Doctor Nicole Asquith is an Associate Professor in Policing and Criminal Justice, Policing and Criminal Justice at the University of Western Sydney. Dr Asquith has worked with policing organisations for over 20 years, with the aim of developing new victim services, and improving policing processes for vulnerable victims and offenders. Her current research investigates the policing of vulnerability and diversity, individual and social costs of fear of prejudice and small town policing. Dr Asquith has published a range of journal articles and is the co-editor of several works focusing on criminology and victimology. The UNE School of Law will host Dr Asquith for the Rural Crime and the Law Conference late next month. Dr Asquith will be part of the ninth session, Policing in Rural Communities. In this session, experts will speak about how policing is conducted in rural communities, with Dr Asquith focusing on the relationships which are formed in rural communities.
Dr Asquith will discuss how rural policing creates different types of relationships with the community. She explains that these relationship are mediated by propinquity. The closeness in terms of proximity, time and share events, relation and kinships and the affinity of nature all inform these relationships in rural communities. In small towns, it is often that of four forms of propinquity are present, especially when there is a stable population and generations of families have lived in the area. She will also discuss the positive and negative effects of these policing relationships. On one hand, an intimate community relationship can promote greater information sharing and communal participation in crime prevention. On the other hand, affinity could bias officers’ perceptions of their community, and limit the ability for officers to effectively police matters ‘close to home’.
Dr Asquith explains that it nearly impossible to develop these kind of close policing relationships in the city, because of the changing populations and sheer number of people in each region. In the city, instead of the natural relationships that develop with propinquity in small town policing, city police create community policing approaches. However, community policing is not the same; it only engages with particular communities, especially those who are marginalised and estranged. These relationships are imposed rather than a relationship which develops naturally from the everyday encounters which occur in small town policing. Dr Asquith believes that the city has a lot to learn from how policing is conducted in rural, regional and remote Australian communities.
Dr Nicole Asquith will join several other experts for the Rural Crime and the Law conference, which will be held 28th-30th of November. Registration is still available at <https://www.une.edu.au/about-une/faculty-of-science-agriculture-business-and-law/school-of-law/public-events-and-seminars/conferences/rural-crime-and-the-law/registration>
