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

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f sec

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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