How are cops assigned to beats?

[True2marie]

Does human resources in police stations try to hire people for specific beats that used to be their old neighborhood? I ask this because there's nothing like familiarity to help a person understand another one. The downfall of this process would be arresting a friend. The upside would be arresting an enemy.

 

[Ricardo187]

I'm unsure about what you mean by this, can you explain further?

 

[PhilA]

The poster is basically asking how or who determines what neighbourhoods cops patrol. And if they patrol somewhere they currently or used to live.

 

[bala]

There are Beat patrol officers here and i asked them once how they are assigned the postings.He says no one person gets to watch over a locality for over a month.They shuffle those officers based on resident's concerns.It is to avoid some "confidential" factor they didn't want to reveal.