Crime, Peoples and Places

“This comprehensive collection is a global, comparative and critical examination of crime and safety across 19 countries. It is unique in that an identical set of themes – crime and victimisation, safety and fear, practices of policing and police trust, and crime prevention practices – are the focus of surveys for rural residents around the world. Addressing the intersectionality of safety, this multidisciplinary collection has theoretical and methodological relevance for students and researchers across criminology, law, geography, planning, gender and sexuality studies, sociology, and political science.” Lynda Johnston, Assistant Vice-Chancellor of Sustainability, University of Waikato, New Zealand “Crime, Peoples and Places: Perspectives on Rural Safety and Justice provides rich insight into the realities of rural communities across the globe as they navigate crime from a contextual standpoint. The collection fills a literary gap in understandings of crime and rurality, and provides enriching perspectives that facilitate comparisons to a wide cross section of issues with relevance to scholars and practitioners from various disciplines across the globe. The collection is as relevant as it is timely, considering countries prioritisation of areas relevant to meeting their sustainable development goals. I strongly recommend the volume for anyone wishing to deepen their understanding of crime and safety in rural spaces across the globe.” Danielle Watson, Associate Professor of the School of Justice, Queensland University of Technology, Australia “This book provides a fascinating insight into rural safety and justice across the global. Based on a series of national surveys, the book identifies key issues in rural crime and policing across a range of countries in the Global North and South. As such, it provides a useful ‘state of the nations’ report that summarises progress on these issues and, crucially, identifies how rural criminologists might work to address them. In doing so, the book draws together an impressive range of global scholarship to achieve its tasks.” Richard Yarwood, Director of the Doctoral College, Plymouth University, United Kingdom “Crime, Peoples and Places: Perspectives on Rural Safety and Justice reflects the unique expertise of Vania Ceccato and Alistair Harkness, whose visionary edition brings together research from 19 countries on safety and justice in rural areas. This essential book on rural criminology and law enforcement is a must-read to deepen understanding of rural dynamics and safer communities globally. It is of interest to both academics and professionals who work to make areas on the rural-urban continuum safer.” Marcelo Justus, Associate Professor at the Institute of Economics, University of Campinas, Brazil “Rural victimology meets international criminology in this significant new contribution to rural criminology. Novel thematic analyses and cross-national comparison are key features of this welcome addition to the field.” Rob White, Emeritus Distinguished Professor at the University of Tasmania, Australia “Vania Ceccato and Alistair Harkness and their contributors use global, comparative, and interdisciplinary approaches to make an extremely well-rounded case for research on crime across the rural-urban continuum and around the globe. Ceccato and Harkness lay the theoretical and methodological groundwork for the case studies conducted by global experts on rural crime, safety, and policing. Each contributor – researchers from different fields such as criminology, law, political science, and geography – present their survey findings from rural areas across the globe. This interdisciplinary approach offers a well-rounded understanding of the topics, but also brings together a range of methodologies and perspectives. Each scholar focuses on parallel survey themes of crime and victimisation in rural localities across the world with a particular focus on safety and fear in these rural spaces, policing and trust in the police, and crime prevention. Where previous books on rural crime have focused on English-speaking parts of the globe, e.g., the UK, the US, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, the editors carefully chose authors and locales that offer a truly global cross-section of the world. In addition to the aforementioned nations, African nations are represented, as well as South American, European, and Scandinavian countries, and India and Japan. These global additions make this volume a standout not just in the literature on rural crime, but also in all criminological literature. I cannot think of another book in the field that examines crime in so many places on the urban-rural continuum and around the globe. This book is a must-have for any rural crime scholar and a should-have for any criminologist.” Karen Hayden, Chair and Associate Dean, Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice, Merrimack College