The Determinants of Reporting Farm Crime in Australia

Abstract

Crime victimization surveys are an important means of examining unreported crimes. A study of properly-related victimization on farms in Australia found that although the problem was widespread and frequently involved serious financial and personal losses for farmers, there was considerable underreporting of crimes to police. Bennett and Wiegand's (1984) model of crime reporting was employed to analyze those factors that influenced farmers' propensity to report crimes, whether they be incident-specific, individual-specific or environment-specific factors. The analyses found that the nature of the farming environment clearly affects farmers' decisions to report crimes. The study highlights the need for more research into the unique, costly and little understood nature of agricultural crime.