Introduction - There's crime out there, but not as we know it: Rural criminology - the last frontier

The idea that crime is a predominantly urban phenomenon has been pervasive in criminology, so much so that Australian criminology textbooks do not recognise rural crime as a distinct phenomenon worthy of scholarly attention (see Chappell & Wilson, 2000; Goldsmith et al, 2003; White & Haines, 2004; White & Habibis, 2005). There are no chapters or sections in Australian texts which specifically examine rural crime, despite the inclusion of a range of topics that appear to provide a broad coverage of crime in its many temporal and spatial dimensions. Nor is there so much as an index reference to "rural" issues in criminology textbooks. The standardised syllabus for crime texts provides coverage of topics such as violent crime, public crime, delinquency, race and crime, gender and crime, and crime and social class. This canon is mirrored in international texts, most of which also fail to address the issue of rural crime, but make abundant reference to crime in various urban contexts (see Carrabine et al, 2004; Conklin, 2004). This is not to suggest that Australian texts fail to localise their subject matter.

Grant application: QUT Learning and Teaching scheme 2012 Cracking the Code - A checklist to complement CRAs for first year Justice students.

Widening participation brings with it increasing diversity, increased variation in the level of academic preparedness (Clarke, 2011; Nelson, Clarke, & Kift 2010). Cultural capital coupled with negotiating the academic culture creates an environment based on many assumptions about academic writing and university culture. Variations in staff and student expectations relating to the teaching and learning experience is captured in a range of national and institutional data (AUSSE, CEQ, LEX). Nationally, AUSSE data (2009) indicates that communication, writing, speaking and analytic skills, staff expectations are quite a bit higher than students. The research team noted a recognisable shift in the changing cohort of students and their understanding and engagement with feedback and CRAs, as well as variations in teaching staff and student expectations. The current reality of tutor and student roles is that: - Students self select when/how they access lectures and tutorials. - Shorter tutorial times result in reduced opportunity to develop rapport with students. - CRAs are not always used consistently by staff (different marking styles and levels of feedback). - Marking is not always undertaken by the student’s tutor/lecturer. - Student support services might be recommended to students once a poor grade has been given. Students can perceive this as remedial and a further sense of failure. - CRA sheet has a mark /grade attached to it. Stigma attached to low mark. Hard to focus on the CRA feedback with a poor mark etched next to it. - Limited opportunities for sessionals to access professional development to assist with engaging students and feedback. - FYE resources exist, however academic time is a factor in exploring and embedding these resources. Feedback is another area with differing expectations and understandings. Sadler (2009) contends that students are not equipped to decode the statements properly. For students to be able to apply feedback, they need to understand the meaning of the feedback statement. They also need to identify, the particular aspects of their work that need attention. The proposed Checklist/guide would be one page and submitted with each assessment piece thereby providing an interface to engage students and tutors in managing first year understandings and expectations around CRAs, feedback, and academic practice.

Thinking critically about rural crime: The influence of William J. Chambliss

William J. Chambliss (Bill) is well-known for his path-breaking theories of lawmaking and for his innovative research on state-organized crime. However, rarely discussed is the fact that his study of the original vagrancy laws marked the birth of rural critical criminology. The main objective of this article is twofold: (1) to show how Bill helped shape contemporary rural critical criminology and (2) to provide suggestions for further critical theoretical and empirical work on rural crime and social control.

The pandemic of conflict-related sexual violence and the political economy of gender inequality

Since the 1998 Rome Statute recognized widespread and systematic acts of sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) as an act of genocide, a war crime and crime against humanity, the last decade has seen historic recognition that egregious acts of sexual violence merit international political and legal attention (UN General Assembly, 1998). Notably there are now no fewer than seven United Nations Security Council resolutions on the cross-cutting theme of Women, Peace and Security.

Sexuality in a criminal justice curriculum : a study of student conceptualisations of gay identity

Heteronormative discourses provide the most common lens through which sexuality is understood within university curricula. This means that sexuality is discussed in terms of categories of identity, with heterosexuality accorded primacy while all 'others' are indeed 'othered'. This article draws on research carried out by the authors in a core first year university ethics class, in which a fictional text was introduced with the intention of unpacking these discourses. An ethnographic study was undertaken where both students and teachers engaged in discussions over, and personal written reflections on, the textual content. In reporting the results of that study this article uses a post-structural framework to identify how classroom and textual discourses might be used to break down socially constructed categories of sexuality and students' conceptualisations of non-heterosexual behaviour. It was found that engaging in discussion in the context of the fictional text allowed some students to begin to recognise their own heteronormative views and engage in an informed critique of them.

Early land grants and reservations : Any lessons from the Queensland experience for the sustainability challenge to land ownership

Environmentalists have called for a new property paradigm premised on the idea of land ownership as a delegated responsibility to manage land and resources for the public benefit. An examination of Crown freehold grants from the beginnings of settlement until the 1890s in Queensland shows that fee simple titles were granted subject to express conditions and reservations designed to reserve useful natural resources to the Crown, and to promote public purposes. Over time, legislative regulation of landowner’s rights rendered obsolete the use of express conditions and reservations in grants. One result of this change was that the inherently limited nature of fee simple ownership, and the communal obligations to which it is subject, are less transparent than in colonial times.

Youth, femininity and self-shaping

The arguments in this paper concerned the manner in which young people learn to construct specific types of relationships with themselves. The analysis of this self-making is accomplished by applying Foucault’s four-part model of self-formation, to an examination of the role of manuals such as young women’s magazines in the shaping of various aspects of the ‘youthful self’. The intention has been to provide a set of tools for approaching the issue of young women's magazines which avoids some of the problems associated with critical theory - a paradigm which translates such magazines almost exclusively in terms of social control.

Health, Death, and Indigenous Australians in the Coronial system

This paper details research conducted in Queensland during the first year of operation of the new Coroners Act 2003. Information was gathered from all completed investigations between December 2003 and December 2004 across five categories of death: accidental, suicide, natural, medical and homicide. It was found that 25 percent of the total number of Indigenous deaths recorded in 2004 were reported to, and investigated by, the Coroner, in comparison to 9.4 percent of non-Indigenous deaths. Moreover, Indigenous people were found to be over-represented in each category of death, except in death in a medical setting, where they were absent.

Crimes against morality

The purpose of this chapter is to discuss the relationship between crime and morality, with a specific focus on crimes against morality. While we argue that all crimes have a general moral basis, condemned as wrong or bad and proscribed by society, there is a specific group of offences in modern democratic nations labelled crimes against morality. Included within this group are offences related to prostitution, pornography and homosexuality. What do these crimes have in common? Most clearly they tend to have a sexual basis and are often argued to do sexual harm, in both a moral and /or psychological sense, as well as physically. Conversely they are often argued to be victimless crimes, especially when the acts occur between consenting adults. Finally they are considered essentially private acts but they often occur, and are regulated, in the public domain. Most importantly, each of these crimes against morality has only relatively recently (ie in the past 150 years) become identified and regulated by the state as a criminal offence.

Applying Stafford and Warr’s Reconceptualization of Deterrence Theory to drug driving : can it predict those likely to offend?

In December 2007, random roadside drug testing commenced in Queensland, Australia. Subsequently, the aim of this study was to explore the preliminary impact of Queensland’s drug driving legislation and enforcement techniques by applying Stafford and Warr’s [Stafford, M. C., & Warr, M. (1993). A reconceptualization of general and specific deterrence. Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, 30, 123-135] reconceptualization of deterrence theory. Completing a comprehensive drug driving questionnaire were 899 members of the public, university students, and individuals referred to a drug diversion program. Of note was that approximately a fifth of participants reported drug driving in the past six months. Additionally, the analysis indicated that punishment avoidance and vicarious punishment avoidance were predictors of the propensity to drug drive in the future. In contrast, there were indications that knowing of others apprehended for drug driving was not a sufficient deterrent. Sustained testing and publicity of the legislation and countermeasure appears needed to increase the deterrent impact for drug driving.

Saving schools from abomination and abnormal sex : a discourse analysis of online public commentary about 'queering' school spaces

Homophobic hatred: these words summarise online commentary made by people in support of a school that banned gay students from taking their same sex partners to a school formal. With the growing popularity of online news sites, it seems appropriate to critically examine how these sites are becoming a new arena in which people can express personal opinions about controversial topics. While commentators equally expressed two dominant viewpoints about the school ban (homophobic hatred and human rights), this paper focuses on homophobic hatred as a discursive position and how the comments work to confirm the legitimacy of the schools’ decision. Drawing on the work of Foucault and others, the paper examines how the comments constitute certain types of subjectivity drawing on dominant ideas about what it means to be homophobic. The analysis demonstrates the complex and competing skein of strategies that constitute queering school social spaces as a social problem.

Duty of police and ambulance services : what happens when the plaintiff refuses treatment?

In a recent case the New South Wales Court of Appeal considered the duty of care owed by ambulance and police officers, issues concerning breach and causation and the practical effect of the exclusion of the plaintiff's evidence.

Identifiable, queer and risky : the role of the body in policing experiences for LGBT young people

This paper explores how visibly non-heteronormative bodies mediate policing experiences of LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender) young people, an area that has been mostly ignored in research about policing young people. Informed by interviews with 35 LGBT young people in Brisbane, Queensland, this paper addresses this gap by exploring how the non-heteronormative body mediates policing experiences of LGBT young people. Drawing on Foucault (1984), Butler (1990a), and other queer theory, the paper argues young non-heteronormative bodies visibly perform ‘queerness’, are read by police, and shape police-LGBT youth interactions. While this is complicated by looking at-risk (in terms of risk factors like homelessness, substance abuse), and looking risky (in terms of risk-taking or criminalised activities), the paper concludes noting how youthful LGBT bodies are regulated by police as non-heteronormative and deviant.