Productivity Effective Shift System

Police Research Group

Police Research Series Paper 2

Effective Shift Systems For The Police Service

Richard Stone Tim Kemp Bernard Rix George Weldon

EFFECTIVE SHIFT SYSTEMS FOR THE POLICE SERVICE:

Richard Stone Tim Kemp Bernard Rix George Weldon

POLICE RESEARCH SERIES: PAPER NO. 2 LONDON: HOME OFFICE POLICE DEPARTMENT
Editor: Gloria Laycock Home Office Police Research Group 50, Queen Anne’s Gate London SW1H 9AT
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© Crown Copyright 1993 First Published 1993

Police Research Group: Police Research Series The Home Office Police Research Group (PRG) was founded in 1992 to carry out and manage research relevant to the work of the police service. The terms of reference for the Group include the requirement to identify and disseminate good policing practice. The aim of the Police Research Series is to present results of externally funded studies, and those carried out by the Police Research Group, in a way that will inform policy and practice throughout the Police service. A parallel series of papers on crime prevention is also published by PRG, as is a periodical on policing research called ‘Focus’.

ISBN 0-8652-746-5

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Foreword

Police Shift Systems are of vital importance to the way in which policing is delivered. We need to balance the requirements of the organisation and the patterns of crime and incidents throughout the working days, with the welfare of the police officers – their social and psychological needs. This paper reports on a study which set out to compare the effects of the ‘Ottawa’ System which was being operated in some forces, with the more common ‘regulation’ pattern. Comparisons were made in relation to a number of areas including costs, crime issues, routine, operational demands and quality of service. Contrary to the expectation of some officers, there was little evidence that the Ottawa System was significantly better than the regulation pattern although, on a number of variables it was more popular with...