By Hannah S. Laqueur & Colette Smirniotis

Using firearm transaction and crime gun recovery records from California (2010–2021), we employ machine learning to identify dealers who sold the largest number and highest fraction of guns recovered in crimes within 1 year of sale. This short “time-to-crime” (TTC) is a well-established indicator of potential illegal activity by dealers or traffickers. We developed two primary prediction models: the first classifies dealer-years in the top 5% of 1-year crime gun sales volume (prediction model 1), the second identifies dealer-years in the top 5% based on the fraction of sales recovered within a year (prediction model 2). Both models demonstrated strong discriminative performance, with areas under the receiver operating curve (AUCs) of 0.95 and 0.86, respectively, and areas under the precision-recall curve (AUC–PRs) of 0.72 and 0.43. By comparison, a random classifier would be expected to achieve an AUC of 0.50 and an AUC-PR of 0.05. Prediction model 1 was particularly effective at identifying the highest risk dealers: Those with predictions exceeding 0.90 consistently ranked in the top 5% across multiple years, averaging 33 1-year crime gun sales annually. The machine learning models generally outperformed simpler regression and rule-based approaches, underscoring the value of data-adaptive methods for prediction. Key predictors included prior-year crime gun sales, the average age of purchasers, the proportion of “cheap” handgun sales, and the local gun robbery and assault rate.

Firearms dealers may engage in behaviors that facilitate the diversion of guns to criminal markets. Combining detailed transaction and recovery records with machine learning could help efficiently identify high-risk retailers for targeted enforcement to disrupt the flow of firearms to gun offenders. Future research is needed to determine whether a high number of short TTC sales as compared to a high fraction is a more reliable predictor of law evasion.

Criminology & Public Policy Volume 24, Issue 3 Aug 2025 Pages307-497

By Carla Álvarez

Ecuador is experiencing an unusual growth in violence and criminality. In addition to being among the 10 countries with the greatest incidence of criminality in the world,1 it currently has the highest rate of violent deaths in Latin America, 47.25 for every 100 000 residents,2 eight times higher than in 2016, the year Ecuador recorded its lowest rate since 1980.3 In less than a decade, it has gone from being the second safest country in South America (after Chile)4 to becoming the most violent. Firearms play a central role in this security crisis. According to the 2023 Global Organized Crime Index,5 arms trafficking is one of the largest-growing criminal markets in the country. Firearms have become an instrument for strengthening the capacity of criminal organizations dedicated to drug trafficking and illegal mining, as well as a way to assert territorial control. In 2023, firearms were involved in nine out of every 10 violent deaths in the country.6 As shown in Figures 1 and 2, since 2020 the number of homicides has virtually doubled year after year, as well as the recurrence of the use of firearms. These figures exceed the regional and worldwide averages of violence committed with these devices.7 In addition, while young men have accounted for the majority of the violent deaths recorded, the assassinations of women have also grown significantly in recent years. In the case of the femicides recorded in 2023, a total of 321 violent deaths of women were gender-related, 37% of which were committed using firearms.8 The centrality of firearms in the dynamics of violence in Ecuador is the result of the loosening of internal regulations that permit the import, manufacture, commerce and carrying of weapons. Despite the growth in armed violence, on 1 April 2023 the Ecuadorian government relaxed several measures that expanded the legal market for firearms. These decisions were adopted despite the institutional inability of the state to exercise effective control over the permits to carry and possess weapons;9 the growing corruption in security-related institutions;10 and the harsh criticism by some sectors of civil society of the government for having fostered the adoption of measures on self-protection and the privatization of security instead of promoting a public security policy.

This change has facilitated the proliferation of arms amid a process of expansion of criminal activities in the country, which has in turn led to the growth of an active and concerning market for arms. Without a doubt, the increase in violence is related to the increase in arms trafficking, which, in addition to being lucrative, facilitates other crimes, such as drug trafficking, extortion, illegal mining, contract killings and kidnappings.

Geneva: Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime., 2024. 31p.

By United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC); Robert Muggah, et al.

KEY FINDINGS

• Increasingly sophisticated and high-calibre firearms and ammunition are being trafficked into Haiti amid an unprecedented and rapidly deteriorating security situation.

• Haiti remains a trans-shipment country for drugs, primarily cocaine and cannabis, which mostly enter the country via boat or plane, arriving through public, private and informal ports as well as clandestine runways.

• Haiti’s borders are essentially porous, and the challenges of patrolling 1,771 kilometres of coastline and a 392-kilometre land border with the Dominican Republic are overwhelming the capacities of Haiti’s national police, customs, border patrols and coast guard, who are severely under-staffed and under-resourced, a variety of sources with their attendant limitations, including unverified media reports, to take account of recent developments. It opens with a cursory overview of the criminal context in which firearms and drug trafficking are occurring. The second section considers the basic infrastructure that facilitates trafficking, especially seaports, roads and airstrips. Sections three and four examine patterns of trafficking of both firearms and drugs into and out of Haiti. The final section summarizes global, regional and national measures to address related challenges, alongside knowledge gaps warranting deeper investigation. Given the evolving circumstances, any attempt to document firearms and drug trafficking trends in Haiti will be fragmented and partial. Even so, certain tendencies and patterns can be discerned. Very generally, firearms and ammunition typically enter Haiti via land and sea, and drugs usually transit Haiti from seaports, airports and across poorly monitored border points. Most weapons are sourced in the US and make their way to gang members and private residents through intermediaries, often through public and private ports and porous checkpoints. Whether they are interdicted or not, most drugs passing through Haiti are produced in Colombia (cocaine) or Jamaica (cannabis) and shipped directly from source, or pass via Bahamas, Turks and Caicos, and Venezuela. From Haiti they are shipped onward to the Dominican Republic, Western Europe and, primarily, the US. and increasingly targeted by gangs.

• Heavily armed criminal gangs are targeting ports, highways, critical infrastructure, customs offices, police stations, court houses, prisons, businesses and neighbourhoods.

• Virtually every metric of insecurity, from homicide, sexual violence and kidnapping to the killing of police and migration out of the country – is trending upward.

• International, regional and national responses have underscored the importance of increasing support to law enforcement and border management. Comprehensive approaches encompassing investments in community policing, criminal justice reform and anti-corruption measures are crucial to delivering sustainable peace and stability in Haiti.

Haiti is in the grip of multiple, interlocking, and cascading crises. If unattended, there are serious risks of further destabilization from a myriad of increasingly powerful criminal armed groups. The risks of regional spill-over and contagion are widely acknowledged: The United Nations Security Council has repeatedly raised concerns about the country’s “protracted and deteriorating political, economic, security, human rights, humanitarian and food security crises” and “extremely high levels of gang violence and other criminal activities”. 1 A particular preoccupation relates to the contribution of illegal firearms and drug trafficking in fuelling Haiti’s deepening security dilemmas. This assessment provides an overview of the scope, scale and dynamics of firearms and drug trafficking in Haiti, including sources, routes, vectors and destinations. It is based on published and unpublished information and 45 interviews conducted by UNODC with representatives of the Haitian government, bilateral and multilateral agencies, subject matter experts, and Haitian civil society.2 The situation in the country is deteriorating rapidly, and this assessment has drawn upon

Vienna: UNODC, 2023. 47p.

By EMS Foundation and Ban Animal Trading

The wild animals within the borders of South Africa are part of the heritage of every South African and we have the right to demand that our government protects wild animals against exploitation and to demand accountability from government as to what it does in this regard. Government is empowered by a cogent body of laws to perform this function and it is obliged to do so by international treaties. It is urgently necessary for government to comply with its responsibilities not only because of the ethical, moral and legal compunction to do so but also because the export of our wild animals for the financial gain of a few has become big business.

South Africa has become the largest exporter of live wild animals to Asia, where many wild animals are killed to extract potions from their carcases and are eaten as delicacies. Some are sent to languish in atrocious zoos. Some are inserted into the murky world of the illegal wildlife trade. The reality is that the South African government fails to apply its strong regulatory powers and by design or neglect allows strikingly large numbers of animals to be exported.

South Africa: EMS Foundation and Ban Animal Trading, 2020. 123p.