variable For each of these variables, enter the code corresponding with the right option. Enter the number. For each of these variables, enter the code corresponding with the right option. Main activity: enter the number that applies in the column– e.g. if they were doing surveillance at minute 721 then in the row associated with minute 721, enter an 8 in the column “Main” E.g. if initiation was at 2310 by the member, enter a “5”under “initiation” in the row associated with time 2310 Actions: enter the number that applies in each of the columns – e.g. if they were handcuffing a suspect while talking to another member, enter a 620 under the “Action1” column and a 301 under the “Action2 column. There are up to 9 actions that you can record for each minute (just in case you had any extras) If you are MISSING the file number (you should have one but you don’t), enter -99 If this does not apply (you are not working on a file), leave it blank 629. Extra Comments If you do not have any extra notes or comments to enter, in the variable “notes” enter a 0 for no. If you DO have notes/comments, enter a 1 for yes and then use the final variable “comments” to enter up to 999 characters for any other comments that you have 37 Student Sample Date of Shift (mm.dd) 07.03 MEMBER DEMOGRAPHICS # 45. 46. 47. Code Variable Name Coding 0 Member ID # The member’s regimental number 33 Age How old is the Member? # of years (round to closest) 0 Gender Gender of the Member 0 = Male 1 = Female Height Members Height. The Member’s weight. 48. 6’0 49. 185 lbs Weight 2 Ethnicity 4 Marital Status 1 Member Family Does the Member have any children? 0 = No 1 = Yes 19 Member # Months Service Member’s total months of service (may include multiple detachments/departments) 1 Member’s Current Position Member’s current position 1 = GD Constable 2 = Detective 3 = Corporal 1800 Time of Shift What time is the shift staring? 24 hour clock 2 Shift Cycle Where is the current shift in the Member’s shift cycle 1 = 1st shift 2 = 2nd shift 3 = 3rd shift 6 Overtime Shift If the scheduled shift is an overtime/extra shift, which day of the days off would this be? 1 = 1st day off 2 = 2nd day off 3 = 3rd day off 4 = 4th day off 5 = vacation day 6 = N/A (not on overtime) 58. 0 Days since Last Shift # of days since last shift 59. 5 Sleep Hours How many hours of sleep did the member get before this current shift? (please round to closest hour) 3 Watch Which watch is the Member with? 1 = A Watch 2 = B Watch 3 = C Watch 4 = D Watch 1 Zone What zone is the Member working in? 1 = Whalley 2 = Guildford 3 = Newton 4 = Cloverdale 5 = South Surrey 2 Shift Weather What is the general weather like at the start of the shift? 1 = Clear 2 = Cloudy 3 = Raining 4 Day Week What day of week is the shift on? 1 = Monday 2 = Tuesday 3 = Wednesday 4 = Thursday 5 = Friday 6 = Saturday 7 = Sunday # Members on Watch Number of Members on the watch KM Total # KM at start/end of shift Overtime Checkmark in box provided on left if member worked overtime after you left feet/inches 50. 51. 52. 53. 54. 55. 56. 57. 60. 61. 62. 63. 64. The Member’s ethnicity 1 = Caucasian 2 = Asian 3 = East Indian 4 = Hispanic 5 = Black 6 = Other The Member’s marital status 1 = Single 2 = Common-law 3 = Married 4 = Divorced 5 = Widowed 4 = 4th shift 5 = Overtime Cst total: 7/5 Cpl total: 1/1 Det total: 2/2 65. Start 159,000 End missing 66. yes 38 Not w/Member: Column 1 Column 2 Column 3 Column 4 Column 5 Column 6 Column 7 Column 8 Column 9 Column 10 Column 11 Column 12 Column 13 File Cleared: checkmark UCR/10 Code File # 09-_ _ _ _ _ _ Initiation Location Role Status # Other Cars Main Activity Action #1 Action #2 Action #3 Action #4 Action #5 Action #6 604 1 4 80 605 1 4 80 606 1 4 80 607 1 4 65 201 204 300 500 503 608 4 1 30 100 609 4 1 0 30 100 2 1 0 39 300 500 102 203 202 308 Time 600 601 602 603 610 9320 0 611 9320 0 2 1 0 27 202 307 300 500 612 9320 0 2 1 0 23 202 307 203 216 620 411 9320 0 2 1 0 27 202 307 411 406 503 409 4 1 0 30 100 503 300 3 1 0 38 103 500500 300 301 211 301 500 613 Checkmark 0 3 614 615 1610 1 1 616 “ “ 2 3 1 20 204 617 “ “ 2 3 1 20 Missing 618 “ “ 2 3 1 22 202 308 216 620 619 1610 1 3 1 0 24 100 503 500 300 39 Appendix D: Code Explanations Investigative Codes 1 - Securing Scene 2 – Examining Scene 3 – Searching for Evidence 4 – Gathering Physical Evidence 5 – Securing Evidence 6 – Logging Evidence 7 – Canvas Neighbourhood Area 8 – Doing Surveillance 9 – Executing a Warrant 10 – Background Investigation/Query Info 11 – Report Writing/Updating 12 – Taking statement 13 – Arranging photo line up 14 – Writing GOA file 15 – Work on Pre-Existing Files 16 – Talking to Other Explanation Steps taken by member to ensure scene is secure, such as setting up tape Looking around the scene, getting familiar with the scene Actually looking for evidence Collecting evidence Noting the contents, writing information such as who collected evidence Recording the evidence at the station Investigation neighbourhood, talking to neighbours Staking out a place/person Delivering or enforcing a warrant, such as for arrest Looking up information, such as on the computer Writing information about a call for service from the current shift into a record Taking information from someone, such as a witness or complainant Putting together an identification line up for a witness or complainant Recording information on a file that was Gone on Arrival, such as reports of an impaired driver the member could not find Working on a file from a previous shift, includes visiting witnesses or complainants, returning to the scene, reviewing a file Talking to people other than the suspect or another member 40 Suspect Codes 20 – Searching for Suspect 21 – Chasing Suspect 22 – Arresting Suspect 23 – Detaining Suspect 24 – Transporting Suspect 25 – Booking Suspect 26 – Interviewing Suspect 27 – Talking to Suspect or Person of Interest Protecting Codes 30 – General Patrol 31 – Proactive Patrol 32 – Guarding Scene 33 – Guarding Victim 34 – Waiting/Guarding Victim at Hospital 35 – Guarding Suspect 36 – Waiting/Guarding Suspect at Hospital 37 – Traffic Control 38 – Responding to Call for Service 39 – Traffic Stop Court Codes 40 – Discussing with Prosecutor 41 – Attending Pre-Trial Matters 42 – Attending Trial 43 – Preparing Disclosure 44 – Post-Court Activity 45 – Reviewing Files (pre-court prep) 46 - Curfew Checks Explanation Looking for a suspect Running or driving after a suspect Placing the suspect under arrest, as indicated by the member stating to the suspect that they are arresting them Holding the suspect for future talking, questioning Taking suspect to a location, such as the main detachment for booking In main detachment, taking fingerprints, photos, recording suspect information in computer Officially talking to a suspect, e.g. taking a statement To be used when not in an official interview, e.g. talking to a potential impaired driver Explanation When not responding to a call, driving or walking while being on the lookout for suspicious activity Specifically patrolling an area known for crime, such as a hot spot for prostitution or a Road Check Remaining at a scene to prevent tampering Staying with a victim for protection, outside of hospital Staying with the victim while in hospital Staying with the suspect, outside of hospital Staying with the suspect while in hospital Directing vehicle traffic, such as at the scene of an accident Proceeding to a call, includes driving to the scene Pulling over a vehicle Explanation Preparing for court with Crown Attending meetings before trial Testifying, court presence Working on reports for court Attending to matters following court, with exception of curfew orders Preparing for court by reviewing files Checking on curfew orders, e.g. with youth offenders 41 Assistance Codes 50 – Assisting other Police Agency 51 – Seeking Assistance from other Police Agencies 52 – Assisting Non-Police Agencies 53 – Seeking Assistance from Non-Police Agencies 54 – Providing Assistance Otherwise 55 – Waiting for Assistance from Police 56 – Waiting for Assistance from NonPolice 57 – Training other Police Explanation Helping another police agency, such as New West Asking for help from another police agency, such as Burnaby Helping other agencies, such as Fire Services Asking for help from other agencies, such as MCFD Helping someone; doesn’t fall into another category of assistance, such as helping another member from Surrey Waiting for another police agency to provide help Waiting for help from an agency like EHS, tow trucks Training recruits Maintenance Codes 60 – Vehicle Maintenance 61 – Member Maintenance (pit stop) 62 – Member Maintenance (food) 63 – Member Maintenance (coffee) 64 – Office Activities/Maintenance 65 – Shift Prep Explanation Gas, vehicle inspection pre/post shift Bathroom breaks Lunch/Dinner break Coffee break Working in office, such as printing, photocopying Getting ready for shift, such as logging onto MDT Supervision Codes 70 – Providing Guidance to Members 71 – Manpower Resourcing Explanation Corporals helping general duty throughout shift Coordinating staff, e.g. due to staff shortage Other Codes 80 – Meetings/Briefings 81 – Talking to other Members Explanation Meetings about cases, pre-shift briefings Conversing with other members, including discussions regarding a call 42 Appendix E: UCR Categories and Common Codes UCR Category5 Assistance Assault Abandoned 911 Theft Break and Enter Bylaws Cause Disturbance Intimidate/Threat/Harass Alarms Motor Vehicle Collision Traffic Violations/Offences Theft of Vehicle Provincial Acts Susp. Person/Vehicle/Occurr. Breach of Peace Mischief Drugs Impaired Driving Sexual Assault/Act Fraud Assist other Agency/Police Missing Persons Liquor Act Weapons/Explosives Robbery 5 # of Files 487 319 249 150 141 124 120 116 111 95 94 84 81 76 73 69 52 48 44 43 41 39 35 31 30 Top 3 UCR Codes Unspecified Assist (404), Check Wellbeing (32), Unwanted Guest (28) Assault (148), Domestic (62), Assault w/Weapon (46), Other Assault (46) Abandoned 911 (249) Theft under $5000 (78), Theft not otherwise specified (NOS) (32), Shoplifting (30) B&E NOS (104), B&E Residential (28), B&E Commercial (9) Bylaw NOS (74), Bylaw-Noise (49), Bylaw-Litter (1) Cause a Disturbance (118), Nuisance/Annoyance (2) Threats (89), Harassing/Obscene Phone Call (13), Criminal Harassment (11) False Alarm (47), Alarm NOS (46), House Alarm (8) MVA Under $1,000 (36), MVA NOS (35), MVA Over $1,000 (13) Traffic Violation/Other Traffic Offence (46), Fail Stop/Remain (28), Drive while Prohibited (6) Theft of Vehicle Under $5,000 (35), Theft of Vehicle NOS (33), Theft of Truck Under $5,000 (7) Mental Health Act (52), Provincial Act NOS (11), Other Provincial, not Traffic (6) Suspicious Person, Vehicle, or Occurrence (76) Breach of Peace (73) Mischief NOS (38), Mischief under $5,000 (28), Mischief/Impersonate (3) Possession (20), Drugs NOS (14), Trafficking (11) Impaired Driver NOS (43), Drive Motor Vehicle over 80 mg (2), 24-hour Roadside Prohibition (2) Sexual Assault NOS (25), Indecent Act/Exposure (11), Sexual Assault with a Weapon (3) Fraud NOS (35), Fraud/Credit Card Debt (5), Fraud-Cheque (2) Assist other Agency (34), Assist other Police (5), CPIC/Index Check (2) Missing Persons NOS (39) Drunk in Public Place (27), Liquor Act NOS (5), Consume Liquor in Public Place (3) Weapon NOS (15), Weapon Possession (7), Careless Use of Firearm (6) Robbery NOS (23), Robbery with Other Offensive Weapon (6), Robbery with Firearm (1) Of the 3,070 files, the UCR category was unknown for 118. 43 UCR Category Property Breach/Bail Violation Theft from Vehicle Warrant/Summons/Peace Bond Shots Fired Breach Probation/Parole Other Federal Act Possession Stolen Property Dangerous Driving Arson Prostitution Kidnap/Abduct Hot Spot Counterfeit Trespass Other Criminal Code Bomb Threat/Threat Assessment Possession B&E Tools Prohibition Order – Weapons Inspections Homicide Extortion Abandoned Child Obstruct Peace Officer Conspiracy Other Permit Issue Intelligence Prisoners Held # of Files 26 21 19 18 17 17 14 13 10 6 5 4 4 3 3 3 3 2 2 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 Top 3 UCR Codes Recover Stolen Property (21), Unsecure Premises (4), Lost Property (1) Breach / Bail Violation NOS (21) Theft from Motor Vehicle (MV) under $5,000 (16), Theft from MV over $5,000 (2), Theft from MV NOS (1) Warrant NOS (13), Summons (4), Peace Bond (1) Shots Fired (17) Breach Probation Adult (13), Breach Parole and Conditional Relations Act (3), Breach CSO (1) Firearms Act (9), Immigration Act (2), Family Orders and Agreements (2) Possession of Stolen Property under $5,000 (9), Possession of Stolen Property Over $5,000 (4) Dangerous Driving (6), Dangerous Operation of a Motor Vehicle (3), Dangerous Op. – Evade Police (1) Arson – Property (6) Prostitution (5) Kidnap (3), Abduction Under 14 Years Old (1) Hot Spot Checks (4) Counterfeit Currency (3) Trespass (3) Other Criminal Code Offences NOS (3) Bomb Threat (2), Threat Assessment (1) Possession of Break and Enter Instruments (2) Prohibition Order for Weapons Firearm Dealer Inspection Homicide Extortion Abandoned Child Obstruct Peace Officer Conspiracy Other Permit Issue Intelligence Prisoners Held 44 Appendix F: Minutes Spent Per UCR Category Over Day And Night Shifts UCR Category Assault Assistance Abandoned 911 Break and Enter Intimidate/Threaten/Harass Theft Provincial Acts Traffic Violations/Offences Theft of Vehicle Breach of Peace Missing Persons Cause Disturbance Impaired Driving Bylaws Susp. Person/Veh./Occurr. Sexual Assault/Act Robbery Mischief Drugs Fraud Alarms Motor Vehicle Collision Weapons/Explosives Breach/Bail Violation Assist Other Police/Agency Liquor Act Number of Minutes Per Cent of Day Shift Per Cent of Night Shift UCR Category Number of Minutes Per Cent of Day Shift Per Cent of Night Shift 18342 17466 6649 6624 6543 6435 5980 4264 4029 3655 3525 3510 3503 3239 2789 2747 2684 2563 2550 2487 2321 2089 2030 1674 1592 1303 41.9% 45.6% 42.8% 56.1% 41.2% 55.9% 46.7% 49.5% 72.9% 44.1% 68.9% 32.2% 38.0% 19.2% 51.4% 60.4% 50.8% 64.1% 56.2% 78.4% 43.8% 54.4% 36.3% 53.9% 45.9% 41.7% 58.1% 54.4% 57.2% 43.9% 58.8% 44.1% 53.3% 50.5% 27.1% 55.9% 31.1% 67.8% 62.0% 80.8% 48.6% 39.6% 49.2% 35.9% 43.8% 21.6% 56.2% 45.6% 64.0% 46.1% 54.1% 58.3% Shots Fired Property Warrant/Summons/Peace Bond Breach Probation/Parole Kidnap/Abduct Theft from Vehicle Possession of Stolen Property Dangerous Driving Other Federal Act Arson Prostitution Conspiracy Bomb Threat/Threat Assess Counterfeit Other Criminal Code Abandoned Child Trespass Possession B&E Tools Obstruct Peace Officer Extortion Inspections Other Permit Issue Prohibition Order Homicide Intelligence Shots Fired 1267 1193 1187 1055 713 621 592 399 366 298 165 135 122 111 101 64 43 34 29 23 18 16 8 6 5 1267 5.8% 76.3% 54.5% 64.5% 89.9% 60.7% 91.7% 64.7% 39.6% 39.9% 61.2% 100% 9.0% 75.7% 87.1% 0.0% 0.0% 100% 89.7% 0.0% 100% 0.0% 100% 0.0% 100% 5.8% 94.2% 23.7% 45.5% 35.5% 10.1% 39.3% 8.3% 35.3% 60.4% 60.1% 38.8% 0.0% 91.0% 24.3% 12.9% 100% 100% 0.0% 10.3% 100% 0.0% 100% 0.0% 100% 0.0% 94.2% 45 Appendix G: Detailed Methodology Recruitment and Security Clearance of Research Assistants In the spring of 2009, the lead investigators attended classrooms in the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice at the University of the Fraser Valley to recruit undergraduate students to participate in this project. Students were asked to submit their resumes and attend an interview. The investigators held group interviews where students were asked general questions about themselves, and more specific questions regarding their interest in the current study and their willingness to commit to engage in a large number of ride alongs with general duty RCMP members throughout the summer. Students were also advised of the security requirements associated to a study of this nature and were asked to withdraw their application should there be any potential security concerns, such as outstanding criminal charges or criminal convictions. The investigators then selected a smaller group of students to participate in the study and provided the security forms for clearance by the RCMP. Following a background review, additional security interviews were conducted with students when deemed necessary by the RCMP. While the RCMP has several levels of clearance, including basic criminal record check, enhanced reliability, and top secret, a unique clearance level was created for the students participating in this study. This clearance was more advanced than a basic criminal record check, yet did not require indepth interviews, as is necessary with an enhanced reliability clearance. Essentially, students received sufficient clearance to permit them to walk unescorted through the detachment and its sub-stations. This clearance was given until the end of the study in August 2009. Training The students participated in this study through a practicum placement run by the lead investigators. As part of their practicum, students were expected to attend training on the coding instrument and database, complete all ride alongs as scheduled, enter their data into a database, and write a final paper on their experiences over the summer. In total, 22 undergraduate students participated as fulltime practicum students, one participated half-time as a research assistant, and six research assistants from the Centre for Criminal Justice Research in the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice at the University of the Fraser Valley completed several of the ride alongs. One shift was also completed by a crime scene investigation student from the British Columbia Institute of Technology (BCIT) who was trained personally by one of the lead investigators. The bulk of the data was collected between June 15 and August 1. Over this time period, each student completed 24 ride alongs. Several ride alongs were also completed in August. For the purposes of the current report, the data from 441 full shift ride alongs with general duty members were available for analysis. 46 Following approval of their security clearance, the students met with the lead investigators for the first of several training sessions. At each training session, the students were asked to dress in attire appropriate for conducting ride alongs. The RCMP advised that this clothing should be businesscasual, such as khaki or black pants with golf-style shirts. Their attire was reviewed by the lead investigators during training, and any clothing deemed inappropriate was discussed with the student in advance of their initial ride along. During the first training session, students were provided with a copy of the assigned codes (Appendix A) and coding book (Appendix B). The meaning and intention of the codes were discussed in this meeting (please see Coding Instrument Development for further information). They were asked to review these in advance of the second training session. At this initial training session, proper conduct for the ride alongs was also discussed, and the lead investigators also briefly discussed what the students could expect during their ride alongs. Students then selected a start date for their practicum, which would begin their four-on four-off two month practicum. Although general duty patrol members work a four-on four-off shift that swung between day and night shifts (e.g. first two shifts during the day, last two shifts during the night), it was decided that students would work only one time shift for each of their four day blocks. They would then alternate to the other time shift for their next block of shifts. In effect, a typical schedule would involve working four day shifts, having the next four days off, and then working four night shifts. Students worked the full 12-hour shift. Any conflicts in schedule, for instance, with university summer classes, were managed by one of the lead investigators; in the end, nearly all students completed their full set of ride alongs.6 The shift assignments were coordinated by Staff Sergeant Rob McCloy of the Surrey RCMP. The students received a schedule advising them of their shift start times and location. Students could complete their ride alongs in any of the five districts in Surrey, namely Newton, Whalley, Guildford, Cloverdale, and South Surrey. They were not assigned to any particular member in advance; this decision was left to the Member in Charge of each station. Once a student arrived for their shift, they would typically be assigned to a member for the entire 12-hour shift; however, they would be assigned to a different member for the next shift. With this methodology, students were able to ride with a variety of members, and 171 different general duty members were able to participate in the study. At a second training session, the students were asked to come prepared, having studied the coding book in advance. One of the lead investigators created a training video using segments of the television show COPS. Several scenarios were created, each lasting appropriately five minutes. For training, the students were shown the first COPS segment and asked to code the data as if they were 6 Two students did not complete all of their assigned ride alongs. One student began the project during the second block of shifts as they were awaiting confirmation of clearance, and one missed several shifts due to taking classes at the University and for personal reasons. This student extended their participation into early Fall, and all but two of their shifts were completed. 47 riding along with the police member. At the end of this segment, the various activities and actions recorded by the students were discussed, and any inconsistencies were clarified. This process repeated for a total of three segments. A third session was led by the RCMP and held at the main detachment in Surrey. At this training session, RCMP members advised the students of the expected conduct, and discussed with them in more detail what experiences they would likely have. They also advised the students of how to handle different situations, such as when to stay in the police motor vehicle instead of following the member on the call. Students then participated in their first block of ride alongs. Although the students were not informed until later in the study, the lead investigators decided in advance that this first block would be used for training purposes and as a test of the coding manual. Following the first four blocks, a group meeting was held with each of two groups of students during their four days off. Each meeting was led by one of the lead investigators. During the meetings, students discussed their initial experiences, and inconsistencies in the use of codes for some activities were again discussed. To avoid any inconsistency in the code numbers assigned to different activities, the students were asked to write down any additional activities that did not have pre-assigned codes, rather than assigning new code numbers to them. At the post-Block 1 training, students advised the lead investigators of several additional activities that were in need of an assigned code number. It was discussed whether these codes could be included under an already existing code; any new codes added were assigned a number by one of the lead investigators and emailed to all students for future use. As students were now fully into their four-on four-off schedule, the bulk of any other communication over the remainder of the summer occurred through a mailing list created by one of the lead investigators. A final training session held later in the summer focused on data entry training. The majority of students met in a computer lab with one of the lead investigators. A database and training guide was created in advance by one of the lead investigators. The database was created using version 15 of the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) program. This program was available on computers across the university; in addition, some students had it available on their own personal computers. The students were given a brief introduction to the program, and were then provided with a sample codebook to enter (Appendix C). Mistakes in entering this sample were identified by one of the lead investigators, and the mistakes were immediately discussed with the students. Once all of the students could correctly enter the sample data, they were instructed to begin coding their own data. As the students were still completing their ride alongs, and each code book took several hours to enter, the due date for entering all of the data was the Fall of 2009. Once the students submitted 48 their databases, they were initially cleaned by one of the lead investigators, then merged into a single database and cleaned again.7 Coding Instrument Development The initial codebook was designed by a Research Assistant with the Centre for Criminal Justice Research in the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice at the University of the Fraser Valley. The codebook was tested during a ride along conducted by one of the lead investigators and revised. In addition, one of the lead investigators conducted several focus groups with RCMP members to review the available codes and to add any additional ones they thought would be useful. As a result of these meetings, several items were also added to the demographic section of the questionnaire. Coding Manual A sample of the codes assigned to different information is available in Appendix A. The students were provided with one set of codes to use throughout the study. The students were asked to study these codes beforehand, and as previously noted, they were provided with training opportunities to apply these codes to the code book before going into the field to collect data for the study. On the front of the coding manual were several codes used to indicate who initiated the activity the member was engaging in, where the member was for each minute of their shift, and the role the member was taking on a call for service. Students were instructed that if they were not sure where a call for service originated from, if they were not sure if they were on their way to a call or acting otherwise, or whether they were acting as back up or were the primary on the scene that they should ask the member for guidance. In many cases, students found that showing the members the coding manual prior to starting the shift assisted them in collecting their data as the members were aware of what information the student was looking for, and, in many cases, would inform the student throughout the shift of what they were doing based on the codes available to students. Page 2 of the coding manual contained the Main Activity codes used to summarize the central purpose of the member’s activity during any particular minute. These codes were organized into general groups of activities, including Investigative, Suspect-Related, Protecting, Court, Assistance, Maintenance, Supervision, and Other Activities. The meaning of these codes was discussed with students during their training for the study; a summary of these definitions is available in Appendix D. Page 3 of the coding manual organized a variety of actions into several categories. Members could engage in six different actions during a single minute, including actions involved with Driving, Physical Activity, Talking, Writing/Typing, Using Equipment, and Using Force. Driving included normal driving, driving with the lights flashing and/or with the siren, flipping the lights, for instance, while proceeding 7 Cleaning refers to reviewing the database for errors and missing information. For instance, blank lines of data were removed, incorrect codes were reviewed and corrected, and Uniform Crime Report (UCR) codes were assigned to the recorded file numbers. 49 through a red light, and idling, with or without the lights on. In addition, a member could also “drive” through another mode of transportation, including by boat or helicopter. Physical activity concerned actions by the member including running, swimming, bending, and climbing. In addition, sitting outside of the car was included, as was walking for less than or more than thirty seconds. Talking activities referred to the person whom the member was communicating with, such as dispatch, another member, a victim, or a complainant, while the mode of communication was recorded through actions associated to either writing or typing (e.g. talking with another member using the mobile data terminal) or using equipment (e.g. talking to a complainant using a cell phone). In addition, writing or typing actions also reflected updating information in the PRIME database and writing tickets, and use of equipment concerned equipment such as computers in the detachment stations or cameras at the scene of a crime. Finally, use of force ranged from verbal use of force (e.g. instructing a suspect to put his hands up), to tussling (fighting while standing) and wrestling (fighting while on the ground) and use of firearms. Again, students could record up to six different actions within a single minute; with the exception of driving, where students were instructed to use only one activity item, they could record multiple actions within a single category, such as climbing stairs and crawling within a single minute. Codebook A sample of the codebook used to collect the data is available in Appendix B. Students would complete a codebook for each full shift they participated in. At the start of their shift, students were asked to collect some basic demographic information on the member, such as their gender, age, and years of service. They also collected some shift information, including date and day of the week, time of the shift, and weather conditions. A page was also provided for students to record what food and drink the member consumed during their shift; this information is being analyzed for a future report on Member Health and Nutrition. Throughout the shift, students collected information for every single minute of the member’s time. For each minute, the student could record up to 15 pieces of information. On the far left of the codebook there was a column containing the time to assist the student in determining where to record each minute of information. The first column that the students could record information in on the left held data for two pieces of information. For some calls, such as those potentially involving violence, the student would be asked by the member to stay in the car, thus they would not be able to witness their activities and actions. In other cases, the member would be taking a bathroom break and again the student would not be able to observe their behaviours. Thus, students would place a * in this column to indicate that they were not with the member. In order to still have a picture of what the member was doing while away from the student, wherever possible, students were asked to record the main activity during this time, as well as generally what behaviours the member was engaging in by asking the member upon their return to the vehicle. This second column also held a 50 checkmark that the student entered whenever a file was cleared by the member. Students were also instructed and trained to record how many files were still stacked by the member when they cleared one. Column 1 was intended to hold Uniform Crime Report (UCR) codes for any file the member was attending or working on. UCR codes would enable the researchers to determine the general nature of calls (e.g. violent versus property), as well as the specific reason for the call (e.g. domestic assault versus a robbery with a firearm). It is important to note that throughout a call, UCR codes can change multiple times. For instance, a member may receive a call for service regarding a motor vehicle collision, which could be coded as UCR 8130.3 if the damage was over $1,000 or UCR 8130.4 if under $1,000. Upon arriving at the scene, the UCR code may change to a 9240.2 if the member suspected that a driver was impaired, but the driver refused to provide a breath sample. Students were asked to record the UCR codes throughout the duration of the call, so ideally they would have both the traffic and the breath refusal codes assigned. However, in some cases the student did not record a UCR, or recorded only a general description. One of the lead investigators reviewed the written information and assigned a UCR code to it. This investigator also summarized where the UCR codes were not recorded, but a file number was available, and a statistical analyst with the RCMP pulled these files and provided the relevant UCR code. In these cases, only the initial UCR was provided; therefore, if the nature of the call changed throughout the duration of the member’s working on it, this would not be reflected by the data. File numbers were recorded in Column 2. Students were asked to obtain the file number whenever one was assigned to a call, and to continue to record it every time the member worked on that file. Although in many cases file numbers were recorded when the member began to respond to the call, recording the file number proved to be somewhat difficult when members spent time later in the shift writing reports on a variety of files. Thus, in some cases, when the member was writing a report, the file number was not recorded. File numbers were also not available for some types of activities, such as traffic stops, unless a charge resulted from that traffic stop. Students were asked to record who initiated a particular activity using Column 3. They were provided with several codes to pick from, including a self-initiated call versus a call initiated by dispatch (Appendix A). This column was typically used when a member was working on a call for service, although some students recorded it for every activity the member engaged in. Column 4 contained the location of the member. In contrast to the first several columns, students were instructed to always have something recorded in this column. Thus, the member would be recorded as in a variety of places, such as the main detachment or another station. If they were responding to a call they could be en route to the location or at the scene. If they were not at the station or responding to a call, the students recorded them as “otherwise in service”. For instance, during general patrol, students would record the member as “otherwise in service”. What the 51 students recorded for location affected both Column 5 (Role Status) and Column 6 (Number of other Cars). Role status was to be used only when a member was responding to a call for service. They could be responding alone, as backup, with backup, or not applicable. If the member was at a stationhouse or engaged in an activity, such as maintenance or general patrol, Column 6 would always be indicated as not applicable. However, if the member was responding to a call, the student was asked to indicate their role on that call, and if they were acting as back up or with back, to record in Column 6 how many other police cars that were at the scene. Thus, if the member was on general patrol or otherwise in service, Column 6 was not applicable. However, if they were responding as back up to a call, it was relevant to record whether there was one car in addition to their own, or more. The remainder of the columns (7 through 13) were to be used for every single minute of the shift. Column 7 concerned the Main Activity of the member for that particular minute. As previously discussed, Main Activities involved general categories of activities the member could be involved in, such as Responding to a Call, or Working on a Pre-Existing File. If the member was involved in more than one Main Activity in the duration of that minute, the student was asked to record the most significant of those activities or the one that took up the majority of the minute. For instance, if within a single minute the member was talking to a suspect and writing a report, the student would record which of those two activities primarily summarized that particular minute. Then, in Columns 8 through 13, the student could record up to six different physical actions that could also be involved, such as working on a workstation computer, talking to dispatch, or using equipment such as a camera. Students were instructed to record all actions with the exception of when the member was talking to them. As previously discussed, these actions involved general categories of driving, physical actions, talking, writing or typing, using equipment, or using force. 52