By Sophie Davis Manon Roberts Freya Smith

Neighbourhoods — understood here as the small, local areas people identify with in their daily lives which do not necessarily align with official administrative boundaries — play a central role in shaping people’s experiences of crime and safety. This is particularly true in relation to anti-social behaviour (ASB) and visible disorder. These issues, while often seen as less serious than violent crime, directly affect people’s day-to-day lives by shaping perceptions of safety, trust in institutions, and community cohesion. This paper makes the case for why neighbourhoods must be at the heart of crime policy — both as spaces where crime is experienced and as sites of potential solutions. The evidence is clear: the social and physical conditions of neighbourhoods are not incidental to crime — they help to generate it and shape how people respond to it. Poor lighting, unmanaged public spaces, and the erosion of social ties can all create the conditions in which ASB and crime thrive. Crucially, these neighbourhood characteristics can also be changed. Interventions that enhance the built environment, foster informal guardianship, and build local trust can have a preventative effect, reducing demand and improving outcomes cost-effectively. Over the past three decades, policy has increasingly acknowledged this link with initiatives such as Crime and Disorder Reduction Partnerships, neighbourhood policing and the Safer Streets Fund. These initiatives reflect a wider recognition that local, place-based approaches, built on strong partnerships and trust, are essential. However, the effectiveness of such approaches has often been undermined by fiscal constraints, insufficient targeting of the most affected neighbourhoods and a lack of investment in the social connections that sustain resilient communities. The government wants to ‘take back our streets’ as one of its key missions. In its June 2025 Spending Review, the government announced a new national commitment to improving 350 deprived communities, and a £240 million investment in a Growth Mission Fund — signalling a renewed commitment to place-based approaches. It was also announced that police spending power will grow by 1.7% annually, to support the government’s mission to make streets safer, complementing a pledge made in April 2025 to ‘restore local policing’ and a commitment to placing 13,000 neighbourhood police officers and police community support officers (PCSOs) into dedicated community roles. To achieve its ambitions, the government needs to ‘think neighbourhoods’: focus on areas where harm is greatest, invest in the social foundations of safety and deliver quick, visible improvements. Neighbourhood-focused approaches are not only effective, they are efficient. With limited public finances, place-based approaches offer a strategic route to delivering high-impact, low-cost crime reduction, particularly in relation to ASB and disorder. But achieving the government’s mission to ‘take back our streets’ requires more than additional police officers. It requires investing in both places and people — building social capital and strengthening cohesion — to prioritise key issues and needs at a place-based level.Summary of key findings Crime is heavily concentrated and persistent in areas of multiple disadvantage. A small proportion of geographic areas account for a disproportionate share of crime and ASB. These areas often face persistent poverty, underinvestment, and institutional neglect, which foster conditions for crime to take root and persist. Residents in these areas report significantly greater concerns about ASB, illegal drugs and safety, and feel less connected and optimistic about their communities. Disadvantage and instability reinforce each other, weakening community control. Factors such as residential turnover can interact with disadvantage to undermine social cohesion, weakening informal social control and making communities more vulnerable to ASB and crime. The built environment shapes both risk and resilience. Urban design influences crime not only by affecting opportunities for offending but also by shaping perceptions of safety, trust and community pride, and enabling more positive use of public space, including through increased natural surveillance and by supporting informal guardianship. Social cohesion and trust can act as protective factors, particularly in areas of disadvantage. Strong social bonds, shared norms, and a collective willingness to intervene (collective efficacy) can help neighbourhoods resist crime and ASB, even in deprived areas. Crime and ASB matter to communities — they act as wider signals of neighbourhood decline. Visible signs of disorder and ineffective institutional responses erode trust and community pride, reinforcing a negative cycle of decline and inse

London: Crest, 2025. 46p.

By  Dan Anderberg, Line Hjorth Andersen, N. Meltem Daysal, Mette Ejrnæs

We examine the impact of a 2002 Danish parental leave reform on intimate partner violence (IPV) using administrative data on assault-related hospital contacts. Using a regression discontinuity design, we show that extending fully paid leave increased mothers’ leave-taking and substantially reduced IPV, with effects concentrated among less-educated women. The reform also lengthened birth spacing, while separations remained unchanged and earnings effects were modest. The timing and heterogeneity of impacts point to fertility adjustments—rather than exit options or financial relief—as the key mechanism. Parental leave policy thus emerges as an underexplored lever for reducing IPV.

CESifo Working Paper No. 12189 Munich:  Center for Economic Studies,   2025. 35p.

By Arthur MacDonald.

The narrative in Volume 1 asks many pointed questions: What does it mean to be “abnormal”? Who decides? And how have these judgments shaped modern science, education, and criminal justice?

First published in 1893, Arthur MacDonald’s Abnormal Man is one of the earliest American attempts to systematically study human difference through the emerging tools of psychology, anthropology, and criminology. Drawing on international research—from European criminal anthropology to American child-study movements—MacDonald sought to classify the physical, mental, and moral traits considered “aberrant” in his era. His work reflects the hopes and anxieties of a society confronting rapid industrialization, immigration, social change, and new scientific approaches to crime and mental health.

To the modern reader, Abnormal Man reveals both the ambition and the pitfalls of nineteenth-century science. Its pages contain pioneering observations about child development, deviance, and social responsibility, alongside early theories—now discredited—about heredity, physiognomy, and race. What emerges is a vivid and sometimes unsettling portrait of a culture striving to understand human variation without the benefit of modern psychology or ethical safeguards.

The Read-Me.org edition Volume 1 presents Abnormal Man as both a historical artifact and a gateway to critical reflection. It illustrates how scientific thought evolves, how cultural bias can shape research, and how early debates about abnormality laid the groundwork for contemporary approaches to mental health, special education, criminology, and social policy. To make such work, much of it controversial then as it is today, minimally believable, requires extensive documentation. The voluminous Bibliography of Abnormal Man reproduced here in Volume 2, contains all that Macdnald referred to within his detailed exposition. To some, his arguments may seem unsupported, or lacking in evidence. But he left no stone untuned as this amazing bibliographical documentation of all relative contemporary research

A foundational text at the crossroads of science and society, Abnormal Man invites readers to explore the origins of modern debates about deviance, diversity, and the boundaries of the “normal.”

Read-Me.Org Inc. New York-Philadelphia-Australia. 2025. 240p.

By Caroline Mary Parker

The predominant criminological view of ‘carceral citizenship’ takes citizenship as a purely juridical matter, overlooking key social dimensions of citizenship as a human practice. To understand how the carceral turn is reconfiguring citizenship in Puerto Rico, I explore how formerly incarcerated people carve out a place for themselves in Puerto Rican society under the shadow of the prison. Focusing on one couple and their efforts to operate a therapeutic community, I show how self-help supplies a subset of former prisoners with a publicly recognized form of social belonging. Though more stable and encompassing than the stigmatized exile that awaits many people returning from prison, this carceral citizenship invites formerly incarcerated people to assume critical roles in the confinement, punishment, and care of people convicted of drug offences. Overall, this article highlights how self-help and punishment have emerged as intertwined mediums through which formerly incarcerated people assert their citizenship. 

EUROPEAN REVIEW OF LATIN AMERICAN AND CARIBBEAN STUDIES. No. 116 (2023): July-December, pp. 87-104

By Arthur MacDonald. Introduction by Graeme R. Newman

What does it mean to be “abnormal”? Who decides? And how have these judgments shaped modern science, education, and criminal justice?

First published in 1893, Arthur MacDonald’s Abnormal Man is one of the earliest American attempts to systematically study human difference through the emerging tools of psychology, anthropology, and criminology. Drawing on international research—from European criminal anthropology to American child-study movements—MacDonald sought to classify the physical, mental, and moral traits considered “aberrant” in his era. His work reflects the hopes and anxieties of a society confronting rapid industrialization, immigration, social change, and new scientific approaches to crime and mental health.

To the modern reader, Abnormal Man reveals both the ambition and the pitfalls of nineteenth-century science. Its pages contain pioneering observations about child development, deviance, and social responsibility, alongside early theories—now discredited—about heredity, physiognomy, and race. What emerges is a vivid and sometimes unsettling portrait of a culture striving to understand human variation without the benefit of modern psychology or ethical safeguards.

This new Read-Me.org edition presents Abnormal Man as both a historical artifact and a gateway to critical reflection. It illustrates how scientific thought evolves, how cultural bias can shape research, and how early debates about abnormality laid the groundwork for contemporary approaches to mental health, special education, criminology, and social policy.

A foundational text at the crossroads of science and society, Abnormal Man invites readers to explore the origins of modern debates about deviance, diversity, and the boundaries of the “normal.”

Read-Me.Org Inc. New York-Philadelphia-Australia. 2025. p.193.

By Brent R. Klein,  Cory Schnell,  Steven M. Chermak,  Joshua D. Freilich

This study examined firearm lethality and lethal intent on injurious fatal and nonfatal school shootings using data from The American School Shooting Study, which covers 329 school shootings in the United States from 1990 to 2016. We developed a new multidimensional construct for measuring determination to kill and examined firearm characteristics while considering confounding factors. We identified 11 distinct categories of shooters’ intent, with most showing a strong desire to kill. Both intent and weapon lethality significantly impacted school shooting homicides. Overall, we recommend that prevention and theoretical models should address both factors.

Criminology. 2025;63:673–686.

By Lonel Zamfir

Increased political polarisation has led to a proliferation of attacks against elected representatives, political candidates and party members. Verbal abuse and insults, harassment, threats and intimidation, as well as smear campaigns against politicians, occur regularly both online and offline, marking a serious degradation in the quality of political debate in the EU. During the 2024 European elections campaign, there were serious incidents in several countries. Nevertheless, acts of physical violence remain isolated and less frequent in the EU than in many other parts of the world. Violence is a risk to which politicians have always been exposed, including in democratic regimes. Organised crime and radicalised individuals or groups resort to violence to promote their political or economic agendas. EU countries have been unevenly affected; violence linked to organised crime has particularly affected certain regions, especially southern Italy, where it has proven difficult to eradicate. By contrast, violence driven by political radicalisation is a more recent phenomenon and increasingly affects all EU countries – albeit to varying degrees – and tends to flare up during periods of heightened tension, such as election campaigns and large-scale public protests. The impact on political debate, free exchange of opinions and compromise-building is profoundly negative. Violence and intimidation pressure politicians to self-censor when addressing politically sensitive issues and, in some cases, to step out of politics altogether. To counter this, several EU countries have adopted preventive and protective measures, including regular data collection. Examples include classifying offences against elected representatives as aggravated offences, simplifying reporting, and providing training, counselling and emergency assistance. Parliaments have also promoted civility and mutual respect in debates through codes of conduct and have established support services such as legal aid

Brussels: EPRS | European Parliamentary Research Service, 20252025. 11p.

By Sarah Lageson and Robert Apel

Employment discrimination from a criminal record is a salient social fact, evidenced by a robust body of experimental research. In Part 1 of this study, we analyze prior criminal record hiring experiments—comprising in-person audits, online audits, and opt-in surveys—to describe patterns over time in employer receptivity to applicants of different races with criminal records. In Part 2, we use a novel experimental survey of 1080 employers to measure how differences in the signaling of a criminal record impact the criminal record–employment relationship. Our results reveal a substantial hiring penalty for an official criminal record (conveyed by a background check report), with a smaller but still significant penalty for an unofficial criminal record (an Internet search engine “hit”). The experiment also shows that the official criminal record penalty is significantly larger for White applicants than for Black applicants. Although the latter finding was counter to expectations informed by prior studies, it is less surprising considering our Part 1 findings, which reveal a closing racial gap in the criminal record penalty during the last 20 years. We discuss how broader legal, social, and technological changes, as well as changes in methodologies, impact our understanding today of criminal records, race, and employment.

Criminology, Volume 63, Issue 2 May 2025 Pages 382-410

By Stan Gilmour

This briefing paper examines the emerging framework of "violence informed approaches" as a critical development in understanding and responding to violence, particularly in the context of preventing criminalisation in the UK. Traditional approaches to violence prevention have often focused on individualised explanations, frequently obscuring the broader social, political, and economic contexts in which violence occurs. Whilst trauma-informed approaches have gained significant traction, they have been critiqued for sometimes inadvertently pathologising  individuals and focusing on psychological impacts rather than addressing structural causes. Violence-informed approaches build upon and extend these frameworks by offering a more explicitly political and contextual analysis of violence and its social determinants. This briefing draws on the foundational work of Professor Stan Gilmour (2025) on violence-informed approaches to preventing criminalisation¹⁶, integrating this with current evidence, research, policy, and practice in the UK to outline the theoretical underpinnings, key characteristics, and practical applications of this emerging framework.  

Milton Keynes, UK: Oxon Advisory, 2025. 14p.

By Makayla Burden; Ariel L. Roddy

Using General Strain Theory as a framework, this study examines the direct effects of seven categories of strain that fall under three broad domains, negative emotions, and substance use on Indigenous youths’ delinquency. Additionally, the cumulative impact of experiencing more than one domain or category is evaluated. Cultural connectedness and support systems are assessed as potential protective factors. Using a sample of Indigenous youth (N = 359) in the United States, this study employs multiple imputation, correlations, and stepwise negative binomial regressions to address the research questions. Results show that few individual strain domains and categories were significant predictors of delinquency. However, there was a cumulative effect of strain where, as the number of domains or categories experienced increases, so did the likelihood of delinquency. Negative emotions were not associated with delinquency and there was limited support for cultural connectedness and support systems’ ability to buffer against delinquent behaviors. Finally, substance use was strongly associated with delinquency. Therefore, there is merit in using the GST framework to examine Indigenous youth delinquency through a cultural lens. However, more culturally integrated research needs to be conducted to fully understand Indigenous youth’s strain and delinquency, and what should be done to provide further support.

Deviant Behavior, 1–21.2025

By Takashi Mitsuhashi, Hitoshi Mitsuhashi, Masahiko Urao

Rule-breaking, a significant workplace safety threat, is often shaped by social influences, with employees more likely to engage in violations when exposed to similar behaviors among peers. Prior research has largely treated peer rule-breaking as uniformly influential, overlooking how situational factors and the perceived motives behind violations shape contagion effects. This study examines how peer effects influence employees’ rule-breaking behaviors, particularly when employees are exposed to peers’ rule-breaking in situations where these actions can plausibly be inferred as motivated by prosocial motives. Using longitudinal task-level data on nurses’ rule-breaking during medication administration at a medical facility in Tokyo, we find that a nurse is more likely to break patient identification rules when exposed more to rule-breaking by co-shift peers, especially when exposed in situations where the nurse can infer peers’ prosocial motives. In addition, we also find that peer effects diminish when management policies reduce nurses’ exposure, particularly by transitioning from pair-checking to single-checking procedures. These insights contribute to research on workplace safety and policy interventions to manage deviant behaviors.

Deviant Behavior, 1–25. 2025.

By Kristoffer Aagesen & Jakob Deman

This study examines how Snapchat’s recommendation algorithms facilitate digital drift from legal to illegal activities. Using microsociological observations, we conducted a quasi-experiment with 40 profiles that engaged with gray markets for nicotine vapes and sex work. Within four days, 65% of these profiles were directed to illicit drug sellers, despite no prior engagement with illegal content. Our audit of Snapchat’s affordances highlights their criminogenic potential, showing how platform algorithms can actively steer users toward illicit networks. These findings underscore how social media platforms function not only as offender convergence spaces but also as facilitators of illegal activity.

Deviant Behavior, 1–14. 2025.

By Karen Holt

A dearth of research examines the perceptions of serial homicide offenders directly through qualitative interviews. The current study presents a case study analysis of serial homicide offender, Harold David Haulman. The concept of serial homicide as understood by the offender himself is explored, with the focus on what it means to be a “serial killer” and the acceptance or rejection of that label. Findings revealed that Haulman both actively resists stigma while at times leaning into the “serial killer” label, a label he constructs by drawing from the popular criminological and larger cultural narratives of serial murder.

Deviant Behavior, 1–14. 2025.

By Renata Glavak-Tkalić, Mike Vuolo, Anja Wertag

Background: Nightlife environments, including nightclubs, bars, and entertainment districts, are associated with elevated substance use and related harms. In situ nightlife studies offer an opportunity to capture real-time data on substance use from targeted populations. Despite the growing number of studies, no systematic review has yet been conducted on this topic. Therefore, the aim of this systematic review is to explore empirical in situ research in nightlife settings, with a focus on substance use. Methods: A systematic search was conducted across four databases (WOS, PsycInfo, PubMed, and Google Scholar) for English-language peer-reviewed journal articles published between 2014 and 2023 that involved in situ primary data collection about substance use in nightlife settings. In total, 55 articles met the inclusion criteria. Detailed data were extracted on various aspects, such as study design, recruitment methods, substances reported, and key findings. Results: Included studies represented the United States, Europe, Brazil, and Oceania. Most (93%) employed surveys; over half (56%) also collected biomarkers. Substance use was highest among males, young adults, and sexual minorities, with polydrug use and high-risk behavior particularly prevalent in Electronic Dance Music scenes. Included articles varied substantially in their focus, including prevalence, correlates, patterns, harms, and interventions. Recruitment and reporting methods varied widely, complicating cross-study comparisons. Conclusions: This review highlights both the value and challenges of in situ research. Biomarker data enhance the reliability of self-report measures, while inconsistent reporting and non-random sampling limit generalizability. Future research should adopt standardized reporting guidelines that would allow for stronger evidence, permit reproducibility, and increase transparency

Drug and Alcohol Dependence Reports 8 October 2025, 100387 In Press, Journal Pre-proof

By Losefa Aguirre, Fernanda Ramírez-Espinoza, Roman Andres Zarate

This paper estimates the impact of violence perpetrated by peers and school staff on student victims. Leveraging unique administrative data from Chile that links reports of school violence to individual educational records, we address longstanding data limitations that have constrained empirical research on this issue. Using a matched difference-in-differences design, we find that exposure to school violence has persistent negative effects: absenteeism increases by 46–64%, grade retention rates double, and both grades and test scores decline significantly, with impacts lasting up to four years. In the longer term, victims are substantially less likely to graduate from high school or enroll in university, with violence perpetrated by adults having more severe consequences than peer violence. Complementary survey evidence reveals that reported incidents are associated with increased perceptions of violence and discrimination, as well as decreases in school belonging and teacher expectations. While these psychological and perceptual effects tend to fade after one year, the adverse educational consequences persist, underscoring how brief traumatic experiences can lead to long-lasting educational disadvantages.

IZA DP No. 18126 Bonn: IZA – Institute of Labor Economics, 2025. 87p.

By Jamie O’Halloran and Sebastian Rees

Most people are aware of the health risks of drinking alcohol. Alcohol is known to cause at least seven types of cancer and to be a primary risk factor for more than 30 health conditions. The more alcohol someone drinks, the greater the risk. Despite this, alcohol consumption across the UK remains worryingly high.

The most important fact in this report is that after some years when alcohol consumption was going down in the UK, the trend is now heading in the wrong direction and the health risks are clear. Increased rates of alcohol consumption can already be detected in the rise in both alcohol-related and alcohol-specific mortality since 2019. For example, in 2023, 10,473 people died from alcohol-specific causes in the UK, the highest number on record.

Inequalities

As well as having a deleterious effect on the nation’s health as a whole, harmful levels of alcohol consumption are also a key driver of health inequalities. The health burden of alcohol harm is not spread equally across the UK – people living in Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales are more likely to die of alcohol-specific causes than those living in England. 

Impact on the workforce

Leaving aside, for the moment, the impact of people developing onset of chronic health conditions such as cancer, cardiovascular disease and anxiety and depression, which often lead to people leaving the labour market, alcohol consumption also has significant effects on the productivity of those in work. It can increase both:

• absenteeism, where people take time off due to illness and

• presenteeism, where people are at work but their capacity is reduced.

Previous analysis by the Institute of Alcohol Studies estimates that alcohol consumption costs the economy £5.06 billion a year – with 44 per cent of the cost being due to presenteeism.

The current report builds on existing analysis and takes a closer look at the relationship between alcohol consumption and workforce productivity by using data from Understanding Society – a large longitudinal panel survey of UK households – and findings from a specially commissioned survey, the authors examine alcohol’s economic impact more deeply, including its varied impacts on different sectors of the economy and job roles.

Key findings

• A quarter of employees feel pressure to drink at workplace events, rising to 38 per cent of 18 to 24 year olds

• Workplace drinking culture driving absences as 31 per cent of workers call in sick in past year after work events

• IPPR calls for minimum unit pricing, reintroducing the alcohol duty escalator, and stronger action from employers

The authors say that pressure to drink at work events is contributing to widespread alcohol-related absences and reduced productivity across all sectors.  

From after-work drinks to subsidised bar tabs at company events, alcohol is often embedded in professional life. A quarter (24 per cent) of workers said they sometimes felt pressured to drink when they didn’t want to, rising to 38 per cent among younger employees (aged 18-24). Over a third said drinking at work events excluded non-drinkers or created cliques.

This culture is driving real consequences. One in three UK workers (31 per cent) have called in sick in the past year after drinking at work-related events, while 22 per cent reported working while hungover, and 29 per cent observed colleagues being tired or sluggish after drinking.

Interestingly, young workers and senior executives are among the most affected groups.

London: IPPR, the Institute for Public Policy Research, i2025. 30p.

By James D. Diamond

As violence in the United States seems to become increasingly more commonplace, the question of how communities reset after unprecedented violence also grows in significance. After the Bloodbath examines this quandary, producing insights linking rampage shootings and communal responses in the United States. Diamond, who was a leading attorney in the community where the Sandy Hook Elementary School tragedy occurred, focuses on three well-known shootings and a fourth shooting that occurred on the Red Lake Indian Reservation in Minnesota. The book looks to the roots of Indigenous approaches to crime, identifying an institutional weakness in the Anglo judicial model, and explores adapting Indigenous practices that contribute to healing following heinous criminal behavior. Emerging from the history of Indigenous dispute resolution is a spotlight turned on to restorative justice, a subject no author has discussed to date in the context of mass shootings. Diamond ultimately leads the reader to a positive road forward focusing on insightful steps people can take after a rampage shooting to help their wounded communities heal.

East Lansing: Michigan State University Press. 2019.

By Will McMorran

What does reading fictional violence do to us as readers? To find out, this provocative and original book turns to the works of an author synonymous with sexual violence: the Marquis de Sade. Drawing on psychology, cognitive literary studies, and empirical research, it argues that reading is a fundamentally embodied act – and one that implicates us far more than we might like to think in fictional depictions of violence.

This book turns not just to Sade for answers, but to his readers. Where previous studies have focussed either on Sade’s language or his philosophy, this one places the lived experience of actual readers at the heart of its investigations. Taking particular scenes from Sade’s fiction, from a young girl posing as a statue in ‘Eugénie de Franval’ to the brutal rape of the heroine of Justine, this book explores what happens not just on the page but in the minds and bodies of readers as they bring these scenes to life.

Drawing on questionnaires completed by readers of those scenes, and on his own experience as a reader, teacher and translator of Sade, the author challenges the disembodied approach that has dominated Sade studies and literary criticism more broadly over recent decades. This is not just a book about Sade—it’s a radical exploration of what happens to us when we are confronted with scenes of violence. Urgent, accessible, and personal, it offers a new model for understanding reading as a matter of making sensations as well as making sense.

Cambridge, UK: Open Book Publishers, 2025. 368p.

By Tom Sullivan and Merran McAlister

Image-based sexual abuse (IBSA) is the threatened or actual capturing or sharing of an intimate image of a person without their consent. This bulletin describes the findings of an analysis of 771 individuals proceeded against by police for IBSA offences in four jurisdictions in 2022–23. Most alleged offenders were males perpetrating IBSA against females, and offenders were most commonly aged 25–34 years. The analysis also identified differences between IBSA subtypes. Alleged offenders were most likely to have distribution offences, and many also had other non-IBSA offences. The bulletin discusses implications for prevention and detection of IBSA offending.

Statistical Bulletin no. 49. Canberra: Australian Institute of Criminology. 2025. 21p.

By Diarmaid Harkin, Mary Iliadis, Jessica Woolley, Marilyn McMahon and Karen Bentley  

Victim-survivors of domestic and family violence (DFV) are increasingly using closed-circuit television (CCTV) systems. To date, the impacts of CCTV systems on victim survivors have been unclear. This paper presents the findings from a world-first study into how victim survivors of DFV experience the use of CCTV systems. It draws on a national survey of 125 DFV support practitioners and 28 in-depth interviews (including with 9 victim-survivors). The findings demonstrate that CCTV can have beneficial impacts on the wellbeing of victim-survivors by providing a sense of safety and security but also carries risks, including that victim-survivors will become hypervigilant.

Trends & issues in crime and criminal justice no. 713. Canberra: Australian Institute of Criminology, 2025. 17p.