Despite rural criminology’s origins dating back to the 1930s, the growth of rural criminology has not been even across the globe. The ‘big four’ academic bases of rural criminological study – the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia and to a slightly lesser extent Canada – have hitherto dominated the scholarship landscape in book chapter and journal article form.

This is, in part, attributable to the lure of wealthier, better-resourced institutions which happen to be located in these parts of the world. That is, scholars will relocate across borders to where jobs and opportunities exist, and then develop to an extent localized research interests. There are, of course, barriers which exist which make scholarship challenging in certain geographic places too, not just in terms of resourcing but prevailing research priorities.

As with many other disciplines, much of the rural criminological literature is provided in English alone. The higher education sector places much weight on citations and other so-called metrics, which serves to isolate scholars performing vital and cutting-edge locally specific research. Many voices on crime and criminology beyond the urban places of the ‘big four’, therefore, have largely been excluded from traditional criminology.

This section seeks to identify the geographic status of rural criminology based on the seven continents. Here we have utilized the CIA Factbook maps as the delineation between continents.

Contributors were asked to restrict observations to approximately 1500 words – no mean feat when considering the huge and diverse populations, land masses and socio-cultural differences which exist between and within continents. However, what is presented here is a snapshot of key developments and, it is hoped, will serve as a portent of further geographical specific rural criminological work in the years ahead.