The Influence of Environmental and Organizational Factors on Police Style in Urban and Rural Environments

Abstract

While an extensive literature has examined factors influencing arrest statistics in large metropolitan areas, comparable research on smaller departments is scant. The present research, an examination of the influence of both environmental and organizational factors on arrest statistics among small and medium-sized police departments in Illinois, begins to fill this void. Community variation in arrest statistics is used as a measure of departmental styles of policing, in which higher arrest rates suggest a legalistic style of policing. Four offense categories which permit wide latitude in the use of police discretion were selected for this research. Both environmental and organizational factors influenced arrest rates for all offense categories among urban and rural departments. Frequently, however, not only did the magnitude of the impact of the predictors vary between urban and rural departments, but reversals were noted in the direction of the impact. The potency of most predictors was found to be greater in rural than in urban departments. We concluded that the organizational and environmental dynamics affecting police style vary, at times considerably, between urban and rural departments.