By Manuel Eisner,  Stephanie Emma Brown,  Nora Eisner &  Ruth Schmid Eisner 

This study examines the spatial patterns of homicide in three 14th-century English cities—London, York, and Oxford—through the Medieval Murder Map project, which visualizes 355 homicide cases derived from coroners’ inquests. Integrating historical criminology with contemporary spatial crime theories, we outline a new historical criminology of space, focused on how urban environments shaped patterns of lethal violence in the past. Findings reveal similarities in all three cities. Homicides were highly concentrated in key nodes of urban life such as markets, squares, and thoroughfares. Temporal patterns indicate that most homicides occurred in the evening and on weekends, aligning with routine activity theory. Oxford had far higher homicide rates than London and York, and a higher proportion of organized group-violence, suggestive of high levels of social disorganization and impunity. Spatial analyses reveal distinct areas related to town-gown conflicts and violence fueled by student factionalism. In London, findings suggest distinct clusters of homicide which reflect differences in economic and social functions. In all three cities, some homicides were committed in spaces of high visibility and symbolic significance. The findings highlight how public space shaped urban violence historically. The study also raises broader questions about the long-term decline of homicide, suggesting that changes in urban governance and spatial organization may have played a crucial role in reducing lethal violence.

By M Salter, D Woodlock, T Whitten, M Tyler, G Naldrett, J Breckenridge, J Nolan, N Peleg

This project aimed to inform efforts to better detect and prevent child sexual abuse through a rigorous analysis of the prevalence and attitudinal, behavioural and demographic correlates of sexual feelings and/or offending against children amongst Australian men. The research measured the prevalence of offending and risk behaviours and attitudes amongst of a weighted sample of 1,945 Australian men over 18 years of age. Key findings of the project Around one in six (15.1%) Australian men reports sexual feelings towards children. Approximately one third of this group reports sexually offending against children. Around one in ten (9.4%) Australian men has sexually offended against children. Approximately half of this group (4.9%) reports sexual feelings towards children. In total, almost one in five (19.6%) Australian men in the study have sexual feelings for children and/or have sexually offended against children. The 4.9% of men with sexual feelings who have sexually offended against children differed from men with no sexual feelings or offending against children on a number of measures: Relationships Ź They were more likely to be married and reported higher levels of social support. Employment and wealth Ź They were almost three times more likely to be working with children. Ź They were more likely to earn a higher income. Health and wellbeing Ź They were more likely to report mild, moderate or severe anxiety and depression. Ź They were over four times more likely to report weekly binge drinking. Childhood abuse and neglect Ź They reported approximately twice the rate of adverse childhood experiences. Ź They were over six times more likely to report being sexually abused as children. Attitudes to child sexual abuse Ź They were more than 25 times more likely to hold attitudes conducive to online child sex offending. Online behaviour Ź They were more likely to use the internet more frequently and intensively. Ź They were much more active on social media. Ź They were significantly more likely to use encrypted apps and privacy services. Ź They were twice as likely to own cryptocurrency and over five times more likely to use cryptocurrency for online purchasing. Pornography consumption Ź They were over eleven times more likely to watch violent pornography and over twenty six times more likely to watch bestiality pornography. Ź They were over sixteen times more likely to purchase sexual content online. 29.6% of those with sexual feelings towards children want help; this is 4.5% of Australian men. These men were more likely to have sexually offended against children online and offline than men with sexual feelings who did not want help. 

Sydney: Australian Human Rights Institute, 2023. 56p.

By  Michael John Cahill, Timothy Cubitt, Heather Wolbers, Sarah Napier, Matthew Ball, John Hancock and Roderic Broadhurst 

This study analysed posts from a darknet forum to examine approaches to desistance from offending among undetected child sexual offenders. Forum users discussed a range of approaches, but some were harmful to children, including the use of child sexual abuse material to avoid contact offending. Other less harmful desistance strategies were discussed, which included adjusting lifestyle, reducing internet use, and controlling access to children. Some users had a positive view of psychosocial services, while acknowledging the heightened risk of detection, and shared knowledge on how to remain undetected while seeking treatment. These findings highlight the need for psychosocial treatment avenues for child sexual offenders in the community that they perceive to have a low risk of leading to law enforcement detection.   

Trends & issues in crime and criminal justice no. 716. Canberra: Australian Institute of Criminology, 2025. . 14p.

By Emma Ziersch, Shawn Sowerbutts, Yilma Woldgabreal, Sophie Ransom

The Violence Risk Scale (VRS) is a tool designed to assess and predict risk of future offending, inform decisions around therapeutic intervention and measure changes in violence risk as a result of treatment. This study investigated the discriminative and predictive validity of the VRS for Australian Aboriginal and non-Indigenous males convicted of violent offending in multiple jurisdictions.

The Violence Risk Scale (VRS) is a risk assessment tool designed to assess and predict risk of future offending, inform decisions around therapeutic intervention and measure changes in violence risk as a result of treatment. While the tool has been used extensively both internationally and in Australia, its applicability to our Australian population is unclear.

This study investigated the discriminative and predictive validity of the VRS for Australian Aboriginal and non-Indigenous males convicted of violent offending in multiple jurisdictions. The VRS total score had moderate discriminative accuracy for violent reoffending at five-year follow-up. However, Aboriginal males were significantly more likely to be categorized as high risk, and additional discrimination measures revealed variation in performance between Aboriginal and non-Indigenous males. Implications of the findings for correctional practice and recommendations to reduce bias in the assessment of Aboriginal offenders are discussed.

 Research Report no. 34. Canberra: Australian Institute of Criminology. 2025. 66p

By Kelly Richards and Michael Chataway

While much research has been undertaken on the public’s, professionals’ and perpetrators’ views about the causes of sexual offending, far less has been documented about victim/survivors’ understanding of this topic. However, victim/survivors may possess unique knowledge about the perpetration of sexual violence – including its causes – which has previously been overlooked. To address this gap, this exploratory research examined victim/survivor views via a mixed methods investigation (an online survey and semi-structured interviews with victim/survivors). It represents an advance over prior research as it differentiates victim/survivors’ views about the causes of sexual offending against children and adults. The study’s findings will be relevant to a wide range of policymakers and practitioners in the criminal justice arena. As government policies designed to prevent and respond to sexual violence are often implemented on behalf of victim/survivors, it is vital for criminal justice professionals to understand victim/survivors’ policy preferences as well as what informs these. This study makes a modest but important contribution toward this aim.

By Mahesh Nalla and Graeme Newman

This book brings together for the first time the research on personnel management, corporate culture, and situational crime prevention to offer an exciting new perspective on private security. It is paradigm-breaking. Yet it manages to achieve a level of clarity and simplicity that would be the envy of any introductory text. As Ronald V. Clarke notes in his foreword, Law enforcement can no longer serve as the dominant paradigm for private security. This book identifies valuable legal and scientific concepts, such as situational prevention, risk management, and employee screening. These are explained with depth and clarity, which makes the book valuable not just for security professionals but also for students who require a brief but cogent introduction to the world of security. The book fills an important gap in the security literature. It will reach a broader audience than existing texts and will contribute to the greater professionalism for which the industry is striving.

Read-Me.Org Inc. New York-Philadelphia-Australia. 2025. 183p.

By Weston J. Morrow, Samuel G. Vickovic, and Emilie Whitehouse

Police departments across the country have and continue to experience staffing challenges in full-time sworn officers. In an effort to address this issue, previous research has examined the motivations for becoming police officers, or why people want to become officers. An equally important question that may help with recruitment and staffing efforts among police agencies is ‘Why do people not want to become police officers?’ The current study fills this void using Qualtrics Panel data from 2,000 respondents across the United States. In doing so, this study (1) contributes to the existing body of research on reasons people choose a career in policing, (2) adds insight to the limited body of research that examines why people do not want a career in policing, and (3) provides nuance to this discussion by examining racial, ethnic, and gender variations in these outcomes. The practical and policy implications of these findings are explored within the context of previous and ongoing research to help address police staffing challenges.

By Glenn D. Walters

The intent of this study was to determine whether two features of antisocial thought process, proactive and reactive criminal thinking, mediate the age-disciplinary infractions relationship in prison inmates. Participants were 2,487 male inmates admitted to a medium security federal prison sometime between 2003 and 2010. Analyzing both total and aggressive disciplinary infraction data, it was discovered that whereas the proactive (planned, calculated, amoral) features of criminal thought process mediated the age-infractions relationship, the reactive (impulsive, irresponsible, emotional) features did not. Results from this study suggest that one way advancing age may contribute to declining disciplinary infractions in prison is that older inmates are less likely than younger inmates to employ the planned, calculated, and amoral aspects of antisocial cognition. Whether this stems from age-related decrements in antisocial cognition awaits further study using changes in criminal thinking over time.

By Jeff A. Bouffard, Nicole Niebuhr, and M. Lyn Exum

In the study of criminal decision-making, researchers commonly present participants with a hypothetical offending scenario and ask how likely participants would be to engage in a list of behavioral responses predetermined by the researchers. Recently, scholars have questioned the use of predetermined response sets and argued instead that participants should be allowed to self-report their own behavioral responses. Using a hypothetical assault scenario presented to separate samples of incarcerated persons and university students, the current study invited participants to evaluate a traditional, predetermined (PD) list of behavioral response options and also to report any additional subjectively-derived (SD) behaviors in which they might engage. The study then explored the added value of including the SD responses. Results indicate that in a few cases, the use of the additional SD response revealed novel behaviors not captured in the list of PD behaviors (mostly alternative forms of prosocial behaviors). Furthermore, when novel SD behaviors were reported, they generally were not the behaviors that participants indicated they would be most likely to actually engage in. Mindful of these findings, the value of SD responses in the study of criminal decision-making is discussed.

By Jorge Ruiz Reyes, Derek Congram, Renée A. Sirbu, Luciano Floridi

The disappearances of individuals are complex phenomena, spanning different regions and temporal periods. Evolving from different legal, social, and forensic disciplines, existing research has signaled the reasons for and contexts in which people disappear or go missing, as well as the development of investigative tools that assist, in fatal cases, in their identification. However, a different type of applied research, which we have labelled as data-based disappearance analysis (DDA), can offer statistical techniques to support the search for missing persons. In this paper, we review the literature on DDA, paying close attention to the evolution of this methodology and its contextual relevance. We highlight three applications by which DDA may support the search for missing persons: statistical inference, geospatial tools, and machine learning models and artificial intelligence. We demonstrate significant results using these applications, the potential misuses and ethical concerns, and draw lessons from their use. Lastly, we make recommendations to help researchers and practitioners support the search for missing persons.

Unpublished paper 2024

By Peace in Our Cities

From February 25 to 27, Peace in Our Cities (PiOC) members and experts, particularly from the African continent, met in Nairobi, Kenya, for the first Regional Workshop of the PiOC network, organized in partnership with the Life & Peace Institute (LPI). This regionally-focused workshop brought together PiOC member cities and representatives for knowledge exchange and experiential learning on topics such as gender-based violence, youth, data and technology, climate change, and organized criminal violence in the unique context of Africa’s rapid urbanization and social change. The three-day workshop included discussions, training sessions, and site visits to informal settlements of Nairobi, all to explore community-specific violence prevention strategies on the most pressing topics related to urban violence in the region. Cross-cutting insights across workshop elements included: – Violence as a complex phenomenon: Participants emphasized that violence is a multi-pronged and interconnected crisis, involving issues related to governance, gender, inequality, housing, climate change, unemployment, political participation, and more. – Prevention over suppression: Participants agreed that it is not enough to take action to stop violence as it happens, but that governments and other stakeholders need to identify and address the root causes of violence through holistic and whole-ofsociety approaches. – The need to build trust between the community and law enforcement: Participants expressed the importance of creating bridges between the community and the police. Although policing cannot be seen as the sole solution to violence prevention, it is crucial that community members can see law enforcement as reliable, safe, and responsive. – Young people as agents of change: Throughout the discussions, participants remarked that young people feel alienated from political conversations and decision-making, highlighting the need to elevate young people’s voices in discussions related to violence prevention. – Data as a tool for violence prevention: Participants highlighted the importance of using data to understand the violence that affects their communities and design more effective and bettertargeted violence prevention strategies, while expressing their concerns surrounding resource constraints. – Responding to challenges with better institutions and effective governance: Participants remarked on the need to build institutions and governance practices that can answer emerging global challenges such as organized crime, changes in the international funding landscape, and climate-related threats. – Networking and strategic partnerships: different sessions throughout the workshop brought to the fore the importance of coalition building between civil society actors and partnerships with key state actors to bridge the gap between policy and practice and ensure long-term sustainability of efforts to address urban violence. The workshop provided an opportunity for PiOC members to share their approaches and explore critical linkages for continued engagement 

Peace in Our Cities, 2025. 14p.

By Vicky Bungay , Linda Dewar , Mary Schoening , Adrian Guta , Wendy Leiper , Sunny Jiao 

Outreach is an important approach to improve health and social care for women experiencing street involvement (SI) or gender-based violence (GBV). Few studies have examined outreach approaches that incorporate SI and GBV. Drawing on feminist theories and principles of community-based research, we detail an inclusive co-design approach for an outreach intervention considering these interrelated contexts. Women with lived experience, researchers, and service leaders drew on research and experiential knowledge to define outreach engagement principles: tackling GBV, personhood and relational engagement, trauma-informed engagement, and harm reduction engagement. The resulting intervention integrates these principles to enable building and sustaining relationships to facilitate care.

Violence Against Women, 2024 Jun;30(8):1760-1782.

By Janette L. Smith, Jared Brown, David Atefi, Thanjira Jiranantakan, Vanessa Shaw, Christopher Ewers, Lorraine du Toit-Prinsloo, Darren M. Roberts

Novel opioids, including non-medical and non-opium-based opioids such as fentanyl analogues and nitazenes, pose a significant risk of harm due to their high potency. There is little published data on novel opioid detections and harms in Australia, yet they are implicated in multiple deaths. This study describes the detections and harms of novel opioids in New South Wales.

Methods

A retrospective analysis was conducted using four statewide datasets: Coronial Toxicology, the Illicit Drug Analysis Unit, the Prescription, Recreational and Illicit Substance Evaluation Program (PRISE), and the NSW Poisons Information Centre. These datasets were interrogated for available data (cases or substances seized by police) on novel opioid detections between 1 January 2019 and 31 May 2024.

Results

Overall, there were 106 novel opioid detections in 103 cases. PRISE identified 91% of clinical cases, reflecting the program's reach. Fentanyl analogues predominated until 2021, whereas nitazenes predominated from 2022. Most detections were acetylfentanyl (n = 54), followed by isotonitazene detections (n = 13). Positive detections were more frequent in urine compared to blood, supporting testing on both samples. Overall numbers were low, but they were often associated with harm, including deaths.

Discussion and Conclusions

We anticipate that these data underestimate the harms from novel opioids; for example, these drugs are not being tested routinely in laboratory testing of biological samples, and not all police seizures are analysed. A change in the predominant novel opioid was observed during the study period. Enhancing systems for readiness to detect and respond to novel opioids is vital, including resourcing laboratories.

Drug Alcohol Rev. 2025;1–11

By Madison Lloyd, Alice Campbell, Amie Carrington, and Janeen Baxter

Domestic, family and sexual violence (DFSV) is a pervasive and growing issue in Australia. Despite government-led national plans to reduce this violence in Australia, there is evidence that rates are increasing and incidences are becoming more severe. DFSV support agencies offer a range of services to support victim-survivors including targeted support to assist clients to leave violent relationships, access housing, legal and counselling support, as well as offering emotional and social support and support to recognise and define abusive and violent behaviour. 

This paper argues that these services also have the potential to lead to social change at a structural level as suggested by a reverse dominance coalition framework. 

Inequalities persist when they are normalised and celebrated by society. 'Reverse dominance coalitions' make cultural change possible by establishing large collectives of people who speak out in solidarity, develop alliances and collectively establish expectations of equality.

Data from interviews of victim-survivors is used to illustrate the applicability of the reverse dominance coalition framework to DFSV support services. 

The paper finds that the framework offers a means of understanding how support at an individual level to victim-survivors also has broader transformative power to change societal awareness, attitudes and responses. It concludes that DFSV agencies not only assist DFSV victims to recover and heal but also play a leadership role in promoting broader changes at the community, policy and societal level. 

Life Course Centre Working Paper Series No. 2025-14

Sydney: The Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Children and Families over the Life Course , 2025. 30p

By Emma Ziersch, Shawn Sowerbutts, Yilma Woldgabreal, Sophie Ransom

The Violence Risk Scale (VRS) is a risk assessment tool designed to assess and predict risk of future offending, inform decisions around therapeutic intervention and measure changes in violence risk as a result of treatment. While the tool has been used extensively both internationally and in Australia, its applicability to our Australian population is unclear.This study investigated the discriminative and predictive validity of the VRS for Australian Aboriginal and non-Indigenous males convicted of violent offending in multiple jurisdictions. The VRS total score had moderate discriminative accuracy for violent reoffending at five-year follow-up. However, Aboriginal males were significantly more likely to be categorised as high risk, and additional discrimination measures revealed variation in performance between Aboriginal and non-Indigenous males. Implications of the findings for correctional practice and recommendations to reduce bias in the assessment of Aboriginal offenders are discussed.

Research Report no. 34.  Canberra: Australian Institute of Criminology. 2025. 66p

By Reena Sarkar, Maaike Moller, and Lyndal Bugeja

This Australian study examined the frequency and clinical signs of neck injury among domestic and family violence (DFV) patients reporting strangulation in Victorian police regions and the forensic service response during a physical and/or sexual assault. The study compared the characteristics between patients with/without clinical signs of neck injury and between physical and sexual assault where a forensic practitioner performed a medical examination. Of 522 eligible patients of physical and/or sexual assault, 84 (16 %) self-reported strangulation. Amongst the 84 patients, 63 had complete forensic examination data. Of the 63 examinations, 38 were for physical assaults and 25 for sexual assaults. Observable neck injury was reported in 75 %. About half of the patients undergoing forensic examinations displayed neck injuries specific to non-fatal strangulation. Danger-to-life assessment, substance abuse, comorbidities, and previous domestic violence were comprehensively reported. This study suggests that observable neck injuries are associated with self-reported strangulation. The findings will inform policy, and response services, about the features of nonfatal strangulation in DFV in Victoria.

Forensic Science International Volume 374, September 2025, 112533  

By  The Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission

Report 24 of the National Wastewater Drug Monitoring Program is based on data collected in August (capital city and regional sites) and October 2024 (capital city sites only). Sixty-one wastewater treatment plants participated nationwide, covering approximately 57% of the population. This provides a comprehensive picture of Australia’s illicit drug markets and drug consumption habits for 12 substances. Report 24 also provides data for the 8th year of the program, allowing for comparisons with previous years.

Findings

The Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission has commissioned The University of Queensland, and through it the University of South Australia, to undertake the data collection and analysis that underpins the report.This latest report reveals that 22.2 tonnes of methylamphetamine, cocaine, heroin and MDMA was consumed between August 2023 and August 2024. This is a 34% increase from the previous year, driven by record high consumption of all 4 drugs. 

Longitudinal figures

Longitudinal figures are available for each state and territory and broken down by drug type. These figures offer a guide to trends over the period the respective drugs have been monitored by the wastewater program.

Canberra: Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission, 2025. 92p.

By Ian Ayres, Joseph Bankman, & Daniel J. Hemel

The negative moral emotions of guilt and shame impose real social costs but also create opportunities for policymakers to engender compliance with legal rules in a cost-effective manner. We present a unified model of guilt and shame that demonstrates how legal policymakers can harness negative moral emotions to increase social welfare. The prospect of guilt and shame can deter individuals from violating moral norms and legal rules, thereby substituting for the expense of state enforcement. But when legal rules and law enforcement fail to induce total compliance, guilt and shame experienced by noncompliers can increase the law’s social costs. We identify specific circumstances in which rescinding a legal rule will improve social welfare because eliminating the rule reduces the moral costs of noncompliance with the law’s command. We also identify other instances in which moral costs strengthen the case for enacting legal rules and investing additional resources in enforcement because deterrence reduces the negative emotions experienced by noncompliers. We end by exploring the implications of our framework for legal policy across “guilt cultures” and “shame cultures,” for the debate over shaming sanctions, and for other moral emotions such as resentment and virtue.

University of Chicago Law Review (forthcoming), Yale Law & Economics Research Paper, Stanford Law and Economics Olin Working Paper No. 601, 

By Lark Mulligan

The police murdered Alton Sterling on camera. They also murdered Eric Garner, Laquan McDonald, and many others; the videos of their deaths garnered millions of views. Information about some horrors of the criminal legal system is spreading widely, yet White mainstream media outlets frequently dismiss, erase, or demonize Black, Indegenous, and People of Color (“BIPOC”) communities who protest and organize to demand justice through the abolition of or radical changes to the policing and prison systems. In response to these racist atrocities and within the broader context of criminal legal reform, activists and academics frequently craft ethical arguments such as: “Solitary confinement is immoral because it inflicts psychological and physical torture” or “Incarceration is unethical because prisons are inherently violent places.” Many ethical arguments center on the racist injustices and harm that affronts human dignity and agency caused by prisons and police. Others critique the racist and retributive ethics of “law and order” rhetoric. Each argument is well-supported by accessible data that can be found in numerous studies, books, articles, and media. However, people often erroneously dismiss these data-driven, logical, ethical reasonings as factually inaccurate, or many respond with a deeply racist ethical-legal rationale, for example: “While there may be abuses in prisons, some people need to be put in solitary or prison and deserve it because [insert classical legal rationales for punishment: deterrence, retribution, rehabilitation, etc.].” Ethical and legal arguments are severely limited, however, when they lack an epistemological interrogation into the power structures that determine what qualifies as “knowledge” within the ethical-social conversation. This article demonstrates why anti-prison activists’ ethical arguments generally do not receive the due credibility and weight they deserve unless they pair critical liberatory epistemic practices with material, institutional, and social transformations. Abolitionists claiming to fight the confines of carceral epistemologies cannot merely sit back and point out the already-existing logical contradictions in the criminal legal system—it is not enough.

The Scholar: St. Mary's Law Review on Race and Social Justice, Vol. 27 [2025], No. 2, Art. 1

By Brian Taehyuk Keum,  Lianne Wong & Jung Yun Na

Social media is a major vehicle that can facilitate people’s exposure to gun violence and polarized attitudes that favor gun ownership, yet little research has examined how such exposure affects people’s mental health in today’s digital era. To advance empirical research in this area, the current study developed the Gun Violence on Social Media Scale (GVSMS) using best practices in measure development. Items were developed via a literature review, a survey of social media platforms, and an expert review. Exploratory (N = 277) and confirmatory (N = 241) factor analyses yielded a 2-factor structure with the following subscales: (a) Gun Violence Content (4 items); mediated exposure to gun violence through social media content, and (b) Pro-Gun Attitudes (3 items); exposure to polarized pro-gun attitudes on social media. The initial psychometric properties of the GVSMS were adequate. Internal consistency estimates were adequate, and construct validity was established with positive associations with other gun-related measures, negative mental health outcomes (depressive, anxiety and trauma symptoms), and non-significant associations with impression management. Implications for research practice are discussed.

Journal of Aggression, Maltreatment & Trauma