This article reports on victim surveys carried out in a rural county of England, using a postal questionnaire. Surveys in rural areas are uncommon, but many patterns of risk that were identified here were found to be similar to those identified in national and urban surveys. This suggests both that postal surveys provide a valid measure of variations in risk and that similar explanations for variations in risk apply. Routine activity theory is used to explain the patterns identified. Although the impact of residential location was seen to be less important in the rural context than studies in urban areas have indicated, the question of where people spent their time, including the town or city that they frequented, was significant in predicting victimization. The relationship between location and risk thus appears to be stronger in terms of where people spend their time outside the home than in terms of where they live.
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