By Robert O. Motley Jr , Eric Williamson , Melissa McTernan , Sara Beeler c, Christopher P. Salas-Wright 

Purpose

Racism-based police violence (RPV) is an emerging public health concern. However, limited research has examined the relationship between RPV exposure and substance use, particularly among Black or African American and Hispanic emerging adults aged 18–29 years. This study assessed associations between lifetime RPV exposure across three domains (direct victimization, witnessing in person, and media-based exposure) and past 30-day and 12-month alcohol and cannabis use in this population.

Methods

A cross-sectional survey was conducted from August to October 2023 using a national nonprobability internet sample recruited via Qualtrics. The analytic sample included 936 Black or African American (48 %) and Hispanic (52 %) emerging adults. Negative binomial and logistic regression models were used to examine associations.

Results

Higher levels of RPV exposure were significantly associated with increased alcohol and cannabis use. RPV–Victim exposure was the strongest predictor of alcohol use, including past 30-day (IRR = 1.02, 95 % CI: 1.00–1.05) and 12-month (OR = 1.04, 95 % CI: 1.01–1.07) use. RPV–Witness exposure was most strongly associated with cannabis use, including past 30-day (IRR = 1.02, 95 % CI: 1.00–1.03) and 12-month (OR = 1.03, 95 % CI: 1.01–1.06) use. A dose-response pattern was observed across increasing levels of RPV exposure.

Conclusions

RPV exposure is a significant correlate of alcohol and cannabis use among Black or African American and Hispanic emerging adults. Findings suggest that perceived racialized policing is a significant risk factor for substance use and warrants further investigation as a potential structural determinant, highlighting it as an important target for public health interventions.

By The Centre of expertise on child sexual abuse (CSA Centre)

This resource introduces some of the key research and statistics on what is known about child sexual abuse: what it is, who harms children, where it takes place, the impact on children and, crucially, what you as a police professional can do in response. It is designed for all police professionals, whether you're the attending officer responding to a call or the officer assigned to a case. Throughout the 10 sections, you’ll find blue boxes containing key takeaways, prompts and signposts for you to consider when faced with concerns of child sexual abuse. At the end, there are links to other publications from the CSA Centre, which provide practical information and advice on understanding, identifying and responding to child sexual abuse. Remember, it is never a child’s responsibility to prevent abuse, protect themselves or make the abuse stop. But by better understanding child sexual abuse, having conversations and highlighting concerns, we can all play a role in better protecting children.

By Samantha Weston, Clare Griffiths and Anne-Marie Day 

Louise Casey’s review revealed a series of concerns about London Metropolitan Police concluding that institutional racism, misogyny and homophobia pervades across the whole organisation. Acknowledging that police legitimacy is under threat, some have called for the police to be defunded. Drawing on data collected via a survey and focus groups with children and young people from traditionally unheard minoritised groups attending a community-based programme, this article reveals low levels of satisfaction with and trust of the police among this group. In contrast, activities based and created within young people’s own communities provided opportunities to be safe, protected and among people they trusted. Drawing on Gramsci’s theory of hegemony, we suggest that the call to ‘defund the police’ may not be the radical alternative that many would have us believe and instead call to ‘refund civil society’ by advocating for a ‘community first’ approach to resolve complex social problems.

By Jeremy M. Wilson and Clifford A. Grammich

This publication illustrates elements of the police staffing challenge and explores how they form a broader ecosystem that agencies should consider when assessing staffing issues, contemplating goals and strategies, and implementing solutions. It presents a six-step approach for police workforce planning and managing workload demand and addresses planning for three common staffing scenarios.

By Rashad James

For community advocates, policymakers, and law enforcement agencies (LEAs) interested in exploring alternatives, this document outlines how federal immigration authorities can—and cannot—compel state and local LEAs to cooperate. It also proposes four strategies that state and local jurisdictions can adopt to resist the growing push for a uniform law enforcement system under executive authority. Specifically, jurisdictions can 1) name the actions currently underway; 2) claim their moral vision through proactive legislation; 3) restrain the use of local funding for immigration enforcement; and 4) reframe these initiatives as measures that strengthen public safety. Community members and elected leaders are encouraged to share this document as a pathway toward a more just and equitable future. 

By Robin S. Engel, Nicholas Corsaro, Gabrielle T. Isaza, Hannah D. McManus, University of Cincinnati

In recent months, law enforcement officers have been faced with an unprecedented set of circumstances, navigating major social unrest in communities amid a pandemic and economic crisis. Acknowledging the dangers to both the community and officers, efforts have intensified to identify “solutions” to reduce the frequency and severity of violent encounters between police and the public. Calls for the adoption of “de-escalation” policies and training – widely endorsed by policy makers, policing experts, and the public – have been especially strong, and recent statistics on law enforcement practices suggest the field has responded (Engel et al., 2020b). For example, in a 2019 national survey of 155 large police departments in the United States, nearly all responding agencies indicated they offered some form of de-escalation training to officers in their agency (CBS, 2019). Although the implementation of de-escalation training is often encouraged, the effects of this training on police officers and their interactions with the public has not been systematically evaluated (Engel et al., 2020a). For this reason, the impact of de-escalation training on the frequency and severity of officers’ use of force and the subsequent injuries to citizens and officers is not well understood. It was within this context that the Louisville (KY) Metro Police Department (LMPD) stepped forward to both deliver and participate in the evaluation of a deescalation training. Specifically, the LMPD introduced the Police Executive Research Forum’s (PERF) Integrating Communications, Assessment, and Tactics (ICAT) training program to instruct officers in de-escalation tactics and critical thinking skills for the management of potentially volatile police-citizen encounters. Seeking to understand the effectiveness of this training, the LMPD partnered with the International Association of Chiefs of Police/University of Cincinnati Center for Police Research and Policy (IACP/UC Center) to conduct an independent, external evaluation of the effects of the ICAT training on their agency. This report documents the methodology and findings of the evaluation of ICAT training implemented within the LMPD. This study represents one of the first large-scale, methodologically rigorous evaluations of a well-known de-escalation training for police. Specifically, this study uses a multi-method approach, relying upon two distinct survey designs (i.e., repeated measure survey design, cross-sectional survey design) to assess the impact of training on the perceptions and self-reported experiences of officers and first-line supervisors, and a stepped-wedge randomized control trial design to examine training effects on officers’ behaviors and changes in the outcomes of police-citizen encounters. This seminal study is the first randomized control trial to demonstrate a significant reduction in officer use of force following de-escalation training implementation.

By Rumbi Matamba
Breaking the mutually beneficial relationship between criminal actors and political elites is essential to preserving electoral integrity and democracy in Africa. This paper presents three key avenues through which organised crime infiltrates elections – election financing, the deployment of violence, and disinformation campaigns – and the impact on electoral integrity and thus on democracy. The author argues that to preserve the integrity of Africa’s elections, the mutually beneficial relationship between criminal actors, states and stateembedded actors must be directly addressed. If left unchecked, it will perpetuate democratic backsliding and rising criminality, further eroding democratic institutions

By David Bruce and Gareth Newham

Key findings There is strong evidence of ongoing widespread corruption in the South African Police Service (SAPS), including among its senior leaders. Corruption levels in the metro and traffic police are also high, although they receive less scrutiny than the SAPS. Perceptions of high levels of police corruption contribute to low levels of public trust in the police. TrA range of agencies and mechanisms are tasked with investigating police corruption, but no agency has overall responsibility. Coordination between agencies is limited. SAPS has introduced multiple anti-corruption strategies, but has not implemented intelligencedriven measures to ensure that corruption is tackled effectively. The SAPS Anti-Corruption Investigation Unit (ACIU) is substantially under-resourced. Despite evidence of misconduct, a majority (77%) of SAPS disciplinary hearings result in no meaningful accountability.ust is vital for the police to effectively address crime. SAPS members are often unwilling to report crime or corruption by colleagues because they fear negative consequences for themselves. The willingness of many members of the public to pay bribes is an important contributor to high levels of police corruption.

By Elini Manis, et al.

In this report, S.T.O.P. details how family surveillance apps transfer surveillance used for probation and parole to familial contexts, enabling abusive parents and intimate partners. Courts have even opportunistically used Life360, one family surveillance app, to enforce probation. The report calls on regulators to reign in family surveillance apps based on federal and state wiretap laws, and demands developers prioritize user safety if they refuse to pull the apps entirely.

Key Findings Include:

• Family surveillance apps like Life360 repurpose the surveillance typically used to enforce probation and parole. In fact, some courts use Life360 in lieu of apps branded as probation or parole tools.

• Family surveillance apps frequently function as stalkerware, enabling abusers to track their targets anywhere they go. These apps can enable abusive parents, intimate partner violence, and other crimes.

• Most family surveillance apps track more data than needed to serve their core functions, compounding safety risks for tracked individuals.

• Short of pulling family surveillance apps entirely, developers should implement anti-abusability measures recommended by advocates for survivors of domestic abuse.

By Corinne Worthington, et al.

In this report, S.T.O.P. details the NYPD Domain Awareness System’s unparalleled invasion of New Yorkers’ privacy rights. Formed through a public-private partnership with Microsoft, the DAS is an opaque surveillance command center that collects data from tens of thousands of camera feeds, license plate readers, radiological sensors, and other spyware for real-time, warrantless surveillance of New Yorkers across the city. The report uses the NYPD’s own public statements to detail the scope of surveillance systems that monitor New Yorkers every day.

Key Findings Include:

• The New York City Police Department’s Domain Awareness System (“DAS”) links citywide camera networks, license plate readers, drone and helicopter feeds, ShotSpotter gunshot alerts, 911 and 311 call records, and countless police records, law enforcement databases, and data streams into a single surveillance network.

•  Part sensor network, part search engine, the DAS is the backbone of the NYPD’s surveillance program. Every NYPD officer has unfettered access to DAS data on their smartphone, allowing them to use and misuse this information for nearly any purpose.

• DAS surveillance drives discriminatory stops and arrests of BIPOC and Muslim New Yorkers by giving officers access to illegal and prejudicial information.

•  The NYPD has expanded the DAS rapidly without oversight and ignored court-mandated reforms.

By The American Immigration Council

Across several presidential administrations, the federal government has used American businesses to enforce immigration law through worksite enforcement. Worksite-specific immigration enforcement encompasses a wide variety of activities, including criminal investigations, business audits, and administrative arrests.1 This includes high-profile operations primarily conducted by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), where the agency targets one or more businesses to both investigate employers and to arrest employees as a means to deter unauthorized employment. While there is not a common term used for this tactic, it is often referred to as worksite or workplace immigration “enforcement action” or “raid.”2 This factsheet provides a brief history of worksite raids, discusses the agencies involved and the legal authorities relied upon by these agencies to conduct them, reviews legal challenges and issues related to worksite raids, and briefly summarizes the economic and humanitarian consequences of these raids.

By The Council of State Governments Justice Center

Homelessness is a growing crisis in America, increasing by 12% between 2022 and 2023 alone. While there are a range of ideas about how to address this issue, in many places across the country, law enforcement officers are still typically the default first responders to these kinds of community concerns. This publication details how communities can strategically plan for and assess their law enforcement homelessness response efforts, using a shared vision, a logic model, and regular assessments to determine if the response is achieving its intended goals. It also discusses the importance of expanding the knowledge base of law enforcement practices and strategies to establish a set of national standards for effective and successful homelessness responses.

by Graeme R. Newman with the assistance of Claude.

Can you stop crime before it starts, without fully knowing what causes it? A reader's guide to the 1936 symposium that gathered twenty-four programs trying to find out.

Preventing Crime: A Symposium, edited by Sheldon and Eleanor Glueck, brought together the directors of coordinated community councils, school bureaus, police prevention units, residential homes, child guidance clinics, a parent school, and boys' clubs, and asked each the same questions: what evidence shows the need for your program, how does it work, and how do you know whether it succeeds? The editors were candid from the start. Their title, they admitted in the preface, was optimistic, and a more accurate one would have been "Promising Efforts to Prevent Delinquency and Criminality." Only time and real evaluation, they wrote, could say whether these programs actually prevented anything.

The book is a portrait of what serious people believed about crime prevention in the depths of the Depression, and a case study in the gap between good intentions and good evidence. This Reader's Guide makes it accessible without replacing it. It explains what each program did, sets out the twelve principles the Gluecks drew from the contributions, and shows exactly what counted as proof of success in 1936, and how little of it would count today.

INSIDE THIS GUIDE

• A reading plan and a chapter-by-chapter map of the original, with all twenty-five contributors

• The Gluecks' opening argument: can crime be prevented without knowing its causes?

• Twelve principles distilled from the programs, from starting early to using trained personnel

• Community councils, school programs, police prevention bureaus, residential homes, clinics, and boys' clubs, program by program

• A close look at "the audit problem": what each contributor offered as evidence, and what it actually showed

• A worked example that tests one program's before-and-after numbers against six hard questions

• What has changed since 1936, including the Cambridge-Somerville Youth Study's sobering results and decades of research on what works, what doesn't, and what's promising

• Five common misreadings, a primer of evaluation terms, a glossary, an annotated reading list, an FAQ, 26 discussion questions and classroom activities

WHO IT'S FOR: Students of criminology, social work, education, public policy and program evaluation; practitioners designing youth programs; teachers and reading groups; and general readers curious about where crime prevention came from and why proving it works is so hard.

PLEASE NOTE: This is an independent guide, not an abridgment or edition of the original symposium. It does not reproduce the original's text and is not endorsed by the editors', or contributors', heirs. It is meant to be read alongside the original, which is in the public domain in the United States.

Written by Graeme R. Newman with the assistance of Claude, an AI model made by Anthropic. The AI-generated content is disclosed in accordance with Read-Me.Org policy.

Read-Me.Org Inc. New York-Philadelphia-Australia. 2026. p.54p.

by Graeme Newman (Author), Sheldon Glueck (Author), Eleanor Glueck

What makes a boy a persistent delinquent? A reader's guide to one of criminology's great matched-comparison studies.

In 1939, Sheldon and Eleanor Glueck of Harvard stopped asking what happens to offenders after they are caught and asked a harder question: why do some boys from the same poor neighborhoods become persistent delinquents while others do not?

Their answer, Unraveling Juvenile Delinquency (1950), compared 500 delinquent boys with 500 non-delinquents, matched pair by pair on age, intelligence, ethnic origin and neighborhood. They examined family life, schooling, health, body build, intelligence, personality and temperament. Then they built "prediction tables" meant to spot at-risk children when they start school.

The book is long, technical and dated in its language. This Reader's Guide makes it accessible without replacing it. It explains how the study was designed, what it found, and how far its evidence can be trusted, and it connects the Gluecks to the research that followed.

INSIDE THIS GUIDE

• A reading plan and a chapter-by-chapter map of the original

• How the two groups were built, and what the design can and cannot show

• The findings on family, school, the street, health, physique, intelligence and temperament, explained in plain language

• The prediction tables, with a worked example that shows why "79 chances in a hundred" can mean something quite different in real life

• Five common misreadings of the book

• What has changed since 1950, including later reanalyses of the Gluecks' data, and what has not

• A primer on statistics, a glossary, an annotated reading list, an FAQ, 26 discussion questions and classroom activities

WHO IT'S FOR: Students of criminology, sociology, psychology, social work and law; teachers and reading groups; and general readers who want to understand a landmark study and the debates it started, from risk assessment to the role of the family.

Part of the Read-Me.Org Reader's Guide series, bringing back landmark out-of-print works in criminology and social science..

NOTE: This is an independent guide, not an abridgment or edition of the Gluecks' book. It does not reproduce the original's text or tables and is not endorsed by the authors' heirs or the original publisher. It is meant to be read alongside the original. Written by Graeme R. Newman with the assistance of Claude, an AI model made by Anthropic. The AI-generated content is disclosed in accordance with Read-Me.Org policy.

Read-Me.Org Inc. New York-Philadelphia-Australia. 2026. p.67.

by Graeme Newman (Author), Sheldon Glueck (Author), Eleanor Glueck

Did the reformatories really reform? In 1930, two Harvard researchers went and checked.

For decades, American reformatories reported that most of their graduates went straight. Estimates ran from 60 to 85 percent, and they were repeated in textbooks and legislatures. In Five Hundred Criminal Careers, Sheldon and Eleanor Glueck tested the claim. They took every man whose parole from the Massachusetts Reformatory expired in 1921 or 1922, 510 in all, and traced what happened to each over the next five years. Their answer reversed the figures: almost four in five of the men they could trace had committed offenses after parole.

This Reader's Guide explains how the study was done, what it found, and how far its evidence can be trusted. It also shows why the book still matters. It is the model for later follow-up studies, an early account of how to find ex-prisoners without harming them, and the origin of the prognostic tables that became today's risk assessments.

INSIDE THIS GUIDE

• A reading plan and a chapter-by-chapter map of the original

• How 510 men were traced through fingerprint files, police letters, and hundreds of interviews

• What "success" and "failure" meant, and a worked example showing how the 79 percent headline changes under other definitions

• The men, their families, the Reformatory and parole, and what the community did for them

• How the authors tried to separate the institution's effect from the men's own history

• The prognostic tables, their strengths, and their limits

• What the ex-prisoners themselves said, and the authors' program of reform

• What has changed since 1930, including modern recidivism research and risk assessment, and what has not

• Five common misreadings, a statistics primer, a glossary, an annotated reading list, an FAQ, 26 discussion questions and classroom activities

WHO IT'S FOR: Students of criminology, criminal justice, sociology, social work and law; teachers and reading groups; and general readers who want to know how anyone can tell whether a prison or a program works.

PLEASE NOTE: This is an independent guide, not an abridgment or edition of the Gluecks' book. It does not reproduce the original's text or tables and is not endorsed by the authors' heirs or the original publisher. It is meant to be read alongside the original.

Written by Graeme R. Newman with the assistance of Claude, an AI model made by Anthropic. The AI-generated content is disclosed in accordance with Read-Me.Org policy.

Read-Me.Org Inc. New York-Philadelphia-Australia. 2026. p.80.

by Graeme Newman (Author), Sheldon Glueck (Author)

If a man kills because he is certain his victim is plotting against him, and he knows killing is against the law, is he responsible?

In 1962, Sheldon Glueck of the Harvard Law School gave four lectures at Tulane University on one of the hardest questions in criminal law: where to draw the line between the wicked and the ill. Law and Psychiatry: Cold War or Entente Cordiale? reviews the tests of legal insanity, says what is wrong with each, proposes a new one, and argues that lawyers and psychiatrists are quarreling over too small a prize.

This Reader's Guide explains his arguments in plain language, supplies the legal background, and shows what has changed since. Inside are a lecture map, a worked example applying six tests to three imaginary defendants, common misreadings, and discussion questions.

A companion to the original, for students, teachers and curious readers.

Read-Me.Org Inc. New York-Philadelphia-Australia. 2026. p.64.

By the Sentry

Despite channelling Libyan public funds into the 2019 assault on Tripoli, flooding the economy with unauthorized dinar banknotes, and orchestrating arms shipments that appear to defy international law, Gadalla has faced no consequences. He lives lavishly in Canada and continues to expand his influence in Libya.

This is not just about one individual. Gadalla’s influence reflects deeper systemic weaknesses in Libya’s governance and financial systems that enable corruption, economic instability, and the continued diversion of national wealth away from ordinary Libyans.

The report calls for:

• Targeted sanctions on Gadalla, his companies, and associates

• Investigations into financial institutions linked to his activities

• Coordinated international action to address these networks and restore accountability

By Iván Flores Martínez & Matthew Phillips 

Research on ‘the War on Drugs’ in Mexico finds that military interventions increase lethal violence in the country. However, these studies fail to account for other processes that may be driving the behavior of lethal violence in the Mexican municipalities. We find confirmation that these rival processes influence the relative impact that military interventions have on lethal violence. In particular, we find that seasonality in violence, competition for scarce resources and PAN’s governance in the municipalities are associated with higher levels of lethal violence, as measured by the young male homicide rate. We argue that the literature may have overestimated the effect that military interventions have in lethal violence in municipalities and that other drivers of violence should be taken into account to accurately measure the impact that military interventions have on lethal violence.

By Liat Tuv, Helen Mills, Nisha Waller

The past two decades have seen a sustained rise in multi-defendant homicide prosecutions

This report tracks multi-defendant homicide prosecutions in England and Wales and the concerns they raise around fairness, youth involvement, and racial disproportionality. Drawing on Home Office and CPS data from 2005–2024, it finds that prosecutions involving multiple defendants have become more common, with young people disproportionately represented among those convicted. It also highlights persistent racial disparities and increasingly severe sentencing outcomes for those convicted.

The report situates these findings within wider academic and policy debates on joint enterprise and shared responsibility in serious crime. Authors make the case for government attention and intervention on three key issues: 

• Narrow the scope of the law: Via a workable test for when someone can be held liable for the crimes of another.

• Proportionate sentencing: With a separate sentencing framework for secondary parties.

• Greater transparency and accountability: Requiring prosecutors to state each defendant's individual conduct and intent, and identify possible alternative charging.

By Laurie Caron, Frank Crispino, Cyril Muehlethaler

Tobacco smuggling remains a widespread illegal activity in Canada, associated with important social and economic impacts, and often linked to organized crime. This study explores the application of forensic profiling as an intelligence tool to support the analysis of contraband cigarette production and distribution. Physical and chemical manufacturing characteristics of seized contraband cigarette packs, provided by police forces, were observed and coded using macroscopic, microscopic, and spectroscopic techniques. Multivariate statistical analyses were then conducted to compare manufacturing characteristics between packs and identify potential links. The analyses highlighted links between cigarette packs and seizures based on shared manufacturing characteristics. The results and the identified groups were also compared with seizure data provided by our collaborator. The results demonstrate the relevance of forensic profiling to formulate hypotheses regarding shared production processes or supply networks. These hypotheses provide information that contributes to understanding tobacco smuggling and aim to examine how forensic intelligence can support law enforcement and measures to prevent and disrupt this criminal activity. A preliminary optimal procedure for applying forensic profiling in operational contexts targeting contraband tobacco was finally proposed. Despite limitations in the dataset creation that were beyond our control, this study represents a starting point for applying this scientific approach to tobacco smuggling.