Reactive Policing
The Reactive Policing model can be described as the “y’all call and we come” model, with “y’all” being the community. Y’all call us, and we’ll come… eventually. Because it may take us a while to get there. After all we’re really busy and our resources are limited. But sooner or later we’re going to get there, just be patient.
And we don’t seem to give a whole lot of thought to the nature of the call, except perhaps to prioritize it. And they call us for the craziest things, don’t they? And we go, regardless of whether or not the call has anything at all to do with accomplishing the police mission.
Snake in the House Call
My favorite call is the “snake in the house” call. In the middle of my county is Four Holes Swamp. It is the largest remaining virgin cypress swamp in the world and it’s right smack-dab in the middle of my county. It divides my county geographically and it divides it culturally. There really is a different culture “above the swamp,” which is largely rural, and “below the swamp,” which tends to be more urban and suburban. Anyway, during the warmer months, critters will often crawl out of the swamp and make their way into peoples’ homes. And when they call 911, we respond. Now think about that for a minute. You’ve got a snake… in the house… and a deputy… with a gun! Dangerous combination don’t you think?
And it doesn’t seem to matter where I go to do this training, there’s always some type of call that’s tying up our limited manpower resources. So we keep chasing out tails in this endless cycle of reactivity. Take a report, go to the next call... take a report, go to the next call... take a report, go to the next call. That's why Reactive Policing is not particularly effective if it is your primary model of law enforcement.
Somewhere along the way we tried to get a little smarter, a little more preventive, a little more pre-emptive, a little more
Proactive.
|
A few years ago, we had an interesting “snake in the house” call. A five-foot Canebrake Rattlesnake got into a man’s garage. He called 911 and we sent a deputy. Want to know what was interesting about this particular “snake in the house” call? The man that called… was one of my deputies! Now I had two deputies tied up on the cotton-picking “snake in the house” call.
