ABSTRACT
This chapter examines how the police view crime and policing issues in the British countryside. It focuses on rural policing from the perspective of the police themselves. An understanding of policing should consider the way in which the police, public and other agencies regulate themselves and each other according to the dominant ideals of society. The police are torn between accountability towards local people, who may be demanding that a particular and exclusive vision of rural life is maintained, and the state's demands for greater efficiency. Very little is known about the ways in which the contemporary spaces of rural Britain are policed. Although physical distances pose logistical problems for the police, especially in terms of performance, greater attention should be given to the way in which rural areas are imagined. Although chief constables and senior officers retained a degree of autonomy, the introduction of fixed term contracts aided the introduction of a 'performance culture'.
