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Police Response Times to Emergency Calls Have Dropped in Every District This Year

by Ben Horwitz

November 11, 2016

Categories: Transparency

Topics: Modernizing Policing

Police Response Times to Emergency Calls Have Dropped in Every District This Year

The amount of time it takes an NOPD officer to respond to an emergency call for service has dropped in every police district in the city over the past year, according to NOPD response time data. The numbers, which are publicly available at NOPDNews.com, are a direct result of an aggressive and consistent effort to rebuild the public’s confidence in the police department by using every available resource to respond to emergencies as quickly as possible.

Superintendent Michael Harrison made reducing police response times across the city a top priority late last year. Since then, he’s put in place stronger management and accountability systems, better technology and more officers on the streets, which has led to a dramatic decrease in response times citywide.

Here’s how the numbers break down:

Average response time means the average time it takes an officer to get to the call. The median response time means the time it takes an officer to get to 50 percent of calls. And the 90th percentile means the time it takes an officer to get to 90 percent of calls.

As you can see, the average, media and 90th percentile response times have dropped in nearly every district over the past year. And in just the past two weeks, 90 percent of all emergency calls have been responded to in under 18 minutes.

The data above is publicly available on the department’s police management tool called MAX. To view this data, go to the “Response Time” tab, where you can explore the progress each district has made across the three different statistical measurements of 90th Percentile, median, and average.

New technology will reduce response times even more

Over the past year, the NOPD has expanded its APR unit, or Alternative Police Response Unit. This is a team of officers who handle non-violent property crime reports over the phone. Through this process, citizens who are affected by non-violent property crimes hear from an officer more quickly via phone and in turn, officers on the street are able to focus their time on more violent offenses. In addition, APR assists the NOPD Command Desk with calling complainants back while they wait for an officer to arrive. The department is starting to see some significant dividends from this effort – most recently APR was able to handle 8 percent of all reports taken by the department. This eliminates workload that would otherwise fall on district officers. Furthermore, this unit will also be responsible for our online reporting system, which the NOPD plans to launch at the end of December. APR officers will review and approve reports submitted by citizens through this system.

The department also recently completed the rollout of an electronic warrant program, allowing officers to request warrants and for judges to approve them without time-consuming travel. The NOPD has received very positive feedback from the officers and judges about this new technology.

Finally, the NOPD is also working with a number of criminal justice system partners to develop a new electronic traffic citation and municipal affidavit. Rather than carrying around two separate ticket books for issuing a municipal summons and a traffic ticket, officers can use a single computer program to issue either type of citation and print the citations in their vehicle. This will improve the accuracy and accountability of these citations while saving officer time.