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Manual for the Establishment and Operation of a Foot Patrol Program - Books in Brief

NCJ Number
95713
Date Published
1985
Length
4 pages
Annotation
This executive summary of a practical guide for persons interested in establishing a police foot patrol program highlights several planning issues -finding sponsors, organizing community meetings, funding, and proposal writing -- as well as implementation and supervision concerns.
Abstract
Foot patrol is a form of policing in which the community identifies local problems and decides what resources can be used to address them. After outlining the contents of the manual, which was based on experiences in Flint, Mich., the summary identifies information gathering activities crucial to successful planning. Organizations must hold a series of meetings that eventually lead to the practical business of planning a foot patrol program: an initial citywide meeting, followed by neighborhood meetings, and culminating in a final citywide meeting. The summary details private and public funding sources, along with items that a competent proposal should cover. An overview of implementation issues notes that personnel selection is critical and identifies skills needed by foot patrol officers. Also considered are training, the command structure, communications, matching the officer to the beat, and supervision. Two management principles are emphasized: to staff the program with officers who want to be in a foot patrol program and possess the skills necessary to succeed, and to ensure that supervisors have their officers available and not assigned elsewhere on short notice. The summary concludes by discussing two problems: the danger of being unresponsive to community change and the danger of unrealistically high expectations. Three references and three sources of additional information are supplied.