By Laura Chiang, Stephanie Miedema, Janet Saul, James Mercy, Andrew Brooks, Alexander Butchart, Gretchen Bachman, Jennifer Hegle, Daniela Ligiero, Joseph Logan, Greta Massetti

Violence against children is a pervasive global public health and human rights issue, with 1 billion children experiencing at least one form of violence annually. Extensive scientific literature shows childhood adversity, including sexual violence, to be directly and indirectly associated with a host of health and social consequences with a dose–response effect, consequential intergenerational impacts, and sizeable economic ramifications. There is a dearth of population data on the prevalence of childhood sexual violence as well as its antecedents and health and social outcomes, which has hampered violence prevention and child protection efforts globally and locally. Population data are critical, alongside administrative data systems and statistical definitions and classification schemes, for governments to adequately begin addressing violence against children. The absence of national prevalence data has resulted in limited information to guide national policies and prevention strategies, monitor trends, and evaluate prevention efforts. Globally, lack of data on the epidemiological patterns of violence against children has resulted in deficient prioritisation for preventing and responding to this critical problem. Violence Against Children and Youth Surveys (VACS) collect comprehensive data on violence and have been implemented in over 23 countries in Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, Europe and Latin America since 2007. VACS have also been repeated in three countries: Zimbabwe (2011; 2017), Kenya (2010; 2019) and Eswatini (2007; 2022). VACS provide extensive data on the prevalence and contexts of all forms of violence, including sexual violence, therefore allowing for targeted prevention and response efforts. VACS further provide the global research community with data to examine the epidemiological patterns of childhood sexual violence across countries and regions. VACS data have raised awareness and improved understanding of childhood sexual violence in many countries worldwide, and thereby catalysed action. This article draws on VACS reports and empirical publications, to summarise and describe patterns in childhood sexual violence across countries that have completed VACS and shed light on the global prevalence of childhood sexual violence.

BMJ Paediatr Open, 2024. 3p.

By Laura Carlson  

American criminal jurisprudence relies on confidential informants: those individuals who agree to assist police in exchange for leniency. Facing little regulation by legislatures, law enforcement has raised an informant system premised on the exploitation of vulnerabilities and free from basic safeguards that would help to mitigate the moral, mental, and physical harm informants face in the field. While this is generally problematic, the issue becomes more pronounced when considering law enforcement’s use of juveniles to combat crimes perpetrated against and among children. A juvenile’s brain is developmentally distinct from an adult’s. During late adolescence, the brain goes through major maturation processes that significantly affect a juvenile’s ability to assess risk, make forward-thinking decisions, override emotions with logic, and resist social pressures. In other words, the juvenile brain is predisposed to act adverse to self-interests. Within the context of the modern informant system, juveniles engage with police on seriously disadvantaged ground; and because agreeing to assist police has proven to be a death sentence for some, the urgency with which this must be addressed cannot be overstated. America’s tolerance of police discretion with respect to the use of juvenile informants must end. Legislatures can facilitate change by implementing safeguards aimed at mitigating the risks posed by a juvenile’s physiological predispositions. Namely, legislatures should consider implementing mandatory cooling-off periods, a statutory right to counsel, mandatory parental and judicial consent, prescribed documentation and recordkeeping requirements, and enforced training regimens. Absent empirical data that youth at large are better protected by the abolition of the use of juvenile informants, legislatures looking to implement these suggestions or otherwise restrict the practice should be careful to balance proposed legislation with the needs of law enforcement. 

Arizona Law Review, 2023. 26p.

By Steven James Lee and  Daniel Augusto

  In the latter half of 2020, Los Angeles was dubbed by the media and academicians as the latest epicenter of COVID-19 in the United States. Using time-series analysis on Los Angeles Police Department crime data from 2017 through 2020, this paper tests the economic theory of crime, routine activities theory, social isolation theory, and structural vulnerability theory to determine whether they accurately predicted specifc crime rate movements in the wake of COVID-19 in the city of Los Angeles. Economic theory of crime was supported by the data, and social isolation theory and structural vulnerability theory were partially supported. Routine activities theory was not supported. Implications for policymakers and academics are also discussed.  

Crime Prevention and Community Safety, 2022. 21p.

 By David Yerger, Brandon Vick, Robert Orth, and Charles Gartside, 

The project’s primary goal was to investigate whether shocks stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic either triggered or heightened human suffering in two crimerelated areas: murder and abuse. A secondary goal was to identify rural-urban differences in these outcomes both before and during the pandemic. An analysis of homicides and protection from abuse orders over time provided valuable insights regarding crime trends and rural-urban differences, but it did not suggest large, long-term effects due to the COVID-19 pandemic throughout the state. The statewide homicide rate rose 21 percent from 2019 to 2020, but the increase was specific to a certain group and location: Black, male victims in Philadelphia County, murdered with a firearm, with most of these incidents being homicides, with no known relationship between the victim and offender (Philadelphia County’s murder rate increased 36 percent in 2020). In rural counties, the 2020 murder rate rose 24 percent, and in non-Philadelphia urban counties, there was a 3 percent increase. It should be noted that these upward trends came after homicides steadily rose from 2014 to 2018, before falling significantly in 2019, and then rising in 2020. The exploratory analysis on county-levels of COVID case and death rates found no statistical evidence that high COVID-rate counties were more likely to experience high levels of protection from abuse orders or homicides. However, the analysis found that counties with higher unemployment rates and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) participation also experienced higher murder rates and protection from abuse order prevalence in 2020 (a relationship that holds when tested across other years). 

Harrisburg, PA: Center for Rural Pennsylvania, 2022.  42p.

By Nafees Hamid and Cristina Ariza

Question: Are those radicalised offline or online more of a threat? Which group is harder to detect, more successful in completing attacks, and more lethal when they do so? Is the pattern different for youth versus older perpetrators and for men versus women? This report investigates these questions. Database: We created a database containing 439 perpetrators involved in 245 attacks between 1 January 2014 and 1 January 2021. It includes every publicly known completed attack and an extensive sampling of thwarted attacks. Attacks were all jihadist‑linked in eight Western countries: Australia, Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Spain, the United Kingdom and the United States. Type of radicalisation: In our database, radicalisation primarily happens offline; over half the individuals in our database had been radicalised via offline networks. Success and lethality: Individuals who were radicalised offline were three times more likely than individuals radicalised online to complete an attack successfully. Those radicalised offline are 18 times more lethal than individuals in the online category. Those radicalised online are almost eight times more likely to fail than to succeed. Group attacks: Individuals who were radicalised offline are almost three times more likely to attack or plot in groups than individuals radicalised online. Success of group attacks: While groups were more likely to be thwarted by the police than to succeed (regardless of how individuals had been radicalised), successful groups of people radicalised offline were more lethal than their lone actor counterparts (15%). Family and friends: Some 87% of those with radicalised friends and 74% with radicalised relatives plotted or attacked together. Foreign fighters: Foreign terrorist fighters (FTFs), who were mostly radicalised offline, have the same success rate as non‑FTFs. But success rate increases if they have spent more than a year in a terrorist training location. Age: Online radicalisation is on the rise for young people (born from the 2000s onwards), although most individuals, including young people, are still radicalised offline. Gender: Women appear to be more likely to have been radicalised online. Bottom line: Those radicalised offline are greater in number, more successful in completing attacks and more deadly than those radicalised online.  

London: International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation, King’s College London. 2022. 40p.

By Felix Soldner, Bennett Kleinberg, Shane D. Johnson

The popularity of online shopping is steadily increasing. At the same time, fake product reviews are published widely and have the potential to affect consumer purchasing behavior. In response, previous work has developed automated methods utilizing natural language processing approaches to detect fake product reviews. However, studies vary considerably in how well they succeed in detecting deceptive reviews, and the reasons for such differences are unclear. A contributing factor may be the multitude of strategies used to collect data, introducing potential confounds which affect detection performance. Two possible confounds are data-origin (i.e., the dataset is composed of more than one source) and product ownership (i.e., reviews written by individuals who own or do not own the reviewed product). In the present study, we investigate the effect of both confounds for fake review detection. Using an experimental design, we manipulate data-origin, product ownership, review polarity, and veracity. Supervised learning analysis suggests that review veracity (60.26–69.87%) is somewhat detectable but reviews additionally confounded with product-ownership (66.19–74.17%), or with data-origin (84.44–86.94%) are easier to classify. Review veracity is most easily classified if confounded with product-ownership and data-origin combined (87.78–88.12%). These findings are moderated by review polarity. Overall, our findings suggest that detection accuracy may have been overestimated in previous studies, provide possible explanations as to why, and indicate how future studies might be designed to provide less biased estimates of detection accuracy. 

PLoS ONE 17(12): 2022

By Michael J. Frith  , Kate J. Bowers  , Shane D. Johnson 

Introduction: In response to COVID-19, governments imposed various restrictions on movement and activities. According to the routine activity perspective, these should alter where crime occurs. For burglary, greater household occupancy should increase guardianship against residential burglaries, particularly during the day considering factors such as working from home. Conversely, there should be less eyes on the street to protect against non-residential burglaries. Methods: In this paper, we test these expectations using a spatio-temporal model with crime and Google Community Mobility data. Results: As expected, burglary declined during the pandemic and restrictions. Different types of burglary were, however, affected differently but largely consistent with theoretical expectation. Residential and attempted residential burglaries both decreased significantly. This was particularly the case during the day for completed residential burglaries. Moreover, while changes were coincident with the timing and relaxation of restrictions, they were better explained by fluctuations in household occupancy. However, while there were significant decreases in non-residential and attempted non-residential burglary, these did not appear to be related to changes to activity patterns, but rather the lockdown phase. Conclusions: From a theoretical perspective, the results generally provide further support for routine activity perspective. From a practical perspective, they suggest considerations for anticipating future burglary trends 

Journal of Criminal Justice, v. 82, 2022

By Courtney Semisch

For the first time, this report provides in-depth criminal history information about federal economic crime offenders, combining the most recently available data from two United States Sentencing Commission projects. Key findings are that the application of guideline criminal history provisions differed among the different types of economic crime offenders. Also, The extent of prior convictions differed among the different types of economic crime offenders. Federal economic crime offenders did not “specialize” in economic crime. The severity of criminal history differed for offenders in the specific types of economic crime. Only about one-quarter of federal economic crime offenders with prior convictions were not assigned criminal history points under the guidelines.

Washington, DC: United States Sentencing Commission, 2020. 56p.