Doing What We’ve Always Done: A Case Study of Rural Policing

Crime and justice cannot be adequately analyzed without an understanding of the historical and social contexts. Policing in a rural community provides an useful example of how social forces shape the delivery of informal as well as formal justice yet little is known about rural law enforcement. Furthermore, although approximately 50 percent of American law enforcement agencies are rural or small town, the vast majority of the research has been on the urban experience.

Based upon a baseline study of policing in a rural Kansas community, this study begins to fill part of that hiatus. The objective of the research project handed by the National Institute of Justice was four-fold: (1) to describe the existing policing model from the perspectives of citizens, community leaders, and law enforcement; (2) to identify the indicators of success or effectiveness of the law enforcement as perceived by citizens, community leaders, and law enforcement; (3) to identify law enforcement priorities and preferred policing models as identified by citizens, community leaders, and law enforcement; and (4) to make recommendations for rural law enforcement policy and training.

The data for this study were obtained from four sources: official crime data, a random sample telephone and mailed survey of community citizens and a hands-on survey of local law enforcement; participatory meetings with key community organizations; and interviews with community “gatekeepers.” Citizen response to the majority of indicators of law enforcement effectiveness was positive and supportive of the existing policing model in contrast to the law enforcement response which was more mixed. When asked how law enforcement should be done, citizen response indicated a conflict between their beliefs about how policing should be done and their evaluations of the success of the delivery of local law enforcement services. The theory of cognitive dissonance renders a useful theoretical framework for understanding the conflict between citizen perceptions of the effectiveness of their law enforcement agencies and their ”John WayneNild West” image of fighting crime.

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http://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/181044.pdf