The design and deployment of these complex police radio systems is expensive. Such projects have typically been sold to the public as a means of assuring officer safety, but the real advantages of better communications systems are mobility and tactical flexibility. A radio-equipped patrol car can be free to travel anywhere while still being available for reassignment when needed. Commanders can coordinate human resources and equipment according to existing plans, or even on the fly. As these trends have accelerated, officers have become increasingly isolated from contact with the communities in which they work.
Cops spend a disproportionate amount of time in their cars, driving around on motor patrol.
Much of their work is reactive and involves responding to calls for assistance, rather than preemptive activities that might possibly reduce some of the causes of human distress that result in police action. Currently, SFPD operates a 29-channel radio system, though only 15 channels are in normal use. Four of these are data-only channels, which permit data exchange between dispatchers, central computers and the laptops found in most police cars. San Francisco cops and dispatchers are considerably more loquacious than their counterparts in other cities, and calls for police assistance are quite frequent there. As this article is published in early 2000, the audioscape is undergoing further fragmentation, and the conversation density on police channels is increasing.