Community policing has become a popular approach. Discussions of community policing have focused on urban and suburban departments, generally ignoring rural and small town police organizations. Ironically, many of these departments have a history of practices that correspond directly to the principles of community policing. For example, officers in these agencies typically know the citizens personally, have frequent face-to-face contact with them, and engage in a variety of problem-solving activities that fall outside of law enforcement. In neglecting small town and rural police, researchers have denied themselves an important natural laboratory for studying community policing.
This conceptual article focuses on the small-town municipal-level police department, as a distinctive model within the mosaic of US policing. As an example of the success of a low-tech, nonmilitarized, open systems model, the small-town police department stands in stark contrast to its urban counterpart. As a result of its affinity towards generalization as opposed to specialization, the small-town department has higher crime clearance rates and is organizationally receptive to the demands and requirements of community-oriented policing. The small-town police department's absence of``professionalism'' and militarism is key to its community connectedness, the foundation of its efficacy.
Argues that US county‐level policing is distinct from municipal policing. Examines differences between them in terms of historical, political, geographical, functional, organizational and regional variations. Suggests how research might be focused to explicate these differences. In particular, presents the idea of a militia, a group organized out of and by a community for its own protection. Contrasts this with the professional paramilitary model associated with large municipal departments. Points out that most police agencies are not large or urban. The greater part of the USA is policed by approximately 3,000 county‐level agencies. Proposes the militia model as a template for further research.
Examines the history of US conservation police agencies and notes how changes in social values and recreational activities have increased the demands for the protection of wildlife and other natural resources. This has led to the creation of departments of natural resources (DNRs). DNRs have placed an increasingly heavier burden on conservation police departments and have demanded a wider range of tasks and responsibilities of them. These more general policing tasks have, in turn, cast the formerly law enforcement-oriented conservation police into a more generalist police-like posture.
This article is a social history regarding the creation and evolution of the state police in Illinois as an archetypal model. The methodology and data collection employed a content analysis of both primary and secondary sources. It is posited that the Illinois State Police is a historical artifact that is the product of: (1) the Progressive agenda and the concomitant police professionalization movement; (2) social, economic and cultural forces at work during the years immediately following the turn of the century; and (3) the desire by entrenched power to control the laboring and unruly classes. Both the evolution of the Illinois State Police and its place within the American scheme of policing are representative of other state-level policing agencies across the nation.While an abundance of literature has been produced regarding the urban police phenomenon, little has been generated regarding other policing institutions in America, including the state police. A review of contemporary texts in policing shows that state-level policing has been largely ignored or given only scant attention. For example, Walker 1992-a seminal text in policing-has only one paragraph on state-level policing, and Gaines's and Cordner's anthology of policing (1999) is completely silent on the issue.This article provides a social history for the emergence of the state police concept, using the Illinois State Police as a representative and evolutionary model. The social history focuses on the impact of the Progressive Era regarding U.S. policing institutions generally and, more specifically, on Progressivism as the impetus for the creation of many state police organizations.A brief overview of the Progressive agenda is presented, followedby its connection to the police professionalization movement. The effects of the tumultuous history of the early twentieth century (i.e., World War I, prohibition, massive immigration and labor and evolutionary unrest) are identified as catalysts for policing at the state level.
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