The Role and Contribution of the Police Planner in Improving Police Service Delivery

This chapter critically examines the role of a police planner and planning units. Data were collected from a 32-question electronic survey that was sent to the members of the International Association of Police Planners. Using descriptive statistics to analyze the data, the results of the study revealed that although police planners were undertaking a number of primarily administrative and financial roles, there were a number of other management- and research-related roles that they could also undertake, indicating that police planning is more than an administrative or data gathering role. These findings suggest that police planners are underutilized and that their role could be expanded to assist with increasing the effectiveness of police agencies and with agencies introducing evidence-based practices. The chapter concludes that police planners are well placed to facilitate organizational change and to drive practices that can have a profound impact on the effectiveness of the agency’s service delivery.