Community Policing in a Rural Setting

Book excerpt: Fifteen papers by experts in the fields of community policing and police management focus on the requirements of organizational change to community policing in rural police departments. One chapter helps define what community policing might look like in rural America, and another chapter presents information from studies of the nature of rural policing across the United States. A chapter presents data from a national subsample of rural police organizations to examine how far community policing has come and what factors they believe have aided or hindered such a transition. The progression of policing in Canada is highlighted in a chapter to show the dynamics of organizational change. A number of chapters address internal organizational issues. Topics in these chapters include the theory behind organizational change to community policing, the role of police culture as a resource in organizational change, and the benefits of specialized units versus department-wide adoption of community policing. A chapter discusses the ways in which police executives can better get to know their employees; and another chapter focuses on issues related to the selection, training, and retention of employees who might be assigned to community- policing work. The third section of the book moves the discussion of community policing from internal organizational change to external organizational change issues. Topics discussed in these chapters include working with communities, getting to know the community through citizen surveys and focus group interviews, organizing and managing community policing, police-community problem-solving, and the future challenge of the urbanization of rural America. Chapter references and appended sample survey questionnaires and focus group questions, and author and subject indexes.