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The purpose of this paper is to compare the community level factors associated with police strength and operational costs in Aboriginal police services from four different geographic zones, including remote communities inaccessible by road[1].

Analysis of variance was used to determine whether there was a statistically significant difference in per capita policing costs, the officer to resident ratio, an index of community well-being and crime severity in 236 rural and remote Canadian communities.

The authors found that places that were geographically inaccessible or further from urban areas had rates of police-reported crime several times the national average and low levels of community well-being. Consistent with those results, the per capita costs of policing were many times greater than the national average, in part due to higher officer to resident ratios.

These results are from rural Canada and might not be generalizable to other nations.

Given the complex needs of these communities, these findings reinforce the importance of delivering full-time professional police services in rural and remote communities. Short duration or temporary postings may reduce police legitimacy as residents may perceive that their rural or Aboriginal status makes them less valued than city dwellers. As a result, agencies should prioritize the retention of experienced officers in these communities.

These findings validate the observations of officers about the challenges that must be overcome in policing these distinctive communities. This information can be used to inform future studies of rural and remote policing.

This paper aims to examine the political, social, and legal factors that shape the deployment of the police in a cross‐national sample of nations.

Ordinary least squares regression models are used to investigate police strength in 70 developing and developed nations.

Controlling for indicators of crime, development, and population‐geography, it is found that political factors such as durability of the political regime, corruption, the presence of a black market, and state formation are significantly associated with police strength. Inconsistent with expectations, however, it is found that there is not a significant relationship between indicators of criminal justice system priorities, such as incarceration rates or use of the death penalty, and police strength.

A lack of indicators of property or violent crime for large samples of nations makes it difficult to discount the role of crime in the deployment of the police. Further, cross‐national studies are hampered by a lack of data about the use of private security to bolster the formal activities of the police, or the role of the military in regulating social order.

This study builds on the theoretical knowledge of how the police are deployed. A better understanding of police strength can contribute to discussions about a global policing community. Implications for theories of policing and criminal justice system operations are also outlined.

Very few cross‐national studies of criminal justice system operations have been conducted, and this study increases knowledge of global patterns of policing.

The purpose of this paper is to compare the self‐reported attitudes toward Aboriginal policing of officers in isolated/remote communities with those from accessible Aboriginal communities.

Survey results are reported for 294 officers working in Aboriginal communities throughout Canada.

Officers working in remote jurisdictions tended to be younger, better educated, and had less policing experience than those working in non‐isolated Aboriginal communities. Social problems in these remote communities were thought to be more serious than those reported by officers working in accessible Aboriginal communities. Despite these demographic and contextual differences, self‐reported attitudes toward Aboriginal policing were generally similar, although officers working in isolated communities tended to report more conservative views on enforcement.

The generalizability of the results is limited by the modest (40.7 percent) response rate, and the fact that officers working in Aboriginal agencies were less likely to participate than those working for national or provincial police services.

The results suggest that more effective recruiting, training, and retention strategies should be developed for officers working in Aboriginal communities.

This is the first comprehensive study of the perceptions of officers toward Aboriginal policing. While the police in isolated communities represent a small proportion of all law enforcement officers, their insight sheds light on this often misunderstood and under‐researched aspect of law enforcement.

This research aimed to explore the characteristics of respondents who accessed a municipal police service's webpage or social media (Facebook or Twitter). Perceptions about the usefulness of social media in policing were solicited from the respondents.

Several survey items about social media were included in a study of trust and confidence in policing that was collected in two waves: a random telephone sample of 504 community residents and 314 university students.

One in five respondents had accessed the police service's webpage, while 6.9 percent had accessed their Twitter feed and 5.4 percent had viewed their Facebook site. Social media users tended to be younger and better educated while respondents over 65 years of age rarely accessed these tools. Younger respondents reported that computer‐based methods of communication were useful whether they had accessed these services or not. Older non‐users, by contrast, saw little future value in social media. Chi‐square analyses revealed that users of social media had more confidence in the police as well as greater overall satisfaction with the police.

Participants were from a medium‐sized Canadian city and the results might not be generalizable to other populations.

Social media campaigns should be planned and target demographic groups likely to receive the intended message. Younger and better educated residents are the highest users of these services. Computer‐based media campaigns targeting senior citizens will likely be ineffective given their low participation in accessing social media and lack of interest in these methods of communication.

This study is one of the first to examine the recipients of social media and their perceptions of the usefulness of computer‐based communication for law enforcement.

Section 2 of the Criminal Justice Act 1987 abrogates the right to silence since a suspect is required to answer questions in pre‐trial investigations by the SFO, although the answers are inadmissible as evidence unless proceedings are brought under s. 2(14) for giving false information or by s. 2(8), where the individual ‘makes a statement inconsistent with it’. In a previous article, the writer has considered the necessity and effectiveness of s. 2 powers. It is also instructive to analyse the conceptual basis of s. 2 powers since this will aid in the interpretation of statutory ambiguities and will allow the courts to have a uniformity of approach when seeking to resolve the statutory ambiguities. The conceptual basis is also important as concerns the resolution of where the line lies between the effective investigation of offences pursuant to s. 2 and the rights of the individual subject to such questioning. A critical examination of the above issues demands steering a careful course between normative rules and theory: in this area above all others it is impossible and undesirable to divorce one from the other.