By Ndubuisi Christian Ani, Feyi Ogunade and John Kamma 

Gangsterism in Liberia lies at the intersection of a society ravaged by civil war, a declining economy, social exclusion of a bulging underclass, collusion between state officials and illicit markets, and inefficient law enforcement. For youths, gang involvement offers a sense of belonging, a surrogate family structure, and a means of protection and economic benefits. Gangs are also available for hire by politicians, criminal networks and business people seeking to intimidate their opponents or protect properties. Key recommendations • A policy against gangsterism and criminal groupings is urgently needed in Liberia. A comprehensive policy would offer opportunities for a holistic response that involves the improved provision of public services, including enhanced law enforcement, in communities. • Youth-focused development is a critical priority for addressing the causes of gang violence and drug abuse in Liberia. Without discounting the importance of quick-impact youth empowerment initiatives, development programmes need to be long-term. • Schools should have drug prevention programmes. • International support could help Liberia establish treatment and rehabilitation centres to address substance abuse and criminality. • The Economic Community of West African States and African Union should establish a joint task force with Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea to disrupt kush production points Research Paper and supply chains  

ENACT Africa, 2025. 28p.

By Vasiliki Georgoulas-Sherry & Hanna Hernandez

This report analyzes COVID-19 impacts on criminal justice data. Specifically, it focuses on the differences amongst adult and juvenile arrests, adult sentencing and juvenile dispositions, adult and juvenile carceral admissions between 2020 and previous years. This type of analysis can help support state and federal policymakers in determining potential next steps in addressing the pandemic’s impact on the criminal justice system – both in the short-term and in the long-term. This report will also help future researchers better understand the anomalies and a more accurate assessment of the pandemic that occurred in the criminal justice datasets during the years impacted. The Washington Statistical Analysis Center (SAC) applied for and received the 2021 State Justice Statistics Grant from Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS). Among other projects, the SAC sought the grant to evaluate the impact of COVID-19 on criminal justice data. Main conclusions from this report: 1. Overall, counts of arrests in Washington State, regardless of category, showed mixed findings with increased from 2017 to 2018 and then 2019 to 2020; but decreased from 2018 to 2019 and then again 2020 to 2021. From 2020 to 2021, there was an overall 3% decrease in arrests in Washington State. 2. For adult arrests in Washington State, from 2019 to 2020 and then 2020 to 2021, there was an overall 17.8% and 13.9% decrease, respectively. For juvenile arrests, from 2019 to 2020 and then 2020 to 2021, there was an overall 39.1% and 33.2% decrease, respectively. 3. Superior court filings decreased from 16.2% in 2018-2019, to 21.4% in 2019-2020, to 15.7% in 2020-2021. Additionally, felony jail sentences decreased throughout the years, from 2017 to 2021. Furthermore, while the overall average prison sentences also saw a decrease from 2017 to 2021, in 2019 to 2020, murder, sex crimes, robbery, and drug crimes saw rises. 4. Juvenile dispositions showed substantial decreases from 2019 to 2020 and from 2020 to 2021 by 7.3% and by 28.8%, respectively. 5. Adult prison admissions saw a decline in all admissions (new, re-admit, and other) . from 2019 to 2021 6. From 2019 to 2020,DOC juvenile admissions and new admissions increased by 126.9% and 11.7%, respectively. 2020 to 2021 presented with decreases in all juvenile admissions.

Olympia: Washington State Statistical Analysis Center, 2022. 213p.

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 Vivien Miller 

This essay uses the 1950 “case of the clinking brassieres” to explore female theft in Miami at mid-century and the ways in which gender, race, class, respectability, and youth offered protections and shaped treatment within Florida’s criminal justice system. It focuses on the illegal activities of three female telephone employees, their criminal prosecution, and post-conviction relief. These seemingly respectable coin thieves challenged a familiar image of theft as a lower-class crime associated with poverty and economic need, while their blonde hair and white skin (and an idealization of the meanings of white beauty standards), complicated public attitudes in a period when “true” or serious criminals were racketeers and organised crime operatives.

European Social Science History Conference, 2013. 39p.

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 Carly B. Dierkhising and Bo-Kyung E. Kim

The authors of this report examine a project aimed at conducting an evaluability assessment of specialized units in Los Angeles County that interact with children and youth who have experienced commercial sexual exploitation (CSE) and who are involved in the child welfare and juvenile justice systems. The authors seek to fill an information gap by documenting those multidisciplinary service delivery models to help determine whether they are the most effective services for children and youth who have been and/or are at risk of CSE. The three overarching research questions addressed by the study were: what are the program components of the specialized units; what are the associated short-term and long-term outcomes; and how can the programs be assessed for implementation fidelity. By answering those questions, the five specific objectives of the project were to: conduct a scoping review of the literature on programs and program evaluation for youth impacted by CSE in the U.S.; specify and describe the activities of specialized units in Los Angeles County for children and youth who have experienced CSE; develop logic models that include program components and hypothesized outcomes of the specialized units; identify and/or develop measurement tools and a plan to assess program fidelity; and evaluate the research capacity of the agencies. The authors report that they were able to operationalize the activities and outcomes of the project, and they provide examples of a how a unit could be assessed for fidelity. The authors’ assessment of the research capacity of the units indicates that there is potential for successful future evaluation activities, however additional data collection processes would need to be implemented in order to capture the broad range of activities and/or outcomes included in the logic model. The report includes appendixes with relevant documentation, surveys, and forms.

Los Angeles: School of Criminal Justice and Criminalistics, California State University, 2023. 87p.