Relationships and responses: Policing anti-social behaviour in rural Scotland

Abstract

a b s t r a c tRural policing, with a few notable exceptions, has been largely absent from the geographic and criminology literature. Yet, examining rural policing is important for revealing details about rural society, and the role that the police play in controlling rural space. Using participant observation and interview data collected as part of a wider study exploring anti-social behaviour (ASB) in rural Scotland, this paper calls for a more nuanced understanding of rural policing. In order to fully conceptualise the response of the police to ASB in these rural locations, the role of discretion, negotiated order maintenance and police ecommunity interactions need to be considered. These dimensions are considered to lie at the core of the response of the police to ASB in rural Scotland. Existing urban-based policing typologies are helpful for beginning to understand the multiple ways that the police control territory. Yet they are of limited relevance to some of the challenges identified with policing rural contexts, namely the scale of the environment, the lack of back-up and the forms of ASB that are common in rural locations. This paper concludes by arguing that the rural needs to be (re)conceptualised as a distinct, challenging and variable policing environment, with particular contextual factors that need to be considered.

‘Soft’ Policing in Rural Scotland

“…The notion of negotiated order maintenance, where community officers are actively engaged with negotiating their response to ASB in the community, becomes a particularly important part of the 'soft' policing response here, something which is necessitated in some rural policing locations (Wooff, 2015b).…”

“…In particular, the local rural context, which has been highlighted as important for understanding the nuances of the soft policing agenda, risks being undermined by a policing approach widely accepted as less localised (Fyfe & Scott, 2013;Yarwood & Wooff, 2016). Police decision making at the nationalscale has, in some places, risked diluting the embedded community knowledge developed in the legacy forces by rural police officers (Wooff, 2015a(Wooff, , 2015b. This can make soft policing harder by changing the role of the rural community officer to something more akin to the urban response officer.…”

“…This controversial policy was introduced without adequate community consultation and resulted in the police being criticised for not policing to rural contexts, rather importing an urban, Glasgow style of policing (Candlish, 2014;Kelly, 2014). Deploying armed officers on routine patrol is regarded as a 'hard' form of policing, where crime control dominates over the negotiated community interaction discussed in relation to remote rural locations (Wooff, 2015b). Interestingly, however, the response of the various rural communities subject to this policing style underscored the sense that rural policing should not be an urban style of policing parachuted in, but rather develop a context dependent nuance.…”

Rural crime and community safety

“…During recent decades, policing has been opened up to other actors, citizens, and NGOs. Yet, as suggested by Wooff (2015), rural policing, with a few exceptions, has been largely absent from the criminology literature. Adding to this literature, Woof characterizes policing practices against anti-social behavior in rural Scotland.…”

Reimagining Rural Crime in England: A Historical Perspective

“…Rural crime is "a subject that rouses strong feelings in many country folk who feel sidelined by police forces that concentrate on urban areas" (Daelnet, 2007). However, despite the increasing issues faced by rural communities, the focus of policing, policy and academic research continues to be urban-centric (Harkness, Harris & Baker, 2015;Mawby, 2004;Wooff, 2015), and the public continues to view the English countryside as the rural idyll of by-gone eras (Dingwall & Moody, 1999).…”