Police Patrol Beats

On January 5, 2009, the Winston-Salem Police Department began a new plan for officers patrolling the city. There are three geographic districts, each with two zones of four beats. More officers will be on the street, around the clock, and by keeping the same beat for an entire year, the officers can become better acquainted with the area and the citizens and businesses.

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Use the magnifying feature of the Adobe Reader to zoom in on the area you wish to look at.  The reddish-orange line displayed on the map is the zone boundary within each district.  The beats are numbered with the first digit indicating the District and the second digit indicating the Zone.  For example, Beats 111, 112, 113, and 114 are in District 1, Zone 1 and Beats 121, 122, 123, and 124 are in District 1, Zone 2.

The Re-Deployment Plan has more details about the development of the plan [pdf/235kb/12p].

Police Chief Scott Cunningham said that the new patrol plan serves the interests of both the officers and the citizens. It does not require any additional officers.

“With five shifts (under the old plan), two or three officers were in the same beat and there was little direction as to how to patrol it and who was ultimately responsible. Under the new plan, one officer will be responsible completely for that smaller beat during their shift.

“We’ll expect them to build relationships with the citizens, to find out what the problems are and to reduce crime and solve problems. This will create accountability and ownership on the part of the police officer, and allow citizens to know who their officer is.

“I also think we’ll see a better level of trust and interaction between police officers and citizen. With the ability to have the same officer there over and over, those officers will get to know the citizens and the citizens will get to know the officers, so they’ll be able to identify some of the problems and solve some of the problems that maybe we didn't’t hear about before because the officers were moving through there so fast.” 

The bottom line, says Cunningham: “If we manage this properly we will see a reduction in crime; not just a stabilization, but an actual reduction in crime.”