bby Bernard Hollander (Author), Graeme Newman (Introduction)

Why do people do what they know is wrong—and how much responsibility should they bear for their actions?

First published in 1922, Bernard Hollander’s The Psychology of Misconduct, Vice, and Crime: A Study of Conduct, Responsibility, and Moral Failing is a fascinating early attempt to understand wrongdoing through psychology rather than through moral condemnation alone. Drawing on twenty-five years of medical practice with patients suffering from nervous and mental disorders, Hollander examines the impulses, habits, emotions, circumstances, and failures of self-control that can lead ordinary people toward destructive or criminal behavior.

Moving across the emerging fields of psychology, psychiatry, and criminology, Hollander asks questions that remain strikingly familiar today. How do heredity and environment shape conduct? Why can one person resist temptation while another cannot? What roles do opportunity, habit, intoxication, anger, fear, acquisitiveness, and sexual desire play in misconduct? And at what point should psychological impairment affect our judgment of moral and legal responsibility?

Across twelve wide-ranging chapters, Hollander investigates the psychological foundations and causes of misconduct before turning to alcohol and drug habits, aggression and violence, suspicion and deceit, theft and crimes for gain, fear of consequences, sexual conduct, egotism and domination, moral weakness, responsibility, and treatment.

Of particular interest to readers of criminology is Hollander’s rejection of simplistic explanations based entirely upon free will. He sees behavior as emerging from the interaction of predisposition, upbringing, social environment, opportunity, competing motives, and the individual’s capacity for inhibition and self-control. His treatment of professional offenders also distinguishes calculated criminality from impulsive or psychologically troubled misconduct—an early recognition that there is no single psychological type called “the criminal.”

Hollander’s science is unmistakably that of his era. Some of his terminology, assumptions about heredity and mental deficiency, views of sexuality, and continuing interest in phrenology have long since been rejected or superseded. Yet this is precisely what makes the book valuable as a historical document: it captures a formative period when psychology, psychiatry, medicine, and criminology were struggling to replace simple categories of vice and wickedness with explanations based on individual differences and the causes of human behavior.

At the same time, Hollander frequently argues against indiscriminate punishment. He considers upbringing, poverty, physical and mental condition, temptation, and circumstance; questions whether fear and punishment genuinely reform offenders; and advocates individualized treatment rather than a single remedy for every form of misconduct.

This 2026 Read-Me.Org Classic Reprint, designed and edited with a new introduction by Graeme R. Newman, preserves Hollander’s historical arguments and period terminology while correcting obvious OCR and typographical defects, regularizing punctuation, and converting spelling to contemporary American English.

More than a century after its first appearance, The Psychology of Misconduct, Vice, and Crime offers historians, criminologists, psychologists, criminal-justice students, and general readers a provocative window into the origins of modern thinking about crime, deviance, self-control, treatment, and human responsibility.

Read-Me.Org Inc. New York-Philadelphia-Australia. 2026. 153p.

by Col. V. M. Masten (Author), Graeme Newman (Introduction)

What did Americans believe caused crime a century ago—and what did they think should be done about it?

First published in 1921, Stop Thief is a forceful and revealing examination of crime, punishment, policing, prisons, and social disorder in Progressive-Era America. Written by Col. V. M. Masten, the book captures a nation deeply concerned about rising crime and fiercely debating whether criminals should be deterred, punished, rehabilitated, or reformed.

Across eight wide-ranging chapters, Masten addresses immigration and crime, criminal influence and “crime by suggestion,” the courts and judges, prison reform, correctional regimes, professional sport and gambling, and proposals for improving probation, sentencing, and prison administration.

Masten is an uncompromising writer. He challenges the growing rehabilitative philosophy of his period and argues instead for discipline, deterrence, personal responsibility, and the vigorous enforcement of law. Yet some of his observations—particularly his concern with gambling, criminal association, and the ways people learn criminal behavior from others—anticipate debates that remain remarkably current.

At the same time, Stop Thief is very much a document of 1921 America. Its discussions of immigration, race, heredity, and social fitness contain prejudices and pseudo-scientific assumptions characteristic of parts of Progressive-Era criminological writing. This edition preserves that language rather than disguising or rewriting it, allowing the book to be read critically as an important historical source.

This new Read-Me.Org edition reproduces the complete original text, corrected for scanning and transcription errors, and includes a new introduction by criminologist Graeme R. Newman, placing Masten and his arguments within the history of American crime, criminal justice, immigration, and penal reform.

Essential reading for students and readers interested in criminology, criminal justice, American social history, policing, prisons, immigration history, and the Progressive Era, Stop Thief offers something more valuable than a modernized account of the past: it allows us to encounter the American debate over crime as it was actually being conducted more than a century ago.

Read-Me.Org Inc. New York-Philadelphia-Australia. 2026. 189p.

by Graeme R. Newman

In 1862, Henry Mayhew and John Binny walked into eleven of London's most notorious institutions — Newgate, Millbank, Pentonville, Brixton, the prison hulks at Woolwich, Coldbath Fields, Tothill Fields, Wandsworth, Holloway, the House of Detention at Clerkenwell, and Horsemonger Lane — and wrote down exactly what they saw: the governors, the warders, the chaplains, and the prisoners themselves, in their own words.

This edition brings that record back to life. Each chapter has been fully rewritten in modern prose while preserving every fact, every interview, and every argument the original authors made — from their case against purposeless hard labour to their unflinching accounts of the convict nursery, the condemned cell, and the boy discharged from prison with no one waiting at the gate.

A new introduction and retrospective, written for this edition, follows these institutions into the present: which ones were demolished, which became galleries, cathedrals, and post offices — and which are still open today, cited in current inspection reports for the very same overcrowding and neglect that Victorian reformers were fighting a century and a half ago.

What you'll find inside: • Eleven Victorian prisons, reconstructed room by room, cell by cell • Real testimony from governors, chaplains, and prisoners — first offenders and lifelong professionals alike • A frank, often moving record of Victorian London's poorest and most desperate • A new historical retrospective connecting each institution to its fate today

Part social history, part true crime, part uncomfortable mirror — London Prisons: A Retrospective is a door-by-door tour of a city's conscience, then and now.

Read-Me.Org Inc. New York-Philadelphia-Australia. 2026. p.339.

by Nettly Lucas (Author), Graeme Newman (Introduction)

Step into the hidden London of the 1920s—a city of fashionable hotels and crowded streets, respectable suburbs and shadowy back rooms, Scotland Yard detectives and professional criminals who made deception, burglary, fraud and blackmail their trade.

First published in 1926, London and Its Criminals is Netley Lucas’s remarkable journey through the criminal underworld of interwar London. Rather than simply recounting celebrated crimes, Lucas sets out to describe criminals themselves: how they lived, where they gathered, the methods they used, the slang they spoke, and the elaborate machinery of policing that pursued them.

The result is an extraordinary period portrait of crime and criminal justice.

Lucas takes his readers inside Scotland Yard and its Criminal Record Office, explaining the growing importance of fingerprints, criminal records and systematic detection. From there he ventures into a very different London—the world of professional burglars, pickpockets, confidence tricksters, jewel thieves, forgers, blackmailers and criminal gangs. He introduces his readers to figures he describes as the “Kings” and “Queens” of the Underworld: men and women who move between cheap public houses, prosperous suburban homes, exclusive restaurants and fashionable hotels while living secret criminal lives.

Among the book’s most striking chapters are Lucas’s accounts of “master criminals” and “crooked women.” His characters include expert burglars, ingenious forgers, sophisticated jewel thieves and accomplished confidence tricksters. Some are frightening, some ingenious, some surprisingly ordinary. Again and again Lucas emphasizes the unsettling proximity of the criminal world to respectable society.

Yet London and Its Criminals is more than a gallery of rogues. Lucas was writing at a moment when attitudes toward crime and punishment were beginning to change. He opens the book by discussing the emerging scientific study of crime, criminal psychology, rehabilitation and the limitations of imprisonment—questions that remain central to debates about criminal justice a century later.

Lucas is also an unusually provocative guide. He claims familiarity with criminals themselves and repeatedly describes conversations, meals and encounters with people operating on the wrong side of the law. His London is consequently not the London of official police reports alone. It is a city observed from its restaurants, streets, clubs, pubs, courtrooms and criminal meeting places.

Modern readers should approach some of Lucas’s language, assumptions and sweeping judgments as products of their time. That is also part of the historical importance of the book. It provides a vivid primary-source window into how crime, policing, punishment, class and the urban underworld were represented during the 1920s.

This new Read-Me.Org Classic Reprint presents Lucas’s fascinating account to a new generation of readers, accompanied by a detailed new Introduction by Graeme Newman that places the work in its historical and criminological context.

For readers interested in true crime, criminology, Scotland Yard, policing, criminal history, London history, organized crime and the social history of the 1920s, London and Its Criminals offers a fascinating journey into a vanished—but sometimes surprisingly familiar—criminal world

Read-Me.Org Inc. New York-Philadelphia-Australia. 2026. p.194.

A Forgotten Classic of Criminological Thought—Reintroduced for the Twenty-First Century

Originally published in 1918 and now carefully edited and introduced by Graeme R. Newman, The Criminology of Crime and Criminals: Medical, Biological and Psychological restores Charles Mercier’s groundbreaking exploration of crime, punishment, criminal behavior, and social order.

Long before modern criminology embraced concepts such as situational crime prevention, environmental opportunity, offender decision-making, and restorative justice, Mercier argued that crime cannot be explained by biology, psychology, or environment alone. Instead, criminal behavior emerges from the interaction between human nature and circumstance, between personal disposition and criminal opportunity.

Rejecting the popular theories of his day, Mercier challenges the notion of the “born criminal” and dismisses simplistic environmental explanations of lawbreaking. His provocative and highly original analysis examines:

• The psychological foundations of criminal conduct

• The roles of instinct, reason, desire, self-control, and will

• How opportunity and temptation shape criminal action

• The classification of crimes and criminals

• The relationship between crime, morality, and society

• The purposes of punishment: deterrence, retaliation, reform, and reparation

• The prevention, detection, and punishment of crime

Mercier’s central insight—that criminals are not a separate species but ordinary human beings responding differently to circumstances—remains strikingly relevant more than a century later.

Graeme R. Newman’s contemporary introduction places Mercier within the broader history of criminological thought and connects his ideas to modern developments in crime prevention and criminal justice. Together, Mercier and Newman illuminate enduring questions that continue to shape public policy and scholarly debate:

Why do people commit crimes? How should society respond? Is prevention more effective than punishment?

Part intellectual history, part criminological theory, and part social philosophy, this edition offers a fascinating window into the origins of modern criminology and the continuing struggle to understand crime and criminals.

Essential reading for students and scholars of criminology, criminal justice, sociology, psychology, legal history, and anyone interested in the causes of crime and the future of punishment.

Read-Me.Org Inc. New York-Philadelphia-Australia. 2026. 195p.

by Graeme Newman (Editor), Charles Mercier (Author)

Why do people commit crime? When does mental illness diminish responsibility? Should punishment always follow wrongdoing?

More than a century before modern debates about criminal responsibility, forensic psychiatry, and the treatment of mentally ill offenders, the distinguished British physician Charles Mercier confronted these enduring questions with remarkable clarity and originality.

In Crime, Insanity and Affliction, Mercier explores the complex relationship between criminal behaviour, mental disorder, and human suffering. Rejecting simplistic explanations, he argues that crime cannot be understood apart from the biological, psychological, and social forces that shape human conduct. His examination ranges from drunkenness, epilepsy, intellectual disability, and mental illness to questions of moral responsibility, punishment, and the proper role of the criminal law.

Although written in the early twentieth century, many of Mercier's observations anticipate debates that continue today. His discussion of diminished responsibility, the treatment of mentally ill offenders, addiction, and the limits of punishment remains surprisingly relevant in an era still struggling to balance justice, compassion, and public safety.

This new Read-Me edition presents Mercier's influential work with a new editorial introduction that places his ideas within the development of modern criminology, forensic psychiatry, and criminal justice. It also examines where Mercier's conclusions have been confirmed, where later research has challenged them, and why his work continues to deserve the attention of students, scholars, and general readers alike.

More than a historical curiosity, Crime, Insanity and Affliction is a thoughtful exploration of one of society's oldest and most difficult questions: how should we judge those whose minds, circumstances, or afflictions place them beyond the ordinary boundaries of responsibility?

Read-Me.Org Inc. New York-Philadelphia-Australia. 2026. 182p.

A Forgotten Classic of Criminological Thought—Reintroduced for the Twenty-First Century

Originally published in 1918 and now carefully edited and introduced by Graeme R. Newman, The Criminology of Crime and Criminals: Medical, Biological and Psychological restores Charles Mercier’s groundbreaking exploration of crime, punishment, criminal behavior, and social order.

Long before modern criminology embraced concepts such as situational crime prevention, environmental opportunity, offender decision-making, and restorative justice, Mercier argued that crime cannot be explained by biology, psychology, or environment alone. Instead, criminal behavior emerges from the interaction between human nature and circumstance, between personal disposition and criminal opportunity.

Rejecting the popular theories of his day, Mercier challenges the notion of the “born criminal” and dismisses simplistic environmental explanations of lawbreaking. His provocative and highly original analysis examines:

• The psychological foundations of criminal conduct

• The roles of instinct, reason, desire, self-control, and will

• How opportunity and temptation shape criminal action

• The classification of crimes and criminals

• The relationship between crime, morality, and society

• The purposes of punishment: deterrence, retaliation, reform, and reparation

• The prevention, detection, and punishment of crime

Mercier’s central insight—that criminals are not a separate species but ordinary human beings responding differently to circumstances—remains strikingly relevant more than a century later.

Graeme R. Newman’s contemporary introduction places Mercier within the broader history of criminological thought and connects his ideas to modern developments in crime prevention and criminal justice. Together, Mercier and Newman illuminate enduring questions that continue to shape public policy and scholarly debate:

Why do people commit crimes? How should society respond? Is prevention more effective than punishment?

Part intellectual history, part criminological theory, and part social philosophy, this edition offers a fascinating window into the origins of modern criminology and the continuing struggle to understand crime and criminals.

Essential reading for students and scholars of criminology, criminal justice, sociology, psychology, legal history, and anyone interested in the causes of crime and the future of punishment.

Read-Me.Org Inc. New York-Philadelphia-Australia. 2026. 195p.

The book that criminology forgot — and urgently needs to remember.
Arthur M<ercier (Author). Graeme Newman (Editor and Introduction).

First published in 1918 by the University of London Press, Charles Arthur Mercier's Conduct and Its Disorders, Biologically Considered, published by Macmillan in 1911 is one of the most rigorous, most readable, and most unjustly neglected works in the history of criminological thought. Now reissued as The Biology of Conduct Disorders, with a major critical introduction by Graeme R. Newman, it arrives at a moment when the questions it raises — about criminal intent, biological disposition, the limits of punishment, and the poverty of criminological theory — are more pressing than ever.
Mercier was no armchair theorist. As medical officer of lunatic asylums, consulting physician at criminal trials, and the only systematic student of conduct as a science, he brought to the study of crime a combination of clinical experience and biological rigour that the field had not seen before and has rarely matched since. His target was the prevailing chaos of criminological thought — above all the Continental school of Lombroso, which he dismantled with surgical precision — and his method was the application of praxiology, his own science of conduct, to the specific problem of criminal action.

What Mercier argued — and why it still matters:

• Every criminal act is the product of two factors: an internal factor (the biological constitution of the offender) and an external factor (circumstance and opportunity). Ignoring either produces not criminology but ideology.

• The turpitude of the criminal and the gravity of the crime are entirely separate questions — and confusing them has produced centuries of unjust punishment.

• Punishment should be calibrated to intention, not outcome: the man who intends murder and fails is more culpable than the man who kills by accident, whatever the body count.

• Statistical criminology — mass data gathered from convicted prisoners — cannot produce a science of crime. Only the study of individual criminal action, grounded in biology, psychology, and jurisprudence together, can do that.

• Certain acts currently outside the law (stealing the use of a thing; deliberate breach of contract) deserve criminal status; certain acts currently criminalised do not.

This new edition includes a critical introduction by Graeme R. Newman, Distinguished Professor Emeritus at the School of Criminal Justice, University at Albany, and one of the most provocative and original voices in the study of crime, deviance, and punishment. Author of Comparative Deviance: Perception and Law in Six Cultures, The Punishment Response, Just and Painful: A Case for the Corporal Punishment of Criminals, and Civilization and Barbarism: Punishing Criminals in the Twenty-First Century — and, as Colin Heston, of darkly satirical fiction including The Tommie Felon Show, Miscarriages, and Holy Water — Newman brings a unique authority to this text. Writing with the unflinching directness that earned him national television appearances and a reputation as the most uncomfortable conscience in American criminology, he traces the connections between Mercier's 1918 arguments and the debates that have defined — and divided — the field ever since.
"With the exception of logic, there is no subject on which so much nonsense has been written as this of criminality and the criminal." — Charles Arthur Mercier, 1918
Essential reading for students and scholars of criminology, criminal justice, the history of psychiatry, legal theory, and the philosophy of punishment — and for anyone who has ever wondered why, after two centuries of criminal science, we understand so little about why people commit crimes and what we should do about it.

Read-Me.Org Inc. New York-Philadelphia-Australia. 2026. 208p.

By Victoria Nagy

Records from the Central Register of Female Prisoners permit a longitudinal analysis of ninety-five women convicted of murder and manslaughter in Victoria between 1860 and 1920. The data show the similarities and differences between the women convicted of these homicide offenses. An examination of the women’s socioeconomic profiles, occupations, ages, migrations, and victims reveals the links between their crimes and their punishment.

By Terra Wiens  

  KEY FINDINGS AND RECOMMENDATIONS KEY FINDINGS ■ In 2023, more than 5,700 Hispanics were killed by guns. That year, 3,284 Hispanics died in gun homicides, 2,198 died in gun suicides, 63 died in unintentional shootings, and 202 died in other circumstances (including legal interventiona and undetermined intent). ■ More than 83,000 Hispanics were killed by guns between 2002 and 2023. During this period, 51,780 Hispanics died in gun homicides, 27,160 died in gun suicides, and 1,220 died in unintentional shootings. ■ Most Hispanic murder victims are killed with guns. In 2023, guns were used in more than three-quarters of the homicides where the victims were Hispanic. The latest data show that for homicides where the victim was Hispanic and a gun was used, 53.0 percent of these shootings involved a handgun. ■ The homicide victimization rate for Hispanics in the United States is higher than the homicide victimization rate for whites. The Hispanic homicide victimization rate in 2023 was 6.3 per 100,000. In comparison, the homicide victimization rate for whites was 2.9 per 100,000. ■ As a result of the limitations in current data collection, the total number of Hispanic victims is almost certainly higher than the reported numbers suggest. Government agencies often report data on race but not on ethnic origin. Recognizing the changing demographic landscape in the United States, it is clear that fully documenting such victimization is a crucial step in preventing it. RECOMMENDATIONS Governmental agencies that collect data on death and injury should obtain complete information on the ethnic origin of individuals in addition to their race. This will ensure complete and accurate data collection on Hispanic victims of lethal violence. ■ Individual-level ethnic origin information should be captured by all governmental agencies, regardless of department, and at all levels — local, state, and national — for all pertinent users and subjects of agency services. ■ Individual-level ethnic origin information should be self-reported and not based solely on a person’s surname or other measure. ■ All public access data and published reports issued by governmental agencies should include information on ethnic origin in addition to race. ■ The U.S. Department of Justice should issue periodic or special reports on Hispanic victimization. ■ States with a substantial proportion of Hispanic residents should issue periodic or special reports on Hispanic victimization and deaths due to all causes, including violence. Improved data collection is essential to fully understanding the scope of lethal firearms violence against Hispanics and helping develop effective measures to reduce such violence. At the same time additional efforts, both supporting current programs and activities as well as identifying new violence-reduction opportunities and approaches, should include the following: ■ Support for community-based violence intervention programs that are holistic and encourage participation by all stakeholders. ■ Educational efforts to better inform Hispanics of the risks associated with bringing a firearm into the home as measured by increased risk for homicide, suicide, and unintentional firearm deaths compared to how rarely guns are used in justifiable homicides. This is especially important in the face of current coordinated efforts by the gun industry targeting Hispanics as potential first-time gun buyers.b ■ Improved access to resources for victims and survivors of domestic violence. ■ Identification of anti-trafficking measures that could help interrupt the flow of illegal firearms into impacted communities   

By Juan Albarracín, Juan Corredor-Garcia, Juan Pablo Milanese, Inge H. Valencia & Jonas Wolff

Violence in post-conflict settings is often attributed to a post-war boom in organized crime, facilitated by the demobilization of armed groups and the persisting weakness of the state. The article argues that this is only one pathway of post-conflict violence. A second causal pathway emerges from the challenges that peace processes can constitute for entrenched local political orders. By fostering political inclusion, the implementation of peace agreements may threaten subnational political elites that have used the context of armed conflict to ally with armed non-state actors. Violence is then used as a means to preserve such de facto authoritarian local orders. We start from the assumption that these two explanations are not exclusive or competing, but grasp different causal processes that may well both be at work behind the assassination of social leaders (líderes sociales) in Colombia since the 2016 peace agreement with the FARC guerrilla. We argue that this specific type of targeted violence can, in fact, be attributed to different, locally specific configurations that resemble the two pathways. The article combines fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis with the case studies of the municipalities

By David C. Pyrooz,  James A. Densley, Jillian K. Peterson

INTRODUCTION Mass shootings, defined as incidents where 4 or more people are shot with a firearm, have become a significant public health concern in the US.

OBJECTIVE To estimate the prevalence of direct exposure to mass shootings among US adults and identify the sociodemographic groups most affected.

DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS A survey was administered in January 2024 to a sample of 10 000 respondents (18 years or older) designed to be representative of US adults using a multistage matched sampling design. In addition to exposure to mass shootings, the survey also collected sociodemographic information, including age, gender, self-reported race and ethnicity, and socioeconomic status.

EXPOSURE Survey respondents were asked about their lifetime presence at the scene of a mass shooting, any physical injuries sustained (including being shot or trampled or experiencing a related physical injury), and the features of such incidents.

MAIN OUTCOME AND MEASURES Multivariable logistic regression was used to generate adjusted odds ratios (AORs) of the associations between sociodemographic measures and being present on the scene of and injured in a mass shooting. All analyses undertaken to generate population and relational inferences were weighted to achieve representativeness of US adults.

RESULTS Of the 10 000 respondents included in the analysis, 51.34% (95% CI, 50.27%-52.40%) were female. In terms of race and ethnicity, 3.04% (95% CI, 2.71%-3.38%) were Asian, 12.46% (95% CI, 11.81%-13.12%) were Black, 16.04% (95% CI, 15.10%-16.98%) were Hispanic, 62.78% (95% CI, 61.73%-63.84%) were White, and 5.67% (95% CI, 5.23%-6.11%) were other race or ethnicity. The findings indicated that 6.95% (95% CI, 6.39%-7.50%) of respondents were present at the scene of a mass shooting, and 2.18% (95% CI, 1.85%-2.50%) sustained physical injuries, such as being shot or trampled, during such incidents. A total of 54.89% of mass shootings to which respondents were exposed occurred in 2015 or more recently, and 76.15% took place in respondents’ local communities. Mass shootings were most likely to occur in neighborhoods. Younger individuals (eg, AOR for Baby Boomer and Silent generations vs Generation Z, 0.12; 95% CI, 0.09-0.18) and males (AOR, 1.55; 95% CI, 1.29-1.85) were more likely to report exposure compared with those from older generations or female individuals, respectively. Black respondents reported higher rates of being present at mass shootings (AOR, 1.87; 95% CI, 1.49-2.34), while Asian respondents reported lower rates (AOR, 0.36; 95% CI, 0.19-0.66), compared with White respondents, but there were no racial and ethnic differences in injuries sustained. CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE The findings from this survey study of US adults underscore the extensive and often overlooked regular exposure to mass shootings in this country. The demographic disparities in exposure highlight the need for targeted interventions and support for the most affected groups, particularly younger generations and males. Understanding these patterns is essential for addressing the broader impacts of gun violence on public health and community well-being. 

By Kaitlin Forsberg, Kameron J Sheats, Janet M Blair, Brenda L Nguyen, Esther Amoakohene, Carter J Betz, Bridget H Lyons

Problem/Condition: In 2022, approximately 24,000 persons died of homicide and approximately 49,000 persons died of suicide in the United States, according to the National Vital Statistics System. This report summarizes data from CDC’s National Violent Death Reporting System (NVDRS) on suicides, homicides, legal intervention deaths, unintentional firearm injury deaths, and deaths of undetermined intent that occurred in the 50 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico in 2022. Results are reported by sex, age group, race and ethnicity, method of injury, type of location where the injury occurred, circumstances of injury, and other selected characteristics. In contrast to the 2021 NVDRS report, which collected data from a subset of states and included suicide data for persons aged ≥10 years, this report includes data from all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico, and includes suicide data for all ages.

Period Covered: 2022.

Description of System: NVDRS collects data from death certificates, coroner and medical examiner reports, and law enforcement reports. This report includes data collected for violent deaths and suicides that occurred in 2022. Data were collected from all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico. A total of 47 states had statewide data, three states had data from counties representing a subset of their population (32 California counties, representing 68% of its population; 32 Florida counties, representing 70% of its population; and 13 Texas counties, representing 63% of its population), and the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico had jurisdiction-wide data. NVDRS collates information for each death and links deaths that are related (e.g., multiple homicides, homicide followed by suicide, or multiple suicides) into a single incident.

Results: For 2022, NVDRS collected information on 72,127 fatal incidents involving 74,148 deaths that occurred in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. In addition, data were collected for 727 fatal incidents involving 809 deaths in Puerto Rico, which were analyzed separately. Of the 74,148 deaths that occurred in 50 states and the District of Columbia, the majority (60.6%) were suicides, followed by homicides (30.2%), deaths of undetermined intent (7.1%), legal intervention deaths (1.4%) (i.e., deaths caused by law enforcement and other persons with legal authority to use deadly force acting in the line of duty, excluding legal executions, without denoting the lawfulness or legality of the circumstances surrounding the death), and unintentional firearm injury deaths (<1.0%). Of the 809 deaths that occurred in Puerto Rico, 73.9% were homicides and 23.5% were suicides.

By: Naoka Carey, Rebekah Levine Coley

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

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

By John J. Donohue

Substantial evidence has documented a powerful “instrumentality†effect: the more lethal the weaponry employed, the greater the likelihood that death will result from any given assault. This finding provides the foundation for the subsequent findings that a variety of measures that restrict the prevalence or limit the permissible types of lethal weaponry can lower the costs of gun violence. The literature has advanced to the point that there is a sufficient empirical basis to call for the elimination of right-to-carry laws, to reestablish bans on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, to maintain restrictions on youthful access to guns, and to repeal stand-your-ground laws. The Supreme Court’s recent decision expanding the scope of the Second Amendment in New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen shows a concerning disinterest in the importance of these empirical findings.

By University of Chicago, Crime Lab

New insights from the field of behavioral science open new doors for addressing a seemingly intractable, and uniquely American, public health crisis: gun violence. This brief presents results from a study of the Chicago-based Choose to Change® (C2C®) program, a partnership between non-profits Brightpoint and Youth Advocate Programs, Inc. (YAP)™. The data show that it is possible to create large and lasting reductions in violent-crime arrests among a program population that has historically been hard to reach: youth who are increasingly disconnected from school. If gun violence = guns + violence, then anything that reduces the prevalence of violence overall can be an important part of the solution to solving gun violence.  

By Nathan P. Jones and John P. Sullivan

Criminal cartels and gangs dominate the illicit economy in Mexico. These organized crime groups challenge the solvency (specifically capacity and legitimacy) of the state in Mexico. Organized crime in Mexico is involved in a range of activities including extortion, drug trafficking, human trafficking, and petroleum theft. Criminal cartels, often called drug trafficking organizations, have diversified into other illicit activities specifically petroleum theft. This paper provides an overview of the rise of a specialized organized criminal entity: huachicoleros. Huachicoleros specialize in fuel theft and like their narco counterparts use corruption and violence to protect their illicit market. The rise of Cártel de Santa Rosa Lima (CSRL) is discussed as a salient case study. The volatile mix of corruption, violence, and economic instability will be assessed, and government and national oil company (PEMEX) response is discussed

By Omar García-Ponce 

Organized criminal groups (OCGs), ranging from local gangs to powerful drug cartels that operate across national boundaries, represent the single most important security threat in Mexico and Central America. A growing body of research in political science and other disciplines has examined the political and socioeconomic roots of these organizations, as well as the mechanisms underlying the production of organized criminal violence. The unprecedented wave of organized criminal violence that has been affecting the region in recent years can be traced back to political transformations and policy changes that disrupted the social and political order at the local level, redefining the organization of illicit markets, and undermining the rule of law. On these issues there is a particularly rich literature that focuses on understanding the outbreak of violence and criminal rivalry in Mexico. Several studies have emphasized the role of state-criminal group relationships as a key factor to understand the challenges that organized crime poses in terms of peacebuilding and democratic rule. Within this framework, the existing literature has identified various forms of criminal governance prevalent in Mexico and Central America, and shed light on how communities respond to crime and violence in contexts of low state capacity. Some of these responses include social mobilization, vigilantism, and support for extralegal violence. The use of violence by OCGs in electoral contexts has also received particular attention in the literature, since they often target candidates or intimidate voters, affecting political preferences and patterns of political participation. Finally, a series of studies has rigorously investigated the impact of organized criminal violence on a number of outcomes, including political attitudes and behavior, trust in institutions, and health and education, among others.

By Omar García-Ponce

The study of criminal violence has received increasing attention in political science over the past 15 years, as organized criminal groups have grown and diversified worldwide, unleashing unprecedented waves of violence. This article presents a critical assessment of the current state of political science scholarship on criminal violence. It discusses the sources and dynamics of organized criminal violence, emphasizing the reconceptualization of state–criminal group relationships in the literature, shifts in illegal markets, and the political incentives fueling criminal wars. It also examines how states and societies respond to criminal violence. State responses include punitive approaches, institutional reform, and community-based interventions, while societal responses can be examined through the lenses of exit (e.g., migration, disengagement), voice (e.g., political participation, collective resistance), and loyalty (i.e., compliance with state authorities or criminal groups). The article also addresses conceptual and methodological challenges, policy implications, and ethical considerations inherent in this field of study and identifies promising pathways for future research.

By David Spencer

London is in the grip of a crime wave of robbery, knife crime and theft. Police chiefs have prioritised other issues while allowing the streets to be surrendered to criminals and thugs. Political leaders have sacrificed effective policing to ideological preferences. Bodies such as the Independent Office for Police Conduct have shown themselves only too willing to criticise and pursue police officers doing their best to enforce the law. Given this confluence it should be no surprise that knife crime, robbery and “theft person” offences have rocketed in recent years. This report examines what has gone wrong – and importantly, what the police and government must do now to stem the tide. Chapter 1 examines the rates of knife crime, robbery and theft person offences both nationally and in London. We show that knife crime in England and Wales has risen sharply over the past decade, increasing by 78% since 2013/14, with 50,510 offences recorded in 2023/24. Even accounting for population growth, this represents a 68.3% rise over the last decade. London accounts for a disproportionate share of knife crime offences, representing 32.1% of all knife crime and 45.9% of knife-point robberies in England, compared to only 15.5% of the population. Within the capital, knife crime is highly concentrated: 4% of neighbourhoods accounted for nearly a quarter of offences and 15% accounted for half of offences in 2024. One small geographic area – consisting of around 20 streets around Oxford Circus and Regent Street in the City of Westminster – recorded more knife crime offences than the 716 (or 14.35%) least-affected of London’s 4,988 LSOAs combined. Most knife crime in London involves robbery, with mobile phones the most common target. In 2024, 61.6% of knife crime offences were robberies. Combined robbery and theft person offences led to over 81,000 mobile phone thefts in the capital last year. There are clear insights which can guide the law enforcement and policy response. Within London: knife crime offending is highly geographically concentrated, a significant majority of knife crime offences are robberies, and mobile phones are one of the items most commonly targeted by robbers and thieves. Chapter 2 examines how effective, or otherwise, the Metropolitan Police is at catching robbers, knife crime offenders and thieves alongside the criminal courts approach to sentencing for those who are prosecuted and convicted. The proportion of criminals caught by the Metropolitan Police is pitiful – with only 1 in 20 robberies and 1 in 170 theft person offences solved in 2024. Even for those few who are caught the proportion of offenders being sentenced to immediate cusLondon is in the grip of a crimewave of robbery, knife crime and theft. Police chiefs have prioritised other issues while allowing the streets to be surrendered to criminals and thugs. Political leaders have sacrificed effective policing to ideological preferences. Bodies such as the Independent Office for Police Conduct have shown themselves only too willing to criticise and pursue police officers doing their best to enforce the law. Given this confluence it should be no surprise that knife crime, robbery and “theft person” offences have rocketed in recent years. This report examines what has gone wrong – and importantly, what the police and government must do now to stem the tide. Chapter 1 examines the rates of knife crime, robbery and theft person offences both nationally and in London. We show that knife crime in England and Wales has risen sharply over the past decade, increasing by 78% since 2013/14, with 50,510 offences recorded in 2023/24. Even accounting for population growth, this represents a 68.3% rise over the last decade. London accounts for a disproportionate share of knife crime offences, representing 32.1% of all knife crime and 45.9% of knife-point robberies in England, compared to only 15.5% of the population. Within the capital, knife crime is highly concentrated: 4% of neighbourhoods accounted for nearly a quarter of offences and 15% accounted for half of offences in 2024. One small geographic area – consisting of around 20 streets around Oxford Circus and Regent Street in the City of Westminster – recorded more knife crime offences than the 716 (or 14.35%) least-affected of London’s 4,988 LSOAs combined. Most knife crime in London involves robbery, with mobile phones the most common target. In 2024, 61.6% of knife crime offences were robberies. Combined robbery and theft person offences led to over 81,000 mobile phone thefts in the capital last year. There are clear insights which can guide the law enforcement and policy response. Within London: knife crime offending is highly geographically concentrated, a significant majority of knife crime offences are robberies, and mobile phones are one of the items most commonly targeted by robbers and thieves. Chapter 2 examines how effective, or otherwise, the Metropolitan Police is at catching robbers, knife crime offenders and thieves alongside the criminal courts approach to sentencing for those who are prosecuted and convicted. The proportion of criminals caught by the Metropolitan Police is pitiful – with only 1 in 20 robberies and 1 in 170 theft person offences solved in 2024. Even for those few who are caught the proportion of offenders being sentenced to immediate cusLondon is in the grip of a crimewave of robbery, knife crime and theft. Police chiefs have prioritised other issues while allowing the streets to be surrendered to criminals and thugs. Political leaders have sacrificed effective policing to ideological preferences. Bodies such as the Independent Office for Police Conduct have shown themselves only too willing to criticise and pursue police officers doing their best to enforce the law. Given this confluence it should be no surprise that knife crime, robbery and “theft person” offences have rocketed in recent years. This report examines what has gone wrong – and importantly, what the police and government must do now to stem the tide. Chapter 1 examines the rates of knife crime, robbery and theft person offences both nationally and in London. We show that knife crime in England and Wales has risen sharply over the past decade, increasing by 78% since 2013/14, with 50,510 offences recorded in 2023/24. Even accounting for population growth, this represents a 68.3% rise over the last decade. London accounts for a disproportionate share of knife crime offences, representing 32.1% of all knife crime and 45.9% of knife-point robberies in England, compared to only 15.5% of the population. Within the capital, knife crime is highly concentrated: 4% of neighbourhoods accounted for nearly a quarter of offences and 15% accounted for half of offences in 2024. One small geographic area – consisting of around 20 streets around Oxford Circus and Regent Street in the City of Westminster – recorded more knife crime offences than the 716 (or 14.35%) least-affected of London’s 4,988 LSOAs combined. Most knife crime in London involves robbery, with mobile phones the most common target. In 2024, 61.6% of knife crime offences were robberies. Combined robbery and theft person offences led to over 81,000 mobile phone thefts in the capital last year. There are clear insights which can guide the law enforcement and policy response. Within London: knife crime offending is highly geographically concentrated, a significant majority of knife crime offences are robberies, and mobile phones are one of the items most commonly targeted by robbers and thieves. Chapter 2 examines how effective, or otherwise, the Metropolitan Police is at catching robbers, knife crime offenders and thieves alongside the criminal courts approach to sentencing for those who are prosecuted and convicted. The proportion of criminals caught by the Metropolitan Police is pitiful – with only 1 in 20 robberies and 1 in 170 theft person offences solved in 2024. Even for those few who are caught the proportion of offenders being sentenced to immediate cusfalling – dropping from 66.1% in 2014 to 55.4% in 2024. For violencerelated offences, imprisonment rates have also decreased, with just 36.5% of offenders sentenced to custody in 2024. Despite laws mandating prison for repeat knife offenders, around a third evade immediate incarceration. It appears likely that these rates of incarceration will fall even further in the coming years given the Government’s apparent intention to send fewer offenders to prison following the Independent Sentencing Review led by Rt Hon David Gauke1 and the Independent Review of the Criminal Courts led by Rt Hon Sir Brian Leveson.2 The failure to adequately deal with the most prolific offenders presented before the courts is perhaps the gravest sign of the permissiveness with which the criminal justice system treats those most dedicated to committing crime. In the year to December 2024, of the 8,207 “hyperprolific” offenders who already had 46 or more previous criminal convictions or cautions, only 44.5% were sentenced to an immediate term of imprisonment on conviction for a further indictable or “eitherway” criminal offence – 4,555 hyper-prolific offenders were released on conviction without receiving an immediate term of imprisonment. Of the 16,386 “super-prolific” offenders with between 26 and 45 previous convictions or cautions, only 42.1% were sentenced to an immediate term of imprisonment on conviction for a further indictable or “eitherway” criminal offence – 9,483 super-prolific offenders were released on conviction without receiving an immediate term of imprisonment. It is difficult to conceive of a collection of statistics which better demonstrates the contempt with which the criminal justice system is treating the lawabiding majority. Chapter 3 examines the effectiveness of high-visibility policing in crime “hotspots” – citing evidence which demonstrates that the tactic is highly effectively at reduces crime. However, the use of a key element of proactive police patrolling – stop and search – has fallen significantly over the last decade, partly because of the policies of the Conservative-led coalition government (supported by the now Home Secretary Rt Hon Yvette Cooper MP). The reduction in stop and search coincided with substantial increases knife crime, suggesting the reforms introduced in all likelihood significantly undermined the fight against crime. We cite research by the criminologists Piquero and Sherman (2025) which demonstrates that increased stop and search correlates with reduced knife crime. Stop and search in London has been widely criticised for racial disproportionality, often framed as evidence of “racist” policing. Critics argue that black Londoners are unfairly targeted – claims we robustly challenge. Data shows that black people are “over-represented” among victims of the most serious knife crime – within London black people are 3.38 times more likely to be killed in a knife-enabled non-domestic homicide than white people. Similarly black people are 5.0 times more likely than white people in London to be charged with murder. While only 13.5% of London’s population are black, 48.6% of robbery suspects are described as black by victims when reporting the crime to the police. Incontrast to allegations of police “racism”, outcomes of stop and search in London reveal that black suspects are 64% more likely than white suspects to receive ‘community resolutions’ when a prohibited item is found when searching for a weapon (rather than be charged or summonsed and sent to court). This suggests there may well be a leniency being shown towards black suspects compared to white suspects. It is not the role of policing to correct for all of society’s ills – to quote the Chief Constable of Greater Manchester Police Sir Stephen Watson QPM: “It’s really important in policing that you play the ball that is bowled – you describe the problem, you faithfully attack the various ingredients of the problem and you do so without fear or favour in the public interest”.3 We agree and strongly reject the political ideology and timidity of police leaders which has led to the precipitous reductions in stop and search. As part of better serving the law-abiding majority there should be a surge in stop and search within those parts of London where knife crime, robbery and theft is most prevalent. Chapter 4 examines how offenders can be targeted – specifically through innovative Live Facial Recognition technology and innovations in court orders which limit the activities of known offenders. The Metropolitan Police’s deployment of Live Facial Recognition as a tool to identify wanted individuals, particularly within crime hotspots, has been remarkably successful. In 2023 the force undertook 24 deployments in the capital – in 2024 there were 179 deployments and by mid-June 2025 there had been 94 deployments. An Independent evaluation by the National Physical Laboratory confirmed that the technology can be deployed with a high degree of accuracy and – notably, an absence of significant demographic bias when properly configured. Despite demonstrable results – including 1,045 arrests since 2023 – several London councils have passed motions opposing its use. This includes Islington Council which at the time was led by Kaya Comer-Schwartz – who was subsequently appointed by the Mayor of London Sir Sadiq Khan as the Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime. The chapter also reviews a series of legal tools, including Knife Crime Prevention Orders and Serious Violence Reduction Orders, which can be utilised to restrict repeat offenders’ behaviours but have seen limited or inconsistent application. We recommend that their application is made mandatory for certain violent and knife-carrying offenders. Londoners and visitors to the capital face a street crime epidemic – one which includes a very real risk of becoming a victim of seriousviolence, robbery or theft. The steps taken by the Metropolitan Police, Mayor of London and Government have so far been unequal to the task. The Metropolitan Police must take an unequivocal “Crime Fighting First” approach – in those locations where rates of knife crime, robbery and theft are highest that should mean a “Zero Tolerance” approach to crime and criminals. The Government and Mayor of London must demonstrate the necessary political leadership to explicitly reject the policies and ideologies which have led us to this point.The law-abiding majority of people do not accept the status quo, and neither do we at Policy Exchange – this report should act as a call to action for political leaders and police chiefs alike.