Listening to police radio. I’ve noticed if a cop reports giving someone a courtesy ride somewhere, they will give dispatch their vehicle’s starting mileage. Why? I never hear them report it otherwise. And I never hear them report the ending mileage. What are they doing this for?
At least at my agency, it helps document that you took the prisoner straight to the jail. It’s a form of CYA for people who want to invent a complaint against the officer. The investigator handling such a complaint can drive the route, checking the mileage and the time it took.
I’d be interested to hear whether any agencies do it for other reasons. I often suspect there were other reasons some of our policies started but the people who started them retired a long time ago and we’ve since forgotten just why we do it.
Some units only do it for passengers/prisoners being transported by officers of the opposite sex. This makes me believe the original CYA was to prevent an allegation of “he drove to some isolated spot to take advantage of me”. I think that in many agencies, it progressed to becoming SOP for all prisoners just in case a civil suit comes up later for any number of reasons.
I don’t believe it is a CALEA accreditation requirement, but many (if not most) agencies do this for any prisoner/passenger transports. The starting and ending mileage should be reported though. Strange that you are not hearing them report ending mileage.
We do it when transporting anyone. Prisoner, witness, some old lady you are giving a ride to… As mentioned its to protect the officer. The time of the trip and the mileage (beginning and ending) is recorded so no one can claim shenanigans.
This was policy at the Department I was with years and years ago. By reporting start time/mileage and ending time/mileage, you protect the Officer from fraudulent complaints. Essentially, if someone claims the officer did something, an investigator can follow up the route at the same time and determine if time existed to perpetrate and if the mileage didn’t jive.
As previously mentioned it’s CYA.
After I retired I took a patrol gig part-time with another agency. On this department we have to log our beginning/ending mileage for patrol even if by ourselves, and also call in a separate beginning/ending mileage if we transport someone.
There’s several reasons for that. The most basic being if I log only 5 miles in an 8 hour shift and had no calls they’re going to want to know what the heck I was doing all that time. It’s hard to put on miles while sacked out in a straw box.
Maybe they have been reporting ending mileage and I’m just not catching it. I can see how it helps CYA. I was just wondering if perhaps someone was charging someone for it, or keeping totals for statistical reasons or something. Thanks!
Isn’t this what GPS is for now?
Agencies who drive cars until 250k miles can’t afford GPS.
Many squads don’t have GPS. And even with those that do, calling in mileage is an easy, quick back up to it.
Even with GPS it doesn’t indicate when the transport started only where the car went. Not who was in it at the time.