Technological approaches to preventing property theft from farms

The true extent to which farms are victimised is difficult to measure. Not all victimisation against farms are recorded in official crime statistics, meaning that policy and decision makers cannot obtain an accurate understanding of the true extent of rural offending rates and patterns. It also creates difficulty for policing organisations in determining where best to direct their crime prevention efforts and messaging. Considering acquisitive crime from farms and recognising that ‘prevention is better than cure’, this chapter assesses an array of technological situational crime prevention measures for farmers, farm communities and those responsible for policing rural communities. The chapter draws upon survey responses from both farmers and from residents of two urban locations in Victoria, Australia, to assess attitudes to policing and crime prevention. A Rural and Business Crime Officer based in England outlines his police force’s rural crime strategy, which focuses on crime prevention and prevention of re-victimisation.