Police departments across the US vary in size. A majority of the departments we work with staff anywhere from 15-100 people. Therefore, we have compiled a few schedule examples to fit the needs of these sized departments.

*We also work with departments all the way up to 1,000 employees but 15-100 are the majority of our users

In this post, we will cover the top 3 schedules that we have seen being used to cover 24x7 patrol in 25-person departments.

However, you can download the Schedule Examples PDF that will include over 5 different examples based on departments this size.

Top 3 police shift schedules used include:

1. [2 on 3 off] [2 on 2 off] [3 on 3 off]
2. [4 on 3 off]
3. [5 on 2 off]

1. [2 on 3 off] [2 on 2 off] [3 on 3 off]

The top used schedule from our database of 25+ departments is the Pitman Schedule - Download Pitman PDF here.

We do have a whole article dedicated to this 12 hour shift schedule (click here to view) but will briefly go over it below.

The rotation for this schedule is [2 on 3 off] [2 on 2 off] [3 on 3 off].

It requires 12 hour shifts, 2 templates, and 2 squads.

What are templates?

 Squad 1:

Squad 2 will be the same days of the week but on the night shift.

12 hour shift schedules tend to create more fatigue when on duty.

However, they allow for more days off so some officers will prefer 12 hour shifts over 8 or 10 hour shifts.

2. [4 on 3 off]

This 10-hour shift schedule is displayed below with 7 police shift schedule templates.

It requires 3 squads to cover all 3 shifts; day, swing, and night.

While this is a very common schedule, each department seems to do it a little different.

Some only use a few templates and some add day/swing/night all in one template lasting more than one week.

 Squad 1:

Squad 2 and 3 are the same templates, but replace the day shift with swing and night shift to cover 24x7.

3. [5 on 2 off]

This 8 hour shift schedule is the most common when it comes to 8 hour schedules. You can use one-week templates like our examples below or you can use multiple weeks and just change the shift times. 

For example, have 6-week templates and rotate every 2 weeks, day, mid, and night shift. 

We use 7 templates below but depending on your specific staffing requirements you may be able to just use 3 out of the 7 (ex; 1, 3 and 5).

 Squad 1:

Repeat for 2 more squads with different shift times to cover 24x7. 

All three of these schedules were used by 25-person departments but also by larger size departments.

The examples are very basic guidelines because of how differently each department is run.

The schedules will need to be adjusted a little bit depending on the rules and size of your department. 

If you want to print out and share this post, download the PDF of schedule examples below!

 Read More:

• How to Efficiently Manage Time Off Requests in Your Department
• 10 Scheduling Software Features You Didn't Know You Needed
• 5 Free Officer Scheduling Options for Your Department