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Current Section Configuration <br />To distribute officers throughout the city, departments frequently assign <br />officers to specific patrol areas or "beats." Paris calls these areas "Sections." <br />The current Sections were drawn based on the department's experience and <br />history of calls for service and crime. Normally, agencies attempt to equalize <br />the workload in these areas so that no officer is overloaded with citizen <br />generated activity and unable to conduct any self-initiated efforts. Because the <br />department's current CAD system does not capture information geographically, it <br />is impossible to compare actual workload befinreen Sections. Patrol officers <br />believe that they are roughly equal in activity. They are currently configured <br />logically and are designed in accordance with generally accepted principles of <br />beat design and accepted practices. (Major thoroughfares are recommended as <br />boundaries because they are easy to remember, officers tend to patrol the <br />boundaries of their areas more frequently, and more calls for service are <br />generated on major thoroughfares than in residential areas.) With few exceptions <br />the boundaries are main thoroughfares, and are roughly equal in size which acts <br />to theoretically equalize response time. There are currently six Sections which is <br />an appropriate number given the present number of officers on each shift and <br />minimum staffing. <br />After a full year of data has been input into the new CAD system, the <br />current boundaries can be examined for equality of workload within each Section <br />and adjustments made if necessary. Judgment based on the knowledge of the <br />relative danger as well as future growth must also be considered in drawing new <br />Section boundaries. Officer input is often used in this process to identify problem <br />areas as well as natural or man-made obstacles to travel. <br />Page 30 <br />