NCJ Number
204364
Journal
International Journal of Comparative and Applied Criminal Justice Volume: 27 Issue: 2 Dated: Fall 2003 Pages: 131-151
Date Published
2003
Length
21 pages
Annotation
This study explored factors influencing farmers’ decisions about whether to report farm crime to police in Australia.
Abstract
Drawing on a comprehensive crime victimization survey of property crimes on Australian farms, the author sought to establish the type of reporting correlates that were the strongest predictors of reporting agricultural crimes to police. Farm crimes, like many other types of crime, often go unreported despite the fact that farm crime is widespread, frequent, and often involves serious financial and personal losses for farming families. The crime victimization survey asked 393 farm owners about crimes experienced on their farms during the past 2 years and their reasons for either reporting or not reporting the crimes. Bennett and Wiegand’s three-cluster model of reporting was used to analyze the survey data. Reasons for not reporting crimes included the reasoning that the crime would be too difficult to prove, too difficult to tell if the crime really occurred, too much time had passed, and that the police could not do much to help. Responses concerning reasons for not reporting crimes were delineated by incident-specific factors, individual-specific factors, and environment-specific factors. The final analysis revealed that the most significant reason for the underreporting of farm crime in Australia had to do with the nature of the farming environment. While some individual- and incident-specific characteristics were indicated as a driving force behind the decision to report farm crime, the final analysis found that the subjective reasons offered by the respondents for not reporting crime were influenced by the farming environment. To improve the reporting rate of farm crime, law enforcement resources and appropriate police training should be applied to the problem. Tables, notes, references