Safety and Security in Remote, Rural, and Regional Policing

Abstract

Policing outside of the metropole is unlike what we have come to know about policing. The rural, regional and remote (RRR) policing environment is shaped by environmental, organisational, community and criminality contexts that produce unique safety and security issues. This article examines these issues for RRR police and their families in Tasmania, Australia. Drawing on interviews with eight officers and observations of five officers in two districts, we find that both distance and isolation, and closeness (or propinquity), shapes the safety and security of RRR police. This article documents the individual strategies deployed by RRR officers to ensure their and their family’s safety, the gaps in policy and practice, and the necessary changes to the work conditions, station security, and housing arrangements of RRR officers. Addressing a gap at the juncture of RRR policing and police safety and security, this research considers what can be done to enhance the capacity of RRR officers to remain in RRR deployments.