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Rural Law and Justice

The Rural Question: Critical Policing Frameworks and the Role of Place Zachary Kyle*, Zachary Kyle,

The police exist as a spatially significant institution. Critical discourses and frameworks on the police, however, are arguably grounded in problems, discourses, and conceptualizations of the police that are notably urban in operation.  There appears to be a theoretical gap between critiques of the police and their spatial operation which, in turn, influences communal perception. This theoretical intervention, which builds off rural sociological and criminological work, aims to center rural space and how it mediates the operation and potential perception of policing. In doing so, I offer what may seem like a contradictory argument. On one hand, I speculate some of the potential reasons why an abolitionist politic in particular is less likely to be endorsed or seen as relevant to rural communities, which goes beyond partisan politics and considers police-community relations, the informality of social life, and incompatible mechanisms of social control. On the other hand, rather than suggesting these frameworks are futile for nonmetropolitan areas, I argue that the socio-cultural and demographic conditions, paired with uneven state/legal infrastructure, make some rural areas shockingly fertile ground for radical practices. I end by offering implications for frameworks that critique and challenge the carceral state, such as abolition.