Mawby, R. I. and Yarwood, R. (eds). (2011). * RURAL POLICING AND POLICING THE RURAL, A CONSTABLE COUNTRYSIDE?

PurposeThe purpose of the paper is to present the results of research in the region covered by the Murska Sobota Police Directorate based on semi-structured interviews we conducted with community policing officers in the rural and urban areas of Pomurje.Design/methodology/approachCommunity policing is one of the more recent (yet hardly new) ways of ensuring security. It focuses on collaboration between citizens and the police, the joint identification of security issues and resolving them. Not long ago, it was established that policing varies depending on geographical criteria, specifically the urbanisation of the environment since police work in cities is often very narrowly specialised compared to in a rural environment. We were therefore interested in whether the Pomurje region also shows that it is easier to practise community policing in rural areas compared to cities.FindingsThe research results confirm previous findings; namely, that in urban areas approximately two-thirds of the population does not know the community policing officer, leading to the mutual cooperation between residents and the police being poorer than in rural areas. The conclusion describes ways of improving the established situation facing Pomurje.Research limitations/implicationsWe see the limitations of the study in the peculiarities of the Pomurje region; therefore the results cannot be generalised and applied in areas of other police directorates.Originality/valueThe survey offers insight into rural and urban policing in the Pomurje region at the same time, focusing on possibilities for improvements.

Section: Community Policing In Urban and Rural Environmentsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Intertwined rural and urban policing in the local communities of the Pomurje region in Slovenia

Eman,

Ivančić,

Bagari

2024

“…Within Europe, rural policing has received considerable attention (Lindstr€ om, 2015;Wooff, 2017). Research on rural spaces in England has demonstrated rural policing is an institutionalized community endeavor where volunteers, service partners, and public police have shared responsibilities which can lead to stressors that are dissimilar from those of their urban counterparts (Mawby, 2016;Houdmont et al, 2020;Bullock and Garland, 2023). In Slovenia, Me sko and Hacin (2022) show differences in police legitimacy between rural and urban police and these differences were found in relation to organizational commitment, relations with colleagues, and audience legitimacy.…”

Section: Social Capital and Rural Policingmentioning

confidence: 99%

“It's kind of preventative maintenance”: social capital and policing in rural schools

Spencer,

Ricciardelli,

Hepburn

2024

PurposeThe purpose of this article is to examine the expectations, challenges and tensions officers describe while engaged with public schools to demonstrate that officers engage with students in public schools in a conscious, goal-oriented process to establish and maintain useful relationships.Design/methodology/approachData collection involved 104 semi-structured interviews (including follow up interviews) and 31 focus groups, conducted between 2014 and 2018 with police officers working in rural areas of a province in Atlantic Canada.FindingsUtilizing the concept of social capital, we analyze practices of investments alongside the understanding of rurality as socially interconnected and the rural school as a particular site of interconnectedness for police officers. We demonstrate how, while accumulating social capital, officers face role tension and fundamental barriers when trying to integrate into rural school communities.Originality/valueBy demonstrating the specificities of building social capital in schools and community environments in a rural setting, we contribute to understandings regarding the unique opportunities and challenges faced by police in rural schools in integrating effectively into schools and responding to youth-specific problems.

“…This complexity increases when national police reform and a dispersed spatial geography mean that within rural communities the various dynamics of "good" policing are not well understood (Skinns et al, 2017;Wooff, 2022). While rural policing has become more researched and written about (Harkness (2020); Mawby and Yarwood (2011); Ruddell and Jones (2020); Yarwood and Wooff (2016)), police custody in rural areas has been largely neglected, not only by the policy context, but also with regards to the academic literature. It is therefore an important and timely issue to examine in the context of Scotland, particularly following the structural reform of policing in Scotland in 2013 and resultant impact on policing and police custody in rural areas.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Police custody in rural Scotland: negotiating boundaries, risk and organisational change

Wooff

2024

PurposeThis paper explores the challenging nexus of police custody, risk and intra-organisational boundaries in the context of a recently reformed national police service. Police custody is an often-hidden aspect of policing, away from the public gaze and scrutiny. Although there is increasing recognition of the importance of rural policing (e.g. Harkness (2020); Mawby and Yarwood (2011); Ruddell and Jones (2020); Yarwood and Wooff (2016)), there has been little or no focus on rural police custody. This paper seeks to begin to redress this by focussing on the challenges faced by rural police custody in the context of large-scale organisational change.Design/methodology/approachThis paper draws on data from a study funded by the Scottish Institute for Policing Research (2016–2018), entitled “Measuring Risk and Efficiency in Police Custody in Scotland”. The paper adopts a qualitative methodology to develop an understanding of the varying nature of police custody across Scotland. Two contrasting case study locations were selected, one urban and one rural. 12 semi-structured interviews and 15 hours of observation were carried out. Data was transcribed, coded and analysed and thematic analysis enabled themes to be developed. This paper draws on the data from the rural custody suite.FindingsDrawing on the theoretical framework of Giacomantonio (2014) and more recent considerations of abstract policing Terpstra et al. (2019), this paper offers insights into the ways that police custody in rural Scotland has been organised, against the backdrop of challenging organisational change. I argue that as policing services in Scotland have become increasingly “abstract” from communities, police custody as a national division has witnessed the impact of this more greatly than other parts of local policing. Intra-organisational management around staffing has led to complex management of risk, illustrating some of the challenges of national organisational change on police custody.Originality/valueThis paper focuses on the impact of large scale organisational change on rural police custody and intra-organisational relationships and dynamics. Rural policing is still a largely neglected area of study and rural police custody is even less understood. This paper therefore provides an original contribution by focusing on this under-researched area of policing. It also illustrates complexity around risk, staffing and management of people being held in rural police custody suites. It is therefore of value to policing scholars in other contexts, as well as rural criminology more generally. It has applicability to international contexts where macro level policing reform is occurring.