Police Theory Applied in Wyoming

Police departments come in all shapes and sizes, although the literature does not always account for that. While previous studies have come up with numerous suggestions for how police should conduct their business, some of these suggestions do not account for small departments with limited employment of officers. The purpose of this research is to first create a review of the previous literature and their suggestions and then compare those suggestions to the conduct and policies of police departments in Casper, Laramie, and Cheyenne-Wyoming. The findings of this research convey that small departments in Wyoming do not follow all suggestions found in the research outlined here, although they do follow some. Furthermore, small-town police departments do not have the resources available to fully follow the suggestions while also serving their communities in the best way possible. This study calls for further research focused on small-town, limited resource police departments to determine what their best practices are, independently of larger police departments.