Urban crime is generally three times higher than rural crime, yet over the last decades rural crime has increased at the same rate as crime in metropolitan areas. Violent crime in large cities however, rose from 1996 through 1991 and then declined, while rural rates drifted upward for the entire period. Some crimes are more prevalent in rural areas than in urban areas, while some others by definition are not even committed in cities at all. Researchers have paid little attention to rural crime statistics. This is highly regrettable given that the studying of rural crime and justice can potentially contribute in very important ways to criminological theory and the crime policy. This study details why it is important for researchers, the justice system, and society to pay greater attention to issues of rural crime and rural justice. The reasons discussed are: statistical arguments defying popular misconceptions, arguments in the field of criminological theory, counterintuitive trends in rural crime, various disadvantages rural areas suffer compared with urban ones, and strategies for dealing with crime that apply to the rural environment. This study found important implications, both for criminological theory and for criminal justice policy. In terms of theory, it is important that efforts are made to develop a theoretical perspective which would take into account the special circumstances of rural settings. Finally this study demonstrates that rural crime cannot be understood or controlled in the same ways as urban crime. References