Public Safety Reports

Police Operations and Data Analysis Report, Morgan Hill, California

should be committed to calls for service. This commitment of 60 percent of their time is referred to

as the patrol saturation index.

The Rule of 60 is not a hard-and-fast rule, but rather a starting point for discussion on patrol

deployment. Resource allocation decisions must be made from a policy and/or managerial

perspective through which costs and benefits of competing demands are considered. The patrol

saturation index indicates the percentage of time dedicated by police officers to public demands for

service and administrative duties related to their jobs. Effective patrol deployment would exist at

amounts where the saturation index was less than 60.

This Rule of 60 for patrol deployment does

not

mean the remaining 40 percent of time is downtime

or break time. It is a reflection of the extent that patrol officer time is saturated by calls for service.

The time when police personnel are not responding to calls should be committed to management-

directed operations. This is a more focused use of time and can include supervised allocation of

patrol officer activities toward proactive enforcement, crime prevention, community policing, and

citizen safety initiatives. It will also provide ready and available resources in the event of a large-

scale emergency.

From an organizational standpoint, it is important to have uniformed patrol resources available at

all times of the day to deal with issues such as proactive enforcement, community policing, and

emergency response. Patrol is generally the most visible and available resource in policing, and the

ability to harness this resource is critical for successful operations.

From an officer’s standpoint, once a certain level of CFS activity is reached, the officer’s focus shifts

to a CFS-based reactionary mode. Once a threshold is reached, the patrol officer’s mindset begins to

shift from one that looks for ways to deal with crime and quality-of-life conditions in the

community to one that continually prepares for the next call for service. After a point of CFS

saturation, officers cease proactive policing and engage in a reactionary style of policing. The

outlook becomes “Why act proactively when my actions are only going to be interrupted by a call

for service?” Uncommitted time is spent waiting for the next call. The saturation threshold is

generally considered to be 60 percent.

Rule of 60 – Part 1

According to the department personnel data available at the time of the site visit (March 14, 2016),

patrol is staffed by 24 sworn officers. These 24 of the 39 total sworn officers represent 61.5 percent

of the sworn officers in the Morgan Hill Police Department.

Accordingly, the department adheres to the first component of the “Rule of 60,” that is, about 60

percent of the total sworn force is dedicated to patrol operations. The patrol function is balanced

appropriately compared to the entire department, and there are about the expected amount of

resources is dedicated to patrol. However, the MHPD also has officers assigned to the traffic unit

and they undoubtedly handle CFS. Including the two sworn officers assigned to traffic into the

equation would result in 26 of 39 sworn officers in a position to respond to calls, or 66.7 percent of

the sworn officers in the MHPD, which is still within acceptable bounds.