SMALL TOWN POLICING AND THE COMMUNITY-BASED POLICING MOVEMENT

Abstract

In this paper, we intend to explore the ideological construction of the concepts Small Town Policing (STP), police professionalism and Community-based Policing. Although CBP may have originated as a reformed urban model which was claimed to be derived from small town policing, Community-based Policing is now, in turn, being introduced (some would say reintroduced) into small town and rural policing in the absence of any severe legitimation crisis, although not without a certain legitimating (or, we will argue, strategic) function. It is the dynamics of this diffusion we wish to explore. How has the CBP model played out in small towns? How has it been perceived in the police culture there? What has its impact been on small town policing?