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Professor Dan Phillips comments on big city crime in rural setting I wanted to share a few thoughts about the Sarah Hart murder. I didn't know her personally but she and my wife, Kelly, are the same age, went to school together, both had 3 children, and jogged on the same stretch of road. Mrs. Hart's pharmacist husband, Ryan, helped me with my insurance company concerning paying for medicine when Kelly was sick during her pregnancy with our son, Noah. -DAN PHILLIPS By Dan Phillips, Associate Professor of Sociology and Criminal Justice Lindsey Wilson College, Columbia, KY 42642 I didn't know Sarah Hart but my Kelly could certainly identify with her and this murder has caused Kelly and others to become very afraid and worried about their community. I just wanted to add a few thoughts. I was born in West Germany, I grew up in Washington, D.C., I have lived in San Francisco. I do not know what it is like to grow up knowing everyone around me, their families, and the history of one's community. I do know what it is like to live in areas where you assume that people would victimize you if they could. I know the rules of living in urban areas: don't make eye contact, don't provide more information than you need to, recognize that anyone could victimize you, realize that people who knock on your door may be looking to steal things from you, don't speak to anyone you don't know, etc. My nephew and brother live in New York City and follow these rules regularly. The problem is that following these rules can destroy the sense of community people in South Central Kentucky value.At Lindsey I teach a course in Rural Crime. One of the biggest distinctions between urban and rural crime is that with rural crime most of the time people in the community understand why it happened. (If you don't believe me wait until there is a major crime in this area and see how many people are explaining it.) There are murders in rural communities but most of the time people understand (even though they don't like) the crimes. For instance, 2 individuals are involved in drug sales and one kills the other. No one likes it but no one feels that they could have been killed (because they weren't involved with the drug sales). When a "random" crime happens people feel very afraid. Big city crimes are scary because they come out of nowhere, from people we don't know, for reasons we don't understand. The Sarah Hart murder happened in a rural community but feels very much like a big city crime: she was attacked in a very public area, for no reason that she could have anticipated, by a man she didn't know. Sarah's murder has the feel of a "wrong place at the wrong time" sort of crime which makes us all feel very afraid in a much different way than a murder between people who sell drugs. If she can be murdered in such a public place for no reason, then it causes people to worry about what other sorts of crimes could happen. -Dan Phillips This story was posted on 2012-06-16 10:44:25
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