Rural crime & community safety
Housing & Safety Research Group, CEFIN ABE/KTH
Sponsored by:
WELCOME!
Vania Ceccato, chairmanHousing & Safety Research Group,
CEFIN ABE/KTH
Why care about crime & safety in rural areas?
5 reasons!
1. Crime is an ‘urban problem’
The Adventure of the Copper BeechesSherlock Holmes stories written Arthur Conan Doyle
… this calls for a more nuanced view of crime in rural areas
Lower crime rates in rural areas – ‘a sign’ that there is no problem (Yarwood, 2001: 206)
2. Rural areas are not homogenous entities
Far from
an homogeneous entity
..but the search for a singular definition of rural is illusory (Halfacree, 1997)
- Complex nature- Dynamic over time and space- Tanglible & imaginary
“although crime rates in rural areas are often lower than the rates for large cities, it is a mistake to assume that patterns of crime are homogeneous across rural areas” (Wells and Weisheit, 2004)
… this calls for a more plural rural
3. The nature of rural areas ’influences’crime
…this calls for better knowledge of the nature of crime in rural areas
e.g., Barclay et al. (2007), Mawby and Yarwood (2011),Ceccato and Dolmen (2011), DeKeseredy and Renninson (2013)
4. Rural areas are in constant transformation
e.g. Woods (2004, 2011); Carrington et al (2010); Donnermeyer and DeKeseredy (2013)
These (transformations) happen at different paces and at various scales around the rural world (Donnermeyer, 2013)
Different groups in society are affected by these changes in different waysICT have meant new opportunities but also new dangers.
….this calls for the analysis of rural context in a rural globalized world
Tota
l num
ber o
f sec
urity
ent
erpr
ises
1993 2013Data Source: Företagsregister, Statistics Sweden, 2013
350
810
Commodification of safety in the countryside?
5. Safety is an individual rightor a commodity?
Urb
an
Number of police officers & increase (%), 2000–2012 by county.
RURAL
Resources are placed where ”the problem” is!
5. Safety is an individual rightor a commodity?
….this calls for a perspective on safety that takes into account the principles of ’distributive justice’ (Rawls, 1971) between urban and rural areas
Safety is a central dimension of social sustainability of areas
Finally, why care about crime
in the rural?
We care about rural areas!
…this calls for a development in research and practice about rural & safety in
rural areas that goes beyond borders of fields, disciplines & theoretical perspectives
• to illustrate the current research on rural communities and safety – an issue
of relevance to scholars and experts working with rural and regional development,
crime and safety, policing, and sustainability.
• to encourage a dialogue between participants departing from different disciplinary
traditions to ‘rural’ and ‘crime’ – with different paradigms & methodological approaches –
embracing examples of research that are gender informed
• to show examples from different contexts: Scandinavia, the UK, the USA,
Australia and Brazil
Aim of the workshop
Opening
Mike Woods, professor at Aberystwyth University, Wales, moderator
Staffan Nilsson, chairman of the organization The Swedish Village Action Movement a member of European Economic and Social Committee (Sweden)
Charlotta Gustafsson, researcher from The Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention (BRÅ)
PROGRAM
Time Article Speakers Affiliation 9:00-9:30
Welcome
Vania Ceccato Michael Woods - moderator
Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), Sweden Aberystwyth University, Wales, UK
Opening
Staffan Nilsson Charlotta Gustafsson
The Swedish Village Action Movement, Sweden The Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention, Sweden
9:30-10:00 Paper 1 Police and crime in rural and small Swedish municipalities Peter Lindström Stockholm police authority & Malmö University, Sweden 10:00-10:30 Paper 2 The re organization of rural America and crime‐ Joseph F Donnermeyer The Ohio State University, USA 10:30-11:00 Paper 3 Relationships and responses: policing anti social behavior in rural Scotland‐ Andrew Woof University of Dundee, Scotland & University of Sheffield, UK Coffee
11:15-11:45 Paper 4 Defining environmental crime: The perspective of farmers Elaine Barclay University of New England, Australia 11:45-12:15 Paper 5 Safety in the global south: victimization in Brazilian rural areas Marcelo Justus University of Campinas, Brazil
12:15-12:45 Paper 6 The dark side of the rural idyll: Stories of illegal criminal enterprise in the UK countryside
Robert Smith Aberdeen Business School, Scotland, UK
Light Lunch
13:15-13:45 Paper 7 Challenging the idyll: Does crime affect property prices in Swedish rural areas? Mats Wilhelmsson Royal Institute of Technology, KTH, Sweden 13:45-14:15 Paper 8 Lost and hound: The hybrid networks of rural policing, Missing people and dogs Richard Yarwood Plymouth University, UK
14:15-14:45 Paper 9 Strange and stranger ruralities: Established outsider relations and the social ‐construction of rural crime
John Scott University of New England, Australia
14:45-15:15 Paper 10 Measuring violence in rural areas: Police notification and emergency room treatment after violent victimization
William Pridemore Georgia State University, USA
Coffee
15:30-16:00 Paper 11 New directions in feminist understandings of rural crime and social control Walter DeKeseredy West Virginia University, USA
16:00-16:30 Paper 12 The radicalisation of rural resistance: how hunting counterpublics in the Nordic countries contribute to illegal hunting
Erica von Essen Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Sweden
16:30-17:00 Paper 13 Environmental and wildlife crimes in Sweden Vania Ceccato & Adriaan Uittenbogaard
Royal Institute of Technology, KTH, Sweden
17:00-17:30 New frontiers in rural crime and community safety research Michael Woods -moderator Aberystwyth University, Wales, UK