Rural Criminology – A Challenge For the Future

Donnermeyer (2016) states that nearly 50% of the world’ s population lives in rural areas, but historically, only a handful of criminological studies have focused on crime in rural settings. Wells and Weisheit (2012) found that the rurality of the study sites diminishes the appropriateness and validity of criminological theories for studying crime in urban environments. Hence, the more rural the locality, the less effective theory is in explaining crime. Consequently, a new branch of criminology has developed – rural criminology – which focuses on the study of crime in rural environments and the testing, verification, and revision of classical criminological theories in these environments (Donnermeyer & DeKeseredy, 2013). Moreover, studies show that differences in the perceptions of police vary by the population size of communities. Crime prevalence also differs between urban and rural environments, as well as ideas on how to counteract crime and disorder – from formal, to semi-formal to informal solutions (Meško, 2019). Both urban and rural environments exhibit much diversity in regards to the volume of various crimes and the criminological factors that contribute to