Chicago is one of the most diverse cities in the country and, in spite of this, remains among the nation’s most segregated.   Serving the community poses some unique challenges for the Chicago Police Department. There are constant demands to address crime and disorder- made more complicated by a strong group of elected aldermen, that jealously guard how city services are delivered in their wards.

In 2011, the Illinois ACLU sued the city arguing that “Chicago officials have failed to ensure that police are deployed equitably across the City’s many diverse neighborhoods, resulting in delayed police responses to emergency calls in neighborhoods with higher minority populations.” Moreover, they suggested that “Neighborhoods with significant ethnic minority populations in Chicago are more likely to have slower response rates to emergency calls and higher rates of serious violent crimes, as compared to predominately white neighborhoods.” As a part of that litigation, a county judge ordered that a staffing study be conducted.

This presentation describes that analysis. We employed a workload-based staffing analysis for the Chicago Police Department Bureau of Patrol. Our discussion will describe our analytical strategy, data, and results. In addition, we discuss how understanding deployment in a large multi-layer police agency makes it difficult to identify “winners and losers.”

This webinar has been sponsored by the International Association of Law Enforcement Planners. IALEP is a member-governed organization for people working in, or interested in, planning, policy, budget, performance measurement, analysis, research, and other related functions for criminal justice agencies.