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Abstract

Little is known about the similarities and differences that exist between urban and small town police agencies with regard to citizen calls for service. The research about citizen demand for policing services in the USA has focused overwhelmingly on city police agencies and the research methodologies used made direct comparisons with smaller agencies impossible. The present research involved a comparison of calls for service from three urban municipal police departments and three small town departments for the same two-week period of time using identical coding schemes. The findings suggest that urban agencies receive proportionately more order maintenance calls, small town agencies receive proportionately more service calls, and both types of agencies receive similar proportions of law enforcement-related calls. The urban agencies, however, dealt with larger proportions of more serious crimes.

Keywords

citizen demand police response small town policing

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Urban and Small Town Comparison of Citizen Demand for Police Services

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