New directions in feminist understandings of rural crime

In the early to mid-1990s, Patricia Gagne's work on woman abuse in the Appalachian region of the United States (U.S) sparked contemporary feminist interpretations of rural crime and social control. Nevertheless, the flames did not emerge until the latter part of the last decade, with the publication of a spate of scholarly books, journal articles, and chapters. These feminist contributions enhance an empirical and theoretical understanding of rural criminality and societal reactions to it, but there are still key gaps in gender and rural crime research. The main objective of this article is twofold: (1) to briefly review the extant feminist literature on rural crimes and societal reactions to them and (2) to suggest new directions in the development of a feminist rural criminology.