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The purpose of the paper is to present the results of research in the region covered by the Murska Sobota Police Directorate based on semi-structured interviews we conducted with community policing officers in the rural and urban areas of Pomurje.

Community policing is one of the more recent (yet hardly new) ways of ensuring security. It focuses on collaboration between citizens and the police, the joint identification of security issues and resolving them. Not long ago, it was established that policing varies depending on geographical criteria, specifically the urbanisation of the environment since police work in cities is often very narrowly specialised compared to in a rural environment. We were therefore interested in whether the Pomurje region also shows that it is easier to practise community policing in rural areas compared to cities.

The research results confirm previous findings; namely, that in urban areas approximately two-thirds of the population does not know the community policing officer, leading to the mutual cooperation between residents and the police being poorer than in rural areas. The conclusion describes ways of improving the established situation facing Pomurje.

We see the limitations of the study in the peculiarities of the Pomurje region; therefore the results cannot be generalised and applied in areas of other police directorates.

The survey offers insight into rural and urban policing in the Pomurje region at the same time, focusing on possibilities for improvements.

Although more than 71 per cent of the Earth is covered by water, 97 per cent of that volume is saltwater held in the oceans. Of the remaining water, 2 per cent is freshwater locked away in snow and ice, leaving less than 1 per cent available for human requirements (Williams, 2016). Yet, water is crucial for human survival. Therefore, access to water must be recognised as a fundamental human right. In 2010, the United Nations adopted Resolution 64/292 which explicitly recognises the human right to water and sanitation, acknowledges that clean drinking water and sanitation are essential for the realisation of all human rights, and seeks to protect water as a national resource and the people that need it the most. Despite the adoption of the aforementioned Resolution, water remains a hugely pertinent issue across the world, particularly in areas where water is considered predominantly as a tradeable commodity. Hence, Water and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) adopted by the 2015 UN-Water Annual International Zaragoza Conference are extremely important in terms of water protection, preservation and sustainable development. This chapter discusses access to water as a fundamental precondition of life, noting that the Republic of Slovenia became one of the first countries in the world to include the human right to water in its Constitution in 2017. The authors believe that this is an excellent example for other countries to change their legislation in favour of protecting the fundamental human right to access to water. It also presents further possibilities for achieving SDG 6.1 (and other SDGs related to water) in practice.

This chapter introduces the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and considers how criminological research, policy and practice can advance this global agenda. It critically accounts for the complex geopolitical, institutional and ideological landscapes that gave rise to this agenda and the challenges this poses for implementing the SDGs today. The chapter also raises important questions about the viability and consequentiality of global efforts to govern the nexus between crime, justice and sustainable development on account of the gravest threat to humanity, climate change. We conclude that all of these issues highlight the need for scholars and practitioners with expertise on crime and justice to approach this agenda from a critical standpoint. At the same time, we acknowledge that the SDGs remain the best global framework that we have for promoting safer and more equitable societies.