Assessing Correctional Officer Manpower Requirements

Description of an analytical procedure to aid the New York City Department of Correction in assessing correctional officer need by monitoring, identifying, and investigating unusual levels of manpower usage at the institutions. A comprehensive typology of manpower assignments is developed, permitting consistent staffing comparisons among the Department's institutions. Through the typology, samples of recent manpower allocations and wardens' requests are analyzed. Four allocational decision rules are derived and utilized to produce estimates of appropriate officer manning in the twenty-eight post assignments at each detention facility. A mathematical treatment of the four decision schemes is given which (1) reveals general properties and (2) identifies certain spurious results in applications to real manpower data. Suggestions are presented which bear on the possible implementation, interpretation, refinement, and improvement of the methodology. Statistical summaries of the data samples, definitions and expositions of the statistical terms employed, and computer programs of the decision algorithms are also provided. 159 pp.