Senior officers have issued the new advice after paying accountants KPMG £480,000 to provide advice on how to cut costs.
The 18-week review was carried out to help Staffordshire Police cope with budget cuts of £38 million and the loss of 300 officers and civilian staff since April 2010.
The force, along with constabularies around the country, will also have to find extra savings over the coming years after the Government announced budgets cuts of up to 20 per cent by 2014.
Following the reviews, officers have been told to look at all available alternatives to making arrests to reduce the amount of police time spent on suspects and cut the bill for keeping detainees in custody.
Each arrest can take up to eight hours and officers are being encouraged to consider community resolutions, street bail, penalty notices and inviting voluntary attendance for interview instead.
Police will also attend fewer incidents, leaving call centre staff to use greater "professional discretion" on which reports are most important and need a response within the 60-minute target.
A team of 12 constables has been created to conduct preliminary investigations on the phone, freeing up police to attend 'live' incidents.
Chief Constable Mike Cunningham told Staffordshire Police Authority: "This is about service improvement at a time of reduced resources.
"If we lose the satisfaction of the people who contact us for help then we will have failed.
"We need to make sure we can still live up to demands with significantly fewer people.
"Both call handlers and response officers felt that many incidents were being attended inappropriately, for example matters which could be resolved over the phone, or by local authorities."
But county councillor Frank Chapman said: "I don't wish to devalue this, but there are deprived and challenging areas in the force area and a lot of vulnerable people.
"We need to make sure we respond to incidents that sometimes might seem quite minor."
Alan Joinson, chairman of East Bentilee Residents' Association, said: "The police ought to be more visual to nip incidents in the bud."
Police will also attend fewer incidents, leaving call centre staff to use greater "professional discretion" on which reports are most important and need a response within the 60-minute target.
A team of 12 constables has been created to conduct preliminary investigations on the phone, freeing up police to attend 'live' incidents.
Chief Constable Mike Cunningham told Staffordshire Police Authority: "This is about service improvement at a time of reduced resources.
"If we lose the satisfaction of the people who contact us for help then we will have failed.
"We need to make sure we can still live up to demands with significantly fewer people.
"Both call handlers and response officers felt that many incidents were being attended inappropriately, for example matters which could be resolved over the phone, or by local authorities."
But county councillor Frank Chapman said: "I don't wish to devalue this, but there are deprived and challenging areas in the force area and a lot of vulnerable people.
"We need to make sure we respond to incidents that sometimes might seem quite minor."
Alan Joinson, chairman of East Bentilee Residents' Association, said: "The police ought to be more visual to nip incidents in the bud."
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