Toward constituting a critical criminology for rural Australia

Abstract

John Anderson, Deputy Prime Minister at the time, addressed how rural and regional Australia was being left behind and had lost the recognition of their contribution to nation building, so that a 'sense of alienation ... is deep and palpable in much of rural and regional Australia today', estimable through consideration of social indicators, including depression, alcoholism, youth suicide, youth unemployment and 'the tragic circumstances in which many Aboriginal families exist'. Anderson raised two broad foundation themes for this chapter about a critical criminology project for rural Australia: the effects of global economic and social change on rural and regional Australia; and the concern that Australia was fracturing along an urban/rural divide.