LAPD to Test New Workweek in Effort to Improve Morale : Police: Officers in Harbor, Rampart, Wilshire and Van Nuys divisions will begin pilot program of three 12-hour shifts with extra makeup day once a month.

Saying they hope it will boost morale, Los Angeles police officials are putting patrol officers in four divisions on a schedule of three 12-hour days per week in an experiment that could eventually become the norm citywide.

The yearlong pilot program calls for officers to switch from a traditional workweek to a dramatically shortened schedule beginning Jan. 22. Under the program, patrol officers at the Van Nuys, Rampart, Wilshire and Harbor divisions will work three 12-hour shifts a week; detectives will work four 10-hour shifts.

Supporters of the compressed schedule say the shorter workweek will boost morale without incurring extra expenses by allowing officers to spend more time with their families and less time commuting.

Some officers have resigned to join other departments that offer such schedules, police officials and union leaders say.

“The employees want it,” said Capt. Richard Eide of the Van Nuys Division. “Happy, satisfied officers treat people better and they work harder.”

By providing greater flexibility in scheduling, Eide said, the new schedule also holds the potential to allow the LAPD to do more of the community-based policing that the department is emphasizing.

Because patrol officers will work fewer hours in each standard workweek, they will “owe” an extra day’s work to the department at the end of each four-week period. On these catch-up days, commanders will be able to assign officers to special projects, Eide said, painting a scenario in which up to 75 officers could be deployed to “saturate” a community and drum up support for neighborhood policing programs.

The department has determined that the new schedule does not violate federal labor laws that sometimes hinder private employers who try to implement such plans, Eide said.

Although nearly half the state’s law enforcement agencies are believed to offer shortened workweeks, the LAPD is the first large agency to venture into compressed schedules, said Dennis Zine, a director of the Los Angeles Police Protective League.

Under orders from Police Chief Willie L. Williams, a committee was formed following the Northridge earthquake to study the effects of a compressed schedule after damaged highways made it difficult for officers, many of whom commute from distant suburbs, to travel to and from work.

Zine said the only concerns voiced over the program have come from officers at the Rampart Division, who have heavier court loads than officers in other areas. He said police officials have been holding conversations with court administrators in an effort to provide officers with more flexibility when it comes to appearing in court to testify.

“Officers have been waiting for this for years,” Harbor Division patrol Capt. Betty Kelepcz said. “There are a lot of people that want to work it.”

At first, officers assigned to the new work schedule will be fatigued late in their shifts, but that effect will subside in two to three months, Kelepcz said, quoting an LAPD study.

The experimental schedule appears to have won the approval of even one of the department’s toughest critics.

“I think it’s a great idea,” said James Fyfe, a former New York City police officer and professor of criminal justice at Temple University in Philadelphia, who co-wrote a book on police brutality. Fyfe, who has previously criticized the LAPD for being “insular and out of touch” when it comes to use of force, embraced the concept of fewer workdays for LAPD officers.

“Almost by nature their work schedule is bizarre and unnatural,” Fyfe said. “This will be a morale booster, especially in Los Angeles, where cops work so far away from where they live.”

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David Lewin, professor and vice dean at the Anderson Graduate School of Management at UCLA, said that because police work requires officers to deal so much with the public, the officers’ job performance, susceptibility to injury and illness, and fatigue levels must be monitored closely.

“I think it’s an open question,” Lewin said of the compressed schedule. “After all, do you want someone breaking up a family dispute in the 11th hour of their shift or the first hour of their shift?”

Nevertheless, the concept is so popular among LAPD officers that over the last month or so Van Nuys Division commander Eide has received 20 requests from officers seeking to transfer to his division.

South Pasadena Police Chief Tom Mahoney said employee turnover and on-duty injuries and traffic accidents have significantly decreased since his department switched to a compressed schedule nearly identical to the one the LAPD is about to implement.

“I believe productivity is just as high if not higher, and our citizen complaints have become virtually nonexistent,” said Mahoney, whose 33 officers police 3 1/2 square miles.