COMMUNITY POLICING IN SMALL-TOWN AND RURAL AMERICA

Community policing has become a popular approach. Discussions of commu nity policing have focused on urban and suburban departments, generall y ignoring rural and small town police organizations. Ironically, many of these departments have a history of practices that correspond dire ctly to the principles of community policing. For example, officers in these agencies typically know the citizens personally, have frequent face-to-face contact with them, and engage in a variety of problem-sol ving activities that fall outside of law enforcement. In neglecting sm all town and rural police, researchers have denied themselves an impor tant natural laboratory for studying community policing.