2019 British Society of Criminology conferences – rural papers

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The British Society of Criminology conference has just taken place in Lincoln, England (3 to 5 July 2019). A very simple search of the conference program for the word “rural” reveals four papers with a rural focus.

Gladkova, Ekaterina (Northumbria University)
“Farming intensification and environmental justice in Northern Ireland”

The paper applies an environmental justice perspective in considering “efficient” (intense) farming practices, and environmental risk to rural communities.

Matthews, Janeille Zorina (University of the West Indies)
“Activist criminology: Affecting public crime discourse to effect better policy”

This paper considers activist criminology ibn the context of a small Caribbean nation, noting that “as much of the existing literature on the social construction of crime is focused on larger urban and suburban spaces, few studies contemplate the experiences of smaller rural spaces or smaller developing countries”.

Morgan, Kirstin (Appalachian State University) and Williams, Marian (Appalachian State University)
“North Carolina assigned counsel fee reduction, caseloads, and outcomes”

This paper considers rural courts in North Carolina, observing that “rural courts often hear fewer cases than traditionally busier urban courts, however their proportional criminal justice resources are often lower, making them some of the most resource stressed courts.”

Scott, John (Queensland University of Technology)
“Criminology and islands”

As with others, this paper notes the high concentration of literature on urban settings at the exclusion of rural and remote places, and considers the emergence of an ‘island criminology’.

Member in the Spotlight (June 2019): Bridget Harris

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ISSRC founding member and Society Treasurer, Dr Bridget Harris, is this month’s member in the spotlight. You can follow her on Twitter.

Based in the Crime, Justice and Social Democracy Research Centre, School of Justice, Faculty of Law at Queensland University of Technology, Bridget works in the areas of domestic and family violence; technology-facilitated violence, advocacy and justice administration; spatiality; access to justice; and legal advocacy.

Bridget actively combines her scholarship with practical outcomes – and has been invited to advise police and legal bodies in her research fields, and her research has informed policy and practice nationally and internationally (including in the Royal Commission into Family Violence and Law Council of Australia’s report, The Justice Project, focused on the state of access to justice in the nation).

Bridget has a long-running interest in rural criminology. In 2014, along with Amanda George, she prepared the ground-breaking Landscapes of Violence report which assessed the multitude of issues facing victims and survivors of family violence in rural and regional Victoria, Australia.

She edited (with Alistair Harkness and David Baker Locating Crime in Context and Place: Perspectives on Regional, Rural and Remote Australia (Federation Press, 2016). She is lead editor, with Delanie Woodlock, of the forthcoming Domestic Violence and Technology: Experiences, Perpetration and Responses (Routledge, 2021).

Bridget has not one but two articles in the May 2019 issue of The British Journal of Criminology (Vol 59 Issue 3) – the first with Delanie Woodlock on digital coercive control and domestic violence and violence against women; and the second with Heather Douglas and Molly Dragiewicz on technology facilitated violence.

11 fresh rural crime research articles

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Volume 31, Edition 4 of Acta Criminologica, the Southern African Journal of Criminology, contains a wealth of new research on rural crime.

This special edition, edited by ISSRC executive member Willie Clack, contains 11 articles which will be of much interest and usefulness to scholars and others interested in rural crime. This collection of research contributes greatly to arresting the “trend of neglect” in criminological research which Willie Clack argues focuses on urban crime with rural crimes too often not recognised as a distinct phenomenon “despite equal importance”.

Articles in the special edition

Rural crimes: non-reporting of livestock theft by farmers

The impact of crime on farms: an international synthesis

The context of farm crime in Australia

Stocktheft in Kenya: patterns, drivers and challenges

Grazing with bullets in Africa: Fulani herdsmen-community killings and state response in Nigeria

A criminological assessment of ritualistic mutilation as a component of predatory theft of livestock in rural South Africa

Making rural areas safer: potential benefits of the rural safety plan

An examination of co-operative strategies towards policing stocktheft in the Kwazulu-Natal province

The integration of conventional and technological methods in combating stock theft by selected stakeholders in the Kwazulu-Natal province

The impact of conservation crime on the South African rural economy: a case study of rhino poaching

A discussion of rhino horn domestic trade legalisation in South Africa

Illegal sand mining in India

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Rural crime in different contexts

For many of us studying rural crime, thefts from farms, interpersonal violence in rural, regional and remote areas of the world, the scourge of alcohol and drugs in rural communities are no doubt the issues which spring most immediately to mind when thinking of particular examples of rural crime.

And because of the heavy concentration of scholarly literature which emanates from the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia most particularly – with localised studies and examples from those countries – we often neglect to consider the real and ongoing impacts of other forms of offending which impact rural communities in different international contexts.

For example, how many of us would be aware of the incidence, extent and impact of illegal sand mining in India?

Illegal sand mining in India

Economic growth in India is supporting a growing construction boom worth an estimated $120 billion Australian dollars (£64 billion pounds sterling; $82 billion USD). And this is having an enormous environmental impact, contributed to by the illegal mining of sand which is proving crucial to the construction sector.

With an insufficient quantity of sand available, supply and demand economics has led to sand being illegally extracted.  Referred to as ‘India’s gold’, this illegality is the work of organised criminals dubbed the ‘sand mafia’. The Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s (ABC) Foreign Correspondent program produced an insight into this problem.

“India’s sand mining problem is so prevalent that it has developed into a black market that continues to exploit millions of tons of this commodity annually, in an open loot of the riverbeds, canals and beaches sand is being drained by illegal means.”

The sand is extracted from beaches, dunes and river beds for production of concrete, amongst various uses, but leads to significant erosion. In addition to the devastating environmental consequences, prevalent too is the corruption of public officials and underpayment or non-payment of royalties to government for mineral extraction.

Lack of data, though, masks the real extent of illegal sand mining in India.

This is a matter with grave consequences for rural communities. As rural crime scholars and practitioners, we need to expand our horizons and take greater interest in issues such as this.

Want to know more?

A series of articles from the Economic Times can be found here.

There is also some academic scholarship available as well: for ex ample, from Rege (2015), Rege and Lavorgna (2016) and Data and Bagchi (2018).

White (2013) offers a useful and interesting perspective on resource extraction from an environmental justice perspective.