By Martina Prpic with Melissa Eichhorn

Violence against children takes various forms and occurs in different contexts. It can have serious, harmful consequences in both the short and long term, and estimates of the scale of the problem are alarming. Resulting from a complex interaction of various risk factors, this violence can nevertheless be avoided through effective prevention policies. Several international instruments have been adopted to safeguard and promote children's rights. The cornerstone in this framework of instruments is the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, Article 19 of which lays down the right of a child to be protected from all forms of violence and the obligation on states to take all appropriate measures to protect children. With the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty, the protection of children's rights has been explicitly recognized as an objective that the EU has an obligation to pursue. While child protection systems fall mainly within the responsibility of the EU Member States, the EU itself plays an important role too. Its actions have a direct impact on laws and policies implemented at the national level. Enhanced cooperation between all stakeholders and the exchange of best practices are the routes taken to address the issue.

EPRS | European Parliamentary Research Service 2024. 31p.

By Yuhyeong Jang1 ·Raanju R. Sundararajan1 ·Wagner Barreto-Souza2 · Elizabeth Wheaton-Paramo

The article presents a robust quantitative approach for determining significant economic factors for sex trafficking in the United States. The aim is to study monthly counts of sex trafficking-related convictions and use a wide range of economic variables as covariates to investigate their effect on conviction counts. A count time series model is considered along with a regression setup to include economic time series as covariates (economic factors) to explain the counts on sex trafficking-related convictions. The statistical significance of these economic factors is investigated, and the significant factors are ranked based on appropriate model selection methods. The inclusion of time-lagged versions of the economic factor time series in the regression model is also explored. The authors’ findings indicate that economic factors relating to immigration policy, consumer price index and labor market regulations are the most significant in explaining sex trafficking convictions

Empirical Economics. 2024, 18pg

By Natalie Townsend

The Australian Government Department of Social Services (2019, p. 60) defines sexual violence as sexual actions without consent, which may include coercion, physical force, rape, sexual assault with implements, being forced to watch or engage in pornography, enforced prostitution or being made to have sex with other people. While there is a growing body of international evidence on sexual violence, its prevalence and impact has not been extensively examined in the Australian context. The existing evidence base is largely limited to data sources that are likely to underestimate the prevalence of sexual violence or to apply only to discrete groups of women (e.g. clinical samples). Further, while international and national estimates of sexual violence prevalence are available, these rarely capture experiences and outcomes across the life span. The Australian Longitudinal Study on Women’s Health (ALSWH) has collected sexual violence data since its inception in 1996 and offers an ideal opportunity to examine sexual violence over the life span. The ALSWH has captured a broad range of data on women’s health, which are crucial for understanding the economic, social, physical and mental health trajectories of women who have experienced sexual violence. This report was developed in consultation with ANROWS to address the limitations of the existing evidence by utilising ALSWH data. Aims The purpose of this report was to assess the prevalence of sexual violence over the life course and the impacts of experiencing sexual violence on health and wellbeing among Australian women using national, longitudinal data. The research had the following specific aims: 1. Determine the prevalence of sexual violence across the life course, including sexual violence experienced in childhood and adulthood, perpetrated both within an intimate relationship and outside of such a relationship. 2. Determine the role of sexual violence during childhood as a risk factor for experiences of multiple forms of violence later in life. 3. Identify the impact of sexual violence on socio-economic factors over time, such as education, paid employment and financial stress. 4. Determine the nature of associations between sexual violence experienced by women at different life stages and subsequent health behaviours. 5. Assess the impact of sexual violence on women’s physical and mental health. 6. Measure health service use in relation to sexual violence, including costs of selected health services and satisfaction with general practitioner services. 7. Identify factors associated with the general health and wellbeing of women who have experienced sexual violence.  

Sydney: Australia’s National Research Organisation for Women’s Safety Limited (ANROWS). 2022, 95pg

By David Garland

This review situates the recent, radical challenges to American criminal justice—calls to end mass incarceration, defund the police, and dismantle systemic racism—within the broader social and economic arrangements that make the US system so distinctive and so problematic. It describes the social structures, institutions, and processes that give rise to America's extraordinary penal state—as well as to its extraordinarily high rates of homicide and social disorder—and considers what these portend for the prospect of radical change. It does so by locating American crime and punishment in the structural context of America's (always-already racialized) political economy—a distinctive set of social structures and institutional legacies that render the United States more violent, more disorderly, and more reliant on penal control than any other developed nation. Drawing on a broad range of social science research findings, it argues that this peculiar political economy—a form of capitalism and democratic governance forged on the anvils of slavery and racial segregation and rendered increasingly insecure and exclusionary in the decades following deindustrialization—generates high levels of social disorganization and criminal violence and predisposes state authorities to adopt penal control as the preferred policy response.

Annual Review of Criminology v. 6. 2023, 20pg

By Richard Rosenfeld, James Austin

This report examines the effects of a small set of factors on violent and property crime rates in Chicago. The authors find that a statistical model based on the Illinois imprisonment rate and a measure of the cost of living explained past variation in crime rates with minimal error.  The authors then used the model to forecast crime rates through 2025. Both violent and property crime are forecast to drop through 2025. In addition, the report finds that were Illinois to reduce its imprisonment rate by 25%, the effect on Chicago’s rate of violent crime would be negligible. No association was found between imprisonment rates and property crime. 

New York: Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation. 2023, 20pg

By Matt Hopkins, Rachel Keighley, Teela Sanders

  Thinking about organised crime as an ecosystem is not only novel but also offers much potential to add to the theoretical and policy-based literature in this area. While organised crime is often analysed as relationships between criminal groups and consumers of illicit goods/services, little work has analysed specific forms of organised crime activities as ecosystems where different constituent parts are dependent upon each other for the crime activity to occur. This paper analyses the organisation of sexual exploitation by entrepreneurial organised crime groups sell ing sex in the United Kingdom. Based upon 30 interviews with 23 law enforcement forces in England and Wales and five interviews with Adult Service Website Opera tors; it identifies how an ecosystem is built that ensures (a) profit generation and (b) avoidance of legal prosecution. Our analysis not only illustrates how a market ‘sup ply’ and ‘demand’ ecosystem is generated through mutually convenient ‘organiser’, ‘marketer’ and ‘buyer’ relationships, but also how the roles of these actors ensure sexual exploitation continues. Keywords Organised crime · 

Trends in Organized Crime, trends in Organized Crime. 2024, 20pg

By Peter Leasure and Hunter M. Boehme

Efforts such as evidence-based policing and data-driven policing have argued for the use of research and data analysis in the decision-making process for law enforcement agencies. The current study sought to examine the importance of data collection and data analysis across Ohio law enforcement agencies and whether Ohio law enforcement agencies are interested in improving their data collection and data analysis procedures. The results showed that the majority of respondents strongly agreed or somewhat agreed that data collection and data analysis are key components of their decision-making process, and that their agency could benefit from improved data collection and data analysis procedures. However, a nontrivial number of respondents strongly disagreed or somewhat disagreed that data collection and data analysis are key components of their decision-making process, and that their agency could benefit from improved data collection and data analysis procedures. Recommendations informed by these results are discussed in detail.

Drug Enforcement and Policy Center. July 2023, 8pg