This volume brings together 12 chapters by criminology and other scholars from Australia, who participated in an interdisciplinary social sciences workshop, "Understanding Crime and Rural Communities: Theory, Policy and Practice," in February 2019 in Victoria, Australia. They examine how criminal transgressions and the representations of crime circulate in and out of rural spaces in Australia. They show how the ideas of place and mobility can be applied to understandings of rurality, rural society, and crime, focusing on the mobility of crime in, to, and from rural spaces. They discuss paths to change and opportunities for rural criminology, including identifying shared determinants of justice, decolonizing evidence for decision making, and improving accountability through partnerships with aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community leaders; how aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities and organizations assert their cultural values and sovereignty through the development of innovative justice responses; the effectiveness of night patrols in indigenous communities; the representation of methamphetamine use and drug-related crime in rural and regional communities in television news and current affairs features; the intersection of the urban, rural, and penal in the context of the Australian "rural ideal"; the vanishing of Marilyn Wallman from a country track in 1972 and the function of roads in her disappearance; wildlife crime in rural Australia; political representations of rural and regional Australia; the rural-urban divide, its consequences for the party system, and its impact on policy formation in the context of law-and-order politics; motivations for shifting away from capital cities and impacts on local communities; and access to justice in post-disaster contexts for rural, regional, and remote communities. Distributed in North America by Turpin Distribution. Annotation ©2021 Ringgold, Inc., Portland, OR (protoview.com)
Using the notion of ‘crossroads’ to provide a unique lens through which to examine the realities of rural crime,
Crossroads of Rural Crime provides an understanding of the nature of rural life and ways in which transgression manifests itself in the context of a presumed rural-urban divide.
Rural-oriented scholarship in criminology is growing, in part motivated by governmental, community and academic recognition that, despite stereotypes of the 'rural idyll', crime and justice are significant issues in the rural landscape.
Using the notion of 'crossroads' to provide a unique lens through which to examine realities of rural crime, Crossroads of Rural Crime: Representations and Realities of Transgression in the Australian Countryside provides a dynamic understanding of the nature of rural life and ways in which transgression manifests itself in the context of a presumed rural-urban divide. Common myths regarding rural crime are challenged by exploring its diverse dimensions from a central conceptual focal point; the many 'roads' that lead into and out of rural spaces, whether literal, virtual or figurative. With a focus on the Australian countryside, the authors examine issues such as drug abuse, persecution of wildlife, rural penal practices, and health in Indigenous communities.
The first substantive edited collection to focus on notions of the mobility of crime within, to and from rural spaces, this interdisciplinary collection draws together contributions from criminology, politics, sociology, Indigenous studies, literature and anthropology to significantly contribute to our understanding of rural crime.
