By M. Lankester, C. Coles, A. Trotter, S. Scott, J. Downs, H. Dickson, A. Wickersham

The association between academic achievement and youth offending has yet to be clearly quantified. This meta-analysis aims to provide a robust estimate of the longitudinal association between academic achievement and subsequent youth offending. We searched PsycINFO, ERIC, British Education Index, and Web of Science from inception to 2 April 2024 using a comprehensive search strategy. We identified eligible studies reporting on the association between academic achievement and subsequent youth offending, as measured using self-report or administrative records up to the age of 25 years. Correlation coefficients and odds ratios were pooled in a meta-analysis. Effect modifiers were investigated in a sub-group analysis, and other findings were narratively synthesised. PROSPERO record: CRD42023402103. Seventeen studies were included, of which eight were pooled in a meta-analysis. The findings showed a small but statistically significant association between lower academic achievement and youth offending (pooled Fisher z= −0.21, 95% CI [−0.29,−0.12], I 2=98.4%). Subgroup analysis and narrative synthesis yielded mixed findings on the possible role of measurement timing and offence types. Lower academic achievement was associated with subsequent youth offending, underlining the need for a child-first approach to early prevention and intervention strategies in educational and forensic settings.

Journal of Developmental and Life-Course Criminology (2024) 10:457–476

Elizabeth L. Beck,

Natasha N. Johnson,

Sommer Delgado,

Victoria Helmly,

Susan A. McLaren,

Alice Prendergast,

Leigh Alderman,

Lorenzo Almada,

Brian Bride,

Eric Napierala,

William J. Sabol

Using data from an evaluation of three Second Chance Act grantees, we explore formerly incarcerated people’s (FIP) access to housing. This study is unique in that it includes the perspectives of individuals with lived experiences and the insights of the reentry program providers working to meet their overall needs, including in the area of housing. The data come from reentry programs in three regions of the United States. Although the needs of the people with lived experiences have similarities, regional differences exist, particularly related to housing costs and supply, including the availability of transitional housing. Also, variations exist between FIP who are able to live with family compared with those who do not have this option. The three programs this study examined worked to address housing needs in distinctive ways and explores the housing needs of FIP and the strategies the three programs use to address these needs. Incorporating a two-pronged approach, this article includes analyses of (1) interview data with 31 FIP from 3 months to 3 years post-incarceration and (2) interviews and program materials to support formulative case analyses of the housing-related work that program enacted. Through this work, highlighting program efforts to remove barriers to housing for this population, the study seeks to promote the advancement of relevant policy, practice, and research in this arena.

Cityscape, 25(2): 2023.

By Police Executive Research Forum

Jurisdictions across the United States have struggled with a dramatic rise in carjackings since 2020, leaving police leaders with questions about why this spike is occurring, why juveniles are committing this crime in unprecedented numbers, and why carjacking numbers remained elevated when the number of homicides and aggravated assaults started to decline. With those questions in mind, the Police Executive Research Forum (PERF) assembled a group of over 130 people from more than 50 different agencies for a National Summit on Carjacking in early 2024 in Washington, D.C. Throughout the day, police leaders, federal officials, local and federal prosecutors, researchers, executives, and business and community leaders discussed the situation in 7. D.C. Metropolitan Police Department. MPD Carjacking Dashboard. https://mpdc.dc.gov/page/carjacking. their communities and the challenges they have faced effectively addressing these incidents, particularly when juveniles are involved. Jurisdictions that have successfully brought their numbers down shared lessons learned and promising strategies for preventing carjackings. This report is drawn from the comments and observations of those who attended PERF’s summit and follow-up interviews. It looks at the carjacking problem in cities and counties across the country, offers insights into the factors causing the increase, and shares some of the innovative approaches jurisdictions are implementing — including the use of technology, data analysis, and cross-agency partnerships. The report includes 10 recommendations to help police and other stakeholders effectively respond to carjackings in their communities.

Washington, DC: Police Executive Research Forum, 2024. 62p.

By Timantha Goff, et al.

Black migrants are subject to abuse and a disturbing pattern of racism, violence and harm at disproportionately higher incidence than non-Black migrants while in the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), according to a groundbreaking report released today by Black-led and immigrants rights organizations.

Authored by the Black LGBTQIA+ Migrant Project (BLMP), Black Alliance for Just Immigration (BAJI), UndocuBlack Network, and Freedom for Immigrants (FFI), the first-of-its-kind study draws on nearly 17,000 call records from FFI’s National Immigration Detention Hotline spanning a six year period.

The data reveal a disturbing pattern of abuse perpetrated against Black migrants by ICE, private detention contractors and officials at contracting jails. Key findings include:

28 percent of all abuse-related reports made to the FFI hotline come from Black migrants, despite accounting for only only six percent of the total ICE detention population;

In some detention facilities in Alabama, Georgia and Louisiana, Black migrants are almost twice as likely to experience abuse inside detention compared to non-Black migrants;

Black non-binary migrants are 3.5 times more likely to experience abuse in immigration detention;

A new FOIA request corroborated a previous study that found that 24 percent of all people in solitary confinement are Black;

Over 53 percent of the most high-intensity and life-threatening cases that FFI intervened on in the six year period were on behalf of Black migrants.

“No one should live in fear or face punishment like this, especially not for the color of their skin or where they were born,” said Moussa Haba, an author of the report and monitoring fellow with Freedom for Immigrants who was previously detained by ICE. “The United States calls itself the land of the free, but for this to be true, Black migrants like me deserve to live in freedom, not from behind bars. What I experienced in detention was the opposite of freedom. Significant trauma was inflicted upon me during this time. I was subject to an unending racism in detention, and our new report demonstrates that I am not alone. It’s clear that detention must end to stop this cycle of abuse—and our fight to abolish detention is really a fight for freedom.”

“Being detained as an immigrant and having to fight for my freedom, I have faced discrimination based on my race,” said Marlissa, a 22-year-old Bahamian woman from South Florida currently detained at the Baker County Detention Center in Florida. “I have faced a lot of racism, a lot of disrespect, and a lot of unfairness in this system. I was threatened with solitary confinement after officers used racial slurs against me. Being detained, it’s like you have no say and you have no rights. It’s as if they look at you like you're beneath them, and the door is just being slammed in your face like you're an animal. Once released and given a second chance, the first thing I want to do is see my family because it's been almost three years. Then I want to continue my enrollment in college to follow my dream, and I want to continue to try to be successful in life and be a role model to my siblings and society.”

“It is not shocking that Black migrants in detention describe their conditions as torture, because detention is torture,” said Ronald Claude, director of policy & advocacy with Black Alliance for Just Immigration (BAJI). “Our report ‘Uncovering the Truth’ makes it clear that the U.S. immigration system is anti-Black. Detention is one of the enduring legacies of this country’s history of slavery and Jim Crow laws. Collecting race and ethnicity data is critical as it makes visible the Black people detained by the U.S. government.”

“The profit-driven mass incarceration system of the U.S. is built on the backs of formerly enslaved Black people and Black migrants,” said Haddy Gassama, policy and advocacy director of UndocuBlack Network. “White supremacist sentiments and anti-Blackness are not only endemic in the current systems of policing and immigration enforcement, they were the driving factors for the existence of these inhumane institutions. The U.S. has the world's largest carceral system, and Black folks bear the heaviest brunt of its cruelty. Immigration is a Black issue, and as long as the practice of detention exists, Black migrants will always face anti-Blackness within the system that was built to uniquely harm them. The findings of this report affirm the call for the complete abolition of all forms of detention.

Black Alliance for Just Immigration (BAJI) , 2022. 31p.

By Angus K Ryan

Crime can evade detection and prosecution by criminal justice systems. This can include safety crime, briefly defined here as violations of law that either do, or have the potential to cause sudden death or injury as a result of work-related activities. Research estimates that 2.3 million people across the globe succumb to work-related incidents and diseases every year, and that safety crime causes nearly 900 annual deaths in Britain. Despite this largescale harm, safety crime fails to attract major political, public, or academic attention. One consequence of the lack of attention to safety crime in policy discussions is a significant gap in the body of knowledge on how to effectively punish safety criminals. This thesis aims to address how the effectiveness of penalties for safety criminals can be improved to reduce safety crime. To fulfil this aim, this study answers: which theories are currently informing the punishment of safety criminals in England and Wales? Which theories are effective at punishing safety criminals and why are they effective? How can penalties be used to effectively punish safety criminals? This qualitative study explores 21 stakeholders’ views on the relationship between the punishment of safety criminals and the prevalence of the theories of deterrence, retributive justice, rehabilitation, and incapacitation in England and Wales. The findings of this study indicate that there is a lack of punishment for safety criminals in England and Wales, and that the theories of deterrence, retributive justice, rehabilitation, and incapacitation can be used in varying degrees of effectiveness against these persons, typically dependent on how penalties are used to achieve these theories. The interview data suggests numerous methods of improving current penalties and effectively punishing safety criminals. This study concludes that a mixture of sanctions in a pyramid of penalties should be used to punish safety criminals more effectively.

Bristol, UK: University of Bristol, 2022. 300p.

By Emily Grant, Lena Dechert

Wyoming is home to a little over 16,000 Indigenous residents, who make up nearly 3% of the state's population. However, Indigenous people in Wyoming continue to experience disproportionately high rates of homicide and disappearances compared to White residents. This means they go missing and are killed more often than their population size alone would predict. The Wyoming Missing and Murdered Indigenous Persons (MMIP) Task Force is dedicated to tracking and sharing data on these cases. This fifth-annual publication includes the latest available information on Indigenous homicide victims and missing persons in Wyoming, along with updates on efforts to improve law enforcement protocols for missing person cases.

Laramie: Wyoming Survey & Analysis Center, University of Wyomingm 2025. 7p.

By Emily Grant, Lena Dechert, Laurel Wimbish, Andria Blackwood

HOMICIDE 105 Indigenous people (34 females, 71 males) were victims of homicide between 2000 and 2020. Indigenous homicide victims were 21% of the total homicide victims in Wyoming between 2000 and 2020. Between 2010 and 2019, the homicide rate per 100,000 for Indigenous people was 26.8, eight times higher than the homicide rate for White people. The homicide rate for Indigenous females was 15.3 per 100,000, 6.4 times higher than the homicide rate for White females. MISSING Between 2011 and September 2020, 710 Indigenous persons were reported missing. Some Indigenous people were reported missing more than once during the time period, resulting in a total of 1,254 missing person records for Indigenous people. Eighty-five percent were juvenile, and 57% were female. They were reported missing from 22 counties in Wyoming. Ten percent of missing Indigenous people are found within the same day they are reported missing, 50% are found within one week. One-fifth of the Indigenous people reported missing were missing for 30 or more days, which is a higher percentage than White people missing for 30 or more days (11%). Currently, 10 Indigenous people are listed as missing (3 females and 7 males). MEDIA COVERAGE Only 30% of Indigenous homicide victims had newspaper media coverage, as compared to 51% of White homicide victims. Indigenous female homicide victims had the least amount of newspaper media coverage (18%). MEDIA PORTRAYAL The newspaper articles for Indigenous homicide victims were more likely to contain violent language, portray the victim in a negative light, a nd provide less information as compared to articles about White homicide victim COMMUNITY BARRIERS Lack of trust in law enforcement and the judicial system, no single point of contact during an investigation, and lack of information during the investigation and after the final outcome were seen as barriers in the community related to the reporting and response to MMIP. RECOMMENDATIONS Develop consistent protocols and data systems for MMIPs to inform both law enforcement and families. Pay particular attention to documenting tribal affiliation in official records, coroner reports, and vital records. Create an Indigenous advocacy position/response team to help families navigate the reporting and investigation process. The advocate can serve as a communication point person, helping to reduce the emotional burden for families of repeating incident details to multiple agencies. Raise community awareness about the prevalence of MMIP, contributing risk and protective factors, and available resources. Distribute a list of community resources and efforts

Laramie: Wyoming Survey & Analysis Center University of Wyoming , 2021. 51p.

By The European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE)

Introduction The European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE) has developed 13 indicators on intimate partner violence and domestic violence to guide the data collection efforts of the police and the justice sector. EIGE’s indicators support EU Member States to measure intimate partner violence and domestic violence and to assess the progress made to combat and monitor these forms of violence. Ultimately, the indicators enhance the comparability of national administrative data on intimate partner and domestic violence in alignment with the minimum requirements of Directive (EU) 2024/1385 on combating violence against women and domestic violence; Directive 2012/29/EU on establishing minimum standards on the rights, support and protection of victims of crime; and the Council of Europe convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence (the Istanbul Convention). Between 2018 and 2020, EIGE used the 13 indicators to measure intimate partner violence across the EU. Between 2021 and 2022, EIGE revised and simplified the 13 indicators, the data collection tool used to populate the indicators and the data collection methodology. Between 2023 and 2024, EIGE conducted a new EU-wide data collection exercise to measure intimate partner violence and domestic violence using the updated indicators, data collection tool and methodology. This document describes the methodological approach for the 2023–2024 data collection exercise. The structure of this report is as follows. • The following section provides an overview of EIGE’s data collection exercise, indicators and data collection tool and provides general methodological details. • The remaining sections provide indicator-specific details on the methodological approach used to collect data on EIGE’s 13 indicators on intimate partner violence and domestic violence. • The annexes present mapping tables with further information on the availability and comparability of the data collected, and the sources of the data.

Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European Union, 2025, 152p.

By The European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights

This report presents the findings of research conducted by the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) on existing child protection systems across all EU Member States. The 27 national reports, commissioned from Franet, the agency’s multidisciplinary research network, are available online on the agency’s website. These reports offer a wealth of additional data beyond what is included here. In April 2024, the European Commission adopted a Recommendation on developing and strengthening integrated child protection systems in the best interests of the child. It calls on authorities at all levels of government, civil society and other stakeholders to cooperate to protect children from violence by means of better-integrated systems. Its aim is to enforce a ‘culture of zero-tolerance for violence against children’ (recital 7) while also emphasising ‘Child protection as a global priority of the Union’ (p. 21). In developing the Recommendation, the Commission consulted children by means of the EU Children’s Participation Platform, and more than 1 000 children provided their views. Based on these data and the Commission Recommendation, this report suggests practical me

Vienna: European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights ,2025. 118p.

By Hannah Miles Samantha Bricknell

The National Homicide Monitoring Program is Australia’s only national data collection on homicide incidents, victims and offenders. This report describes 262 homicide incidents recorded by Australian state and territory police between 1 July 2023 and 30 June 2024. During this 12-month period there were 277 victims of homicide and 278 identified offenders

Statistical Report no. 52.

Canberra: Australian Institute of Criminology. 2025. 77p.

By Giorgia Cascone, Caterina Paternoster, Michele Riccardi , Viktoriia Poltoratskaya, Bence Tóth: Claudia Baez-Camargo, Jacopo Costa

• Corruption is a complex and multifaced phenomenon, often defined broadly as “the misuse of public office for private gain” [1]. Despite the absence of consensus on its definition [2,3], scholars, practitioners, and policymakers acknowledge corruption as a longstanding issue heavily affecting nations around the world [3]. Its negative impacts are extensive, undermining civil, political, economic, social, and cultural rights [4]. • The FALCON Project is a three-year Horizon Europe research project which will develop new data-driven indicators and tools to strengthen the global fight against corruption by following an evidence-based, multiactor and interdisciplinary approach. • Specifically, FALCON covers four corruption domains: Corruption and fraud in public procurement; Circumvention of sanctions by "kleptocrats" and oligarchs; Border corruption; Other high-level corruption cases • This Policy Brief summarizes the main results of the analysis carried out on these four corruption domains under Work Package 2 of the FALCON Project. The document is structured as follows

Policy Brief of Project FALCON.

Milan: Transcrime – Joint Research Centre on Innovation and Crime, 2025. 22p.

By The Financial Action Task Force (FATF)

The market of art, antiquities and other cultural objects has attracted criminals, organised crime groups and terrorists to launder proceeds of crime and fund their activities. Criminals seek to exploit the sector’s history of privacy and the use of third-party intermediaries while terrorist groups can use cultural objects from areas where they are active to finance their operations.

The vast majority of market participants do not have a connection to illicit activities, but there are risks associated with these markets and many jurisdictions do not have sufficient awareness and understanding of them. This results in a lack of investigative resources and expertise, and difficulties with pursuing cross-border investigations.

The report includes a list of risk indicators that can help public and private sector entities identify suspicious activities in the art and antiquities markets, and also highlights the importance of rapidly identifying and tracing cultural objects involved in money laundering or terrorist financing.

The report includes some good practices that countries have taken to address the challenges they face, including the establishment of specialised units and access to relevant databases and cooperation with experts and archaeologists to help identify, trace, investigate and repatriate cultural objects.

Paris: The Financial Action Task Force (FATF), 2023. 60p.

By The Financial Action Task Force (FATF)

Ransomware attacks target individuals, businesses and government agencies, across the world. The impact of these attacks can be devastating for individuals, government agencies and business activity and even disrupt essential infrastructure and services.

This FATF report analyses the methods that criminals use to carry out their ransomware attacks and how payments are made and laundered. Criminals are almost exclusively using crypto, or virtual assets and have easy access to virtual asset service providers around the world. Jurisdictions with weak or non-existent AML/CFT controls are therefore of concern.

The report proposes a number of actions that countries can take to more effectively disrupt ransomware-related money laundering. This includes building on and leveraging existing international cooperation mechanisms, given the transnational nature of ransomware attacks and related laundering. Authorities also need to develop the necessary skills and tools to quickly collect key information, trace the nearly instantaneous financial transactions and recover virtual assets before they dissipate. The multi-disciplinary nature of ransomware also means that authorities must extend their collaboration beyond their traditional counterparts to include cyber-security and data protection agencies.

The FATF also finalized a list of potential risk indicators that can help public and private sector entities identify suspicious activities related to ransomware.

Paris: The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) 2023. 54p.

By William P. McClanahan, Daniel S. Nagin, Marco Otte, Peter Wozniak, Jean-Louis van Gelder

A central tenet of the criminal decision-making literature is that perceptions of the environment shape decisions. Yet the underlying mechanisms linking environmental features to perception remain mostly untested. Those that have been tested have relied on methods that are either correlational or have limited generalizability. We aimed to fill this gap by harnessing the power of virtual reality. Using burglary as a case study, incarcerated residential burglars with varying degrees of proficiency (N = 160) explored a virtual neighborhood with houses that differed in features related to the risks and rewards of burglary. In support of our preregistered hypotheses, offenders adjust their perceptions in response to environmental features related to risks and rewards. Moreover, proficiency modifies these perceptions, with more proficient offenders believing they are less likely to get caught and seen and, as a result, more likely to break into a house. We support our statistical findings with rich data from qualitative interviews.

Criminology, Volume 63, Issue 1, February 2025, Pages 155-182

By Martin Thorley

Under the concept of Community of Common Destiny for Mankind, the People’s Republic of China (henceforth referred to as ‘China’) has brought together a suite of initiatives that represent a new international relations framework, through which it aims to reform global governance. These include the Global Security Initiative (GSI), which is the most tangible manifestation of a wider development: China’s evolving engagement in international crime prevention. Framed in a way that encompasses both traditional and non-traditional security, China’s international promotion of the GSI has implications for global crime prevention norms. While China’s capacity to shape these norms should not be overstated, the GSI has already achieved a degree of uptake beyond countries commonly grouped as the ‘West’, including in global pariah states such as Syria. At the same time, analysis that looks predominantly at the impact of the GSI in liberal democratic states, or that considers the parameters most useful in analyzing liberal democratic legal systems, risks overlooking broader shifts in security norms. The GSI and associated Chinese party-state endeavours use familiar terms (for example, ‘rule of law’) in ways that are different from their more commonly understood meanings in the context of the socalled liberal international order. In addition to issues of meaning and language, there are fundamental differences between the GSI and existing norms related to accountability and power that demonstrate vast divergence between the existing order and what is proposed, creating potential hazards for those working on global crime prevention. The characteristics of the GSI are best understood in the context of China’s domestic approach to crime prevention, in which the party-state is vested with vast powers and the law is best seen as a tool utilized by the political elite. This suggests that substantive international cooperation with China on crime prevention would be possible only where it aligns with the interests and principles of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Beginning from the perspective that all proposals with the capacity to shape global crime prevention norms merit scrutiny, this report explores the broader implications of China’s proposals before detailing two case studies that allow for deeper examination of potential risks associated with the approach. By revealing previously unknown networks and relationships, the findings suggest there could be a gap between principle and practice. A pushback by China against cybercrime hubs in South East Asia, for example, includes instances where the party-state appears to demonstrate a high tolerance for organized crime. These cases raise questions about whether the Chinese party-state is prepared to associate with serious criminals when doing so would enable it to further its objectives abroad, for example as part of its cultivation of political elites. The findings of this report, within the context of a growing body of evidence, suggest that use of the term ‘geocriminality’, may be useful in explanation and conceptualization of state-crime nexus phenomena. The term here refers to a state’s use of criminal actors to achieve objectives in target countries, in the same way as the term geoeconomics describes the manipulation of economic tools in target countries to the same ends. This report is intended as an exploratory assessment of this issue and concludes that further research is merited

Geneva, SWIT: Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime. 2024. 35p.

By The United States Government Accountability Office

According to researchers, AI/AN women in the U.S. experience higher rates of violence than most other women, and tribal and federal officials have stated that this incidence of violence constitutes a crisis. Various federal officials and tribal stakeholders have raised concerns about challenges with cross-jurisdictional cooperation and a lack of comprehensive national data on cases. GAO was asked to review the federal response to the missing or murdered AI/AN women crisis. This report examines the extent to which (1) the number of missing or murdered AI/AN women in the U.S. is known and (2) DOJ and DOI have taken steps to address the crisis. GAO reviewed available data on missing persons and violent deaths, relevant reports, and agency documentation, including agency policies and procedures. Using agency data—which were determined to be reliable for location selection— and qualitative factors, GAO selected seven locations to interview federal, state, local, and tribal law enforcement officials; tribal officials; and nongovernmental victim service providers on the federal response to the crisis. What GAO Recommends GAO is making four recommendations, including that DOJ develop a plan for how it will accomplish ongoing analyses of missing or murdered AI/AN women data and that DOJ and DOI both develop plans to implement the requirements in Savanna’s Act and the Not Invisible Act of 2019 that remain unfulfilled past their statutory deadlines. Both agencies concurred with our recommendations.

GAO-22-104045

Washington, DC: U.S. Government Accountability Office, 2021. 68p.

By Randi Hjalmarsson, Stephen Machin, Paolo Pinotti

The economics of crime has emerged as a critical field over the past 30 years, with economists increasingly exploring the causes and consequences of criminal behavior. This paper surveys key contributions and developments from labor economists, who investigate the (often two-way) intersection of crime with labor market factors, such as education, wages, and unemployment. The paper underscores the importance of understanding criminal decision-making in economic analysis through the lens of opportunity costs and labor market conditions. Methodological advancements, particularly those addressing causation, have propelled the field forward, enabling more accurate conclusions to be drawn for policy recommendations. The paper also explores the role of social policies and international contexts, emphasizing the need for evidence-based reforms to effectively reduce crime. This comprehensive review underscores the transformative impact of economics on crime research and its potential to influence real-world policies.

IZA DP No. 17423 Bonn: IZA – Institute of Labor Economics , 2024. 66p.

By David Blake Johnson and Jason Szkola

Existing research examining gun violence often faces criticism because of complications related to gun laws and gun culture. In this manuscript, we argue that these elements change the overall quality of gun owners and this quality has a significant effect on homicide. To demonstrate this, we introduce a measure of gun owner quality independent of local law enforcement and possibly indicative of illegal or dubious transfer of firearms: the time to crime of "exported" crime guns. We find that decreases in the time to crime of exported crime guns increase homicides and gun homicides while also having no effect on non-gun homicides and only a small effect on suicide. We then show how the time to crime of exported crime gun changes as a function of gun culture and gun laws.

Unpublished paper, 2024, 25p.

By Sasha Murray,  Sarah Welland, Madeleine Storry

For victims who have experienced a serious criminal offence in England and Wales, the Crown Court is a vital part of their journey to receive justice. This is where jury trials are conducted to reach a verdict on whether the defendant is guilty of the crime or not. This report comes following a record number of outstanding cases at the Crown Courts in England and Wales. 2 At the end of September 2024, 73,105 cases were outstanding and almost a quarter (23%) of these had been outstanding at the Crown Court for over a year and 8% had been outstanding for over two years. This is a considerable increase since the end of March 2020, when just 7% of cases were outstanding for over a year and 2% of cases were outstanding for over two years. 3 This means an increasing number of victims are waiting extended lengths of time for justice. This report explores how these unprecedented delays in the Crown Court system impact on victims of crime, victims’ services, and the wider criminal justice system. The findings are based on primary research conducted by the Office of the Victims’ Commissioner in 2024, including a survey and interviews with victims and a survey with victim services staff. Based on these findings, the Victims’ Commissioner makes key, actionable recommendations for justice agencies and policy makers to consider. About the research This report aims to: • Understand the experiences of victims of all crime types who are navigating the Crown Court system in England and Wales amidst a record backlog. • Identify the impact of the Crown Court backlog on victims, the criminal justice system and victim services. • Understand victims’ experiences of support and communication whilst navigating the Crown Court backlog. Findings from the research The Crown Court system is experiencing an unprecedented backlog meaning victims commonly face delays and adjournments. • In the latest official statistics, a quarter of trials listed at the Crown Court had to be rearranged on the day of trial. • Further data, provided by HMCTS, showed that the number of completed Crown Court cases that had been rearranged more than three times on the day of trial, was four times higher in 2023/24 than it was in 2019/20. 4 • In our research, we found that of those victims who had been given a trial date, nearly half (48%) had this date changed at some point in their criminal justice journey and 26% of these victims had the date changed four or more times. For  victims often navigating the criminal justice system for the first time, this worsened an already stressful and traumatic process. The delays in the Crown Court cause debilitating stress and trauma for victims. • Our research highlighted how the Crown Court backlog caused immense stress for victims, prompting a deterioration in physical and mental health. Some victims resorted to drug and alcohol use or self-harm to cope, while other victims reported attempting suicide as it was too difficult to continue. • We found that while victims were still involved in the criminal justice process, they were unable to move on and prevented from recovering from the crime. • Additionally, when victims experienced repeated adjournments, the emotional distress and the necessity to re-live the trauma for each additional listing further exacerbated their trauma. The Crown Court backlog damages victims’ lives and futures. • We found that whilst enduring the prolonged waits for Crown Court trials, many victims were unable to maintain their daily functioning. Their lives were subsequently further disrupted by repeated adjournments. • Our findings also highlighted the impact of the Crown Court delays on victims’ employment. Victims often had to take periods of time off work for each trial listing, and some were unable to work or were signed off sick due to the stress of the delays. This had significant financial implications for some victims, particularly those who were self-employed. • The delays also adversely affected younger victims, as it disrupted their education and put their lives on hold during significant periods of their development. Our findings also highlighted the impact on victims’ interpersonal relationships. The turmoil of the Crown Court delays sometimes led to relationship breakdowns, at a time when a victim’s support network was vital. • We also heard how the delays in the Crown Court system impacted on other legal processes. For example, delays to trials concluding caused issues with Family Court proceedings, applications to the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority (CICA) and eviction orders. The effectiveness of the criminal justice system and victims’ confidence in its ability to deliver justice is at risk due to the delays in the Crown Court system. • Our findings highlighted how increased waiting time for trials heightened the risk of victims’ memories fading and therefore, the quality of their evidence diminishing. • The increased waits also meant supportive prosecution witnesses became more likely to withdraw. • In addition, victims’ faith and trust in the criminal justice system was damaged, leading to disengagement from with the criminal justice process and in many cases, an entire withdrawal. • Where victims persevered with the criminal justice process, they often felt justice did not prevail. We were informed of cases where the time taken for the trial to take place meant the defendants’ sentence had already been served, either on remand or through bail conditions. We were also told of instances where the Crown Prosecution Service had dropped charges due to cases no longer being in the public interest and where defendants had died before the trial could take place. • For many victims, their experiences of the Crown Court backlog left them unwilling to engage with the criminal justice system in the future. High-quality support helps victims to stay engaged with the criminal justice process amidst the Crown Court delays, however the delays impede support organisations’ ability to provide this support. • Despite support being vital for their engagement, we found that for some victims, the delays prevented them accessing support. Some rape and sexual offence victims were advised not to seek therapy until after trial. However, the delays in cases coming to court resulted in long periods without support, further delaying their recovery. • We also found that the delays led to an increased demand for support services. This was due to an increased number of victims waiting for court and increased victim support needs due to the impact of the Crown Court delays. Many staff reported unsustainable caseloads and many support services had to implement waiting lists. Many services also raised concerns about the quality and consistency of support provision being compromised as a result of the overwhelming demand. • Our research highlighted the negative impact of the Crown Court backlogs on the wellbeing and job satisfaction of support staff, with some at risk of burnout and leaving their roles. This further exacerbated issues with support accessibility, quality, and consistency. Poor communication compounds the impact of the Crown Court backlog on victims. • Our research highlighted that poor initial expectation management of how long a case can take to get to trial and a lack of communication whilst victims waited for trial worsened victims’ experiences. • We also found that many victims experienced trials being adjourned at very short notice and with minimal or no explanation. This added to the emotional distress they experienced navigating an already challenging process. Key recommendations This report contains 19 recommendations that are grouped into three overarching aims. We have identified a key recommendation for change to help achieve each of these aims: 1. Improve the victim experience of the criminal justice system. o The government to explore how victims whose case is going to trial might be given a single point of contact to improve communication and ensure their Victims’ Code entitlements are delivered. 2. Make court processes more transparent and efficient. o The restoration of an Independent Courts’ Inspectorate so that the operation of the Court Service is subject to rigorous independent scrutiny. 3. Ensure victim services can provide support to victims as they wait for the case to get to trial. o Providing emergency funding to victim support services to help them cope with increased caseloads arising from the court backlog crisis.  

London: Victims Commissioner, 2025. 73p.

By Jamie MacColl, James Sullivan, Jason R C Nurse, Sarah Turner, Gareth Mott, Edward Cartwright and Anna Cartwright  

The cyber insurance industry has been heavily criticised for providing coverage for ransom payments. A frequent accusation, which has become close to perceived wisdom in policymaking and cyber security discussions on ransomware, is that cyber insurance has incentivised victims to pay a ransom following a cyber incident, rather than seek alternative remediation options. Over a 12-month research project, researchers from RUSI, the University of Kent, De Montfort University and Oxford Brookes University conducted a series of expert interviews and workshops to explore the relationship between cyber insurance and ransomware in depth. This paper argues that there is, in fact, no compelling evidence that victims with cyber insurance are much more likely to pay ransoms than those without. Ransomware remains one of the most persistent cyber threats facing the UK. Despite a range of government, law enforcement and even military cyber unit initiatives, ransomware remains lucrative for criminals. During this research, we identified three main drivers that ensure its continued success: 1. A profitable business model that continues to find innovative ways to extort victims. 2. Challenges around securing organisations of all sizes. 3. The low costs and risks for cybercriminals involved in the ransomware ecosystem, both in terms of the barriers to entry and the prospect of punishment. Despite this perfect storm of factors, the cyber insurance industry has been singled out for criticism with the claim that it is funding organised cybercrime by covering ransom payments. In reality, cyber insurance’s influence on victim decision-making is considerably more nuanced than the public debate has captured so far. While there is evidence that cyber insurance policies exfiltrated during attacks are used as leverage in negotiations and to set higher ransom demands, the conclusion that ransomware operators are deliberately targeting organisations with insurance has been overstated. However, the insurance industry could do much more to instil discipline in both insureds and the ransomware response ecosystem in relation to ransom payments to reduce cybercriminals’ profits. Insurers’ role as convenors of incident response services gives them considerable power to reward firms that drive best practices and only guide victims towards payment as a last resort. But the lack of clearly defined negotiation protocols and the challenges around learning from incidents make it difficult to develop a sense of collective responsibility and shared best  practices around ransomware response. This has not been helped by the UK government’s black-and-white position on ransom payments, which has created a vacuum of assurance and advice on best practices for ransom negotiations and payments. This paper does not advocate for an outright ban on ransom payments or for stopping insurers from providing coverage for them. Instead, it makes the case for interventions that would improve market-wide ransom discipline so that fewer victims pay ransoms, or pay lower demands. Ultimately, this involves creating more pathways for victims that do not result in ransom payments. Beyond ransom payments, cyber insurance has a growing role in raising cyber security standards, which could make it more difficult to successfully compromise victims and increase costs for ransomware operators. Successive years of losses from ransomware have led to more stringent security requirements and risk selection by underwriters. Although the overall effect of this on the frequency and severity of ransomware attacks remains to be seen, by linking improvements in security practices to coverage, cyber insurance is currently one of the few market-based levers for incentivising organisations to implement security controls and resilience measures. However, continued challenges around collecting and assessing reliable cyber risk and forensic claims data continue to place limits on the market’s effectiveness as a mechanism for reducing ransomware risk. This, along with cyber insurance’s low market penetration, makes clear that cyber insurance should not be treated as a substitute for the legislation and regulation required to improve minimum cyber security standards and resilience. Insurers are also commercial entities that primarily exist to help organisations transfer risk, rather than to improve national security and societal cyber resilience. The cyber insurance industry could be a valuable partner for the UK government through increased ransomware attack and payment reporting, sharing aggregated claims data, and distributing National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) guidance and intelligence to organisations. However, the government has not made a compelling enough case to insurers and insureds about the benefits of doing so. Instead, it has relied on appealing to their general sense of altruism. While insurers will benefit if governments are able to generate more accurate and actionable data on ransomware, albeit indirectly, this needs to be sold to the industry in a more convincing way. Some principles and recommendations for both the insurance industry and the UK government are listed below. These are not designed to solve all the challenges of the cyber insurance market, nor do they present wide-ranging solutions to the ransomware challenge. Instead, they focus on where the cyber insurance industry can have the most impact on key ransomware drivers. This reflects the fact that disrupting the ransomware economy involves applying pressure from different angles in a whole-of-society approach. The recommendations also start from the position that the UK government’s light-touch approach is unsustainable and requires more intervention in private markets that are involved in ransomware prevention and response. While they are specifically aimed at UK policymakers, regulators and insurers, they may be applicable to other national contexts     

London: Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies, 2023.  84p.