Community and crime in rural Australia

The word "community" evokes many images. In the vernacular, community describes an ideal place where people live, work and play in relative comfort and security. The romanticised portrait defines community as a place where neighbours know each other and can be relied upon to come to each other's aid. This community chimera does not discriminate, for it has been used to describe both the exemplary urban neighbourhood and the idyllic rural village. Scientific renditions of community are less prescriptive, focusing instead on the interplay of geography and society in the creation of varying arrangements and patterns of human living. Derived mostly from the work of anthropologists, criminologists, and sociologists, community is seen as a form of social organisation that influences the way people think and behave. The purpose of this chapter is to examine the concept of "community" and the way crime is socially constructed and defined within rural Australia.