My jail is a 40minute drive from my beat, each way. Jail processing takes about an hour. So figure three hours from contact to back in service. If the prisoner has medical problems add five hours for the hospital clearance.

Yup. Same here.

He who writes the most tickets

Wow what a drain on resources. They see the judge the next morning or within 48 hours on a weekend.

Misdemeanor arrests are typically 45-90 mins, paperwork and all.  Warrants are half hour tops, very little paperwork.

Can be back in service from a DUI arrest within 90 mins if the person refuses chemical testing, most refuse.  The paperwork from a DUI is time consuming. I usually end up with an hour or two OT if I land one on 2nd shift just because there is no time to get the paperwork done.

A felony will pretty much put you off the street for the night (depending on what exactly it is) if the paperwork is going to be done with minimal OT. There is a lot more paperwork expected.

We're expected to average an arrest or so per shift.  The go getters average a little better than 2.  Any more than that and people would start getting pissed about the time spent not handling calls.

After reading all this I'm glad I work in Florida. There is no reason why everywhere else should be so inefficient. What a waste of tax money.

That's a long time for a defendant to wait to see a judge , IMHO.
How big a population are you working with?
To me, you arrest the people who really need arresting. An arrest isn't a traffic ticket, its a stain on someones life-long criminal record
Expecting an arrest for every 8 hours means that sooner or later your line in the sand is going to shift and you're going to be arresting people because they're nothing more than a stat to you, or finding stuff to arrest them on that maybe shouldn't be arrest-able.....like NYPDs novel interpretation of gravity knives and how they open them to get a "violation".

We have these onerous "Shall Arrest" statutes and ordinances. Little stuff like Petit Larceny and Driving Under Suspension are required arrests for us...so we really dont get a choice.

If you have a complainant and the actions legitimately fit the criminal statute then arrest away.
However, NYPD holding a knife by its blade and flipping it to get it to open...in my mind no one meant that when the law was written, no one holds a knife like that ..that's just NYPD looking for an easy scratch.
Tagging someone for a concealed weapon because you have your spyderco clipped to your pants pocket...yeah, stuff like that shouldn't fly.

I consider an AUO to be what it is: a misd traffic ticket. The only way I take people for immediate arraignment in those cases is if the suspensions are for failure to appear on earlier tickets

Must arrest for us. Fingerprinted and a DAT at a minimum. More than 3 suspensions and you go through the system. Any accident with an injury and you go through the system even if just 1 suspension.

Population is around 20,000

Should've clarified a bit since it doesn'take any sense, but it was late.  The "arrest" stat includes citations and multiple charges go down as multiple "arrests". One per day is really nothing.

That said, other than traffic accidents, very few citations get issued on evening shift.  Most of the "arrests" are indeed people getting booked into jail.

IMO that's are reasonable time frame to see a judge. If there's any doubt of guilt in your mind, a summons should be issued.  Not saying innocent people don't get arrested, but there's never been any doubt for me.

We used to do this. Now any warrant from another agency results in a booking sheet and that's it. As an Detective I hate this because now I have to track down the officer who made the report and find out the circumstances of the arrest. I think a report should be generated on every arrest regardless of circumstances..if nothing else, it's good intel for the future.

Not a matter of doubt, but I think  that everyone should see a judge before being locked up.
Just my opinion.
I understand that mistakes happen and yes, the bulk of our clientele are so far gone down Recidivist Road that theres no way they are "innocent" of anything....but I think that every accused person should see a judge, have their identity and charges and some basic elements of the case confirmed before a magistrate before they spend a minute behind bars.
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By arrests I was only counting violations to felonies, not traffic offenses


Even a barebones booking sheet should have a narrative section relating the events surrounding the arrest completed. The old standard booking form did, before we went to Spillman
If you don't write it down you're relying on failable memory, and you never know what case will wind up in court later

It depends for us as well. If it's the third time they've been stopped for a suspension without reinstating their license then it's an automatic arrest. Same goes if they're a habitual traffic offender..ie they have had 4 moving violations within 4 months and have not gone to traffic school. I'm not a fan of hooking people up for traffic offenses unless it's reckless or DUI, but sometimes there is no discretion in Florida.

We had discretion for operating while suspended but too many cops were just writing tickets for it. Then a guy with dozens of suspensions ran down a family and killed them. Once they found out he had just been written tickets and cut loose dozens of times they ended the use of discretion and it became a must arrest. I had guys I arrested with over 100 suspensions who were stopped and ticketed tons of times in the past and never arrested. After 10 it's a felony and guys were still just writing a traffic tickets and cutting them loose.

A felony on view arrest per night would be a go getter here, but during the busier times of year the call load doesn't give much of a chance to go out hunting.



Wow, with my agency every arrest even if it's another agencies warrant generates an arrest report to at least cover the reasoning behind the contact.

Yea that's crazy. If they're suspended we can't let them drive at all and have to notate in the CAD who is taking possession of the vehicle. Not sure if that's the case in the situation you described. It has become a huge liability here as well for the exact reason you just stated.

That'd make just arresting someone on local/outside warrants less of a quick option though.

Depends on the hood you work in.  When I was assigned to a high crime / low income area with public housing ( yes its true...poverty =crime )  it was easy to make multiple felony arrests every shift.  The highly motivated  / curious types always got the good pinches, the ROD ( retired on duty) types always complained that there was nothing to do unless it came up and bit them.

Our DA started "no actioning" many felony drug arrests due to budgetary issues, so I began focusing on non drug related crimes.  Just get creative and get going.. Start stopping cars on chippy traffic violations and go fishing for guns, stolen property, and drugs.  Its amazing how much information you can get out of a user when the alternative is to take their bag and haul em to jail, even if they let em walk.  Get creative, use the statutes to your advantage, Don't let the defense bar have the exclusive domain of using the laws to their advantage.

Re the reports, I kept "templates" on my laptop.  On relatively simple stuff, burgs, stolen cars etc, it was simple to just change / write over)  the last report.  It saves a lot of time.  You can always add / delete stuff to customize the report as the needs dictate.  If a category / heading did not apply I would just type in "N/A" and move on.   Sorry to those of you who have printed forms, a royal pain.......

damn, i need to be thankful instead of bitching about paperwork. working for a SO (13 patrol) (8 admin/CID) things are way different.

the only warrants we do are evading and the like, CID does the rest.

if you arrest off a warrant all you do is a bookin sheet/ inventory

calls that require no officer action are logged as notes at the end of the shift.

Always tow for drug/DWI or stolen property offenses, other that that i don't tow if someone is there or nearby can take possession.

usually get at least 1 arrest a week, up to 1-3 a day depending on how crazy it is.

not counting transport time, on sight arrests take about an hour and a half depending on how many people are brought up on charges. it only even takes that long because the wreckers take forever. we do inventory sheets/search while we wait. when you get to the jail all you do is a bookin sheet. then walk to the squad room and write the PC and OR.

At our agency dope hounds are the go getters, specifically meth, find enough meth and the capt or sheriff himself will give you a pat on the back

everyone on night shift tries to find dope/burglars, everyone on days tries to catch up on all the theft/burg/mischief reports they catch

Just the transport time from our holding area to the jail is 30 minutes, one way... and that's on night shift, when there's no traffic.

One of the guys on my squad had a DUI the other night and cleared it in 3-4 hours, a good chunk of which was taken up by having to have the guy medically cleared by EMS before they'd accept him at the jail (not a normal occurrence).