By Michael T. Light, Jingying Hea, and Jason P. Robey

We make use of uniquely comprehensive arrest data from the Texas Department of Public Safety to compare the criminality of undocumented immigrants to legal immigrants and native-born US citizens between 2012 and 2018. We find that undocumented immigrants have substantially lower crime rates than native-born citizens and legal immigrants across a range of felony offenses. Relative to undocumented immigrants, US-born citizens are over 2 times more likely to be arrested for violent crimes, 2.5 times more likely to be arrested for drug crimes, and over 4 times more likely to be arrested for property crimes. In addition, the proportion of arrests involving undocumented immigrants in Texas was relatively stable or decreasing over this period. The differences between US-born citizens and undocumented immigrants are robust to using alternative estimates of the broader undocumented population, alternate classifications of those counted as “undocumented” at arrest and substituting misdemeanors or convictions as measures of crime.

 Madison, Wisconsin: 2020. 8p.

By The Violence Policy Center

For the past 25 years, the Violence Policy Center (VPC) has published its annual study When Men Murder Women. Released for Domestic Violence Awareness Month in October, the studies analyzed data from the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) Supplementary Homicide Reports (SHR) and ranked the states by their rates of females killed by males in single victim/single offender incidents. In addition to ranking the states by this homicide victimization rate, the studies also offered information on the age and race of these female homicide victims, victim to offender relationship, circumstance, and weapon type. The most recent edition (released in 2022 and which analyzed 2020 SHR data), was the final report to be published by the VPC using SHR data. In January of 2021, the FBI changed the way crime data are collected and reported, which has impacted the reliability of subsequent data. That year, the FBI retired the SHR system and replaced it with the National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS). While NIBRS will eventually provide much more comprehensive and robust crime data compared to the SHR, transitioning law enforcement agencies to the new data collection and reporting system has been slow and burdensome. Indeed, many law enforcement agencies did not transition to NIBRS by January of 2021, which has had a significant impact on the reliability of 2021 crime data. After a careful analysis of that year’s crime data, the VPC has determined that current NIBRS data are not reliable for state-by-state gun violence research as required by When Men Murder Women. 

As a result, for the time being the VPC is unable to continue researching and publishing When Men Murder Women, although we hope that we will be able to resume publication of the report in the future. Though other national data sources contain information about homicides, these data sources do not contain the detailed information that was collected and publicly reported by the SHR (for example, sex of offender, type of firearm, relationship, and circumstance).b Over its 25-year publication history, the findings of the report have: led to the passage of laws that protect women and children from domestic violence, including legislation focused specifically on removing guns from the hands of domestic violence offenders; resulted in statewide public education campaigns; spurred the establishment of domestic homicide review boards; and, been repeatedly cited in the support of legislation and policies that protect women and children, including the federal Violence Against Women Act (VAWA).   

Washington, DC: Violence Policy Center, 2023. 21p.

By Terra Wiens

In 2001, the United States experienced a historic demographic change. For the first time, Hispanics became the largest minority group in the nation, exceeding the number of Black residents.2 With a population in 2020 of 62.1 million, Hispanics represent 18.7 percent of the total population of the United States.3 This study is intended to report on Hispanic homicide victimization and suicide in the United States, the role of firearms in homicide and suicide, and overall gun death figures. Recognizing this demographic landscape, the importance of documenting such victimization is clear. Indeed, studies have found that Hispanic individuals are more likely to die by firearm homicide compared to white, non-Hispanic individuals.  

Washington, DC: Violence Policy Center, 2023. 23p.

By Kaitlyn Sill and Paul A. Haskins.

This article originally appeared in Police Chief and is reposted here with permission from the International Association of Chiefs of Police.

Hate crimes harm whole communities. They are message crimes that tell all members of a group—not just the immediate victims—that they are unwelcome and at risk.

The damage that bias victimization causes multiplies when victims and justice agencies don’t recognize or report hate crimes as such. In addition, in cases for which law enforcement agencies fail to respond to or investigate hate crimes, relationships between law enforcement and affected communities can suffer, and public trust in police can erode.[1]

While it is known that hate crimes are underreported throughout the United States, there is not a clear understanding of exactly why reporting rates are low, to what extent, and what might be done to improve them. An even more elementary question, with no single answer, is: What constitutes a hate crime? Different state statutes and law enforcement agencies have different answers to that question, which further complicates the task of identifying hate crimes and harmonizing hate crime data collection and statistics.

UNITED STATES. FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION; UNIFORM CRIME REPORTING PROGRAM (U.S.)

From the document: "The FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program provides a nationwide view of crime based on data submissions voluntarily reported by non-federal law enforcement agencies throughout the country. The data submitted to the distinct collections detail criminal incidents and law enforcement workforce and operations. For decades, several of these compilations have been published annually. Though each collection presents details of crime data based on numbers provided by participating agencies, the reports vary in context, participation, and publication criteria. 'Crime in the Nation, 2022,' includes data received from 15,724 law enforcement agencies that provided either the National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS) or the Summary Reporting System (SRS) data. These agencies represent 83.3 percent of agencies actively enrolled in the UCR Program and covering a combined population of 311,628,976 (93.5 percent) inhabitants. Notably, every city agency covering a population of 1,000,000 or more inhabitants contributed a full 12 months of data to the UCR Program in 2022. In addition to the 'UCR Summary of Crime in the Nation, 2022,' which contains a synopsis of the data, 'Crime in the Nation, 2022' is comprised of the following components: [1] 'Crime in the United States (CIUS), 2022'; [2] 'NIBRS [National Incident-Based Reporting System], 2022'; [3] 'NIBRS Estimates, 2022'; [4] 'Hate Crime Statistics, 2022'; [and 5] 'Law Enforcement Officers Killed and Assaulted (LEOKA), 2022: Officers Assaulted'[.]"

United States. Federal Bureau of Investigation. Uniform Crime Reporting Program (U.S.). 2023. 37p.

2021 Durham Community Gang Assessment

By Michelle Young

Beginning in 2021, the Durham Gang Reduction Strategy Steering Committee (GRSSC) commissioned an updated community gang assessment for Durham. The GRSSC community gang assessment used the OJJDP Comprehensive Gang Model Guide to Assessing Your Community’s Youth Gang Problem (Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, 2009). This report presents five key findings and related recommendations arising from that exercise. Key finding 1: What is the most acute problem related to gangs/violence in Durham and where is it most acute? At least 12 census tracts/neighborhoods in Durham are currently affected by extremely high rates of violent person incidents (aggravated assault and homicide) that are up to 7.5 times higher than Durham’s overall rate per capita of these crimes. Eight of these census tracts have experienced high rates of violence since the last community gang assessment was conducted in Durham. Violence exposure in these areas is exacerbated by extreme poverty and exposure to other social vulnerabilities that have remained mostly unchanged since 2014. Key finding 2: Why are youth in Durham joining gangs? What risk factors locally must be addressed to keep youth out of gangs? Young people in Durham experience an elevated level of exposure to risk factors for gang involvement, including substance use, delinquency, the presence of gangs in their neighborhood and at school, family gang involvement, victimization, and exposure to violence. This level of risk exposure is higher for youth who enter the juvenile justice system and highest for gang involved individuals. Key finding 3: What is keeping young people in gangs? What must be addressed to help gang-involved individuals exit gangs? Research indicates that young people who join gangs become disconnected from mainstream pursuits. Gang involved individuals in Durham have difficulty exiting gangs because of high rates of school dropout, unemployment/underemployment, substance use, gang activity in the neighborhood, and a need to replace the social and emotional needs currently met by their gang. Key finding 4: How is this issue affecting the wider community? What should motivate policymakers to address the problem? People who live and work in Durham experience the gang issue very differently depending on their role and location. In some neighborhoods, gangs are deeply imbedded in the neighborhood’s culture which plays a key role in the decision to join a gang in Durham. Other neighborhoods experience gang issues indirectly. However, surveys across constituency groups indicates that the widespread nature of gang activity and community violence in Durham reduces quality of life for residents across the community. Key finding 5: How well is the current response to gangs working? What should be done differently in the future? All constituency groups that participated in this study described low levels of satisfaction with the current response to gangs and identified specific deficits that have caused this dissatisfaction. These issues include a failure to address the underlying conditions that give rise to gangs, a lack of awareness about the current responses to gangs across constituency groups, lack of information about the results of current strategies, and concerns about criminal justice policies. Recommendations Recommendation 1: Implement intensive, place-based strategies to address underlying social conditions that increase the vulnerability of children and youth in the most violence affected census tracts to gang involvement Recommendation 2: Implement comprehensive, intensive, and neighborhood-based service delivery specifically for gang-involved individuals in the highest violence neighborhoods. Recommendation 3: Because of the elevated level of gang exposure/involvement and youth risk exposure locally, Durham policymakers should expand available gang prevention and intervention programming, localize these services in the most violence/gang affected census tracts, and prioritize these services for children and youth who are at the highest level of risk of involvement in violence and gangs Recommendation 4: More regularly collect and report data that reflects the progress of the community’s gang violence reduction efforts. Recommendation 5: Institute standardized performance measures to track reductions in violence and improve existing criminogenic social conditions at the census tract level and more regularly report the outcomes attained by gang prevention, intervention and desistance strategies to policymakers and the community at the census tract level.

Wake Forest, NC: Michelle Young Consulting, 2022. 257p.

By Matthew P. J. Ashby

The COVID-19 pandemic led to substantial changes in the daily activities of millions of Americans, with many businesses and schools closed, public events cancelled and states introducing stay-at-home orders. This article used police-recorded open crime data to understand how the frequency of common types of crime changed in 16 large cities across the United States in the early months of 2020. Seasonal auto-regressive integrated moving average (SARIMA) models of crime in previous years were used to forecast the expected frequency of crime in 2020 in the absence of the pandemic. The forecasts from these models were then compared to the actual frequency of crime during the early months of the pandemic. There were no significant changes in the frequency of serious assaults in public or (contrary to the concerns of policy makers) any change to the frequency of serious assaults in residences. In some cities, there were reductions in residential burglary but little change in non-residential burglary. Thefts of motor vehicles decreased in some cities while there were diverging patterns of thefts from motor vehicles. These results are used to make suggestions for future research into the relationships between the coronavirus pandemic and different crimes.

Crime Science 2020 9:6

By Eric Halford, Anthony Dixon, Graham Farrell, Nicolas Malleson and Nick Tilley

Governments around the world restricted movement of people, using social distancing and lockdowns, to help stem the global coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. We examine crime effects for one UK police force area in comparison to 5-year averages. There is variation in the onset of change by crime type, some declining from the WHO ‘global pandemic’ announcement of 11 March, others later. By 1 week after the 23 March lockdown, all recorded crime had declined 41%, with variation: shoplifting (−62%), theft (−52%), domestic abuse (−45%), theft from vehicle (−43%), assault (−36%), burglary dwelling (−25%) and burglary non-dwelling (−25%). We use Google Covid-19 Community Mobility Reports to calculate the mobility elasticity of crime for four crime types, finding shoplifting and other theft inelastic but responsive to reduced retail sector mobility (MEC=0.84, 0.71 respectively), burglary dwelling elastic to increases in residential area mobility (−1), with assault inelastic but responsive to reduced workplace mobility (0.56). We theorise that crime rate changes were primarily caused by those in mobility, suggesting a mobility theory of crime change in the pandemic. We identify implications for crime theory, policy and future research

Crime Science 2020 9:11

By Manne Gerell, Johan Kardell and Johanna Kindgren

The covid-19 disease has a large impact on life across the globe, and this could potentially include impacts on crime. The present study describes how crime has changed in Sweden during ten weeks after the government started to implement interventions to reduce spread of the disease. Sweden has undertaken smaller interventions than many other countries and is therefore a particularly interesting case to study. The first major interventions in Sweden were implemented in the end of week 11 (March 12th) in the year 2020, and we analyze police reported crimes through week 21 (ending May 24th). Descriptive statistics are provided relative to expected levels with 95% confidence intervals for eight crime types. We found that total crime, assaults, pickpocketing and burglary have decreased significantly, personal robberies and narcotics crime are unchanged. Vandalism possibly increased somewhat but is hard to draw any frm conclusions on. The reductions are fairly small for most crime types, in the 5–20% range, with pickpocketing being the biggest exception noting a 59% drop relative to expected levels.

Crime Science 2020 9:19

By Theodore S. Lentz, Rebecca Headley Konkel, Hailey Gallagher and Dominick Ratkowski

Restrictions resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic interrupted people’s daily routine activities. Rooted in crime pattern and routine activity theories, this study tests whether the enactment of a Safer-at-Home mandate was associated with changes in the distance between individuals’ home addresses and the locations of where they committed crimes (i.e., residence-to-crime distance). Analyses are based on violent (N=282), property (N=1552), and disorder crimes (N=1092) reported to one police department located in a United States’ Midwest suburb. Multilevel models show that residence-to-crime distances were significantly shorter during the Safer-at-Home order, compared to the pre- and post-Safer-at-Home timeframes, while controlling for individual and neighborhood characteristics. Additionally, these relationships varied by crime type. Consistent with the literature, the findings support the argument that individuals tend to offend relatively near their home address. The current findings extend the state of the literature by highlighting how disruptions to daily routine activities stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic led to alterations in crime patterns, in which analyses indicated shorter distances between home address and offense locations.

Crime Science 2022 11:12

By Paul G. Cassell

Recently, major cities across the country have suffered dramatic spikes in homicides. These sudden spikes are remarkably large and widespread. At this rate, 2020 will easily be the deadliest year in America for gun-related homicides since at least 1999, while most other major crime categories are trending stable or slightly downward.

This article attempts to explain why so many cities have seen extraordinary increases in murder during the summer of 2020. A close analysis of the emerging crime patterns suggests that American cities may be witnessing significant declines in some forms of policing, which in turn are producing the homicide spikes. Crime rates are increasing only for a few specific categories—namely homicides and shootings. These crime categories are particularly responsive to reductions in proactive policing. The data also pinpoint the timing of the spikes to late May 2020, which corresponds with the death of George Floyd while in police custody in Minneapolis and subsequent antipolice protests—protests that likely led to declines in law enforcement.

The thesis of this article is that the recent spikes in homicides have been caused by a “Minneapolis Effect,” similar to the earlier “Ferguson Effect.” Specifically, law enforcement agencies have been forced to divert resources from normal policing to patrolling demonstrations. And even as the anti-police protests have abated, police officers have scaled back on proactive or officer-initiated law enforcement, such as street stops and other forms of policing designed to prevent firearm crimes. If this thesis is correct, it is reasonable to estimate that, as a result of de-policing during June and July 2020, approximately 710 additional victims were murdered and more than 2,800 victims were shot. Of course, this estimate relies on various assumptions, and further research on the issues surrounding the homicide spikes should be an urgent priority.

If this article’s thesis about a Minneapolis Effect is correct, an important implication is that policy makers in major cities should proceed cautiously before taking steps to “defund” the police in ways that might reduce the proactive policing that is important in preventing gun violence.\

Federal Sentencing Reporter (2020) 33 (1-2): 83–127.

By Brian Levin, James Nolan, and Kiana Perst

When prejudice-related data are combined and analyzed over time, critical information is uncovered about overall trends, related intermittent spikes, and less common sharp inflectional shifts in aggression. These shifts impact social cohesion and grievously harm specific sub-groups when aggression escalates and is redirected or mainstreamed. These data, so critical to public policy formation, show that we are in such a historic inflection period now. Moreover, analysis of the latest, though partial Federal Bureau of Investigation hate crime data release, when overlaid with available data from excluded large jurisdictions, reveals hate crimes hit a record high in 2021 in the United States that previously went unreported. This Essay analyzes the most recent national data as well as various numerical and policy milestones that accompanied the historic, yet incomplete, implementation of hate crime data collection and related statutes over recent decades. This analysis of emerging trends in the United States is undertaken in the context of bigoted aggression broken down over time.

112 J. CRIM. L. & CRIMINOLOGY 749 (2023)

By Gary Sweeten and Matthew Larson

This report describes a project that had the main goal of developing a broad, nationally representative understanding of how often statutory rape occurs in the U.S., who the victims and perpetrators are, how self-reported estimates compare to estimates from law enforcement data, and whether short- and/or long-term consequences exist and if they do, what the consequences might be. In order to accomplish that goal, the project had four specific objectives: to estimate nationally representative rates of statutory rape victimization and perpetration using the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 (NLSY97); to assess situational differences between first sexual experiences that are statutory rape compared to those that are not; to estimate the likelihood of women’s statutory rape victimization being reported to police, using data from the National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS); and to assess the short- and long-term consequences of statutory rape victimization, based on the nature and characteristics of relationships as well as on the age differences between victims and perpetrators. The authors provide a breakdown of their research design, methods, analytical and data analysis techniques, results and findings for the four objectives, research limitations, artifacts, datasets generated, and dissemination activities.

Washington, DC: National Institute of Justice Research and Evaluation on Violence Against Women, 2023. 57p.

By Shannon Brennan and Benjamin Mazowita

 Between 2011 and 2016, 2,362 people in British Columbia had a fatal overdose from illicit drugs, with 332 occurring in Surrey specifically. The majority of individuals who died of an illicit drug overdose in British Columbia (66%) and specifically in the City of Surrey (64%) had no contact with police in the 24 months preceding their overdose death. For the purposes of this study, a contact with the police is defined as an official intervention, where the individual was identified by police as a person accused of a criminal incident.  Overall, most of the decedents (66%) held some form of employment in at least one of the five years preceding their overdose death, regardless of any contact with police. That said, decedents who had a formal contact with the police were less likely to have experienced consistent employment over the 5 years. One in five (20%) decedents who had contact with police were employed in each of the 5 years prior to their fatal overdose, compared to 29% of decedents who did not have contact.  More than two-thirds (68%) of decedents who had contact with police had also received social assistance benefits in the 5 years prior to their death, a proportion that was significantly higher than their counterparts who had no contact with police (55%).  In general, most decedents were not hospitalized in the year before their death. This held true for both those who had contact with police (72%) and those who did not (75%). The remaining one in four decedents were hospitalized at least once in the year preceding their death. The most common reasons for hospitalization among decedents in the year before their death besides opioid poisonings were in connection to substance use related disorders and mental health conditions.  While the majority of decedents never came into contact with police, among those who did (34%), many did so multiple times. Overall, 15% of decedents in British Columbia and 16% of decedents in the City of Surrey had three or more formal contacts with police in the 24 months preceding their overdose death.  Overall, among decedents who had a contact with police, 33% in British Columbia (and 24% in the City of Surrey) had a fatal overdose in the 90 days following their last contact with police. These findings indicate the need for timely interventions.  The majority of decedents who came into contact with police prior to their fatal overdose did so for a non-violent crime: 83% of police contacts were for non-violent offences whereas the remaining 17% involved violent offences. Shoplifting of items valued at $5,000 or under was the most common reason decedents came into contact with police in the 24 months prior to their death. Aside from property offences and, more specifically, shoplifting, offences against the administration of justice were also among the most common reasons decedents came into contact with police. These offences were also highly represented among the decedent cohort, relative to the province as a whole.  In line with their police interactions, most of the decedents who appeared in a criminal court within the 2 years preceding their overdose death did so in relation to property offences and offences against the administration of justice. Specifically, cases involving theft, breach of probation and failure to comply with an order were among the most prevalent

Ottawa: Statistics Canada, 2019. 18p.

By Merran McAlister, Emily Faulconbridge, Isabella Voce and Samantha Bricknell

This study presents findings from the Australian Cybercrime Survey related to identity crime and misuse. Thirty-one percent of respondents experienced identity crime in their lifetime and 20 percent in the past 12 months. Almost half of identity crime victims reported that suspicious transactions appeared in their bank statements or accounts. The type of personal information most commonly misused was names, followed by credit or debit card information. While one quarter of respondents did not know how their information was obtained, 16 percent believed it to be due to the hacking of a computer or device. Twenty-nine percent of past 12 month victims experienced a financial loss. The median amount initially lost was $300. Nineteen percent of victims had money reimbursed, the median amount being $250.

Statistical Bulletin 42. Canberra: Australian Institute of Criminology, 2023. 18p.

By European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE)

Sound and comparable data on gender-related killings of women and girls is essential to understanding the prevalence of femicide. This data gathering must be based on a commonly acknowledged definition of femicide and recognised units of measurement and indicators, as well as a typology of femicide. This report gives a comprehensive overview of definitions, data collection systems, methodologies and variables in gathering data on femicide. It outlines whether and how different global and national actors are moving towards: a legal definition of femicide; construction of indicators / measurement framework, based on common (agreed) variables to identify femicide. The aims are to establish a framework for the measurement of femicide at EU level by using variables that might lead to a common definition, and the operationalisation of variables for statistical purposes. This common battery of variables should guide methods for data collection, ensure the gathering of reliable data and result in data comparability across the EU. This report provides the broader context for definitions and variables based on an overview of definitions at both international and Member State levels.

Vilnius, Lithuania: European Institute for Gender Equality, 2021. 63p.

National Research Council.

Most major crime in this country emanates from two major data sources. The FBI’s Uniform Crime Reports has collected information on crimes known to the police and arrests from local and state jurisdictions throughout the country. The National Crime Victimization Survey, a general population survey designed to cover the extent, nature, and consequences of criminal victimization, has been conducted annually since the early1970s. This workshop was designed to consider similarities and differences in the methodological problems encountered by the survey and criminal justice research communities and what might be the best focus for the research community. In addition to comparing and contrasting the methodological issues associated with self-report surveys and official records, the workshop explored methods for obtaining accurate self-reports on sensitive questions about crime events, estimating crime and victimization in rural counties and townships and developing unbiased prevalence and incidence rates for rate events among population subgroups.

Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. 2003. 111p.

Edited by Jörg-Martin Jehle / Stefan Harrendorf.

The study presented in this book is a direct response to the needs for defining and registering criminal and judicial data on the European level. Based upon work done by the European Sourcebook experts group in creating the European Sourcebook of Crime and Criminal Justice Statistics (ESB), the project intended to improve and complement the standards developed so far for definitions and statistical registration in four fields, in order to contribute to the picture of criminal justice in Europe. It utilized questionnaires filled by an established European network.

Gottingen, GER: Universitätsverlag Göttingen 2010 302p.