Perceptions of Police and Policing in a Rural County of England

Date01 March 2009
AuthorR.I. Mawby
DOI10.1350/ijps.2009.11.1.108
Published date01 March 2009
Subject MatterArticle
Perceptions of police and policing in a
rural county of England
R.I. Mawby
Head of Research, MSR Limited, 14 Gorse Way, Ivybridge, Devon, PL21 0YQ, UK.
Email: professorrobmawby@hotmail.com
Received 6 November 2007; accepted 12 May 2008
Keywords: crime audits, rural policing, crime surveys, police/public
relations
Rob Mawby
was, prior to his retirement, Pro-
fessor of Criminology and Criminal Justice at the
University of Plymouth, Devon, UK. He pre-
viously lectured in the Social Work Research Unit
at Bradford and in the Centre for Social Work
and Applied Social Studies, University of Leeds.
A
BSTRACT
Crime and disorder audits provide the opportun-
ity to identify and address the concerns local
people express about local policing. This paper
discusses the f‌indings of the 2001 and 2004
Cornwall Crime Surveys (CCSs) and identif‌ies
public perceptions of police and policing in the
county. The 2004 survey is used to compare
those holding more favourable views with those
who are critical of the police. The f‌indings are
then used to test the hypothesis that those who
are more critical of the public police will be more
positive about plural policing alternatives. The
f‌indings indicate that rural residents’ concerns
over public safety are accentuated by their concerns
that the police in Cornwall are less accessible than
those in urban areas and they are generally
supportive of increasing the policing mix. How-
ever, they clearly see improvements to the public
police as the preferred solution.
INTRODUCTION
Crime and disorder audits are commonly
perceived to be audits of precisely that:
crime and disorder. However, they also
provide the opportunity to gather feedback
on the way that policing is managed at a
local level. This may involve principally the
police, but policing is of course much
broader than this: it concerns the operation
of local people, the private sector and a
myriad of public sector services in tackling
crime and anti-social behaviour (Crawford,
Lister, Blackburn, & Burnett, 2005).
Indeed, it is arguable that only a minority of
policing services are now provided by the
public police, and that policing in Britain,
as well as in the USA, is characterised by
‘multilateralism’ (Bayley & Shearing, 2001),
of which private security (Button, 2002;
Jones & Newburn, 1995; Jones & New-
burn, 2002) is only one part. Public satis-
faction, or dissatisfaction, with the police
must be viewed in this context, especially
where it is argued that dissatisfaction with
the public police is one explanation for the
expansion of ‘multilateralism’ (Bayley &
Shearing, 2001).
Controversy over the role of the police in
contemporary Britain is pr imarily a debate
over urban policing. As in the USA (Thur-
man & McGarrell, 1997; Weisheit, Wells, &
Falcone, 1994), it is widely assumed that
rural police services ref‌lect closer and more
cooperative relations between police and
their publics. Crime levels have consistently
International Journal of Police Science & Management Volume 11 Number 1
International Journal of Police
Science and Management,
Vol. 11 No. 1, 2009, pp. 39–53.
DOI: 10.1350/ijps.2009.11.1.108
Page 39

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