Contemporary issues and trends in small town policing

¶ … Small Town Policing

Although the literature on rural crime and justice is comparatively sparse, it is evident that rural environments are distinct from urban environments in ways that affect policing, crime, and public policy.

Twenty-first century America has turned out to be a very dangerous place, with numerous threats from within and without characterizing the environment across the country today. In fact, a growing number of small town police departments are being confronted with the same types of criminal activities that characterize their larger city counterparts, and the need for homeland security considerations has further exacerbated the problems facing police departments in smaller communities in the United States today. To identify current contemporary issues and trends in small town policing, this paper provides a review of the relevant peer-reviewed and scholarly literature, followed by a summary of the research and salient findings in the conclusion.

Review and Discussion

Introduction

Definitions of "small town" vary, but some operationalization of the term is in order. According to Black's Law Dictionary (1990), a town is "A community which is smaller and less organized than a city, a small municipality. The word 'town' is quite commonly used as a generic term and as including both cities and villages" (p. 1491). Another definition provided by Howell and Egley (2005) indicates that smaller cities have "populations between 2,500 and 25,000" (p. 1). Therefore, for the purposes of this analysis, "small towns" will be considered to be those municipalities with populations approximately between 2,500 and 25,000.

Although small-town police departments may not equal their larger municipal counterparts in terms of size, they are faced with many of the same types of challenges and threats as large city police departments confront every day. For instance, according to Murphy, "Police in small towns are being forced to respond to cultural pressures for operational modernization, to economic pressures for cost effectiveness and organizational accountability, to political pressure for decentralized federal and rationalized provincial control and to internal occupational pressures for more managerial autonomy and occupational flexibility" (p. 333). In their text, Crime and Policing in Rural and Small-Town America: An Overview of the Issues, Weisheit, Wells and Falcone (1995) report that:

Rural crime is a problem and may be increasing;

Rural areas are often used to produce drugs, such as marijuana and methamphetamines;

Rural areas are used as transshipment points for such illegal goods as drugs, stolen auto parts, and illegal cash;

Some have argued that urban crime networks, such as street gangs, are setting up "franchises" or "satellite operations" in rural areas.

Rural areas have special crime problems, such as organized theft of livestock, equipment, and grain, for which urban police are poorly trained, yet which may be enormously costly to both the victim and society.

Tackling these trends is a tall order, of course, and achieving these challenging law enforcement goals requires more than a "seat-of-the-pants" management response. In this regard, Weisheit, Falcone and Wells (2006) emphasize that, "Responding to rural crime requires an awareness of its context and how justice is carried out, as well as an appreciation of how features vary across rural areas. Understanding the relationships among crime, geography, and culture in the rural setting can reveal useful ideas and implications for crime and justice in communities across the United States" (p. iv). In this environment, it is little wonder that the popular images of the bucolic policing methods used by Sheriff Andy Taylor and his sidekick, Deputy Barney Fife, are no longer valid, despite the fact that many small-town police departments continue to rely on these same types of community-based policing methods as discussed further below.

Community-Based Policing

Small-town policing has traditionally employed a community-based approach and these methods remain firmly in place in many rural and small-town police departments across the country. A testimonial for one retiring small-town police chief of Fox River Grove, Illinois, helps to capture the essence of this approach: "Chief Robert 'Bob' Polston... was the epitome of a small-town police chief, by always making one feel welcome and was always willing to lend his ear to problems as they arose. Bob, even as the chief, would patrol the streets with his fellow patrolmen, and was a fixture at community events, including directing traffic, and all in all, was in constant contact with members of the community" (Fence post, 2007, p. 14). According to Falcone, Wells and Weisheit (2002), "The small-town municipal-level police department is a distinctive model within the mosaic of U.S. policing. As an example of the success of low-tech, nonmilitarized, open systems model, the small-town police department stands in sharp contrast to its urban counterpart" (p. 371). In many cases, the techniques and methods developed for small-town policing applications, though, have served as models for larger urban settings specifically because they have been shown to be highly effective in their respective venues. In this regard, Mawby (1999) reports that, "This ahistoricity (and sometimes ethnocentric history) derives from the hegemony of North American scholarship in police studies. Research has recently suggested that rural policing practices contain many lessons for the reconstruction of urban policing on community lines" (p. 168).

It is certainly possible and indeed desirable to implement some of the policing methods used by small town police departments, such as community-based initiatives, in larger urban settings, and this has been the trend in recent years across the country. In fact, as Mawby advises, "The rural and small town policing of the United States may have been the taken-for-granted model for the urban developments" (p. 168). As Kingston and Brennan (1991) point out, though, "Small-town policing unfortunately is practised very differently once the town becomes a city. The change started many years ago in the U.S. when police officers were taken from the beat and placed in cruisers. This was in response to police corruption and deliberately done to isolate the police officer from the public" (p. 532).

In their analysis of small town policing methods, Wolfer and Baker (2000) identified a number of constraints to studying such policing methods because of the so-called "halo effect." According to these authors, "Demographic factors and the 'halo effect' can influence police evaluations, particularly in rural communities which are especially vulnerable to political agendas and personal relationships that can skew survey data" (p. 52). The results of the Wolfer and Baker study indicate that although residents in smaller community generally evaluated their police departments favorably, a high percentage of "don't know" responses also indicated that many citizens in these smaller communities were not prepared to evaluate all aspects of their police services. Moreover, there remains a fundamental paucity of timely research concerning specific types of policing methods in place across the country in smaller municipalities. For instance, according to Weisheit, Wells and Falcone (1995):

Curiously, most studies of variations in police behavior have been conducted in urban settings. By comparison, rural and small-town policing has been relatively neglected. Similarly, studies of crime often focus on national patterns that imply a homogeneity across areas, which is patently absurd. and, like studies of police, studies of crime that do consider variations from one area to the next frequently focus on comparisons among urban areas, occasionally make rural-urban comparisons, but rarely examine differences among rural areas. (p. 1).

No matter what size the municipality might be, though, Kingston and Brennan suggest that the community-based style of policing that characterizes many small towns will be appropriate in virtually any setting: "In our view, community-based policing will be a success when every police officer is given the authority to practice small-town policing and truly understands the principle, 'the police are the public and the public are the police.' Our citizens deserve no less" (Kingston & Brennan, p. 536).

Gender- and Minority-Related Initiatives

Some small-town police departments have been confronted with the need to overcome longstanding institutionalized policies that discriminate against women and minorities. In their analysis of some of the problems that continue to plague smaller police departments across the country, Feagin, Vera and Batur (2001) found a significant degree of racism and police malfeasance that adversely affected the ability of these departments to deliver effective law enforcement services for their communities. In this regard, Feagin et al. report, "Taken together with other data revealing police malpractice, framing, and evidence-planting in rural police departments, these data directly confront the notion that there is no racism in the criminal justice system. There is, indeed, much racist practice and ideology in the criminal justice system, if only because the whites who generally control that system are not much different from those outside it" (p. 149). Furthermore, although more female officers are being hired by many small town police departments, in some cases, these newly hired female officers have discovered that they have been hired in a merely token capacity only (Shulz, 2004).

Technology and Communications

Just as more and more larger municipal police departments are adopting some of the methods used by small town police departments, more small town police departments are seeking out the same resources as their larger counterparts. As a result, more small town police departments today have access to online resources and law enforcement networks. Not surprisingly, these innovations have provided small town police departments with access to the same level of online resources as their larger urban counterparts. For instance, a seminal study by Wasby (1975) found that there was a lack of communication of important Supreme Court decisions to small town police departments. The findings of the Wasby study were likely made obsolete by police administrators' higher educational levels today and by the introduction of Supreme Court opinions and case commentaries on the Internet, thereby providing easy access by small town police departments (Zalman & Smith, 2007).

Likewise, in their analysis of small-town police department information needs, Winn, Bucy and Klishis (1999) emphasize that even in "low-tech, nonmilitarized" settings, small-town police departments are increasingly experiencing the need for the same type of technology that their larger urban counterparts enjoy. For instance, these authors emphasize that, "In the Information Age, it is more true than ever that knowledge is power. For security professionals, the precise knowledge of what transpired when a security breach occurs is key to preventing a recurrence and, in the best cases, catching the criminals. Accurate and reliable incident report information is as critical to the security mission as state-of-the-art access control" (Bucy & Klishis, p. 93).

The impact of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 and the need for localized emergency response efforts has also resulted in a trend wherein smaller police departments are seeking out the same types of emergency response and tactical equipment that larger departments possess, but many either lack of the funds needed to acquire such equipment and the training required to use it effectively once it is obtained. The results of a recent study by Latourrette, Peterson, Bartis, Jackson and Houser (2003) found that the procurement of personal protective equipment for smaller municipal police departments and the provision of training in its use continue to lag far behind the need. A police official in one smaller municipality reported, "We are the only public servant first responder [organization] that has never been mandated to have such equipment" (quoted in Latourrette et al. At p. 54).

Likewise, another representative from a small-town police department in a heavily industrialized region of the country described how his police department was relatively well prepared in terms of communications, hazmat, and incident command; however, in terms of personal protective technology, this official stressed: "We are sadly lacking. To put an officer out there with insufficient training and equipment is not right" (quoted in Latourrette et al. At p. 54). Some small-town police departments have managed to acquire some lesser expensive equipment which they have found just as useful and effective as their larger city counterparts. For instance, Nolan (2005) reports that the police department in Junction City, Louisiana, acquired Tasers and non-lethal weapons and ammunition in recent years and have experienced highly positive results. According to Nolan, "The Tasers are especially useful in a small department such as Junction City, where often a single officer works patrol with backup from neighboring agencies 15 or more minutes away. Because of his small staff, the chief is always chasing down new technology. His department is the first in Lane County to acquire Tasers, and was the first to buy bean-bag rifles a decade ago" (Nolan, p. 1).

Notwithstanding the traditionally benign "Mayberry"-type views of crime in smaller communities consisting of bootleg moonshining and the occasional domestic disturbance, the fact remains that police in these smaller communities face many of the same types of violent crime as big cities but the small town police departments lack the training and equipment they need to be truly effective first responders. As Latourrette and his colleagues emphasize, in small towns, "The low baseline of personal protection preparedness combined with high performance demands on personal protective technology used in law enforcement creates particularly difficult hurdles standing in the way of improving the health and safety of law enforcement responders in the line of duty" (p. 54).

Increased Illegal Drug Activity.

Many rural communities have experienced an increase in the incidence of illicit drug trade and manufacture. As noted above, many small-town police departments have faced increased economic pressures to become more cost effectiveness. In response and because resources are by definition scarce, some small-town police departments have collaborated with the U.S. Justice Department to effect arrests of these perpetrators while securing a large portion of the proceeds in the process. In this regard, Blumenson and Nilsen (1998) report that many small town police departments have benefited from a separate "equitable sharing" provision of the Drug Enforcement Administration that allows local police to federalize assets that are forfeited in such drug-related cases. According to these authors, "This law gives police a way to circumvent their own state forfeiture laws, which often require police to share forfeited assets with school boards, libraries, drug education programs or the general fund.... If a U.S. Attorney 'adopts' the forfeiture, 80% of the assets are returned to the local police agency and 20% are deposited in the Justice Department's forfeiture fund" (p. 11). The U.S. Justice Department has transferred almost $1.4 billion in forfeited assets to state and local law-enforcement agencies in recent years, and some small-town police forces have increased their annual budgets by a factor of five or more through such drug-enforcement activities (Blumenson & Nilsen).

A number of rural communities have also experienced an enormous increase in the number of methamphetamine laboratories that have sprung up in some cases, virtually overnight, resulting in the concomitant introduction of drug abuse and increased incidences of properties crimes that go hand in hand with such activities. In this regard, Hohman, Oliver and Wright (2004) report, "Methamphetamine abuse is on the increase, particularly by females of childbearing age. In California from 1992 to 1998, methamphetamine as a primary drug rose from 11.2% to 22.4% of all alcohol and other drug treatment admissions for females, and from 6.8% to 13.5% for males" (p. 373).

Although this trend was originally confined mostly to western states and Hawaii, recent studies have shown that methamphetamine abuse and its illegal manufacturing activities are now spreading to the southern, northwestern, and midwestern United States (Hohman et al.). According to these authors, "Initially thought to be a relatively benign drug, problems from its use in the 1960s and 1970s led to federal legislation that severely restricted legal production, which caused an increase in illegal methamphetamine production laboratories. Most of these laboratories were in the rural western and southwestern United States, because the chemicals used in methamphetamine's production (precursors) -- ephedrine and pseudoephedrine -- were easy to obtain in Mexico" (Hohman et al., p. 373).