How much..

[Kealey]

How much of your time is spent on paper work? Is it really as much as "everyone" says? JW. Thanks

[Darin]

It depends. If we are real busy and take a lot of calls then I do a lot of reports.


DUI arrests can take a couple hours to get the paper work done.

[acreature]

eh, 25% of the time mostly. Big case? Bigger load of fill-outs.

[mcsap]

As a patrol supervisor , I have to review ALL of the reports my squad of 8 writes. Sometimes , this can be time consuming.

And for all of you interested in becoming a LEO. Spelling, grammar , etc DOES COUNT. Those that type without using proper caps , make repeated spelling errors etc. will find yourself correcting and or rewriting your reports. Start NOW by practicing proper use of the english language even while typing on a web forum.

This is why some of us are rather particular how guests communicate here.

[Ironhead]

Is it really as much as "everyone" says?

Don't mean to sound smart-assed .... but no matter waht they say - they probably aren't lying to you.

For everyone that does a lot of paperwork - there are those that do a little. It all balances out.

[jd524]

On an average 10 hour shift, about 1-2 hours are spent on paperwork. My department has it pretty easy when it comes to paperwork. Our dispatchers take care of our ICR's, and if we have any additional reports to go along with the ICR we dictate them and our support staff transcribes them for us.

[CTDL92]

I'm an investigator, not that every officer isn't, but this is what I do as a whole. You get what information you can, track down witnesses and follow up on your leads. But in the end it all has to go down on paper. Should you end up giving the investigation over to someone else they need to be able to read your report and know exactly what you did with it and where they should go next. If it is poorly written then they will have to start all over again with interviews, etc. Also after an arrest is made, the DA and defense attorney's are going to get copies of your reports, the better written they are the better you appear in court. So to answer your question I spend a great deal of my time typing reports out, which is why I like to handle what extraneous interviews I can over the phone so as to maximize my time at my desk.

[Kealey]

Thanks for the replys.

[Coach John]

Depends on the department policies, procedures, and system in place. After that the amount of calls you handle and type also dictate the amount of paperwork to do. Where I am at the typical criminal arrest paperwork would take about 1-2 hours.

[leo401]

Depends on how long a period i stop, and start reading RP or browsing the net, ahem I am so far here one hour to enter two arrests.... lol

[phantasm]

There's been nights where I've answered 15 jobs or so, and had almost no paperwork, and other days where 1 job will take me 4-5 hours just to do the paperwork (felony assault with multiple victims).