Book Review: Crime and Conflict in the Countryside

Published date01 September 2000
Date01 September 2000
DOI10.1177/026975800000700410
AuthorSandra Walklate
Subject MatterBook Reviews
337
The police are in the business of service delivery to complainants, therefore
making the police's role along with its policies a crucial first step in dealing with
sexual assault. In Chapter two, the authors identify the prevalence of a macho
culture within the police force which has allowed male violence to thrive within
its ranks. This type of culture, according to the authors, is worse with the degree
of patriarchy within a society. Unless these attitudes are dealt with, the strategies
implemented by the police are diminutive, little more than adorned. Chapters
three through eight focus on the authors' research which focuses on the recording
and classification of reports of rape and sexual assault, the reasons for the high
rates of attrition in rape and sexual assault, police recording practices of assaults
on men by men, views of the police, medical examination process and the court
process by female complainants. In conclusion, they describe the past 20 years
with regard to police practices and laws relating to rape and sexual assault: the
beneficial areas improved, and those areas in which reform is needed.
This book is geared toward academicians who teach sexual assault generally,
and those who use a comparative approach. Law enforcement policy makers as
well as crisis centres and even administrators in the medical field will find this
book helpful. What is needed in the area of sexual assault generally is an
integration of professionals who will seek to support the complainant at every
stage in the criminal justice process and beyond, i.e., the police, judges, prosecu-
tors, crisis personnel, nurses, psychologists, psychiatrists and physicians, to
name a few.
Charisse T.M. Coston, Associate Professor
The University Of North Carolina at Charlotte
USA
CRIME AND CONFLICT IN THE COUNTRYSIDE
G. Dingwall and S.R. Moody (eds.) University of Wales Press, Cardiff. pp. 210
£40.00.
This book is one of a series published under the general heading of 'Environment
and Countryside Law' whose central purpose is to address those issue pertinent
to rural areas. This particular collection of papers, as the title suggests, focuses
on a number of themes relating to the question of crime in the countryside. It
draws together papers first presented at the 1997 British Criminology Con-
ference in Belfast all of which have one common underlying theme: to challenge
the myths associated with rural living. As the Foreword to this collection points
out much of our "knowledge" about rural life is often constructed in comparison
with what we think we know about urban life. Criminology, like many other areas
of social analysis, has often failed to challenge that comparison. This collection
of papers very usefully encourages us to think much more critically about the
myths of tranquillity, calm and community often associated with rural areas and

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