Samenvatting

Criminologists, also in the Netherlands, traditionally focus their research primarily on urban areas. This, however, does not imply that rural areas are not confronted with crime problems. This paper first addresses the question what in the Dutch context should be understood by the term rural and then analyses property crimes in rural municipalities and local teams of the National Police. The paper is based on public data published by the Central Bureau of Statistics and the police. The findings replicate results of previous research which concluded that urbanisation is an important factor in explaining crime rates, which are generally lower in non-urban areas. This does, however, not imply that all types of property crime occur less in every individual rural municipality or police team. Some rural municipalities and non-urban police teams seem more susceptible to this than others, and further research is required to explain these differences.