By The New York State Division of Criminal Justice Services

  The Body-Worn Camera Model Policy is intended to allow for the individual needs of each of the police departments in New York State regardless of size or resource limitations. Law Enforcement are encouraged to customize these protocols to meet their regional needs, while being mindful of the intent of the policy. As with all model policies adopted by the Municipal Police Training Council (MPTC), this policy is non-binding upon agencies within New York State and is meant to serve as a guide to be used in developing a department’s individual policy. The Municipal Police Training Council (MPTC) approved an updated version of the model policy in June 2025.    

Albany: NYSCJS, 2025. 15p.

By Zhuoying Fan, Xuewei Zhang, Guangwen Song &Chunxia Zhang 

• Targeted police stops are frequently carried out by police in response to real-world needs. The effectiveness of various purpose-driven police stop tactics on crime prevention and control varies. However, existing research has neither identified the associated factors of police stops nor explored their impact on crime with different factors. Therefore, this study focuses on the main urban areas of megacities along the southeast coast of China. The space is partitioned using hierarchical clustering after applying the XGBoost and SHAP algorithms to determine the factors related to police stops. Lastly, this study explores the causal effects of police stops with different associated factors on crime, using causal forests within double machine learning. There are three conclusions. First, there is a strong correlation between police stops and four variables: alarm, visiting population, criminal, and government agencies. Second, by clustering based on different associated factors of police stops, existing police stops can be classified into five categories according to their purposes: (i) composite stops positively associated with “Alarm, Visiting Population, Criminals” (AVC-CPS); (ii) composite stops positively associated with “Alarm, Visiting Population, Bus Station” (AVB-CPS); (iii) random stops with no significant positive association (NA-RPS); (iv) single police stops positively associated with “Alarm” (A-SPS); and (v) single stops positively associated with “Visiting Population” (V-SPS). AVC-CPS corresponds to the highest number of grids in the study area. Third, the influence of police stops on crime varies significantly depending on the factors that are associated with them. Among all categories, AVC-CPS has the best overall inhibitory effect on crime, while single police stops and random police stops have minimal or insignificant effects. In summary, the conclusions of this study can provide a basis for optimizing the spatial deployment of police forces, aiming to improve the effectiveness of stop operations and crime prevention and control capabilities.

  • Humanit Soc Sci Commun 12, 1026 (2025)

By Eric Arnold

This Comment explores the current state of police reform in the city of Chicago, with a special focus on the various oversight agencies currently in force. Chicago has a long history of police misconduct, and the city has tried to make changes over the years to restore the community’s trust in policing. The police reform movement became especially prevalent in recent years following the fatal shooting of Laquan McDonald by a Chicago Police Officer in 2014. This Comment will show why the current mechanisms in place are insufficient to bring the needed change to the Chicago Police Department, and that the Chicago Police Department has shown time and time again they are unable to police themselves. While there have been some effective changes to the city’s policing efforts in recent years, considerable room for improvement remains.

This Comment will evaluate some of the recent measures taken to change the Chicago Police Department, specifically looking at measures targeted at changing the culture of the Chicago Police Department by increasing transparency and accountability. These measures include mandatory body-camera footage and a ban on officers being affiliated with extremist groups. This Comment will explore and evaluate the effectiveness of these changes and how they could be further enhanced. This Comment will also propose additional solutions that Chicago could consider to increase police accountability and transparency and thus improve overall officer performance. This includes using more objective tools to measure police officers’ day to day performance, which can be done using tools similar to those being used in New Orleans and in Miami. This Comment will conclude with additional policy considerations and measures for enforcement, specifically focusing on ways to incentivize more responsible policing.

 115 J. Crim. L. & Criminology 205 (2025).

By Jessica M. Eaglin 

 In response to the tenth anniversary of the Ferguson uprisings, this Essay examines how the protests reshaped legal discourse on algorithmic decision-making in criminal law, with a specific focus on systemic racial injustice. By deconstructing the metaphorical “black box,” the Essay surveys the intersection of race, technology, and incarceration while also illustrating how the uprisings influenced public and scholarly engagement with criminal legal technologies. The Essay analyzes current critiques and cautions against focusing too narrowly on reforming specific technologies rather than addressing the legal and social structures that sustain racial inequality. The Essay concludes by urging scholars and policymakers to engage with the structural dimensions of technology in criminal law and develop more comprehensive approaches to justice in the digital age.

Washington University Journal of Law and Policy, Volume 78 • Issue 1 • 2025 

By Christopher Williams

 This article reflects on the impact of the Ferguson protests over the past decade, sparked by the 2014 death of Michael Brown. I engage with S. David Mitchell’s 2015 question, Ferguson: Footnote or Transformative Event?, and illustrate how Ferguson inspired the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement, campus activism, and policy changes such as the abolition of cash bail under the SAFE-T Act in Illinois. This article also explores the dual nature of Ferguson’s legacy—acknowledging its role in empowering racial justice movements while simultaneously fueling opposition, including attacks on Critical Race Theory (CRT). I underscore Ferguson’s enduring resonance in the fight for justice, the resounding calls for continued vigilance, and heartfelt advocacy to ensure its transformative promises are fulfilled—even amid continuous challenges.

  Washington University Journal of Law and Policy, Volume 78 • Issue 1 • 2025 

By Logan Seacrest and Jillian Snider

Artificial intelligence (AI) is reshaping the criminal justice system. Law enforcement agencies are using it to predict crime, expedite response, and streamline routine tasks. One of the most promising applications can be found in body camera programs, where AI is transforming unmanageable archives of footage into active sources of insight. AI can now analyze hundreds of hours of video in seconds. Early pilot programs suggest that these video-reviewing tools, when guided by human oversight, can uncover critical evidence that might otherwise be overlooked, reduce pretrial bottlenecks, and identify potential instances of officer misconduct. But these benefits come with risks. Absent clear guardrails, the same technologies could drift toward government overreach, blurring the line between public safety and state surveillance. The line between public security and state surveillance lies not in technology, but in the policies that govern it. To responsibly harness AI and mitigate these risks, we recommend that agencies and policymakers: • Establish and enforce clear use policies. Statewide rules for body camera use and AI governance ensure consistency across jurisdictions, particularly in areas like body camera activation, evidence sharing, and public disclosure. • Pair technology with human oversight. AI should enhance—not replace—human decision-making. Final judgments must rest with trained personnel, supported by independent policy oversight from civilian review boards. • Safeguard civil liberties. Safeguards must be in place to protect individual rights, limit surveillance overreach, and ensure data transparency. For example, limiting facial recognition during constitutionally protected activities like protests will help ensure AI is aligned with democratic ideals. With the right guardrails in place, AI can elevate body cameras from afteraction archival tools to always-on intelligence tools, informing decisions in the moment, when it matters most. 

R Street Policy Study No. 328 

Washington, DC: R Street, 2025. 25p.

By Lauren Lyons  

  he alarming recurrence of unjustified killings by police highlights systemic issues that should be deeply concerning to us all. Beyond excessive use of force, the police treat marginalized people in disproportionately harmful ways that reflect and perpetuate endemic injustice; they respond inappropriately to complex social and public health problems like homelessness, addiction, and mental illness, risking harmful escalation and exacerbating underlying issues. Police culture tends towards cynical authoritarianism, adopting an “us-versus-them” mentality that positions (at least a subset of) citizens as adversaries. All of this has resulted in severely diminished public trust in the police, fraught police-community relations, and rising skepticism of the legitimacy of policing institutions. Public outcry over these problems has catalyzed the ongoing Black Lives Matter movement. The police murder of George Floyd was followed by mass protests in the summer of 2020, and since then, there has been widespread public debate on how to mitigate police violence and the distrust it engenders. Some call for incremental reforms, like changing laws and policies governing police use of force or strengthening misconduct reporting and decertification processes. Others demand that we reimagine the role of policing in our institutional landscape, reallocating powers, resources, and responsibilities from the  police to other institutions. The goal of this paper is to refine and defend this reallocative demand, which I refer to as the unbundling proposal. There has been a promising uptick in philosophical discussions of policing in recent years. Some focus on principles to guide police conduct, often drawing on theories of self-defense and professional ethics. Philosophers also propose measures to address police misconduct such as expanding legal statutes to outlaw harmful tactics, revoking the licenses of bad actors, providing reparations to victims of police violence, implementing self-evaluation and evidence-based improvements to departmental policy, restructuring police departments, broadening police participation in harm reduction and other forms of nonviolent order maintenance, and avoiding tactics that heighten the risk of illegitimate policing. These strategies, especially when combined, can improve policing. Rather than a discussion of their comparative merits and disadvantages, I present and defend an alternative ameliorative approach. The unbundling proposal asks not how police should act but rather what the scope of policing should be: Which situations require police presence? In the ethics of war, we distinguish between jus in bello (the ethics of conduct in war) and jus ad bellum (the ethics of whether war is justified). The unbundling proposal addresses an issue that is analogous to jus ad bellum considerations: when police should be deployed (instead of how they should behave). This approach complements rather than conflicts with many proposed reforms, but it also addresses a broader and less examined issue. Moreover, despite substantial public support, there has been no sustained discussion of unbundling in analytic ethics and political philosophy, and the attention the proposal has received is largely critical. The unbundling proposal is connected closely to movements to defund and eventually abolish the police. The slogan “defund the police” really means “defund and refund,” with activists calling for cutting police funding and reallocating it to other nonpolice institutions and community organizations. As such, “defund, refund” is one public finance-focused component of the broader unbundling proposal. For abolitionists, unbundling and other measures that reduce the scope and power of the police are critical steps toward ultimately dismantling the institution. Though I am not defending abolition here, the discussion should (1) clarify the practical action strategy of police abolitionists and (2) offer a more robust and appealing picture of the defund demand. The structure of this paper is as follows. In section 1, I present the unbundling proposal, identifying the specific dimensions of policing that proponents argue should be unbundled and reallocated. There I also discuss the definition of policing upon which unbundling is based. Then, I present a novel set of normative arguments for unbundling that reflect various rationales emanating from policing-critical social movements. The case for unbundling is strongest if we take them in tandem. The first two arguments (section 2) draw on principles of institutional design. I argue first that we should unbundle policing because public institutions with violent capacities should have narrow mandates; nonviolent, noncoercive responses to social problems should be the default. I then claim that unbundling constitutes a better distribution of epistemic labor. Catchall order-maintenance policing is epistemically overdemanding, while more narrowly defined roles foster better expertise and outcomes. The argument in section 3 centers on the effects of policing in unequal societies with historical injustice—specifically, how policing disproportionately burdens Black people, other people of color, and members of marginalized groups, driving structural injustice. I aim to reconstruct one argumentative thread that leads us from (1) these unfair effects to (2) the unbundling proposal. In doing so, I address the broader question of what forms of solutions are appropriate when institutions are infected with injustice, suggesting that in this case and others, justice-undermining effects require us to turn towards extra-institutional, reallocative measures. My hope is that the paper will be interesting for skeptics and advocates of unbundling and related proposals, adding some clarity to divisive debates and expanding the library of solutions to the pressing problems with policing defended within philosophy 

Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy

Sandra Walklate , Charlotte Barlow

The purpose of this paper is to develop an understanding of positive policing in relation to domestic abuse by opening up what is meant by this approach through an examination of what is taken for granted about it within much of the academic literature. Using data from a small-scale study involving case file analysis and interviews with police officers, the paper suggests in practice, positive policing involves a wide range of actions on the part of police officers. In exploring this data, the paper introduces the concept of ‘contextual safeguarding’ as a key feature of ‘positive policing’ in relation to domestic abuse. The paper makes the case for understanding ‘positive policing’ in the context of domestic abuse through the lens of ‘contextual safeguarding’ and that this would have beneficial consequences for wider debates on this issue.

Policing: A Journal of Policy and Practice, Volume 19, 2025,

By Katherine Hoogesteyn, Meret S. Hofer, Travis A. Taniguchi, and Jennifer R. Rineer

  Maintaining adequate staffing levels to ensure public safety is a critical challenge for law enforcement agencies, especially with rising officer turnover driven by sociopolitical factors and changing workforce demographics. This narrative review examines strategies to enhance officer retention by synthesizing findings from both policing and related fields. These strategies are organized into five categories: (1) compensation and financial incentives, (2) career development and professional growth, (3) workplace environment and support, (4) wellness and resilience, and (5) feedback and organizational learning. The review underscores the importance of context-specific, tailored approaches and calls for rigorous studies to evaluate the implementation and effectiveness of these strategies. Recommendations include adapting organizational structures to foster innovative retention strategies, optimizing resource management, and implementing continuous evaluation processes to promote sustained officer retention.  

  RTI Press Publication No. OP-0096-2503. Research Triangle Park, NC: RTI Press.2025. 22p.

By Heidi Mathis, 

The purpose of this quantitative study was to compare the characteristics of offenders who posted on social media for attention versus those who posted on social media for fame using discriminant factorial analysis (DFA). To date, there has been very little research done on social media usage with regards to mass shootings. The wealth of the research close to the study at hand has to do with not naming the offender and the media contingency effect. The current research helped close some of that gap. Researching social media usage and mass shootings showed how the variables: location, rejection, mental health history, criminal history, how weapons were obtained, how the offender(s) were apprehended, household status, education, and whether the offender killed family members relate to criminality. This was in line with the framework for this study, anomie, and strain theory. Out of 300 cases analyzed, 72 were chosen that contained all the variables being analyzed in this study. The results of this study were not significant. The variables did not significantly differentiate the mass shooting offenders who posted for attention versus those who posted for fame. This study may be used by forensic experts for positive social change by understanding social media statements made by mass shooters.

By Victoria Nagy  and Georgina Rychner

The historical examination of filicide in Australia is limited and often focuses on case studies of maternal filicides. Longitudinal trends of Australian filicide offending have focused almost exclusively on the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Our study aims to fill a gap in Australian criminological knowledge about filicide. Utilising prison and Supreme Court records from 1860 and 1920, we plot the extent of filicide offending by men and women in Victoria to create a more comprehensive picture of filicide perpetration. This study also tests whether identified motives and risk factors for filicide today can be applied to historical data, to make these data accessible to criminologists studying filicide in the twenty-first century

By W Tomas, N Fumo, C A Kostelac, K Flynn-O'Brien, M Levas, R Moore, T A de Roon-Cassini, S Hargarten

Introduction: Firearms are now the leading cause of death for U.S. children and teens ages 0-19. The U.S. Department of Justice Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) reported data in 2022 on firearm production, for specific firearm types and calibers. We hypothesized there would be a correlation between firearm production and firearm deaths and nonfatal injuries in youth.

Methods: All firearm deaths and nonfatal injury rates for youth ages 0-19 were extracted from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from 2001 to 2020. Firearm production from 2001 to 2020 was extracted from the 2022 ATF Firearms in Commerce Report for overall firearm production, production by weapon type and pistol caliber. Relationships between firearm death and injury and firearm production were evaluated using correlational analyses.

Results: Firearm death and nonfatal injury rates for youth increased from 2001 to 2020 by 48.2% and 69.2%, respectively, and firearm production increased 265% overall and 1298% for 9 mm pistols. There was no correlation between total firearm manufacturing and total firearm deaths or nonfatal injury rates from 2001 to 2020 (all r < 0.28). Pistol caliber (25 and 9 mm) was associated with total firearm deaths and nonfatal injuries (all r > 0.55).

Conclusion: While total firearm manufacturing was not related to firearm deaths and injuries, except suicides, there were strong relationships between 9 mm pistol production and firearm deaths and injuries in youth. Firearm injuries are preventable; we must invest in stronger information systems that track details of firearms linked with deaths and injuries.

By Stephen B. Billings

Using linked individual data on concealed handgun permits (CHP), reported crimes and arrests, I examine the dynamics of gun-ownership and criminal victimization. I initially show that being male, Republican, older, born in-state and a recent crime victim increases the probability that an adult obtains a CHP. Getting a CHP increases property crime victimization by 46% with the largest impact on having a firearm stolen. Individual CHP holders see no change in violent crime victimization thus dispelling any benefits in terms of protection. Obtaining a CHP has a small (2%) effect on total crime and a larger effect on violent crime using a gun (8%) within the CHP holders neighborhood. Results suggest stolen guns spillover to neighborhood crime which is an important component of the larger social costs of gun ownership.

By  Hannah S. Laqueur · Christopher McCort · Colette Smirniotis · Sonia Robinson · Garen J. Wintemute

Firearm-related interpersonal violence is a leading cause of death and injury in cities across the United States, and understanding the movement of firearms from on-the-books sales to criminal end-user is critical to the formulation of gun violence prevention policy. In this study, we assemble a unique dataset that combines records for over 380,000 crime guns recovered by law enforcement in California (2010– 2021), and more than 126,000 guns reported stolen, linked to in-state legal handgun transactions (1996– 2021), to describe local and statewide crime gun trends and investigate several potentially important sources of guns to criminals, including privately manufactured firearms (PMFs), theft, and “dirty” dealers. We document a dramatic increase over the decade in firearms recovered shortly after purchase (7% were recovered within a year in 2010, up to 33% in 2021). This corresponds with a substantial rise in handgun purchasing over the decade, suggesting some fraction of newly and legally acquired firearms are likely diverted from the legal market for criminal use. We document the rapid growth of PMFs over the past 2–3 years and find theft plays some, though possibly diminishing, role as a crime gun source. Finally, we find evidence that some retailers contribute disproportionately to the supply of crime guns, though there appear to be fewer problematic dealers now than there were a decade ago. Overall, our study points to temporal shifts in the dynamics of criminal firearms commerce as well as significant city variation in the channels by which criminals acquire crime guns. 

By Theodore E. Trigylidas  , Patricia G. Schnitzer  , Heather K. Dykstra  , Gia M. Badolato  , Robert McCarter, Jr. , Monika K. Goyal and Richard Lichenstein 

We sought to compare risk factors contributing to unintentional, homicide, and suicide firearm deaths in children. We conducted a retrospective review of the National Fatality Review Case Reporting System. We included all firearm deaths among children aged 0–18 years occurring from 2007 to 2016. Descriptive analyses were performed on demographic, psychosocial, and firearm characteristics and their relationship to unintentional, homicide, and suicide deaths. Regression analyses were used to compare factors contributing to unintentional vs. intentional deaths. There were 6148 firearm deaths during the study period. The mean age was 14 years (SD ± 4 years), of which 81% were male and 41% were non-Hispanic White. The most common manners of death were homicide (57%), suicide (36%), and unintentional (7%). Over one-third of firearms were stored unlocked. Homicide deaths had a higher likelihood of occurring outside of the home setting (aOR 3.2, 95% CI 2.4–4.4) compared with unintentional deaths. Suicide deaths had a higher likelihood of occurring in homes with firearms that were stored locked (aOR 4.2, 95% CI 2.1–8.9) compared with unintentional deaths. Each manner of firearm death presents a unique set of psychosocial circumstances and challenges for preventive strategies. Unsafe firearm storage practices remain a central theme in contributing to the increased risk of youth firearm deaths. 

By Ali Rowhani-Rahbar, Sabrina Oesterle , Martie L Skinner

Purpose: Adolescent handgun carrying is a behavioral marker for youth interpersonal conflicts and an intervention point for violence prevention. Our knowledge about the epidemiology of adolescent handgun carrying mainly pertains to urban settings. Evidence on the initiation age, cumulative prevalence, and longitudinal patterns of this behavior and on handgun-related norms and peer behavior among male and female rural adolescents is scant.

Methods: We used data from the control arm of the Community Youth Development Study, a community-randomized controlled trial of the Communities That Care prevention system. Annually, 1,039 males and 963 females were surveyed from Grade 6 (2005) to age 19 years (2012) in 12 rural towns across seven U.S. states.

Results: In Grade 6, 11.5% of males and 2.8% of females reported past-year handgun carrying. Between Grade 6 and age 19 years, 33.7% of males and 9.6% of females reported handgun carrying at least once. Among participants who ever reported handgun carrying, 34.0% of males and 29.3% of females did so for the first time in Grade 6. Among participants who ever reported handgun carrying, 54.6% of males and 71.7% of females did so only one time over the seven study assessments. Greater proportions of participants who reported handgun carrying than those who did not do so endorsed prohandgun norms and had a peer who carried among both males (Grade 10: prevalence difference = 57%; 95% CI: 46%-67%) and females (Grade 10: prevalence difference = 45%; 95% CI: 12%-78%).

Conclusions: Rural adolescent handgun carrying is not uncommon and warrants etiologic research for developing culturally appropriate and setting-specific prevention programs.

By: Naoka Carey, Rebekah Levine Coley

Objectives: This study explores the changing prevalence of adolescent handgun carriage, with attention to differences across sociodemographic groups.Methods: Data were drawn from repeated cross-sectional, nationally representative surveys conducted annually from 2002 to 2019, the National Survey on Drug Use & Health. The study sample included adolescents aged 12 to 17 (N = 297 055). Logistic regression models estimated the prevalence of past year handgun carriage across cohort and sociodemographic subgroups. Interactions between 4-time cohorts and other variables explored sociodemographic variability in prevalence rates over time.

Results: Handgun carriage increased significantly, particularly among rural, White, and higher-income adolescents. Carriage increased by 41% over cohorts, with predicted prevalence rates increasing from 3.3% in 2002-2006 to 4.6% in 2015-2019. Across cohorts, rural (5.1%), American Indian/Alaskan Native (5.2%), lower-income (<$20 000; 3.9%), male (5.9%), and older (16-17 years old; 4.5%) adolescents were the most likely to report carriage. However, these patterns changed significantly over time, with White and higher-income adolescents (>$75 000) most likely to carry in the most recent cohorts. Predicted carriage rates increased from 3.1% to 5.3% among White adolescents, from 2.6% to 5.1% among higher-income adolescents, and from 4.3% to 6.9% among rural adolescents between the 2002-2006 and 2015-2019 cohorts. Carriage among Black, American Indian/Alaskan Native, and lower-income adolescents decreased.Conclusions: Adolescent handgun carriage is increasing, concentrated among particular subgroups of youth, and carriage patterns across sociodemographic groups have changed over time. Programs to address the risk of adolescent gun carriage should be tailored to the specific sociocultural and place-based concerns of diverse adolescents.

By  Maia Sacchetto

  Premising that there are more flexible forms of Nigerian crime, such as small and scattered groups not in connection with each other that operate mainly as drug dealers of small districts in the suburbs of northern Italy, this research focuses on the most structured forms of criminal organizations, those directly descended from the cultist circles born in Nigeria in the '60s and resulted in real mafia associations already in the motherland and then extended throughout Europe. The choice of this theme and this very specific category of Nigerian organized crime is based on the belief that well-structured and organized groups are more dangerous and difficult to counter for three reasons basically: the first is that it is rarer for associates to decide to betray the group to favor information to the police or intelligence. This is because of the closer ties between group members (and in this case this element takes on an even more incisive relevance since the subject is an ethnically based organized mafia in which ethniccultural ties provide the basis for interaction between associates), but also and especially because of the coercive and intimidating forces between members of mafia associations towards the ones prone to cheat on the group; the second is developed from the assumption that a more sophisticated internal structure of the association also corresponds to more elaborate modus operandi and operational strategies that allow prosecutors of illicit activities to camouflage or hide the proceeds of illicit activities; the third reason is closely related to the first and second and consists in the fact that mafia associations that are highly organized and capable of taking advantage of substantial material resources are also more likely to act in a capillary, widespread, large-scale and sprawling manner to the point of infiltrating the legal economy. As will be described in the first chapter of this research, the Black Mafia originated in Nigeria as a protest movement against constituted power and composed mainly of members of Nigeria's leading universities. Over time it expanded, heightened the violence of its manifestations, and began to move out of the realm of mere ideological rebellion by directly affecting public institutions. In a short time, the cults turned into full-fledged clans and began to act in Nigeria as the Italian mafia acts in Italy, intimidating political and economic opponents who would stand between their illicit activities and the achievement of their goals: the accumulation of wealth and power. From the outset, these associations are thus characterized by a high degree of pervasiveness in the political, social and economic structure of their country, as well as multifacetedness by dealing with a massive and varied range of illicit activities, including support in the arms trafficking of terrorist groups such as Boko Haram. With the conclusion of the Cold War, the tearing down of the Berlin Wall and restrictions in the mobility of people, and the emergence of the new globalized and interconnected world, the Black Mafia, which had already shown a remarkable predisposition to expand and sprawl, crossed its national borders. Following a progressive evolution, it has developed into a form of transnational organized crime which according to the UNODC represents the main threat to the security and political and economic stability of states (UNODC, 2006)1 . Undergoing continuous metamorphosis and adapting immediately to the changing needs of the market and globalization, it has then become increasingly sophisticated and pervasive (UNODC, 2018)2 . Out of sheer opportunism, it started allying itself with other forms of crime in order to strengthen its organization and to extend to more and more operators: drug traffickers, arms traffickers, human traffickers, up to encompassing operators that act daily in a regime of legality, all in order to increase their revenues 

By Jemar R. Bather, Diana Silver, Brendan P. Gill, Adrian Harris, Jin Yung Bae, Nina S. Parikh & Melody S. Goodman 

Background

Social vulnerability may play a role in social media-involved crime, but few studies have investigated this issue. We investigated associations between social vulnerability and social media-involved violent crimes.

Methods

We analyzed 22,801 violent crimes occurring between 2018 and 2023 in Prince George’s County, Maryland. Social media involvement was obtained from crime reports at the Prince George’s County Police Department. Social media application types included social networking, advertising/selling, ridesharing, dating, image/video hosting, mobile payment, instant messaging/Voice over Internet Protocol, and other. We used the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Social Vulnerability Index to assess socioeconomic status (SES), household characteristics, racial and ethnic minority status, housing type and transportation, and overall vulnerability. Modified Poisson models estimated adjusted prevalence ratios (aPRs) among the overall sample and stratified by crime type (assault and homicide, robbery, and sexual offense). Covariates included year and crime type.

Results

Relative to high tertile areas, we observed a higher prevalence of social media-involved violent crimes in areas with low SES vulnerability (aPR: 1.82, 95% CI: 1.37-2.43), low housing type and transportation vulnerability (aPR: 1.53, 95% CI: 1.17-2.02), and low overall vulnerability (aPR: 1.63, 95% CI: 1.23-2.17). Low SES vulnerability areas were significantly associated with higher prevalences of social media-involved assaults and homicides (aPR: 1.64, 95% CI: 1.02-2.62), robberies (aPR: 2.00, 95% CI: 1.28-3.12), and sexual offenses (aPR: 2.07, 95% CI: 1.02-4.19) compared to high SES vulnerability areas. Low housing type and transportation vulnerability (vs. high) was significantly associated with a higher prevalence of social media-involved robberies (aPR: 1.54, 95% CI:1.01-2.37). Modified Poisson models also indicated that low overall vulnerability areas had higher prevalences of social media-involved robberies (aPR: 1.71, 95% CI: 1.10-2.67) and sexual offenses (aPR: 2.14, 95% CI: 1.05-4.39) than high overall vulnerability areas.

Conclusions

We quantified the prevalence of social media-involved violent crimes across social vulnerability levels. These insights underscore the need for collecting incident-based social media involvement in crime reports among law enforcement agencies across the United States and internationally. Comprehensive data collection at the national and international levels provides the capacity to elucidate the relationships between neighborhoods, social media, and population health.

Inj. Epidemiol. 11, 54 (2024

By Ana Muñiz

Through an analysis of interviews with Southern California attorneys, supplemented by archival materials, this article contributes to the literature on gangs, critical criminology, and Gothic tropes by examining how the ambiguous nature of gang profiling allows state actors to target racialized others in various legal and administrative venues with little evidence and few procedural protections. I conceptualize gang phantasmagoria as the constant, amorphous, unpredictable, and haunting threat of racialized gang allegations and argue that the dynamic shapes the work of legal practitioners and constitutes a state mechanism of racial terror. Specifically, first I argue that government officials deploy the specter of gangs to both portray asylum seekers as monstrous threats and justify restrictions in asylum eligibility. I then illustrate how the potential for gang phantasmagoria to upend asylum applications and trigger the deportation of their clients elicits constant low-grade anxiety for attorneys. Consequently, attorneys are forced to adopt more cautious approaches to legal work in a way that indirectly facilitates the social control of young Latinx immigrants.

Critical Criminology, olume 30, pages 159–175, (2022