Crime in Rural Areas: A Review of the Literature for the Rural Evidence Research Centre
1.1 Background
In August 1999, two men attempted to burgle a house in the village of Enmeth, Norfolk. The owner of the house, Tony Martin, had other ideas and upon entering, shot at the burglars, killing one of them. Martin was jailed for murder the following year (a sentence later reduce to manslaughter). A long-standing rural ideal is that the countryside is a crime-free place to live (Mingay, 1989). However, crime is by no means non-existent in rural areas. Nevertheless, until recently, the criminological literature has almost exclusively focused on cities and urban problems. The Martin case, received a great deal of media attention and prompted concern that rural crime problems were not being adequately addressed (Aust & Simmons, 2002; Jones, 2003; Mawby, 2004). In response, the 2000 Rural White Paper (DETR, 2000) placed crime in rural areas as a high priority area.
1.2 Research aims and objectives
This paper was a...