Finally, a supervisor must be responsible for the officer's performance, training and evaluation. The tendency has been to organize patrol primarily by time of day into watches. The focus of each lieutenant watch commander tends to be on events that occur when the watch is on duty. The lieutenant's responsibility should extend to days when she or he is off and a sergeant member of the watch is in charge. The sergeants and patrol officers also tend to focus on that part of the day when their group is on duty.
Less attention is paid to beat problems, many of which overlap watches.
Ideally, when patrol is organized primarily by time of day, each sergeant will have a zone or sector for which she or he will have a responsibility for community liaison, knowing the problems and people as well as being known. Similarly, GPO's will be assigned to a beat on which they will concentrate between calls. The amount of time available for beat and sector work will depend upon how much remains after dispatches are serviced. That, in turn, depends upon the dispatching policy. Research has found that only 10-15 percent of calls for an officer warrant an immediate dispatch.