By Coen Teunissen, Hayley Boxall, Sarah Napier and Rick Brown

This study presents the findings from a large survey of people living in Australia (n=9,987) who had used mobile dating apps and/or dating websites in the previous five years. Across the entire sample, 12.4 percent of respondents reported receiving requests to facilitate the sexual exploitation of their own children or children they had access to. Requests included asking for sexual information about children or for sexual images or videos of children, asking to meet children in person or asking for children to perform sex acts over webcam.

The paper highlights the need for additional safety features to be embedded in mobile dating apps and dating websites to protect vulnerable users and to prevent the sexual exploitation of children.

Canberra: Australian Institute of Criminology, 2022. 14p.

By Kamarah Pooley and Hayley Boxall

In the last few years, a number of high-profile cases of sexual and violent offending have been committed after the offender and victim met through a mobile dating application (dating app). Subsequent media and popular rhetoric have positioned dating app sexual and violent offending as a major safety concern.

A literature review was conducted to determine the prevalence of dating app violence, the design features of dating apps that create and prevent opportunities for violence to occur, and the prevention strategies used by individual users and app designers. Results suggest that dating app users are at greater risk of sexual and violent victimisation than non-users. Dating app features designed to promote safety and connectedness paradoxically place users at risk of victimisation. Although some dating apps feature innovative safety mechanisms, most place the onus on users to protect themselves against victimisation.

Canberra: Australian Institute of Criminology, 2020. 16p.

By Clare McGlynn, et al.

Image-based sexual abuse is a pervasive and pernicious form of sexual abuse. We use the term ‘image-based sexual abuse’ to refer to a broad range of abusive behaviours including the taking and/or distribution of nude or sexual images without consent, including threats to do so, which includes so-called ‘revenge porn’, ‘upskirting’, fakeporn, sexual extortion and videos of sexual assaults and rapes. This report draws on interviews with 25 victim-survivors of image-based sexual abuse and over 25 stakeholders, including police, policy-makers, lawyers and survivor organisations conducted over a six-month period in 2018.

Durham, UK: Durham University; University of Kent, 2019. 25p.

By Kamarah Pooley and Hayley Boxall

In the last few years, a number of high-profile cases of sexual and violent offending have been committed after the offender and victim met through a mobile dating application (dating app). Subsequent media and popular rhetoric have positioned dating app sexual and violent offending as a major safety concern.

A literature review was conducted to determine the prevalence of dating app violence, the design features of dating apps that create and prevent opportunities for violence to occur, and the prevention strategies used by individual users and app designers. Results suggest that dating app users are at greater risk of sexual and violent victimisation than non-users. Dating app features designed to promote safety and connectedness paradoxically place users at risk of victimisation. Although some dating apps feature innovative safety mechanisms, most place the onus on users to protect themselves against victimisation.

Canberra: Australian Institute of Criminology, 2020. 16p.

By Heather Wolbers, Hayley Boxall, Cameron Long, Adam Gunnoo

Use of mobile dating apps and websites has increased exponentially in the past 10 years. While these platforms create opportunities to develop and pursue social, romantic and/ or sexual relationships, both online and in the real world, media reporting and broader commentary has raised concerns about users being subjected to high levels of sexual harassment, aggression and violence.

The current study surveyed 9,987 dating app or website users in Australia to explore the prevalence and nature of dating app facilitated sexual violence (DAFSV) victimisation within the sample. Findings revealed that three-quarters of users were subjected to online DAFSV, and a third were subjected to in-person DAFSV, perpetrated by someone they met on a dating app or website. Users often experienced repeat victimisation. DAFSV victimisation was particularly common among LGB+ communities. This study provides valuable information to aid development of policies and practices to prevent the occurrence and recurrence of DAFSV.

Canberra: Australian Institute of Criminology, 2022. 101p.

By Alexandra Thompson and Susannah N. Tapp, Ph.D., BJS Statisticians

From 1993 to 2021, the rate of violent victimization declined from 79.8 to 16.5 victimizations per 1,000 persons age 12 or older.

„ About 46% of violent victimizations were reported to police in 2021, higher than in 2020 (40%).

„ From 2020 to 2021, the violent victimization rate increased from 19.0 to 24.5 victimizations per 1,000 persons in urban areas while remaining unchanged in suburban or rural areas.

U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics. 2022. 31p.

By National Survey of Victimization and Perception of Public Safety (ENVIPE)

The National Survey of Victimization and Perception of Public Safety (ENVIPE) 2021 is the eleventh installment of the statistical series produced by the National Subsystem of Information on Government, Public Safety and Law Enforcement (SNIGSPIJ), coordinated by the National Institute of Statistics and Geography (INEGI). With this project, continuity is given to the topics addressed in previous editions of this survey, whose results have been declared Information of National Interest by the Governing Board of the INEGI.

DOWNLOAD:

2021 2020 2019 2018 2017 2016 2015 2014 2013 2012 2011

By Deborah Azrael, Anthony A. Braga and Mallory O’Brien

This report presents the methodology and findings of an evaluation of the effectiveness of the Milwaukee Homicide Review Commission (MHRC), which was established in May 2004 with the mandate to address the city's persistent lethal violence.

A distinguishing feature of the MHRC is its inclusion of community agencies and leaders outside of the traditional criminal justice system. The evaluation examined MHRC's work from January 2005 through December 2007. Overall, the homicide review process found that homicide in the city's intervention districts were largely clustered in specific locations, such as in and around taverns, as well as in districts with concentrations of active offenders who had been involved in the criminal justice system. Homicides were often the outcome of persistent disputes between individuals and/or groups (usually gangs). Homicides were often committed to gain respect and status among peers who valued fearless displays of power and control over others, as well as to inflict retribution on those showing disrespect and confrontational interactions. Generally, the MHRC decision-making and actions produced a comprehensive set of actionable policy and practice recommendations whose implementation and effects were continuously monitored by the MHRC. MHRC actions were intended to better position criminal justice, social service, and community based organizations in addressing the violence-related factors in high-risk locations and high-risk individuals with a propensity for violence. The impact evaluation found that the implementation of the MHRC interventions was linked with a statistically significant 52-percent decrease in the monthly count of homicides in the treatment districts. In comparison, the control districts had a statistically insignificant 9.2- percent decrease in homicides, after controlling for the other covariates. Apparently, the MHRC's crafting of interventions designed to address underlying risks associated with homicides has had a significant impact in reducing incidents of lethal violence.

Boston, MA: Harvard School of Public Health, 2012. 95p.

By Calum Inverarity, Gareth Price, Courtney Rice and Christopher Sabatini

Travel restrictions and lockdowns have forced changes to the traditional means illicit groups have used to launder their ill-gotten profits. This paper explores whether COVID-19 may have affected these processes through three main channels: increased reliance on cryptocurrencies to move and launder funds tied to illicit activity; the expanded use of the internet through e-commerce sites to continue and expand trade mispricing practices to move illicit funds; and the use of FinTech and peer-to-peer payment services to transfer illicit funds.

Miami: Florida International University, 2021. 37p.

By Mark Ungar

Because of the increasingly organized and lethal nature of criminality in Latin America and Caribbean (LAC), OC policy may be the single most important safeguard for regional security. Nearly every current report, in fact, stresses OC’s increasingly threatening impact “on the economic and sociopolitical environment of the region” as it fuels manifestations of criminal violence such as “trafficking of persons, exploitation of natural resources, threats to protected areas, forced displacement, criminal governance, robbery, physical aggression, extortion and kidnapping,” according to UNDP. A recognition of the tandem growth of OC’s forms, though, does not mean a policy-relevant understanding of them. Such an understanding requires disentangling these crimes’ many overlapping sources, removing embedded layers of methodological obstruction, and attuning responses with OC practice. This multiple challenge, though, first requires stepping back to re-evaluate existing paradigms in at least three ways that this report discusses. First is to question existing OC data, since much of it is suspect, biased, or incomplete – reflecting the misalignment of institutional process and policy goals. Second is the ways in which OC draws its power from a multitude of local, national and regional links among non-state, economic, and state agencies that, like dark matter, are omnipresent but largely invisible. Third is a need to widen and re-examine physical and geographic space.

Miami: Florida International University, Jack D. Gordon Institute for Public Policy, 2021.

By The Global Initiative AGainst Transnational Organized Crime and InSight Crime

In parts of Central America, extortion has become so endemic that it is now a feature of the daily socio-economic life of citizens, businesses and the fabric of the state. The pervasive impunity and weakness of state institutions to combat extortion have meant that, for many central American communities, extortion, or the threat of it, has become a normalized facet of life – a form of violent, omnipresent, criminally enforced taxation – and its effects are far-reaching on a personal, economic and societal level. For the violent, armed street gangs that continually threaten and harass communities in the Northern Triangle countries (El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras) – a region that is the main focus of this report – the extortion market is the main security threat to those countries and one of the principal sources of criminal income. These gangs have bred a criminal regional economy on such a scale that extortion forms a sizeable tranche of some Northern Triangle countries’ GDP. The revenue from extortion has provided some gangs in the region with a solid economic operating base, and at the same time allowed them to diversify into other criminal enterprises, including drug trafficking, and human smuggling and trafficking, which means that they have consolidated their influence over broader transnational organized-crime networks operating in the region. Meanwhile, extortion revenue is laundered through investments in formal businesses, extending the gangs’ economic stranglehold over the communities they target.

Geneva: Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime, 2019. 70p.

By Lucia Dammer

Extortion is a phenomenon that can be understood from various disciplines, such as economics, criminology, the political sciences, and sociology. Each of these fields of knowledge emphasizes either the system or economic models under which extortionists and victims operate, the short- or long-term relationship sought by establishing simple or complex extortion mechanisms, the political relationship between extortionists and victims, or citizens’ perceptions of the institutional framework, which can serve as a gateway for criminal groups to create ties of protection through extortion. This report sheds light on the importance of extortive practices in Latin America. It is based on qualitative research since 2019. The report shows that extortive practices are a region-wide trend, albeit with national, specific characteristics. Although it is primarily a non-violent crime, an increasing tendency—specifically linked to practices against women—should make it a priority for the public security agenda.

Miami: Florida International University, Research Publications 47, 2021. 22p.

By ENACT Africa

As COVID-19 dominates the world’s stage, nearly every aspect of society has been affected by the deadly pandemic. While the impact of the contagion on countries’ economies, social cohesion, health and security has been widely reported on, less is known about its influence on criminal dynamics. The pandemic has not only become a central component of the everyday lives of Africans, but has also revealed the important role the continent plays in the global economy – both licit and illicit. COVID-19 measures have posed a double burden on African countries by heavily challenging people’s economic livelihood and restricting the freedom of movement of Africans, while also challenging governments in how they balance the need to address the health crisis with the provision of services and security amid declining economies. In this context, organised crime in Africa has evolved and taken advantage of the confusion and frustration wrought by the pandemic; it has filled in the gaps left by state institutions, by both adapting its illicit activities in order to circumvent COVID restrictions and providing new sources of livelihoods and parallel services. Institutional responses to stop the spread of the virus have had a profound impact on movement, trade and business, including in black markets and shadow economies. In Africa, COVID-19 was slower to take effect than in other parts of the world, and even though the continent has had experience in handling other major viral epidemics, the health, economic and security systems of many countries on the continent have found themselves ill-equipped to face the particular challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic. As legitimate businesses suffered extensive losses across the continent, people increasingly turned to the informal and illicit economies for alternative sources of livelihood. Meanwhile, those already vulnerable to exploitation become even more at risk due to the paucity of economic opportunities available to them and the isolating restrictions put in place in the interest of public health

ENACT (Africa), 2021. 160p.

By The Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime

The Global Organized Crime Index is the first tool of its kind designed to assess levels of organized crime and resilience to organized criminal activity. It includes in its rankings all the UN member states – 193 countries. The results, which draw from a comprehensive dataset informed by experts worldwide, paint a worrying picture of the reach, scale and impact of organized crime. It is a sobering thought, for instance, that nearly 80% of the world’s population today live in countries with high levels of criminality. It is equally alarming to consider that the exploitation of people, in the form of human trafficking, has become the most pervasive criminal economy in the world – a development that serves as a dark reminder of the dehumanizing impact of organized crime. Meanwhile, the Index highlights how state involvement in criminality is a deeply embedded phenomenon around the world: state officials and clientelist networks who hold influence over state authorities are now the most dominant brokers of organized crime, and not cartel leaders or mafia bosses, as one might be forgiven for thinking. And these are but a few stand-out examples of the findings of this Index. This report introduces the Global Organized Crime Index and sets out the results and implications of the 2020 data, the year in which a new pandemic began to ravage the world. Of course, organized crime is not a new phenomenon, but it is now a more urgent issue than ever. Criminal networks and their impact have spread across the globe in the last two decades, driven by geopolitical, economic and technological forces. The analysis in this report conclusively demonstrates that organized crime is the most pernicious threat to human security, development and justice in the world today.

Geneva: The Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime. 2021. 188p.

By Brent Fisse and John Braithwaite

This book explains why accountability for corporate crime is rarely imposed under the present law, and proposes solutions that would help to extend responsibility to a wide range of actors. The authors develop an Accountability Model under which the courts and corporations work together by having the law harness the internal disciplinary systems of organizations. In this way accountability would be achieved across a much broader front than would otherwise be possible.

New York: Cambridge University Press, 1993. 288p.

By Petter Gottschalk

This brief extends studies on how corporations respond to scandals by examining the evolution of the accounts that corporate agents develop after a scandal becomes public. Guided by the theory of accounts and a recently developed perspective on crisis management, its examines how the accounts developed by thirteen corporations caught up in highly publicized scandals changed from the time of initial exposure to the issuance of an investigative report. This brief continues the discussion of the broader managerial and social implications of the analysis of accounts, and analyses their effect on our understanding of the ability of corporations to weather serious scandals. It includes four case studies; from Switzerland, Moldova, Denmark, and Norway respectively.

Cham: Springer, 2020. 147p

Edited by Diane Vaughan, Henry N. Pontell and Gilbert Geis

Corporate crimes were once thought of as victimless offenses, but now—with billions of dollars and an increasingly global economy at stake—this is understood to be far from the truth.

The International Handbook of White-Collar and Corporate Crime explores the complex interplay of factors involved when corporate cultures normalize lawbreaking, and when organizational behavior is pushed to unethical (and sometimes inhumane) limits. Featuring original contributions from a panel of experts representing North America, Asia, Europe, and Australia, this timely volume presents multidisciplinary views on recent corporate wrongdoing affecting economic and social conditions worldwide.

New York: Springer, 2007. 702p.

By Colin King and Nicholas Lord

This book argues that there is a strong normative argument for using the criminal law as a primary response to corporate crime. In practice, however, corporate crimes are rarely dealt with through criminal sanctioning mechanisms. Rather, the preference – for both prosecutors and corporates – appears to be on negotiating out of the criminal process. Reflecting this emphasis on negotiation, this book examines the use of Civil Recovery Orders and Deferred Prosecution Agreements as responses to corporate crime, and discusses a variety of UK case studies. Drawing upon legal and criminological backgrounds, and with an emphasis on the conceptual frameworks of ‘negotiated justice’ and ‘legitimacy’, the authors examine the law, policy and practice of these enforcement responses. They offer an original, theoretically-informed analysis which is accessible to practitioners and researchers.

Cham: Springer, 2018. 167p.

By Don Weatherburn, Jessie Holmes

This paper finds that the national decline in robbery and theft offences is partly due to a reduction in heroin use and partly due to improvements in the economy, but that other factors are likely to have also played a role.

This report aims to describe and discuss inter-jurisdictional trends in police-recorded robbery and theft offences. Rates of recorded robbery and theft per head of population are calculated for each Australian jurisdiction from 1994/1995 to 2012. Rates of recorded robbery are disaggregated into armed and unarmed robbery. Rates of recorded theft are disaggregated into burglary, motor vehicle theft and other theft.

Sydney: New South Wales Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research, 2013. 7p,

By Lance Smith, Erin Louis, Letitia Preston

The incidence of service station armed robbery has steadily increased over the past decade. This paper examines the incidence of armed robbery at service stations and profiles the offenders involved.

The incidence of service station armed robbery has steadily increased over the past decade. Using the Australian Institute of Criminology's National Armed Robbery Monitoring Program (NARMP) data, this paper examines the incidence of armed robbery at service stations and profiles the offenders involved. The NARMP data shows that about one in ten armed robberies in Australia were of service stations, and that these were more likely to be targeted at night by lone offenders using knives. The most common item stolen was cash, with an average value of $643. The relative youth of the offenders — on average 23 years old — and infrequent use of firearms suggests the armed robberies involved little if any planning. This opportunistic targeting of service stations has been attributed to their extended opening hours, their sale of cigarettes and other exchangeable goods, their high volume of cash transactions and their isolation from other businesses. Widespread adoption of crime prevention measures by service stations, such as transfer trays, could help reduce their risk of being robbed, but the paper cautions that displacement effects should be considered prior to the implementation of new countermeasures.

Canberra: Australian Institute of Criminology, 2009. 6p.