The study review indicates that police forces are increasingly using activity surveys to determine how police officers use their time. The broad conclusions that emerged from these studies were that uniformed and traffic officers spend comparatively little time on patrol and up to half of their time inside police premises engaged primarily in report writing and other administrative tasks. Uniform officers also spend a significant proportion of their time on crime work. Compared with earlier surveys, time spent on crime work appears to be increasing which reflects growth in recorded crime and the adoption of a policy by some forces to use uniformed officers in some phases of crime work. Another significant finding of these studies is that detectives spend a large amount of time writing reports. The finding that detectives and uniformed personnel spend so much time on report writing has led to the streamlining of police information systems and the use of civilian clerical staff to prepare and process much of the paperwork. 6 tables, 12 references, and appended descriptions of the work studies and activity survey methodology