‘This isn’t what I signed up for’
| Author | Laura Huey,Rose Ricciardelli |
| DOI | 10.1177/1461355715603590 |
| Published date | 01 September 2015 |
| Date | 01 September 2015 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Article
‘This isn’t what I signed up for’: When
police officer role expectations conflict
with the realities of general duty police
work in remote communities
Laura Huey
Department of Sociology, University of Western Ontario, Canada
Rose Ricciardelli
Department of Sociology, Memorial University of Newfoundland, Canada
Abstract
Although some insight into the sources and scope of occupational stress among rural police officers exists, historically,
researchers have focused largely on their policing styles, rather than the relationship between what officers do and
how they feel about their work as police in rural jurisdictions. To address this lacuna in knowledge and literature, we
draw on data collected from semi-structured interviews conducted with 20 active police officers, each of whom is
presently assigned to one of seven rural police detachments in a province in Eastern Canada and field observation of
police working in a rural detachment in this same province. In adopting a role theory perspective, we first reveal how
officers operationalize their roles as law enforcers, peacekeepers, social workers and/or knowledge workers. We then
examine their experiences of role strain as a result of mismatches between their desired versus actual occupational
role(s). The majority of officers aspired to hold either the law enforcement or social worker role, which they saw as
being most closely associated with their perceptions of what it means to be a ‘police officer’. However, most felt they
performed tasks related to less desirable roles, which was tied to role strain. Training recommendations are discussed
for officers recruited for rural policing.
Keywords
Role strain, rural policing, law enforcer, social worker, knowledge worker, peacekeeper
Submitted 21 Jun 2015, accepted 10 Aug 2015
Introduction
Although police researchers agree that rural policing is an
under-studied phenomenon within the criminal justice liter-
ature (Pelfrey, 2007; Weisheit et al., 1995), there is one fac-
tor that has been continuously remarked upon: policing
within rural environments can, and does, pose different sets
of challenges from those experienced by officers working
in urban locales (Crank, 1990; Decker, 1979). To illustrate,
in Decker’s (1979) now classic study, police in a rural com-
munity were called upon to settle land disputes between
neighbors and, on at least one occasion, to check on an ail-
ing cow – service calls not typically experienced by their
urban colleagues. Sandy and Devine (1978) suggest that the
nature of rural environments also creates unique stressors
tied largely to working in small towns. Specifically, they
identify four major stressors for rural officers: security
issues (geographical isolation and fewer members per
detachment result in officers facing a greater risk in relation
to their personal safety); social factors (living and working
Corresponding author:
Rose Ricciardelli, Department of Sociology, Faculty of Arts, Memorial
University, 4066, AA, St. John’s, NL A1C 5S7, Canada.
Email: rricciardell@mun.ca
International Journalof
Police Science & Management
2015, Vol. 17(3) 194–203
ªThe Author(s) 2015
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DOI: 10.1177/1461355715603590
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