Chapter 9 - Youth in rural areas

• Young people are vital for any type of society – but certainly more important forrural communities as their future depends on them. If young people cannot continueliving in these communities, the demand for services and other types ofconsumption decreases, and consequently the community breaks down. Paradoxically,young people are far too often seen as a source of local problems.This chapter attempts to characterize both sides of this coin using available officialstatistics. It starts with demographic, socioeconomic, and lifestyle differencesamong young individuals in Sweden as background for understandingregional differences in offending and victimization among youth. This is followedby a discussion of factors associated with youth crime and victimizationin rural areas; apparently they are similar to those in urban areas. As much aspossible, the Swedish case is compared with the international literature, oftenfrom examples coming from British and North American research. The systemicnature of criminogenic conditions that is relevant for small municipalities inSweden is exemplified here by two phenomena.

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