Inpolice terminology, abeat is the territory that apolice officer is assigned topatrol. Beats are used to effectively divide available officers across a law enforcement agency's jurisdiction, ensuring organized police presence across a wide area.[1]
"Beat" often refers to specifically foot patrols orbicycle patrols, though "beat" can also be used to simply describe a designated area patrolled by a police officer through any means, such as an officer in apolice car orpolice aircraft.[1] "Police beat" is also used bynews media to refer to reports on local crimes and police incidents, often crime reports detailing recent incidents and arrests handled by local law enforcement.
Beat policing divides available police officers and resources across an agency's jurisdiction, ensuring timely responses tocalls 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.[1]
Officers are typically assigned beats by theirsergeant atroll call or when they are first assigned to the area'spolice station. Beats are typically taken from the wider jurisdiction of a police station (often called an "area" or a "sector") and may be patrolled by one officer or multiple officers. They are often not given the same beat, to ensure wider connection with the community and deterpolice corruption. Beats are usually only assigned to patrol officers or low-ranking officers;detectives, specialized units, and high-ranking personnel typically do not patrol and are not assigned to beats, though their assistance may be available for officers within a beat.
Officers are expected to be familiar with their beats and prominent members of the community, and become trusted members of the community that locals can report problems to, even if the officer may not be assigned to the same beat later on.[1] New officers are often shown around beats or introduced to community members by experienced officers orfield training officers to ease them in and allow familiarity. Officers are expected to be familiar with vulnerable premises or locations of interest within their beat, such as major businesses and government facilities, landmarks, infrastructure, places to get food, locations of recent crimes, areas frequented by criminals, and nearby emergency service resources. They may also be given descriptions or images of wanted items, vehicles, or criminals to look out for, typically by examining therogues' gallery or during the roll call.[2]
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 injob 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.
Before the advent ofpolice radio, beats were organized bywatchmen andconstables 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 betelephone booths,call boxes,police boxes,sentry boxes, orpublic 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.[2]
Sometime during an officer's shift, he could expect a supervisory officer to meet him at one of the points. This ensured the beat patrol was being correctly carried out and was an opportunity to discuss problems. The supervisor would sign the officer or constable's pocket book, ensuring that it was up to date. Missing a point or a supervisor meeting often resulted in disciplinary action. Officers typically had many limitations on what they could do on their beat and were dissuaded from forming close bonds with their community. In the United Kingdom, police constables were not allowed to converse with passerby or pass the time with other constables unless it was necessary to perform their duties.[2]
The same principles extended to beats patrolled on bicycles or in motor vehicles. Even with radio communication, the patrol vehicle would be expected to visit and remain at certain points at particular times, allowing supervisors to meet up with the patrolling officer or to give a visible police presence at times when this was deemed particularly needed.
Chief Constable CaptainAthelstan Popkess of theNottingham City Police is credited with being largely responsible for transforming British police from theirVictorian era beat policing model to the modern reactive response model, through his development of the Mechanized Division, which used two-way radio communication between police command and patrol cars.[3][4] 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 theUnited States also began to reorganize their traditional beat systems to use advances in policing technology.
The move to motorized patrols in the mid-20th century greatly reduced the priority given to foot patrols.[5][6] The proliferation of technology such asportable radios andmobile 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 increasedtraffic 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.[6]
In the 21st century, traditional beat policing returned to modern policing as a new focus oncommunity policing emerged, resulting in a resurgence in traditional foot patrols.[6]
