Rurality and Rule Breaking

Main Contacts: Caroline Lanskey and Joel Harvey

This ethnographic study sets to out to examine ‘rule-breaking’ behaviour and the experience of youth justice for young people in a rural context: the Cambridgeshire Fens. Rural contexts bring with them a number of complexities that are of interest in relation to the young people’s ‘rule-breaking’ and experience of the youth justice system. However, little research has examined the experience of young people who have offended within rural settings (Howard League for Penal Reform 2005; Marshall 2005; Meek 2006). This study will develop an explanatory framework for understanding young people’s ‘rule-breaking’ and experience of youth justice in a rural context. It is the first of its kind to provide a detailed empirical understanding of a rural dimension to rule-breaking behaviour and the experience of youth justice for young people, and their families.