SOC 3750 Chapter 6: Patrol and General Duty Policing

• School: University of Guelph
• Department: Sociology
• Course: SOC 3750
• Professor: joseph pazzano

Document Summary

Identify how officers engage in patrol work and distinguish between reactive and proactive policing. Identify the risk and benefits involved in a society that privileges reactive policing. Identify the types of discretion that officers have and how that discretion might be curtailed. Priority 1 emergency calls that require immediate police attention and include life- threatening situations that can lead to death or grievous bodily harm. Priority 2 serious but not life threatening and include break and enter in progress. Priority 3 & 4 routine and less serious, including cold break and enters. Not all calls to the police result in the dispatch of a patrol unit. Call stacking: when the volume of calls to the dispatch centre exceeds the number of available patrol units and the calls are places in a queue until a unit becomes available. Usually priority 3 and 4 calls but sometimes during heavy times, priority 2 calls may be awaiting dispatch as well.