Police departments in resort communities: Organizational adjustments to population undulation

The presence of recreational populations in a community imposes special burdens upon municipal service organizations such as the police. Departments must develop techniques for dealing with the problems associated with the presence of large numbers of transients. In this study, police departments in beach resorts are compared with police in similar nonresort communities in order to assess differences in operations and structure between the two types. Generally, resort police tend to have well‐established practices for dealing with summer populations and appear to be more formalized and “bureaucratic” than their counterparts in more stable communities.