Introduction to Volume 7, Issue 2 (Special Issue)

No abstract available

Policing Rural Crime: The Case of the NSW Police Force Rural Crime Prevention Team

The NSW Police Force Rural Crime Prevention Team (RCPT) was created to prevent, disrupt, and respond to crimes that impact specifically on the agricultural, pastoral and aquaculture industries. Since its inception in early 2018, the team has developed and delivered a number of novel and innovative policing initiatives which seek to make rural communities safer and increase their resilience. In this paper, we offer practical insights on a number of these developments. Specifically, we will examine innovations deployed in relation to rural policing across five key areas, including 1) investigating rural crime within New South Wales and identifying interstate links and trends; 2) identifying inhibitors within legislation and policy impacting the ability of Law Enforcement Agencies to prevent, disrupt and respond to rural crime; 3) enhancing the education and knowledge of Law Enforcement Officers regarding rural crime; 4) raising the public awareness of rural crime and increasing community engagement with relevant stakeholders within rural communities and industries; and, finally, 5) collaborating and engaging with academic research/higher education toward the shared goal of safe rural spaces. We conclude the paper by discussing these practical developments in the context of farm crime research and, more specifically, how these collective efforts may serve to address established limitations and gaps in the policing and prevention of crime in rural spaces

Introduction to Volume 7, Issue 1 (Special Issue)

No abstract available.

Farm Crime and Farmer-Police Relationships in Rural Australia

This article presents select findings from ‘farm crime’ victimisation surveys undertaken in the two most populous Australian states of New South Wales and Victoria. We examine the findings in relation to farmer crime victimisation, their willingness to report crime, and their worry about crime, as well as farmer perspectives on policing generally and the policing of farm crime specifically. In both states, there are high levels of victimisation, high levels of worry, low- to mid-levels of confidence in the police, and there remains a gap between experiences of farm crime and reporting. Both states have police tasked specifically with addressing farm crime. The Victoria Police have Farm Crime Liaison Officers that specialise in assisting with farm related crimes, however this is a voluntary role which forms part of an officer’s larger workload. By contrast, the New South Wales Police Force Rural Crime Prevention Team is a dedicated team consisting of specialised rural crime investigators and intelligence practitioners focused on proactive and preventative interventions in farm crime. Farmers in both states were surveyed regarding their awareness and engagement with these rural policing teams, and we examined how this may shape victimisation, reporting, worry and the relationships between police and farmers. In New South Wales, awareness and direct contact with rural crime police led to both increased satisfaction with police and crime reporting. Respondents with awareness of this team also express significantly less worry of crime, whilst those with direct contact did not. We conclude the article by discussing and contextualising these findings within rural criminology and considering ways forward for the policing of farm crime

Mapping Intercultural Communication Imperatives of Police-Public Interactions in Rural Spaces

This research note seeks to generate fruitful pathways to advance a new discourse on intercultural encounters between the police and individuals from multilingual communities in Australia’s increasingly diverse rural and regional settings. How might police officers better relate and communicate with groups of migrants whose language practices are complex, unpredictable and eschew the widely used logics of translation and interpretation? How might we encourage hope in our social communities that intercultural understanding between policing agencies and new migrants is key to co-creating peaceful and resilient rural communities? How might police communication protocols that assist in supporting the retention of migrants’ linguistic capabilities and funds of knowledges contribute to the wellbeing of regional communities? What would policing rural and regional communities look like if we were to centre sociolinguistic and intercultural imperatives? In this research note, we consider these questions in our search for the next steps in mapping police communication protocols that work for all in Australia’s rural and regional settings. The goal is to contribute new conceptual approaches we can use to foster partnerships and trusting relationships between the police and our increasingly diverse rural populations

Exploring the Impacts of Rurality on Service Access and Harm Among Image and Performance Enhancing Drug (IPED) Users in a Remote English Region

Image and performance enhancing drugs (IPEDs) have been highlighted in recent years as posing a potential risk to public health, with much research dedicated to exploring the use of these drugs and associated harms. While recent work has considered harm reduction for IPED users, the geographic and cultural impacts of rurality on IPED use and harms, particularly in relation to harm reduction service access, remains comparatively under-explored. Features of rurality relating to levels of economic distress, the inheritance and decline of manual labor, and rural conceptions of masculinity are important in shaping drug harms. Consequently, the “rural risk environment” for IPED users is in need of exploration. This research examines the experiences of IPED users in a remote two-county region of rural England, drawn from a multi-year ethnography and 18 qualitative interviews with IPED users, to explore the impacts of rurality and the “rural risk environment” on service access and harm (reduction) within this population. Findings highlight a number of ways in which rurality impacted on IPED users’ access to harm reduction services such as needle and syringe programs (NSP), as well as engagement with healthcare practitioners (HCP). Issues included the distances required to access services and lack of public transport between towns; the impacts of stigma in a small town context where there is little anonymity; Distrust of HCP relating to cultural mindsets and regionally derived fears regarding impacts on employment prospects, particularly military; and the impacts of rural masculinities and perceptions of the self-sufficient “real man” on help-seeking when experiencing harm. The research highlights the need to incorporate cultural geographic understandings into harm reduction policy for IPED users, and the significance of rurality on experiences of harm

Punitive attitudes across geographical areas: Exploring the rural/urban divide in Canada

The public is a powerful political actor when it comes to the question of what is to be done about law and order. Therefore, public attitudes towards punishment are of central importance to criminological inquiry. Research in this area has tended towards national (comparative) accounts of 'punitive attitudes' and, in an effort to explore correlates of punitive attitudes, particular sub-groups have been examined often based on certain demographic characteristics such as, for instance, race, gender and/or age. However, very little research exists exploring urban and rural variations in punitive attitudes. Yet, considering that populations may be widely dispersed from central metropolitan and urban areas to rural, regional and very remote areas, it is reasonable to assume that ecological factors and aspects of cultural geography impact upon punitive attitudes. To comparatively examine punitive attitudes across geographical areas, this study draws on cross-sectional data (2004-2015) derived from the Canadian Elections Study (CES). Specifically, the research employs a multidimensional measurement of punitive attitudes by exploring geographic variations in respondents' attitudes towards: (i) the goals of punishment; (ii) the intensity of penal sanctions; and (iii) specified forms of penal sanctions. The sum of the data is then drawn together to develop an index of punitivity, thereby providing a more holistic understanding of punitive attitudes. The findings indicate that on each measure the rural holds significantly greater punitive attitudes than the urban. The article concludes by considering theoretical explanations for these differences, of which future research should attend, with particular attention to the shared political logic between penal populism and political populism and how this contributes to the urban/rural divide as one of the greatest political fault lines in present day politics

Delinquency professionals: the influence, extension and adoption of the culture of control

This thesis examines delinquency professionals’ perceptions and explanations of young male lower working class assaultive violence. Eleven semi-structured interviews were conducted with the delinquency professionals. These were then analyzed within the theoretical frameworks of Royce (2009), Garland (2001), Messerschmidt (1993, 2000) and Cohen (1985). The analysis of the data found the delinquency professionals’ perceptions and explanations of young male lower working class assaultive violence to be individualistic and pathological. Specifically, the delinquency professionals maintain that young male lower working class assaultive violence may be attributed to a “culture of the poor” which requires young men to enact violent masculinities, consists of poor family structure and provides a social learning environment conducive to delinquency. These perspectives ignore the macro structural disparities faced by young lower class males (Royce 2009; Messerschmidt 2000). Rather, they align with the neo-liberal and neo-conservative ideologies present in many post modern Western industrialized nations (Garland 2001). Through ideological semblance it becomes clear that delinquency professionals are influenced by the culture of control, serve as an extension to the culture of control and adopt the individualistic pathological ideology of the culture of control. With the proliferation and expansion of this “professional class” it is important to have a better understanding of how delinquency professionals perceive young male lower working class assaultive violence and their role in the social control system

The NSW Farm Crime Survey 2020

In 2020, Dr. Kyle Mulrooney, co-director of the Centre for Rural Criminology (UNE), undertook the New South Wales (NSW) Farm Crime Survey to better understand the extent of the present problem, its impacts on landowners and primary producers, and the most effective and achievable solutions. The survey sought valuable information from those involved in farming, who have important insights, on several key issues including their experiences and perceptions of farm crime" their attitudes towards the policing of and criminal justice responses to farm crime" and their awareness and implementation of crime prevention measures. Increasing the capacity to fight farm crime is crucial. The information farmers provided allows us to have a better understanding of the present scope of the problem, as well as to find out what measures might be taken by the Government, police and other agencies and farmers to reduce the incidence of farm crime across New South Wales. Presented in this report are select findings from the survey which provides the latest glimpse into farm crime and related issues in NSW

Top three tips to reduce stock theft

Crime victimisation amongst farmers is extremely high, particularly for property and acquisitive crimes. The NSW Farm Crime Survey conducted in 2020 found that 80 percent of farmers have been a victim of farm crime over their lifetime.One of the most common crimes farmers and landholders experience is the theft of stock: 44 percent of those responding to the Survey had experienced stock theft.There exist significant psychological and financial impacts of crime on Australian farmers and other rural property owners individually – and there are direct and broader social and economic implications which can impact the entire rural community and the wider agricultural industry (McCall, 2003)