Police departments across the country are pulling patrol officers off the road. Police will still be on duty but will only respond to 911 calls. No pro-active policing will take place.
Police chiefs say that anti police feelings from the public are pushing this move to re-active only policing. Chiefs also cite the famous Kansas City Patrol experiment as justification for this move.
The Kansas City experiment showed that police on patrol does nothing to lower or prevent crimes. In the experiment parts of Kansas City had few patrol cars on the street and other parts had extra patrol cars. During the experiment crime rates did not change.
One police chief told us. “If the people of this community don’t want to see cops why am I wasting money on gas for them to patrol We can adopt the fire department model. All the cops will hang out in La-z-boy chairs watching cable until we are called for.”
Police unions are hoping this practice becomes normal for all agencies. “The FD is not out patrolling looking for fire. EMS is not out patrolling looking for sick people. So why are we patrolling looking for crime? Now people can’t say we are harassing them, we only come due to someone calling 911.”
Many see this as a way to lower the number of officers hurt and killed on duty. With less time driving the statistic chance of being in a car crash lowers.
Anti police groups are crying fowl that now their tax dollars will go to pay lazy cop to sit around doing nothing.