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Explore the challenges and skills required for effective rural policing, including proactive community engagement, key skills, leadership, and supervision. Discover the importance of discretion, building relationships, and adapting to changing community values.
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Professionalism, Competence, Learning and Leadership Tara Fenwick, Richard Dockrell & Bonnie Slade ProPEL, University of Stirling
wide scope of responsibility • high range of criminality - low volume • ‘all on your own’ • no specialists at hand • figure it out - little modeling • ‘thrown in the deep end’ - junior officers thrust into big responsibilities • managing whole situations “There’s a lot of test of your calibre. Can you deal with a huge range of different things well?”
proactive community engagement • identifying key issues for building community • adapting to changing community values • inter-professional linkages – key agencies • clarifying roles, expertise and boundaries • taking initiative – educating the community • managing community expectations
key skills in rural policing • ‘reading’ community quickly • building the right relationships • negotiation and balancing • very creative problem-solving, quick decision-making • defusing, reframing, and averting • wide range of policing skills, little routine • able to handle complex high stress situations independently • taking initiative to build policing’s role in community
Leadership and supervision • the problem with ‘by the book’ • “Professionals are asked to engage in complex and unpredictable tasks on society's behalf, and in doing so must exercise their discretion, making judgments-decide what is "best" in the particular situation rather than what is "right" in some absolute sense.” • where the book stops but policing continues: “gauge”, “judge”, “measure”. • “Robust management, relaxed supervision and positive leadership” “When you have been in a place for a reasonable length of time you have real ownership … and hopefully know the best approach to have it resolved and this does conflict with the Scottish crime recording standard in terms of the black and white”
Leadership and supervision • Managing in the “grey” • “The main findings support the now common notion that transformational leadership has positive effects. However, studies suggest that the ability to apply different leadership styles, including transactional, to suit different contexts is the key to great police leadership.” Neyroud 2011 • Community Leadership/ Relationship Leadership where the role of leadership is more widely distributed ““Discretion”, “autonomy” opportunity”, “know where the boundaries are”.
Questions for you to consider • Are there implications here for supervision, leadership and general governance in rural policing? • Are there implications here for training and development of officers for rural policing? • Overall, what are implications here for the future of rural policing?