By The Youth Endowment Fund

In this year’s survey, 20% of teenage children told us they’ve been a victim of violence in the past 12 months. Over half (61%) of these incidents led to physical injury, equating to 440,000 children in England and Wales. For some, these experiences are not one-off. Of all teenagers who were victims of violence, 65% had it happen multiple times within the year, with nearly a third (31%) — or 5% of all 13-17-year-olds — reporting it occurred more than five times. Children commit violence in reaction to others. 16% of children have been a perpetrator of violence. Many of the 16% of children who committed violence cited reactive motivations. For instance, 36% acted out of annoyance, humiliation or feeling threatened, while 29% retaliated for previous violence. Bullying is a significant factor for 25% of respondents, and 17% report engaging in violence for self-defence or due to rivalries related to gangs, neighbourhoods or schools. Half (49%) of all children who perpetrated violence in the past year have also been a victim themselves. Experiences of violence are concentrated among the most vulnerable. This year’s report sheds new light on children at risk of exploitation, revealing even more concerning links between vulnerability and violence. Children who went missing from home were five times more likely to engage in violence, while those approached to transport or store drugs and weapons were six times more likely. Gang involvement and carrying weapons further escalated these risks, with children in gangs or those carrying weapons being seven times more likely to commit acts of violence than their peers. Children struggling in education are also particularly vulnerable. Those who are persistently absent, suspended, excluded or attending alternative education settings are far more likely to be victims of and to engage in violent behaviour than their peers. A relatively small number are driven to carry weapons. 5% of children aged 13-17 say they have carried a weapon in the past year. Although the possession, sale and supply of zombie-style knives and machetes are now illegal in the UK, only a small proportion of those who’ve carried weapons (17%) admit to carrying such knives before the ban. Kitchen and other types of knives are much more likely to be carried. Other items carried include screwdrivers or stabbing implements (25%) and sticks, clubs or hitting implements (24%). Younger teenagers aged 13-15 are more likely to carry weapons compared to those aged 16-17. Nearly half (47%) of those who carry a weapon do so for self-protection. Others cited being asked by someone else (37%), scaring others (31%) or following the behaviour of their peers (18%).

London: Youth Endowment Fund, 2024. 

By Cassandra Popham, Ellie Taylor and William Teager

The Youth Endowment Fund surveyed over 10,000 teenage children (aged 13-17) in England and Wales about their experiences of violence. The findings are detailed across five reports, each focusing on a different aspect. In this second report, we examine teenage children’s experiences of violence on social media. We aim to understand its prevalence, the nature of the content the children encounter and its impact on their lives. Here’s what we found. Violence is widespread on social media. Exposure to real-life violence on social media has become the norm rather than the exception for teenage children. Our findings reveal that 70% of respondents have encountered some form of real-world violence online in the past 12 months. The most frequently observed content is footage of fights involving young people, with 56% of respondents reporting that they’ve seen such videos. Other common types of violence witnessed online include threats of physical harm (43%) and content related to gang activity (33%) and weapons (35%). Notably, one in nine children who say they’ve encountered weapon-related content have seen footage involving zombie knives or machetes — a figure significantly higher than the 1% of 13–17-year-olds who’ve reported that they carry such weapons, as highlighted in our first report. This suggests that social media may amplify fear by making certain behaviours appear more widespread than they are. Sexually violent content or threats have been reported by more than a quarter of teenage children (27%). For the second year in a row, TikTok is the platform where children are most likely to witness violent content.  While the majority of teenage children encounter violent content online, few actively seek it out. In fact, only 6% of those who’ve come across such content do so intentionally. Most are exposed to it inadvertently: half (50%) have seen it via someone else’s profile or feed, and just over a third (35%) have had it shared directly with them. Alarmingly, 25% of children have reported that the social media platforms themselves promote this violent content through features like ‘Newsfeed’, ‘Stories’ and the ‘For You Page’. This underscores the significant role social media companies play in amplifying exposure to violent content beyond what users might encounter by chance. Seeing violence online has real-world impacts. Viewing violent content online has impacts that extend far beyond the screen. The vast majority (80%) of teenage children who encounter weapons-related content on social media say it makes them feel less safe in their local communities. This perceived threat has tangible consequences: two-thirds (68%) of teenagers who’ve seen weapons on social media say it makes them less likely to venture outside, and 39% admit that it makes them more likely to carry a weapon themselves. The influence of social media doesn’t stop there. Nearly two-thirds (64%) of teenagers who report perpetrating violence in the past year say that social media has played a role in their behavior. Factors like online arguments and the escalation of existing conflicts are commonly cited as catalysts for real-world violence  Children support limiting access to phones and social media. The widespread exposure to real-world violence online may partly explain why many teenagers believe that access to social media should come later than access to smartphones. Our findings highlight the responsibility of social media companies to remove or restrict harmful content. They also point to the need for effective support and education to help children navigate these dangers while still benefiting from the positive aspects that social media can offer.  

London: Youth Endowment Fund, 2024. 28p.

By Tim Newburn

This review explores those varied bodies of work that have sought to understand crowd behavior and violent crowd conduct in particular. Although the study of such collective conduct was once considered central to social science, this has long ceased to be the case and in many respects, the study of protest and riot now receives relatively little attention, especially within criminology. In addition to offering a critical overview of work in this field, this review argues in favor of an expanded conception of its subject matter. In recent times, scholarly concern has increasingly been focused on questions of etiology, i.e., asking how and why events such as riots occur, with the consequence that less attention is paid to other, arguably equally important questions, including how riots spread, how they end, and, critically, what happens in their aftermath. Accordingly, as a corrective, the review proposes a life-cycle model of riots.

ANNUAL REVIEW OF CRIMINOLOGY, Vol. 4 (2021), pp. 53–73

By WHO - The World Health Organization

There is growing global recognition of the intersections between violence against women and violence against children. The current evidence shows intersections between intimate partner violence against women and violence against children by parents or caregivers, but limited evidence is available on the links between other forms of violence against women and violence against children. Both violence against women by their (male) intimate partners and violence against children by parents or caregivers are widespread globally. This report describes the process used to determine the priorities for research on the intersections between violence against children and violence against women, and the top 10 research questions identified.

Geneva: WHO, 2024. 41p.

By Laura Y. Calderón

Mexico had the most violent year in its history in 2019, reporting 29,406 intentional homicide cases, resulting in 34,588 individual victims.1 However, violence remains a highly focalized phenomenon in Mexico, with 23% of all intentional homicide cases concentrated in five municipalities and three major clusters of violence with homicide rates over 100 per 100,000 inhabitants. Following the national trend, the state of Guanajuato also had its most violent year in 2019, with one of its largest cities featured in the country’s top five most violent municipalities. This paper will analyze the surge in violence in Guanajuato in 2019, comparing the number of intentional homicide cases with the increasing problem of fuel theft in the state, and describing some of the state and federal government measures to address both issues. II. Background The central Mexican state of Guanajuato is a traditional agricultural-producing region, a major manufacturing hub, and a popular vacation and retirement destination for foreigners. Considered a relatively wealthy state and constituting 4.4% of the national Gross Domestic Product (GDP), Guanajuato boasts the sixth-largest economy in Mexico. The state also holds second place in terms of growth in the manufacturing sector, which makes up 26% of the state’s GDP. Guanajuato is home to economically important industries that attract considerable foreign direct investment to Mexico, including the automobile and chemical industries, among others.2 However, over the last several years, Guanajuato has been one of Mexico’s top 10 most violent states, and two of its largest cities —León and Irapuato— were among Mexico’s top 10 most violent municipalities in 2018 and 2019. The state of Guanajuato also had the highest number of organized crime-related homicides in 2019 with 2,673 cases,  according to Reforma. 3 Additionally, Guanajuato was featured in Milenio’s top five states with the highest number of murders every month in 2019, calculating 2,934 organized crime-related deaths. 4 Furthermore, Guanajuato was tied with Estado de México as the second most dangerous place for elected officials in 2019, according to Justice in Mexico’s Memoria dataset. 5 Guanajuato attracted media attention especially in 2019 because of a dramatic increase in violence. While few available studies are exploring the origins and source of increased violence in Guanajuato, there seems to be one factor that has not been fully studied in terms of violence trends: fuel theft. III. Huachicoleo and Organized Crime Groups Fuel theft is one of the most recent developments in Mexico’s violent crime spectrum, gaining nationwide notoriety in early 2017. Gasoline truck drivers, or chupaductos (pipeline suckers), were the first to adopt the name huachicol to refer to stolen hydrocarbons in Mexico.6 It is still complicated to track the origin of the word, as technically, it refers to an adulterated alcoholic beverage derived from cane alcohol. However, huachicol is also believed to come from the Mayan culture, where the word “huach” or “waach” means “foreigner,” and in some Mayan regions, “thief.”7 This term lead to the colloquial name huachicolero to refer to petroleum thieves. 8 The practice of huachicoleo has been an increasing problem in Mexico, with organized crime groups (OCGs) competing to control its revenues in a manner similar to the way in which they compete over drug-trafficking territories or plazas. Huachicoleo takes place in two different forms: through puncturing gas pipelines, which carry 20% of the country’s supply, or by stealing it on the go from the fuel distribution gas trucks on Mexico’s main highways.9 In socio-economic terms, the increase of fuel theft is partially attributable to the rise of oil prices in Mexico over the last few years, when gas went from an average of 5.00 Mexican pesos per liter (roughly 0.27 USD) in 2000, to 19.40 Mexican pesos per liter (roughly 1.03 USD) by December 2019 as shown in the chart below. 10 The population’s alleged inability or unwillingness to pay such high prices is believed to have created a greater demand for lower-cost gas—a demand that OCGs were willing to fulfill. Highway-side vendors started selling stolen gasoline from 5 to 10 Mexican pesos per liter (roughly 0.27 to 0.54 USD), depending on the distance from actual pipelines. 11 Networks of huachicoleros have established their vending points along major highways throughout Mexico, especially in central Mexico, where some of these vending points are disguised as legal commercial establishments such as tire shops, car repair workshops, coffee shops, restaurants, and other informal businesses.   

San Diego:  Justice in Mexico Department of Political Science & International Relations University of San Diego, 2020. 28p,

By Clare Ribando Seelke

An upsurge in lethal attacks against journalists in Mexico since the start of 2022 has renewed interest in Congress about violence against journalists and the state of media freedoms in Mexico. Since 2000, more than 150 journalists and media workers have been killed in Mexico, including seven in 2021 and eight in the first few months of 2022. Violence against journalists is occurring within the context of a broader security crisis in Mexico fueled by organized crime-related violence. Nevertheless, the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) have asserted that “impunity in attacks against [or murders of] journalists fosters further violence against reporters and may inhibit the exercise of freedom of expression.”  In February 2022, Secretary of State Antony Blinken stated that he joined “those calling for greater accountability and protections for Mexican journalists.”  Some congressional concerns about the killings of journalists in Mexico have prompted letters to the Biden Administration and hearing questions to Administration officials regarding the extent to which the U.S. government is urging Mexico to better prevent, investigate, and prosecute cases of violence against journalists. Congress has appropriated foreign assistance to help the Mexican government and civil society better protect journalists and reduce impunity in cases of crimes committed against them. An oversight issue for the 117th Congress may be the extent to which the protection of journalists and other vulnerable groups is prioritized under the new U.S.-Mexico Bicentennial Framework for Security Cooperation signed in October 2021. Congress also may examine whether other tools, such as conditions on foreign assistance, sanctions, or legislation, could be used to improve the situation.  

Washington, DC:  Congressional Research Service , 2022. 15p.

Edited by Erica Charters, Marie Houllemare, and Peter H. Wilson

This is the first extensive analysis of large-scale violence and the methods of its restraint in the early modern world. Using examples from Asia, Africa, the Americas and Europe, it questions the established narrative that violence was only curbed through the rise of western-style nation states and civil societies. Global history allows us to reframe and challenge traditional models for the history of violence and to rethink categories and units of analysis through comparisons. By decentring Europe and exploring alternative patterns of violence, the contributors to this volume articulate the significance of violence in narratives of state- and empire-building, as well as in their failure and decline, while also providing new means of tracing the transition from the early modern to modernity.

Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press,  2020.  317p.

By Shana Conroy and Danielle Sutton

"This Juristat article relies on multiple data sources to examine the nature and prevalence of violent victimization of seniors. In addition, the article presents the various factors associated with perceptions of crime and safety among seniors. Self-reported data from the 2019 General Social Survey on Canadians’ Safety (Victimization) are presented first, detailing seniors’ experiences of violent victimization and their perceptions of safety. The sections that follow present police-reported data from the Uniform Crime Reporting Survey and the Homicide Survey, providing detail on annual trends, accused-victim relationships and incident characteristics. While 2020 was an unusual year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, police-reported incident data were similar for 2019 and 2020. As such, this article reports the latest police-reported data from 2020"

Ottawa] : Statistics Canada = Statistique Canada, 2022. 35p.

By Hayley Boxall and Anthony Morgan

In this study, we analysed data from a survey of Australian women (n=9,284) to identify women at the highest risk of physical and sexual violence and coercive control during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic. Logistic regression modelling identified that specific groups of women were more likely than the general population to have experienced physical and sexual violence in the past three months. These were Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women, women aged 18–24, women with a restrictive health condition, pregnant women and women in financial stress. Similar results were identified for coercive control, and the co-occurrence of both physical/sexual violence and coercive control. These results show that domestic violence during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic was not evenly distributed across the Australian community, but more likely to occur among particular groups.

Trends & issues in crime and criminal justice no. 618. Canberra: Australian Institute of Criminology. 2021. 19p.

By Jesús Gorrín,  José Morales-Arilla , Bernardo Ricca

This paper documents how violence resulting from the Mexican Drug War hindered local export growth. Focusing on exports allows us to abstract from demand factors and measure effects on the local capacity to supply foreign markets. We compare exports of the same product to the same country, but facing differential exposure to violence after a close electoral outcome. Firms exogenously exposed to the Drug War experienced lower export growth. Violence eroded the local capacity to attract capital investment, disproportionately hampering large exporters and capital-intensive activities

2021. 60p.

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 Cirenia Chávez, Victor Cebotari, María José Benítez, Dominic Richardson, Chii Fen Hiu and Juliana Zapata

The prevalence of school-related violence and bullying is a global issue that impacts educational outcomes negatively. Furthermore, bullying can have emotional and physical effects on the children experiencing it, both in the short- and long term. Although the evidence regarding bullying from low- and middle-income countries is less extensive in comparison to evidence on the effects of bullying from high-income countries, some findings from the Latin American and Caribbean regions show similar results connecting lower reading scores with a high prevalence of bullying victimization. This working paper uses data from UNESCO’s Third Regional Comparative and Explanatory Study to determine the correlation between bullying and learning outcomes in 15 countries of the LAC region. It also looks at ways to mitigate the impacts of violence.

Innocenti Working Paper WP-2021-02 New York: UNICEF, United Nations Children's Fund, 202. 68p.

By María Victoria Llorente & Jeremy McDermott,  Raúl Benítez Manaut,  Marta Lucía Ramírez de Rincón,  John Bailey 

Transnational criminal organizations trafficking drugs from Mexico to the United States have existed since the Prohibition era in the United States. But the violence associated with this trafficking—and related movements of other illicit goods as well as undocumented migrants—increased exponentially beginning in the mid-2000s, threatening Mexico’s national security. During the six-year administration of President Felipe Calderón (2006-12) estimates of those killed in drug-related violence reached 70,000, with an additional 20,000 “disappeared.” The upsurge in violence in many areas of the country reflected a combination of fighting between rival drug trafficking organizations seeking territorial control of criminal markets and dominance of lucrative trafficking corridors, as well as clashes between the traffickers and government security forces. By 2010, some Mexican cities registered homicide rates that were among the highest in the world and the public began to seriously doubt the government’s strategy and its ability to guarantee public safety. The scope of the violence and its frequently gruesome and shocking character, and the government’s seeming inability to bring it under control, brought forth memories of an earlier period in Latin America, when Colombia was besieged by the violence of the Medellín and Cali drug trafficking cartels. The Colombian crisis of the 1980s and ’90s involved multiple ways the state was losing ground to guerrilla and paramilitary groups in addition to drug traffickers. But like Mexico, the cost in human lives and government legitimacy was huge Over the course of more than a decade, Colombia’s security situation has improved dramatically. With significant international cooperation, the guerrillas have been weakened militarily and coca cultivation and cocaine production have been reduced. Most analysts agree that at least some of the security crisis in Mexico (as well as Central America) is due to ways that security advances and improvements in state capacity in Colombia forced traffickers to search for new smuggling routes and ways to market their illicit product. This is true even though, as several chapters in this publication indicate, organized criminal groups remain an important source of instability in Colombia, having mutated and fragmented in response to government pressure. Former paramilitary fighters, who demobilized in the early 2000s as a result of peace talks with the government, are important actors in the new manifestations of organized crime. Colombia is now a major player in South-South security cooperation, offering training to over 2,500 Mexican military and police officials between 2010 and 2012, as well as to over 5,000 members of the security forces from Central America and the Caribbean and over 2,000 from South America during the same time period.1 A former director of the Colombian National Police, General Óscar Naranjo, served as an adviser to the administration of Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto. The United States funds some of Colombia’s programs abroad and U.S. officials have expressed satisfaction and pride in Colombia’s success. In a May 2013 visit to Colombia, Vice President Biden paid “personal tribute” to President Santos and “the people of Colombia for the remarkable, remarkable progress you’ve made…” in dealing with the country’s security concerns. Biden went on to mention Colombia’s training of “thousands of law enforcement officers and security officers from over 40 countries since 2009.”  But precisely what aspects of Colombia’s strategy and tactics for fighting organized crime in its own territory offer useful lessons for Mexico? What might Colombia’s steps and missteps offer by way of example or counter example? What is unique about each case such that comparisons are misleading? What do current security challenges in Colombia suggest about the threat posed by organized crime more generally? To reflect on these questions, the Latin American Program commissioned a series of papers from international experts with a wealth of experience on issues of security, violence, and transnational criminal organizations. This publication includes two chapters analyzing the usefulness of comparing Colombia and Mexico’s experiences in combatting organized crime, as well as the potential for using Colombia’s successes as lessons for Mexico’s security strategy. Maria Victoria Llorente of Fundación Ideas para la Paz and Jeremy McDermott of Insight Crime argue that Colombia does not represent a ready template for Mexico’s fight against violence and organized crime, although its long experience may provide insight into Mexico’s future. The second paper, by Raúl Benítez Manaut, a researcher at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), contends that Colombia does offer positive lessons about how reform of the defense sector and professionalization of the police can yield measurable results for Mexico. Commentaries by Marta Lucía Ramírez de Rincón, former Minister of Defense of Colombia, and John Bailey of Georgetown University, deepen and take issue with the analyses provided by Llorente and McDermott and Benítez. .     

,Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, 2014. 128p. Scholars

By  Chelsea Estancona and Luca Tiscornia

Most of what we know about organized criminal violence comes from research about illicit narcotics markets. Yet, these groups also fight to capture markets for licit commodities, as evidenced by Sicilian lemons and South African abalone. When do criminal groups violently expand into markets for licit goods? We argue that rapid increases in the share of a good’s export value create opportunities for immediate profit and future market manipulation. This provokes violence as groups expand their territorial holdings and economic portfolios. We test our argument cross-nationally using the Atlas of Economic Complexity, V-Dem, and UNODC. Increases in a country’s share of global export value for agricultural goods are associated with more homicides– but only where criminal groups are present. We then provide subnational evidence of our mechanism using data on avocado exports from Mexico and address reverse causality with Google Trends data about the popularity of avocado toast searches. 

Present at the UNU Wider Development Conference, October 2022. 55p.

By Romain Le Cour Grandmaison

This article explores the construction – or reconstruction – of brokerage channels by violent actors in Mexico. It focuses on the construction of the Autodefensas de Michoacán (Self Defense Groups of Michoacán) and studies the process that put illegal armed leaders in active dialogue with the Mexican federal government, but also how they became brokers capable of controlling access to strategic political resources, economic markets, and the connections that tie local citizens and the central state. Through the concept of political inter-mediation, I investigate how coercion, as a skill and resource, has become central to governance in Mexico; and how this leads to consolidating intermediaries that participate in reproducing local, violent political order. This article shall contribute to the understanding of brokerage in contexts of violence, and shed new light on the political logic fueling the dynamics of violence in Mexico’s war on drugs. Keywords: drug cartels, brokerage, Mexico, war on drugs, state, violence.   

European Review of Latin American and Caribbean Studies / Revista Europea de Estudios Latinoamericanos y del Caribe, No. 112 (July-December 2021), pp. 137-158  

By Dorothy Kronick 

Some theories predict that profits facilitate peace in illegal markets, while others predict that profits fuel violence. I provide empirical evidence from drug trafficking in Venezuela. Using original data, I compare lethal violence trends in municipalities near a major trafficking route to trends elsewhere, both before and after the counternarcotics policy in neighboring Colombia increased the use of Venezuelan transport routes. For thirty years before this policy change, lethal violence trends were similar; afterward, outcomes diverged: violence increased more along the trafficking route than elsewhere. Together with qualitative accounts, these findings illuminate the conditions under which profits fuel violence in illegal markets. 

Journal of Conflict Resolution 2020, Vol. 64(7-8) 1499-1523 ª The Author(s) 2020 

By Juan Camilo Castillo and Dorothy Kronick

Drug traffickers sometimes share profits peacefully. Other times they fight. We propose a model to investigate this variation, focusing on the role of the state. Seizing illegal goods can paradoxically increase traffickers’ profits and higher profits fuel violence. Killing kingpins makes crime bosses short-sighted, also fueling conflict. Only by targeting the most violent traffickers can the state reduce violence without increasing supply. These results help explain empirical patterns of violence in the drug war, which is less studied than interstate or civil war but often as deadly 

American Political Science Review (2020) 114, 3, 874–887 

By Paul M. Barrett

The main finding of this report is that social science research reveals that social media platforms can be—and often are—exploited to facilitate political intimidation and violence. Certain features of social media platforms make them susceptible to such exploitation, and some of these features should be changed to reduce the danger. “ The main finding of this report is that social science research reveals that social media platforms can be—and often are— exploited to facilitate political intimidation and violence. ” Based on a review of more than 400 studies published by peer-reviewed journals and think tanks, the report provides a platform-by-platform survey focusing on the particular features of each site that make it susceptible to exploitation by extremists promoting intimidation and violence and/or seeking recruits for their various causes. The report emphasizes that neither subjective observation nor social science research indicates that social media platforms are the sole or even primary cause of political intimidation and violence. Other media and irresponsible political leaders play crucial roles. However, the use of social media can enable or facilitate violence in a fashion that deserves attention and mitigation. Most of this problem—extremism and occasional use of force for political ends—occurs on the political right. But the left is not immune to these pathologies. The platforms discussed in the following pages range from some of the best known, like Facebook and YouTube, to the more recently ascendant TikTok to those on the right-wing fringe, such as Gab, Parler, and 4chan. Among the features, we examine are: • Facebook’s Groups, which helped the sometimes-violent QAnon to grow into a full-blown movement devoted to the delusion that former President Donald Trump has secretly battled “deep state” bureaucrats and Satanic pedophiles.1 • Instagram’s comments function, which has allowed the Iranian government to threaten dissidents with sexual assault and death as a way of silencing them.2 • TikTok’s powerful recommendation algorithm, which in one experiment promoted violent videos, including incitement of students to launch attacks at school.3 After a case study of January 6 by our collaborators at Tech Policy Press, the report concludes with recommendations for industry and government.

NYU Stern Center for Business and Human Rights Leonard N. Stern School of Business 2024. 32p.  

By Charles Fain Lehman

Crime remains a pressing concern for Americans, even as rates of violence have receded from 2022 peaks. What explains these persistent concerns? This report investigates this question in the context of a small but rapidly growing American city: Chattanooga, Tennessee. A Manhattan Institute poll from earlier this year found that Chattanooga residents are worried about safety in their communities; this report investigates why. A review of Chattanooga data, it finds that the city experienced the same increases in certain kinds of crime that other American cities did over the past four years, but that, through the application of evidence-based practices, the city’s police and municipal government have brought the problem under control. But even as violent crime has largely receded, multiple indicators are suggesting that another problem persists: disorder. Data indicate that homelessness, trash, and certain kinds of petty crime remain elevated above pre-2020 levels. A reduction in city resources—especially police resources—appears to have caused a concentration on serious crime, at the expense of more minor but still significant issues. Disorder, this report argues, matters, especially for a growing city like Chattanooga. Consequently, this report concludes by outlining several principles for addressing this problem, while capitalizing on the gains that the city has already made in getting major crime under control.

New York: The Manhattan Institute, 2024. 26p.

By Nicholas R. Magliocca , Diana S. Summers , Kevin M. Curtin , Kendra McSweeney, Ashleigh N. Price

Cocaine traffickers, or ‘narco-traffickers’, successfully exploit the heterogeneous landscapes of Central America for transnational smuggling. Narco-traffickers successfully adapt to disruptions from counterdrug interdiction efforts by spatially adjusting smuggling routes to evade detection, and by doing so bring collateral damages, such as deforestation, corruption, and violence, to new areas. This study is novel for its integration of landscape suitability analysis with criminological theory to understand the locations of these spatial adaptations by narco-traffickers as intentional, logical, and predictable choices based on the socio-environmental characteristics of Central America’s landscapes. Multi-level, mixed effects negative binomial regression models predict the suitability of landscapes for cocaine trafficking across 17 departments (the unit of analysis) in Costa Rica, El Sal vador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Panama from 2007 to 2018. Informed by long-term research in the region, independent variables included proximity to roads, country borders, international ports, indigenous territories, population density, and protected areas. The year of peak interdiction (measured by kg of cocaine seized) in each department was used to analyze spatial shifts in landscape suitability before and after maximum counterdrug interdiction pressure. We find that areas with lower population density and closer proximity to international borders became more suitable following peak interdiction—i.e, they are more likely to be sought out by traffickers seeking to avoid further disruptions from counter-narcotic efforts. Additionally, indigenous territories were disproportionately exploited as cocaine trafficking routes following significant interdiction activities by law enforcement. While interdiction may reduce the suitability of targeted locations, it can also unintentionally increase the attractiveness of other locations. Our study pushes criminological theory through its application to a unique space/time context, and it advances land system science by considering landscape suitability for logistical rather than productive uses. Policy implications are clear. Since interdiction resources are limited relative to the overall amount of trafficking activity, knowing which landscape features are viewed as  suitable by traffickers can in the short term guide interdiction deployment strategies, and in the longer term build strategies to mitigate associated harms from trafficking where they are most likely  

Landscape and Urban Planning Volume 221, May 2022, 104359