After the arresting police officer made an arrest....?

Leslie S

In almost all police departments in the US the officer does an arrest report. The officer gets the report and preliminary charges approved by the watch/shift commander.
The officer does a case report to go with the arrest report. The officer also does the complaints.

In years past any felony arrests in such places as NYC took almost all night for the officer to handle since the officer also took the subject to night court for a probable cause hearing.
Not done anymore.

Yes one less officer on the street.

For most misdemeanor arrests in my town it takes an officer less than 1/2 hour to do all the paper work, thanks to computer systems.

Felonies of course take longer since charges must be approved only after contacting and having a prosecutor do their own investigation, which needs the cop.

Just throwing someone in jail without noting cause or reason is not the American way.

tgace

It's different from department to department. In my dept the officer typically does most of the paperwork himself immediately after arrest. In the next dept. over they have report technicians who do most of their paperwork.

Greg N

It depends on the agency and the nature of calls holding or number of officers on the street.

As far as I've known, most of the time the arresting officer will complete his or her report as soon as possible, which means usually after taking the prisoner to jail. Otherwise the officer may wind up having call after call and then be unable to catch up. When someone is booked into jail, it's nice to have the report to supplement the charges when the person is arraigned.

laughter_every_day

Different departments have different policies. None has a sufficient budget to pay for overtime for every report that must be prepared.

cuddlybear

I can't speak for police, but one of the first things you learn training for security (which requires state CLEET certification) is that when you have to take actions involving other people or any kind of "incident", you are suppossed to begin your report immediatly after securing the incident. You have to constantly document and report your actions. When you are "booked in" that is the beginning of the officer's report but there are several other people such as the officer who checks you in and the officers on duty that have to get together with the arresting officer to correspond information. At least this sounds logical and resonable.

jwespinosa

Different in different States. We completed the arrest,got info needed to prove the violation then called the Paddy Wagon . They would transport/book them into the County Jail. We would request the Command Center during the shift to let us come in to type our reports, then go back on the beat. Times have changed, most areas have computers in their cars and the type the report during the shift. Some Dept. phone in the report and clerks type out the report which is later checked by the arresting officer.

Michael

Here's how a local department in Wyoming does it. The officer arrersts someone on the street. That person's name and ID data are radioed or called into the Dispatch office. Dispatch assigns a case number and starts a report on the computer. They fill in the offender's name, victim's name, location, type of incident, charges, etc. That information is immediately available to the booking officer. The arresting officer takes his prisoner to the jail and turns him over to the booking officers. He will stay with the prisoner until the guy is in a cell, if the jail staff is short, if not, he leaves the prisoner with them. He then goes to the report room and a computer and brings up the report, already started earlier. He checks the Dispatch entries and if they are good, all he has to do is the narrative. If this was a routine type arrest, he can be done in under a half hour.

Enter Your Message or Comment

User Name:
User Email:
Post a comment: