Rural Policing and Policing the Rural: A Constable Countryside?

Policing reveals much about rural society. It refers to the way that the police, the public and other agencies regulate themselves and each other according to the dominant ideals of society. This can be formally, through the ever-growing spectrum of policing partnerships in neo-liberal countries, or informally, through the performance and enforcement of moral codes and values. This book draws on international inter-disciplinary perspectives to examine the range and consequences of policing across different rural localities. Rural Policing and Policing the Rural is organised into two sections: the first examines who is policing rural areas, while the second examines the nature of rural policing by considering, on the one hand, the policing of rural space and, on the other, how ideas of rurality are regulated. In doing so this book provides a survey of rural policing that will be valuable to academics, students, policy makers and those policing rural places.

A multi-disciplinary team of leading scholars bring together case studies from developed countries to examine the performance of police and policing in rural areas. The book argues that rurality, policing and criminality are socially constructed and policing therefore rests on the ways in which the police, public and other agencies regulate themselves and each other according to the dominant ideals of society.