Roundtable: Rural Crime Prevention: Theory, Tactics and Techniques

Session Submission Type: Roundtable Session

Abstract/Description

With approximately 46 percent of the global population living in rural areas (Weisheit 2016), a focus on crime prevention in these diverse communities is important and can reduce lost output, harm, and associated intangible costs. As noted by the United Nations (2004, p. 1), “in the matters of justice and the rule of law, an ounce of prevention if worth significantly more than a pound of cure… prevention is the first imperative of justice”. A proactive crime prevention response is necessary in rural settings, and can serve to facilitate feelings of safety and security throughout communities, individual wellbeing and alleviate pressure on the overburdened and typically under-resourced formal elements of the criminal justice system. This roundtable session will focus on the prevention of crime in regional, rural and remote parts of the globe. In recognising the diversity within and distinct features of rural places – and the ways that these elements impact on rates, experiences and responses – participants will critically analyse, challenge, consider and assess a suite of crime prevention initiatives.

Sub Unit

• Area XI. Roundtables

Individual Presentations

• Social justice and problematizing the concept of “rural” - Joseph Donnermeyer, The Ohio State University

• The development of rational models of crime prevention: A critique of the situationist commonsense in rural contexts - Matt Bowden, Dublin Institute of Technology; Artur Pytlarz, Dublin Institute of Technology

• Preventing violence against women in the heartland - Walter Steven DeKeseredy, West Virginia University

• Preventing property theft from farms: Technological situational crime prevention responses - Alistair Harkness, Federation University Australia; Jo-ann Larkins, Federation University Australia

Chair

• Alistair Harkness, Federation University Australia

Discussants

• Vania Ceccato, Royal Institute of Technology, KTH

• James Nolan, West Virginia University

• Tarah Hodgkinson, Griffith University