Just over two weeks into implementation of a new schedule for East Peoria police officers, Chief David Catton believes the change is working well.
“So far, people are intrigued. It’s still fairly new,” said Catton of a switch to 12-hour patrol shifts that began on Jan. 29. “There’s a little bit of a transition from the eight-hour shifts, so they don’t have a great grasp or feel of it yet.”
Catton said East Peoria is using the “Pitman schedule,” where officers alternate weeks of working two sets of two days in a row and having three consecutive days off, followed by a work week of three straight days sandwiched between back-to-back off days.
“The officers I’ve already spoken with a little bit, some have already worked their long week,” Catton said. “They felt like it was a good change and didn’t feel like there was any real side effects from it right now. Then obviously, you’ve got the reverse, where there’s some people that are on their short week.”
While the change adds four hours on the job over a 14-day stretch, it’s offset by having one three-day break every other week – and 78 additional off days each year.
“Just more time at home; I mean, we gained quite a significant amount of extra time off to be with our families,” said Officer Brett Williams, who serves on the executive board for East Peoria Unit 36 of the Police Benevolent and Protective Association of Illinois (PBPA).
Williams says that due to department needs, many officers often worked beyond their normal hours prior to the switch.
“We were kind of already in that position; individually, we were working 12-hour shifts anyway, with no added benefits and working five days a week still,” Williams said. “We haven’t had anybody be forced to work overtime as of yet. So that’s a good plus for us at this point.”
Catton agrees that a desire to reduce overtime needs and cut costs was among the motivating factors.
“The advantage for the department is we have creatively found some ways to cut overtime cost by going to this schedule, and with the new training mandates that we have, we’re able to train as a team,” Catton said. “Now you basically have four teams; they have to train on their day off, but now we can train them as a team as opposed to before everybody having different days off.”
But the change doesn’t come without potential drawbacks, specifically from the longer workdays resulting in fatigue toward the end of shifts. Catton admits it’s a concern they’ve taken into consideration.
“We have to watch the long workday; we don’t want them extending past those 12 hours. Really, I think the biggest focus is getting rid of the monotony of the job.”East Peoria Police Chief David Catton
“Really what it comes down to when you do look at the research, it’s something management has to watch,” Catton said. “We have to watch the long workday; we don’t want them extending past those 12 hours. Really, I think the biggest focus is getting rid of the monotony of the job, so you want to try to break up their day.”
Lois James, an associate professor at Washington State University, studies the effects of sleep and performance in high stress careers such as police work.
“Really, there are kind of two sets of concerns. One is around performance, and one is around safety,” James said. “You can kind of think of that as like one that is how officers interact with members of the public – that’s kind of the performance side of it – and then the safety piece, although it certainly could impact the community, is more about the officer safety. For example, in terms of a risk of drowsy driving is the big one.”
Karen Amendola is the Chief Behavioral Scientist for the Washington, D.C.-based National Policing Institute. Amendola co-authored a 2011 experimental study that looked into the effects of different shift lengths for officers in Detroit and Arlington, Texas.
She says their findings suggest 10-hour shifts offer the most benefits and a better quality of life, while research uncovers reasons for caution with 12-hour shifts.
“We also noted with the 12-hour shifts that there were increased risks, not only the greater safety risks, but self-reported fatigue and lowered alertness on the job,” Amendola said. “The general population tends to underestimate their levels of fatigue; I would argue that that’s even more pronounced with police officers because of the ‘macho’ sort of culture that, ‘I’m tough and I don’t need as much sleep,’ etc. So the fact that they self-reported more is significant.”
James says making sure officers have enough time away to get plenty of rest is critical to any extended shift length.
“There are a couple of like hard and fast rules. One is that when officers are assigned shifts, they have to be given enough time between shifts to actually receive sufficient sleep,” James said. “Keep in mind that sufficient sleep is still considered to be a minimum of seven hours, or the very least a minimum of 6½ hours. So realistically, when we think about scheduling officers, their off time needs to be able to incorporate an eight-hour sleep period.”
“There are a couple of like hard and fast rules. One is that when officers are assigned shifts, they have to be given enough time between shifts to actually receive sufficient sleep.”Lois James, associate professor at Washington State University
Catton said he consulted with other police departments in Illinois that previously transitioned to the longer shifts, adding that they have an officer on staff who used to work in Lincoln and suggested the change.
Lincoln Police Chief Joe Meister said their 30-person department has been on 12-hour shifts since 2014. He says their system works well for the most part, but like anything else there’s good and bad aspects.
“Not as many officers can be off at the same time,” Meister said. “Twelve hours can be a long time on a night shift, but we haven’t had any issues with officers being too tired.”
Kenny Winslow, the executive director of the Illinois Association of Chiefs of Police, served as Springfield’s police chief for nine years prior to his retirement in 2022. He says their association hasn’t taken any stance in support or opposition to the longer shifts.
“Each decision has to be made in-house with each individual department, based on their resources (and) their staffing issues,” Winslow said. “We’re seeing more and more departments move to 12-hour days, because of staffing issues and as a result of recruitment and retention issues that have been going on for the last few years.”
Winslow says he observed both advantages and disadvantages when Springfield turned to the longer hours under his leadership to cover shifts during an officer shortage.
“There’s some people who really, really like it, and there’s some people who don’t like it,” he said. “Really, the biggest thing when I was there, what we saw is that that midnight shift is a tough one. That 12-hour midnight shift is just a long day, it’s tough on people. On your days at work, you’re kind of spent when you get off; You go home and you don’t do a whole lot. So it’s really just a balancing act.”
Catton says workforce attraction played a part in making the change to 12-hour shifts, and the department has emerged from an officer shortage to become fully staffed at 49.
“I believe our turnout on our testing process was due to this 12-hour shift,” he said. "The word did get out that we were looking to do this. We did have some officers come to our departments specifically for this."
“From what I’ve heard from people, even some people who were against it initially have switched their stance and are saying, ‘I actually like this.’”Officer Brett Williams, East Peoria Police Department
“What’s probably the most exciting is we can finally get back to proactive policing," Catton said. "Before when we weren’t at full staff, we were doing a lot of call-to-call-to-call. We had no opportunities really to get out there, be proactive, get out in our neighborhoods and really kind of see what's going on and try to troubleshoot some of the problem areas we’ve had. So now we’ll be able to do that and actually be able to target different areas that we want to target.”
Read more: East Peoria Police Chief Catton lists recruitment, upgrades in technology among top priorities
Jerry Lieb, the vice-chairman of trustees for the Illinois Fraternal Order of Police’s state lodge and a former member of the FOP labor council, says he’s been an advocate of 12-hour shifts for several years, mainly for quality of life reasons.
“When you look at the police profession, for a while there it was high on alcoholism levels and divorce rates more than other occupations. Part of that problem is the traditional eight-hour shifts that were in place all over the state years ago,” Lieb said.
“It seems like a long shift when you look at 12 hours, but when you look at the seven days off every two weeks, it gives the police officers a three-day weekend every other week. So they’re more able to plan family functions, they can interact with their families more, they can actually interact with non-police friends more, because they have that time off.”
Lieb said every police department he’s helped implement a 12-hour shift rotation on a trial basis has made the change permanent. Catton says East Peoria’s agreement with the police union keeps the new shift lengths as a trial through the end of this year, with quarterly assessments to see how the change is working.
“We’re going to poll our sergeants and get their feedback. We’re going to document it; we’re going to look at the numbers,” Catton said. “We obviously don’t want this to be cost-prohibitive. We definitely want this to be a benefit for the city and cut overtime costs, and we’re going to have to do that in order for this to be successful.”
Williams says he’s hopeful the 12-hour shifts are here to stay.
“It’s an adjustment for sure, but I think it’s going to be overall really good for this department,” Williams said. “From what I’ve heard from people, even some people who were against it initially have switched their stance and are saying, ‘I actually like this.’ So, so far we’re heading in that direction.”
