If you have issues viewing or accessing this file contact us at NCJRS.gov. ;--'\\ , U.S. Department of Justice , Office of Justice Programs National Institute ofJustice National Institute of Justice I " CrirPe and Policing in Rural 11 l and i Snulll,. Tmvn America: An Overview of the Issues ! , I I ~ LO (V) c· i ! : ~ 1 I 0 ; . LO I I ~ --------------------------------- About the National Institute of Justice The National Institute of Justice, a component of the Office of Justice Programs, is the research and development agency of the U.S. Department of Justice. NIJ was established to prevent and reduce crime and to improve the criminal justice system. Specific mandates established by Congress in the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968, as amended, and the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1988 direct the National Institute of Justice to: • Sponsor special projects and research and development programs that will improve and strengthen the criminal justice system and reduce or prevent crime. II Conduct nat/unal demonstration projects that employ innovative or promising approaches for improving criminal justice. • Develop new technologies to fight crime and improve criminal justice. II Evaluate the effectiveness of criminal justice programs and identify programs that promise to be successful if continued or repeated. .. Recommend actions that can be taken by Federal, State, and local governments as well as private organizations to improve criminal justice. • Carry out research on criminal behavior. • Develop new methods of crime prevention and reduction of crime and delinquency. The National Institute of Justice has a long history of accomplishments, including the following: • Basic research on career criminals that led to the development of special police and prosecutor units to deal with repeat offenders. • Research that confirmed the link between drugs and crime. • The research and development program that resulted in the creation of police body armor that has meant the difference between life and death to hundreds of police officers. .. Pioneering scientific advances such as tl'e research and development of DNA analysis to positively identify suspects and eliminate the innocent from ~~uspicion. II The evaluation of innovative justice programs to determine what works, including drug enforcement, community policing, community anti-drug initiatives, prosecution of complex drug cases, drug testing throughout the criminal justice system, and user accountability programs. II Creation of a corrections information-sharing system that enables State and local officials to exchange more efficient and cost-effective concepts and techniques for planning, financing, and constructing new prisons and jails. • Operation of the world's largest criminal justice information clearinghouse, a resource used by State and local officials across the Nation and by criminal justice agencies in foreign countries. The Institute Director, who is appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate, establishes the Institute's objectives, guided by the priorities of the Office of Justice Programs, the Department of Justice, and the needs of the criminal justice field. The Institute actively solicits the views of criminal justice professionals to identify their most critical problems. Dedicated to the priorities of Federal, State, and local criminal justice agencies, research and development at the National Institute of Justice continues to search for answers to what works and why in the Nation's war on drugs and crime. Crime and Policing in Rural and Small-Town America: An Overview of the Issues Dr. RalphA. Weisheit Dr. L. Edward Wells Dr. David N. Falcone A Final Summary Report Presented to the National Institute of Justice September 1995 u.s. Department of Justice Office of Justice Programs National Institute of Justice Jeremy Travis Director Marilyn Moses Project Monitor 154354 U.S. Department of Justice National Institute of Justice This document has been reproduced exactly as received from the person or organization originating it. Points of view or opinions stated in this document are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official position or policies of the National Institute of Justice. Permission to reproduce this tM1t~material has been granted by PlJbJ i c !bma in• loJPJ INLI u. S. Department of Justice to the National Criminal Justice Reference Service (NCJRS). Further reproduction outside of the NCJRS system requires permission of the~owner. This project was supported under award number 92-U-CX-K012 awarded to the Department of Criminal Justice, Illinois State University, at Normal, by the National Institute of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice. Opinions or points of view expressed in this document are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official position of the U.S. Department ofJustice. NCJ 154354 The National Institute of Justice is a component of the Office of Justice Programs, which also includes the Bureau of Justice Assistance, Bureau of Justice Statistics, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, and the Office for Victims of Crime. - ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The authors would like to express their thanks to the National Sheriffs' Association for its cooperation and assistance, with particular thanks to Ms. Theresa Mathews. And, for their comments on earlier drafts of this document, we would like to thank Sheriff G. C. "Buck" Buchanan of Yavapai County, Arizona; Sheriff Carl R. Harbaugh of Frederick County, Maryland; and Sheriff J. C. Bittick of Monroe County, Georgia. The project has benefited enormously from the comments of Dr. Joseph Donnermeyer and Mr. Larry Heisner and from Dr. Mark Hamm's comments on the hate crimes section. The authors also wish to thank Mr. Michael Chitty for his assistance in locating and organizing much of the hard-to­ fmd literature. Finally, the authors wish to thank Ms. Nancy Becker who arranged interviews, transcribed tapes, and took care of a dozen other details to make this project possible. CRIME AND POLICING IN RURAL AND SMALL-TOWN AMERICA: I AN OVERVIEW OF THE ISSUES I TABLE OF CONTENTS I I. INTRODUCTION 1 II. THE STUDY 3 The Literature Review 3 Interviews 4 Summary 5 III. WHAT IS RURAL? 6 Conceptual Issues 6 Demographic 6 Economic 7 Social stlUctural 7 Cultural 8 Measurement Issues 10 Analytical Issues 14 Rural as a quantitative variable versus a typological category 14 Rural as a scope condition versus a causal variable 14 General versus localized analysis 14 Rural as a single variable versus many different variables 14 Rural as a dependent versus an independent variable 15 Problematic Assumptions 15 Magnitude assumption 15 Homogeneity assumption 16 Implicit definition assumption 16 Summary 16 IV. THE RURAL SETTING OF CRIME AND JUSTICE 18 Geographic Isolation 18 Availability of Guns 19 Economic Factors 21 Race and Ethnicity 22 Race in lUral areas 22 Ethnicity in lUral areas 23 Race, ethnicity l and crime 24 iii Social Climate 25 Informal control 25 Mistrust of government 27 Reluctance to share internal problems 28 Summary 28 V. RURAL AND SMALL-TO\VN CRIME 30 Fear of Crime 30 Rural Versus Urban Crime 31 Trends in Rural Crime 34 Special Issues 37 Gangs 37 Alcohol and drugs 40 Vice and organized crime 43 Violence 44 Hate crimes 46 Arson 49 Agricultural crimes 50 Wildlife crimes 53 Emerging issues 54 Summary 55 VI. RURAL AND SMALL-TOWN POLICE 58 Who Are Rural Police? 58 Sheriffs vs. Municipal Police 59 Department Size 61 The Effectiveness of Rural Departments 65 Styles of Policing in Rural Areas 66 Community Policing 69 Special Problems 73 Violence and Rural Police 75 Summary 77 VII. OTHER PARTS OF THE SYSTEM: 79 The Practice of Law 79 Rural Courts 81 Rural Jails 83 Prisons 84 Summary 86 VIII. POLICY AND RESEARCH ISSUES 87 General Issues 87 Specific Areas for Further Consideration 88 IX. REFERENCES 92 iv ------=--------------------------------------- I. INTRODUCTION Police practices vary from one area to another, and studying the varieties of police behavior can yield important insights into the role of police in a community. These variations have been noted in regard to styles of policing, bureaucratic structure, patterns of crime, and the demands of local communities. 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. Similii:rly, 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. Neglecting rural policing and rural crime is justifiable if there is nothing about policing, crime, or the community in rural environments that precludes directly applying knowledge from urban areas. 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. This report examines what is known about crime and policing in rural areas and small towns and how they are shaped by the rural environment. To place this discussion in a larger context, it is useful to consider broad reasons why a study of rural and small-town policing is important. There are several practical reasons for studying policing and rural crime: • 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.