Rural Criminology

190 Pages·2013·1.438 MB·English

by  Joseph F Donnermeyer, Walter Dekeseredy

RURAL CRIMINOLOGY
Rural crime is a fast growing area of interest among scholars in criminology. From studies
of agricultural crime in Australia, to violence against women in Appalachia America, to
poaching in Uganda, to land theft in Brazil – the criminology community has come to
recognize that crime manifests itself in rural localities in ways that both conform to and
challenge conventional theory and research. For the first time, Rural Criminology brings
together contemporary research and conceptual considerations to synthesize rural crime
studies from a critical perspective.
This book dispels four rural crime myths, challenging conventional criminolo gical
theories about crime in general. It also examines both the historical development of rural
crime scholarship and recent research and conceptual developments. The third chapter
recreates the critical in the rural criminology literature through discussions of three
important topics: community characteristics and rural crime; drug use, production, and
trafficking in the rural context; and agricultural crime.
Never before has rural crime been examined comprehensively, using any kind of theor-
etical approach, whether critical or otherwise. Rural Criminology does both, pulling together
in one short volume the diverse array of empirical research under the theoretical umbrella of
a critical perspective. This book will be of interest to those studying or researching in the
fields of rural crime, critical criminology, and sociology.
Joseph F. Donnermeyer is a Professor of Rural Sociology in the School of Environ-
ment and Natural Resources at The Ohio State University. Dr. Donnermeyer is an inter-
nationally known expert on rural crime and is the editor of the International Journal of Rural
Criminology. He is the author/co-author of over 100 peer reviewed journal articles, book
chapters, and books on issues related to rural crime and rural societies. Dr. Donnermeyer
was the winner of The Ohio State University Alumni Association Award for Distin-
guished Teaching in 2004, and served as chair of the OSU Academy of Teaching from
2005–2010.
Walter S. DeKeseredy is Anna Deane Carlson Endowed Chair of Social Sciences at West
Virginia University. He has published 18 books and over 160 scientific journal articles and
book chapters on violence against women and other social problems. In 2008, the Institute
on Violence, Abuse and Trauma gave him the Linda Saltzman Memorial Intimate Partner
Violence Researcher Award. He also jointly received the 2004 Distinguished Scholar Award
from the American Society of Criminology’s (ASC) Division on Women and Crime and the
2007 inaugural UOIT Research Excellence Award. In 1995, he received the Critical Crimi-
nologist of the Year Award from the ASC’s Division on Critical Criminology (DCC) and in
2008 the DCC gave him the Lifetime Achievement Award.
New Directions in Critical Criminology
Edited by Walter S. DeKeseredy
WEST VIRGINIA UNIVERSITY
This series presents new cutting- edge critical criminological empirical,
theoretical, and policy work on a broad range of social problems, includ-
ing drug policy, rural crime and social control, policing and the media,
ecocide, intersectionality, and the gendered nature of crime. It aims to
highlight the most up- to-date authoritative essays written by new and
established scholars in the field. Rather than offering a survey of the liter-
ature, each book takes a strong position on topics of major concern to
those interested in seeking new ways of thinking critically about crime.
1. Contemporary Drug Policy
Henry H. Brownstein
2. The Treadmill of Crime
Political economy and green criminology
Paul B. Stretesky, Michael A. Long and Michael J. Lynch
3. Rural Criminology
Joseph F. Donnermeyer and Walter S. DeKeseredy
RURAL
CRIMINOLOGY
Joseph F. Donnermeyer and
Walter S. DeKeseredy
First published 2014
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2014 Joseph F. Donnermeyer and Walter S. DeKeseredy
The right of Joseph F. Donnermeyer and Walter S.
DeKeseredy to be identified as authors of this work has been
asserted by them in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic,
mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter
invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any
information storage or retrieval system, without permission in
writing from the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British
Library
Library of Congress Cataloging- in-Publication Data
DeKeseredy, Walter S.
Rural criminology / Joseph F. Donnermeyer and Walter S.
DeKeseredy.
pages cm. – (New directions in critical criminology)
1. Rural crimes. 2. Criminology. I. Donnermeyer, Joseph
F. II. Title.
HV6791.D45 2014
364.9173'4–dc23
2013011530
ISBN: 978-0-415-63435-9 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-415-63438-0 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-0-203-09451-8 (ebk)
Typeset in Bembo and Stone Sans
by Wearset Ltd, Boldon, Tyne and Wear
CONTENTS
List of figures vi
List of boxes vii
Preface viii
Acknowledgments xi
1 Rural crime: myths and realities 1
2 Thinking critically about rural crime 28
3 Creating the critical in rural criminology 53
4 Looking forward and glancing back: research, policy,
and practice 92
Notes 126
References 133
Index 167
FIGURES
2.1 The square of crime 40
2.2 A feminist/male peer support model of separation/
divorce sexual assault 44
2.3 A rural masculinity crisis/male peer support model of
separation/divorce sexual assault 47
3.1 The square of crime: communities and rural crime 67
3.2 The square of crime: drugs and rural realities 82
3.3 The square of crime: agricultural crime 89
BOXES
1.1 Hidden risks in the country 12
3.1 Excerpts from “Hard Times in Harlan” by Bill Bishop 77
4.1 Guns were part of a town that is full of pain 99
4.2 What’s wrong with Caterpillar? 104
4.3 Economic equality for women still centuries off: parity
won’t occur until year 2593, study shows 109
4.4 Aboriginal people and the criminal justice system 119
PREFACE
Described in greater detail in Chapter 2, the roots of this book were
sown nearly 10 years ago at Morretti’s Italian restaurant in Upper Arling-
ton, Ohio. It was there that we first met and our instant intellectual
partnership eventually culminated in this project and many other schol-
arly products. We have learned much from each other over the past 10
years, but that there is a need for a comprehensive, critical criminologi-
cal book on rural crime and social control is something that no one had
to teach us. This is not to say that good books on rural crime have not
been published in the past. Indeed, there are a few, and some of them
are decidedly critical monographs. Still, those that deviate from main-
stream or orthodox thinking about violations of legal and social norms
and societal reactions to these transgressions did not review as wide a
range of progressive empirical, theoretical, and political offerings as we
have done here. This is not, by any means, a criticism of our colleagues’
fine work because our book, in the words of the late sociologist Robert
K. Merton, stands on the shoulders of these giants. Note, too, that there
was no way near as much critical criminological scholarly work available
on the topics we address as there is today. As well, the bulk of rural
criminological work has only been published over the past two decades,
and we hope this monograph accelerates the field’s progress.
Rural Criminology has several major objectives, one of which is to
review our international colleagues’ scholarly efforts to enhance a critical
or progressive understanding of crime, law, and social control in rural
places. One thing all of our peers have in common is that they challenge
popular myths about rural crime and this is the main goal of Chapter 1.
Preface ix
Additionally, the realities of rural crime are described there and many
readers will be surprised to discover that the rates of certain crimes are
higher in rural communities than they are in suburban and urban areas.
As well, we hope that our extensive list of references on rural crime,
which we believe to be the first extensive compilation since the last
edition of the Weisheit, Falcone, and Wells’ book in 2006, will encour-
age other scholars to focus their research and theorizing on the rural.
In Chapter 2, we trace the origins of rural critical criminology and
pay homage to the path- breaking sociologist/criminologist William
(Bill) Chambliss. Much respect is also given to feminist rural scholarly
efforts that started in the early 1990s because they, too, helped pave the
way for a critical Rural Criminology.
Chapter 3 briefly reviews the most salient empirical work done by an
international cadre of rural criminologists and, like Chapter 2, encour-
ages us to keep moving forward and to focus on new areas of social
scientific inquiry. Since much of the rural work is not critical in focus,
we used Chapter 3 to reinterpret scholarship on community and rural
crime, rural drug use, production and trafficking, and agricultural crime
in a more critical form. We accomplish this task by adopting the square
of crime to help organize concepts and literature, but we eschew claim-
ing any high ground on the use of this left realist concept as superior to
other critical criminological perspectives. Simply, our goal is to sharpen
the conceptual focus of a literature that heretofore has been mostly
descriptive and theory- less.
What is to be done about crime, law, and social control in rural places?
In Chapter 4, we begin by acknowledging the diversity of rural topics we
did not review in Chapter 3, and emphasize that since nearly half of the
world is rural, we sincerely hope more criminology scholars begin to see
the relevance of rural criminology to the general discipline of criminology
and to its advancement. The policy and practice discussed in Chapter 4 are
heavily informed by work done previously by our progressive peers over
the past 30 years, and we offer what we strongly believe to be effective
answers to this question. Race, class, and gender issues are treated as being
equally important, but there is an ample amount of pessimism scattered
throughout our suggestions. For critical criminologists, this shouldn’t be
surprising and we assume that many, if not most of them, would concur
with what Elliott Currie (2013) recently observed: