Call for Papers

Call for Papers

Rural Crime and the Law Conference Abstract submission and Early Bird registration deadline has been extended!

We have received a substantial number of high quality submissions for this conference from across Australia and overseas! However, due to many requests for an extension of the deadline, the conference organisers have agreed to extend the deadline for abstracts AND early bird registration to Monday, October 22, 2018.

ABSTRACTS (max 250 words) for individual papers are due by 22nd October 2018 to: ebarclay@une.edu.au

The conference will examine the efficacy of current laws and policy relating to rural crime and the criminal justice response to identify what works and what does not, where the gaps exist between the law and community expectations, and seek ways to improve practice by all stakeholders in rural Australia.

We especially encourage submissions on the following topics:

  • Prosecuting rural crime
  • Issues for defence lawyers in the rural context
  • Sentencing options in rural areas
  • Surveillance technology & forensic evidence in rural crime
  • Corrections in the rural context
  • Crime against pastoral, agricultural & aquaculture industries
  • Firearms, farmers and the law
  • Cybercrime and agribusiness
  • Environmental and wildlife crime
  • Biosecurity and food safety
  • Property rights and the law
  • Policing rural crime
  • Preventing rural crime
  • Crime, justice and Indigenous Australians
  • Violence in rural communities
  • Drugs & Alcohol in rural areas
  • Young people and crime in rural areas

All sessions are 90 minutes long. Presentations should be 15 minutes in length followed by 5 minutes of question time.

The outcome will be advised on or around 29th October 2018

Papers presented at the conference also have the opportunity for publication within a special issue of the International Journal of Rural Law and Policy on rural crime. The Journal is edited by Dr Miriam Verbeek and Dr Same Varayudej, of the Law School, University of New England.

Delegates wishing to have their paper considered for this special edition are asked to provide an extended abstract of 1500 words by 15th November 2018 to:

Dr Same Varayudej
Law School
University of New England
Armidale NSW 2351 AUSTRALIA
Email: svarayud@une.edu.au
Telephone: 02 67733806

Full manuscripts should be submitted via the journal website, by 15th January 2019. All submissions are first screened by the Editorial Board. Papers that pass this first stage are sent for blind peer review. The entire assessment process takes around 6 weeks.

The IJRLP call for papers

The IJRLP invites papers (5000-8000 words) from diverse disciplines and addressing rural crime from various perspectives (legal, socio-legal, criminology, comparative, ethical, socio-economic etc.). To illustrate, the following four aspects may be of particular relevance to the theme:

  1. Rural crime: Crime that is specific to rural environments and remote locations, including water theft, stock theft, illegal timber harvesting, poaching and wildlife trade. OR Crime that occurs everywhere but with the research considering rural-specific patterns or manifestations.
  2. Policy and law enforcement: for example, the difficulty of ‘access’ (literally and metaphorically) by law enforcement in terms of social interaction with locals, physical presence in remote places, and transaction costs associated with spatial characteristics, such as recourse to social self-regulation, rural evidence gathering and enforcement practices, or the effects of regulatory agents connections in communities.
  3. Wider sociological and anthropological approaches in the context of rural change. The validity of stereotypical expectations of ‘better environment’, ‘safer place for children’ or ’lower criminality’; changes to demographic and cultural patterns, perhaps creating a convergence in rural-urban patterns of crime; the role of rural/urban migration and greater mobility; the impacts of socio-economic patterns and opportunities on youth crime.
  4. Geographic patterns: To what extent is rural crime different in different places (for example Egypt, China or Australia), and how should this affect policy responses?

For more information and guidelines for authors, please go to the IJRLP website.