ABSTRACT
This chapter begins with a brief reprise of definitions associated with the words "rural" and "critical". It describes key events or "cusps" associated with the development of a critical rural criminology. The chapter proceeds to a consideration of areas where a critical perspective is an important dimension of a general rural criminology, but where even more can be done. It advocates for areas where a critical rural criminology can grow by re-focusing extant critical literature to make it more rural focused, or by re-framing extant rural criminological literature to make it more critical. The chapter shows that rural criminology will continue to develop and mature as a significant sub-field in criminology, and observe that its future growth, to a considerable extent, is dependent upon the incorporation of critical perspectives for understanding the rural dimensions of crime. A better approach is to call for a conscious "internationalization of a critical rural criminology".
