Beat (police)

Beat policing divides available police officers and resources across an agency's jurisdiction, ensuring timely responses to calls for service and effective crime prevention by dispersing police across wide areas. Beat policing promotes close relationships between police and the community within the assigned beat, and uses those relationships to strengthen police effectiveness and encourage cooperative efforts. What officers are expected to do within their beat depends on their agency's policies. They may simply be tasked with being nearby or establishing police presence, and thus may spend their shift on standby in their area or guarding a certain location; in other instances, officers may be sent to monitor certain locations, or they may be required to check in with supervisors or dispatch along a certain route or schedule to ensure they are active. Failure to check in may result in another officer being sent to check on the unresponsive officer's safety, or disciplinary action. It may also result in job termination or reassignment if the officer is consistently unresponsive or ignores an important call within their beat. Officers may be permitted to respond to calls outside their beat, especially urgent emergencies or backup requests, but they are expected to return to their beat as soon as possible. Beats may be expanded to cover for other officers responding to incidents outside their beats. == History ==

Theodore Roosevelt patrolling a beat when he was Commissioner of the NYPD in 1894. Roosevelt would walk along his officers' beats to ensure they were on duty. In this illustration, Roosevelt, alongside journalist Jacob Riis, comes across a police officer sleeping while on duty. Before the advent of police radio, beats were organized by watchmen and constables in towns and cities to cover specific areas, usually shown on a map in the police station and given some sort of name or number. Officers would be assigned a beat by their sergeant and sometimes given a card indicating that the officer should be at a particular point at set times, usually 30 to 45 minutes apart. The points would usually be telephone booths, call boxes, police boxes, sentry boxes, or public houses, where it would be possible to phone the officer should he be needed to respond to an incident. The officer would remain at the point for a set amount of time, typically five minutes, and then patrol the area, gradually making his way to the next point. Popkess and the Nottingham City Police would expand the reactive response model, including overlaying mobile patrol areas on top of several existing foot beats; allowing responding Mechanized Division officers to collect colleagues on foot and take them to incidents; "snatch-plans" to pot up police cars at key road junctions in the event of serious crimes; and the use of unmarked vehicles. Around the same period, police in other countries such as the United States also began to reorganize their traditional beat systems to use advances in policing technology. ==Modern policing==

cruiser, assigned to the department's Northwest Area command, patrolling a section of northern Las Vegas. Using vehicles, officers' beats are able to cover wider areas than traditional foot patrols. The move to motorized patrols in the mid-20th century greatly reduced the priority given to foot patrols. The proliferation of technology such as portable radios and mobile data terminals among the standard-issue equipment of police officers, the growth and expanse of cities and residential areas, and changes in interactions between police and the community (such as increased traffic stops due to higher automobile ownership), greatly reduced the need for foot patrols and the traditional beat system. Additionally, concerns over corruption between criminals and their local patrol officer led to a de-emphasis in close community bonds. For the most part, beats simply became areas police officers were assigned to, regardless of their familiarity with the community or the area, and the size of beats increased as more police forces began using vehicles. In the 21st century, traditional beat policing returned to modern policing as a new focus on community policing emerged, resulting in a resurgence in traditional foot patrols. ==See also==