Policing in public housing: Using calls for service to examine incident‐based workload in the Philadelphia Housing Authority

The present analysis examines police incident‐based activity in a public housing setting. Calls for service to the Philadelphia Housing Authority Police Department are described by call types in order to identify requests for police services by residents of the Philadelphia Housing Authority. Findings from the current research are compared and contrasted to what has been discovered about incident‐based activity in municipal police departments. The analysis reveals that public housing police respond in about the same proportion as municipal police to calls for service related to public order and (in some cases) reactive law enforcement, but that differential service demands exist, which are identified and placed in the public housing context. Additionally, it is found that incident‐driven activity levels in public housing are much lower than criminological research on crime in public housing might suggest. Implications for future research are discussed.