Staffing: Sworn Chicago Police Department Members Assigned with Patrol Duties
Summary
Whether responding to a 911 call or patrolling a Beat, Chicago Police Department (CPD) members are essential to ensuring public safety by responding to emergencies and being present in communities. Yet, measuring CPD’s patrol presence in a particular location in the City is a complex, opaque, and imprecise exercise.
Executive Summary
Seemingly simple questions of fundamental importance to public safety in Chicago—how many CPD members are on patrol in the City, and where and when do those members patrol?—are surprisingly difficult to answer precisely, both for purposes of oversight and transparency from outside of CPD and for purposes of effective supervision and operational management from within CPD.
To address these concerns and help answer these fundamental questions, the City of Chicago Office of Inspector General (OIG) describes CPD’s patrol staffing structure, previous and ongoing efforts to obtain information on patrol staffing from the Department, and the limitations around CPD’s patrol staffing data.
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