International Journal of Rural Criminology

A Review of Alt-Right Gangs: A Hazy Shade of White by Shannon E. Reid and Matthew Valasik

Nicholas C. Mills — 2023-03-28

No abstract available.

Going the Distance: Field Approaches to Researching the Rural – A Research Note

Rashi K. Shukla — 2023-03-28

Studies of crime in rural settings have expanded in recent years. Seldom discussed are the challenges associated with conducting rural field research. This research note describes the methodological approaches utilized in a multi-year study of rural law enforcement across Oklahoma and a nearby state in the United States. Research aims and methodology evolved over time in line with the flexibility inherent within ethnographic approaches. Interviews and field visits were conducted with 39 individuals from 2017 to 2019 for the purpose of understanding rural communities, crime and policing. Data were gathered through in-depth interviews, field visits, ride-alongs, observations and photographs. Owing to the nature of the subject matter, researchers had to maintain flexibility throughout the research process. This research note discusses the range of approaches utilized to gather data, obstacles encountered and insights discovered through the process.

The Gendered Impacts of Boomtowns: How Financial Dependence, Family, and Victimization Intersect with Hegemonic Masculinity

Madison Charman — 2023-03-28

Past research on the extraction industry has examined boomtown impacts or challenges primarily related to community cohesion, infrastructure issues and crime. However, few researchers have examined the gendered impacts of boomtowns, particularly as they relate to women. Through in-depth interviews with social service professionals working with women in boomtown settings, this article examines the gendered impacts associated with resource boomtowns. More specifically, this article explores the challenges women face in these hegemonically masculine environments. The research findings show how financial dependence, family impacts and victimization come to shape women’s lives in these settings and intersect with hegemonic masculinity. The article also discusses the implications of having the impacts of boomtowns be gendered.

Trapped Within Borders: Exploitation of Migrant Seasonal Workers in German Agriculture During COVID-19 Lockdown; Placing the Actors and Understanding Their Roles

Lorena Molnar — 2023-03-28

While European borders were closed because of the COVID-19 pandemic, Europe witnessed the exodus of Romanian seasonal workers to Germany. Although both countries’ governments agreed to allow this under the condition of the strictest adherence to the sanitary restrictions and workers’ rights, soon after, the media began to report situations of non-adherence to the coronavirus-related measures and workers’ labor rights. Following the theoretical framework of the Routine Activities Approach and its updates, this case study combines the collection of press material (N=140), Facebook posts (N=93), and interviews with seasonal workers in agriculture (N=5) and identifies the exploitative behaviors and actors involved. The results suggest that the perpetrators of these behaviors were certain intermediaries as well as farmers. The seasonal workers most at-risk were those with poor literacy who had not mastered the German language, were financially precarious, and were unwilling to seek the authorities’ help. The spaces in which the exploitation occurred were cyberspace or isolated rural farms. Seven guardians and seven super-controllers played a considerable role in protecting the workers on the farms, but not during the recruitment process. Situational prevention techniques, such as the creation of a mobile application to inform workers of their rights and allow them to report violations remotely, and collaboration with online platform services to flag fraudulent job advertisements automatically are proposed.

Can Ethical Certification Prevent Food Fraud?

Jade Lindley — 2023-03-28

Ethical, sustainable, social and environmental certification organisations exist as a means to ensure various trade standards are met; protect and empower small-scale producers in developing countries; and enable consumers to use their purchasing power to effect positive change. Consumers who trust in these labels accordingly pay a premium for it, though as is the case with all food, crime may infiltrate the supply chain and undermine the value of the certification label. Research shows that crimes such as modern slavery and child labour, use of banned pesticides, corruption, and food mislabelling have all been linked to certified foods – and regulation and traditional enforcement over these crimes may be limited or absent. The existence of these crimes undermines the certification process, purpose, validity and legitimacy and may render the label fraudulent. However, standards set by certification organisations operate as a form of regulation, despite being universally inconsistent and voluntary. Implicit or explicit tolerance for these crimes also denies injury committed against the consumer. As such, from the perspective of food fraud, this research suggests that through their standards setting, certification organisations may provide a layer of regulation and enforcement, contributing to the prevention of food fraud for certified ethically labelled food.

Prison-Based Economic Development: What the Evidence Tells Us

Dae-Young Kim — 2023-03-28

Since the late 1970s, there have been significant increases in the number of prisons and prisoners held in small towns and rural areas in the United States. Rural small towns have used prison construction and management as an economic development strategy. Although prisons were once seen as misfortune and disappointment to residents, since the 1980s, prison hosting has become a last resort for impoverished rural towns with desperate need of jobs. Prisons have been expected to fill the void when local industries and businesses closed down their operations in the 1980s economic crisis. While mass imprisonment and the prison boom in the United States have been important topics of research in the criminal justice field, less is known about prison-based economic development and its effects on local economies. This study conducts a literature review of U.S. studies, discusses theoretical and empirical limitations in the literature, and offers implications for research and policy development.

Women Incarcerated in Rural Southern Prisons in the United States: A Review of Existing Multidisciplinary Literature and Suggestions for Future Directions

Susan Dewey — 2023-03-28

Prisons in the Southern United States are a particularly unique kind of rural institutions not only because of their geographic locations, social climates informed by the rural cultures of staff and prisoners, and, for many older Southern prisons, their roots in plantation agriculture. Despite these realities, rural criminology has yet to systematically synthesize and explore what existing research indicates about the everyday lives of over 30,000 women currently serving time in state prisons throughout the Southern United States. The present study attempts to fill this gap in the literature by synthesizing all the available literature on women incarcerated in rural Southern prisons and identifying four prevailing themes in this body of work: regional culture in historical context, relationships and social dynamics, victimization and wellbeing, and journeys through the system from sentencing to reentry.

Editors' Introduction to Vol. 7, Issue 3

Joseph F. Donnermeyer — 2023-03-28

No abstract available.