Edited by Ruth Peterson, Lauren Krivo and John Hagan

In this authoritative volume, race and ethnicity are themselves considered as central organizing principles in why, how, where and by whom crimes are committed and enforced. The contributors argue that dimensions of race and ethnicity condition the very laws that make certain behaviors criminal, the perception of crime and those who are criminalized, the determination of who becomes a victim of crime under which circumstances, the responses to laws and crime that make some more likely to be defined as criminal, and the ways that individuals and communities are positioned and empowered to respond to crime.

New York: New York University Press, 2006. 432p.

By Alfred Blumstein and Joel Wallman

Violent crime in America shot up sharply in the mid-1980s and continued to climb until 1991, after which something unprecedented occurred. The crime level declined to a level not seen since the 1960s. This revised edition of The Crime Drop in America focuses first on the dramatic drop in crime rates in America in the 1990s, and then, in a new epilogue, on the patterns since 2000. The separate chapters written by distinguished experts cover the many factors affecting crime rates: policing, incarceration, drug markets, gun control, economics, and demographics. Detailed analyses emphasize the mutual effects of changes in crack markets, a major focus of youth violence, and the drop in rates of violence following decline in demand for crack. The contrasts between the crime-drop period of the 1990s and the period since 2000 are explored in the new epilogue, which also reviews major new developments in thinking about the causes and control of crime.

Cambridge, UK; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006. 375p.

By Johann van Loggerenberg

Warning. Smoking kills. It also corrupts law-enforcement officials and eviscerates state institutions. It devours politicians, professionals, business people and ordinary workers in the chase for big bucks and the battle for a slice of an ever-shrinking cigarette market. Join one of South Africa’s former tax sleuths Johann van Loggerenberg in a wild ride through the double-dealing world of tobacco’s colourful characters and ruthless corporates. Meet the femme fatales, mavericks, mercenaries and grandmasters, and learn how the crime-busting unit led by Van Loggerenberg at SARS and its ‘Project Honey Badger’ became a victim of a war between industry players and a high-stakes political game driven by state capture. This is the tale of a few good men and women who dared to try to hold to account a billion-dollar international industry rife with private spy networks, tax evasion, collusion and corruption – ultimately at great cost to themselves and South Africa.

Cape Town, South Africa: Tafelberg 2019. 272p.

By Clete Snell

The social acceptance of tobacco use obscures the fact that it is the single greatest preventable cause of death in the U.S., and approximately 80% of those who use tobacco products began using them before the age of 18. Indeed, tobacco companies in the past routinely targeted youth in their marketing and advertising, hoping to hook kids young and keep them with their original brand. Snell explores the tobacco industry's campaign to attract youth smokers and provides an overview of the FDA's investigation of the tobacco industry and how those investigations revealed the industry's deceptions and their specific intent to target youths….As a result of the Master Settlement with the tobacco industry, many states have developed comprehensive programs that have resulted in a substantial decline in youth tobacco use. While national efforts at tobacco regulation have largely failed, local tobacco control efforts have mostly been successful. Snell shows that the future of youth tobacco policy depends on the continued funding of tobacco prevention programs at the state and local level and illustrates that there is considerable evidence that the tobacco industry is shifting its marketing approach to minority populations and developing nations.

Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2005. 188p.

By E. LeGresley and E. Lindblom

Each year approximately 400 billion cigarettes, or one-third of all legally exported cigarettes, end up illegally smuggled across international borders. Cigarettes are the world’s most widely smuggled legal consumer product. Cigarette smuggling hurts the world’s nations by evading otherwise applicable duty fees and taxes. Even worse, it increases the number of smokers by providing a less-expensive supply of cigarettes, especially for the young and the poor. National efforts to restrict access to cigarettes by children can be undermined by the availability of cheap contraband cigarettes. In addition, cigarette smuggling that steals away public revenues leaves less funding available for public health efforts. At the same time, it reduces available revenues for health care and law enforcement. The major international cigarette companies say that the solution for the world’s governments is to reduce cigarette taxes and duty fees to reduce the incentives to smuggle. But an enormous, growing body of evidence shows that the major cigarette companies, themselves, have knowingly fostered and have consciously supported cigarette smuggling. In doing so, they have been able to penetrate otherwise closed markets, to increase the sales of their brands by making them available at lower prices, and to provide an argument against high or increased levels of cigarette taxes or import duties

Washington, DC: Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, 2002. 54p.

By The World Health Organization

The Protocol to Eliminate Illicit Trade in Tobacco Products is the first protocol to the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (WHO FCTC), and a new international treaty in its own right. It was adopted by consensus on 12 November 2012 at the fifth session of the Conference of the Parties (COP) to the WHO FCTC (Seoul, Republic of Korea, 12–17 November 2012). The Protocol builds upon and complements Article 15 of the WHO FCTC, which addresses means of countering illicit trade in tobacco products, a key aspect of a comprehensive tobacco control policy. The Protocol was developed in response to the growing international illicit trade in tobacco products, which poses a serious threat to public health. Illicit trade increases the accessibility and affordability of tobacco products, thus fuelling the tobacco epidemic and undermining tobacco control policies. It also causes substantial losses in government revenues, and at the same time contributes to the funding of transnational criminal activities. The objective of the Protocol is the elimination of all forms of illicit trade in tobacco products, in accordance with the terms of Article 15 of the WHO FCTC.

Geneva: WHO, 2013. 68p.

By Benoit Gomis

Since 2013, a number of countries and local jurisdictions around the world have legalised and regulated their cannabis supply chains for non-medical use. Lawmakers, regulators, researchers, and advocates continue to design, enact, implement and revise regulatory frameworks for medical and recreational cannabis. And yet lessons from regulating other psychoactive substances, including tobacco products, are not always fully considered. The experience of the illicit tobacco trade is particularly relevant for cannabis regulation. … The global tobacco market is heavily concentrated. China, Brazil, and India accounted for 63% of all tobacco leaf cultivation in 2019 as part of a global cigarette market dominated by a small number of companies.6 China National Tobacco Corporation (CNTC) accounted for 43.9% of global cigarette retail volume in 2019 – the large majority of it is destined for domestic consumption, though the company has been developing a global expansion strategy. Beyond CNTC, Philip Morris International (PMI) (13.4% of global retail volume in 2019), British American Tobacco (BAT) (12.7%), Japan Tobacco International (JTI) (9.1%) and Imperial Brands (4.2%) accounted for 70% of the rest of the world’s market share in 2019. In contrast, cannabis can be grown indoors and therefore almost anywhere across the world. The illicit cannabis market has been characterised by a high number of small-scale growers, including for personal consumption and local distribution.

International Drug Policy Consortium, 2021. 23p.

By ENACT

Weak medical regulations and the lack of regulatory autonomy poses challenges in efforts to address organised criminality in the sector. The COVID-19 global pandemic has had profound social, economic and geo-political impact across the globe. In East Africa, countries have attempted to face this issue in the context of resource challenged national healthcare systems. Organised crime groups (OCGs) however have sought to exploit the vulnerabilities in society, which have developed following fundamental changes in population behaviours as a result of fear and often misinformation concerning the pandemic. Challenges in regulatory authority autonomy combined with widespread adoption in East African of misinformation on COVID-19 create an ideal operating environment for OCGs. This has encouraged OCGs to move into the illicit medications market over other forms of crime. A COVID-19 related hysteria has maximised profits for organised crime in this field, whilst enabling relatively risk free activity for criminals. This activity has included increased importations of counterfeit and substandard medications from Asia as well as the acquisition of powerful painkillers to sell on the black market.

ENACT Africa, 2020. 25p.

By The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, Research and Trend Analysis Branch

The COVID-19 crisis is taking its toll on the global economy, public health and our way of life. The virus has now infected more than 3.6 million people worldwide, killed 250,000 and led Governments to take drastic measures to limit the spread of coronavirus disease 2019. Roughly half of the global population is living under mobility restrictions, international border crossings have been closed and economic activity has declined drastically, as many countries have opted for the closure of nonessential businesses. Drug trafficking relies heavily on legal trade to camouflage its activities and on individuals being able to distribute drugs to consumers. The measures implemented by Governments to counter the COVID19 pandemic have thus inevitably affected all aspects of the illegal drug markets, from the production and trafficking of drugs to their consumption. Having said that, the impact of those measures varies both in terms of the different business models used in the distribution of each type of drug and the approaches used by different countries to address the pandemic. These range from the closure of international border crossings, while allowing domestic travel, to moderate-to-strict shelter-in-place orders, or a complete lockdown of all activities, including suspension of essential services other than for emergencies. The impact on actual drug production may vary greatly depending on the substance and the geographical location of its production.

Vienna: UNODC Research and Trend Analysis Branch, 2020. 45p.

Edited by Jennifer Schweppe and Mark Austin Walters

The Globalisation of Hate: Internationalising Hate Crime? is the first book to examine the impact of globalisation on our understanding of hate speech and hate crime. Bringing together internationally acclaimed scholars with researchers, policy makers and practitioners from across the world, it critically scrutinises the concept of hate crime as a global phenomenon, seeking to examine whether hate crime can, or should, be conceptualised within an international framework and, if so, how this might be achieved. …. The final part of the book concludes with an examination of the different ways in which hate speech and hate crime is being combatted globally. International law, internet regulation and the use of restorative practices are evaluated as methods of addressing hate-based conflict, with the discussions drawn from existing frameworks as well as exploring normative standards for future international efforts. Taken together, these innovative and insightful contributions offer a timely investigation into the effects of hate crime, offering an interdisciplinary approach to tackling what is now a global issue.

New York: Oxford University Press, 2016. 340p.

By Stanislav Vysotsky

This dissertation seeks to understand the tactical differences between two groups of anti-racist activists who confront white supremacists. I dub these activists non-militant and militant anti-racists based on their tactical preferences. Non-militant anti-racists engage in what are understood to be conventional and demonstrative tactics. While militants are also likely to engage in similar tactics, their tactical repertoire also includes confrontational and violent approaches. I am particularly interested in how the two groups of activists explain the differences in their tactical choices; and therefore, posit that each group will use ideological explanations and perceptions of threat to explain their tactical choices. Using a snowball sampling methodology, I developed a sample of 24 anti-racist activists. These activists were given a quantitative survey in order to establish their tactical preference. The survey consisted of an original index developed to establish the militancy of the respondent. Survey results yielded a bi-modal distribution of scores that suggests a distinct difference in tactical preferences among anti-racist activists and confirms the categorization of activists into non-militant and militant categories. Additionally, interviews were conducted with all of the participants in order to 1) validate the results of the quantitative measure of militancy, 2) establish ideological orientation and test whether it had an influence of discussion of tactical preference, and 3) gauge the level of threat perceived and its influence on tactical preference. The results of the survey and interview data indicate distinct differences in tactical preferences between non-militants and militants.. The interview data demonstrate a clear difference in how non-militants and militants explain their tactical preferences. Non-militants adhered to a liberal ideology, but did not make explicit reference to their ideological position to explain their tactical preferences. I posit that this is a result of hegemonic dominance of liberalism.

Boston, MA: Northeastern University, 2009. 237p.

By Joyce King

On June 7, 1998, James Byrd, Jr., a forty-nine-year-old black man, was dragged to his death while chained to the back of a pickup truck driven by three young white men. It happened just outside of Jasper, a sleepy East Texas logging town that, within twenty-four hours of the discovery of the murder, would be inextricably linked in the nation’s imagination to an exceptionally brutal, modern-day lynching.

In this superbly written examination of the murder and its aftermath, award-winning journalist Joyce King brings us on a journey that begins at the crime scene and extends into the minds of the young men who so casually ended a man’s life. She takes us inside the prison in which two of them met for the first time, and she shows how it played a major role in shaping their attitudes—racial and otherwise. The result is a deeply engrossing psychological portrait of the accused and a powerful indictment of the American prison system’s ability to reform criminals. Finally, King writes with candor and clarity about how the events of that fateful night have affected her—as a black woman, a native Texan, and a journalist given the agonizing assignment of covering the trials of all three defendants.

New York: Pantheon Books, 2002. 248p.

By Colleen E. Mills

Hate crime proves prevalent in American society, inflicting a variety of harms on victims as well as society at large. Scholars have long sought to understand the motivations and conditions behind hate crime offending. Green and his colleagues conducted the classic neighborhood studies examining the conditions that foster hate crime (Green, Glaser, & Rich, 1998; Green, Strolovich, & Wong, 1998; Green, Strolovitch, Wong, & Bailey). Using data from the New York Police Department’s Hate Crimes Task Force, the current study replicates and extends Green's neighborhood studies by investigating hate crime in New York City from 1995 to 2010. This study investigates whether Green, Strolovitch, & Wong’s (1998) findings hold true over an extended period of time in New York City, during which the city underwent major demographic changes. Using a group conflict framework (Blalock, 1967; Tolnay & Beck, 1995), the current study extends prior work by investigating the impact of various "threats, including defended neighborhoods as well as economic, political, terrorist, and gay threat, on different types of anti-minority hate crime, including those against racial, ethnic, and religious minorities as well as anti-gay hate crime. The current study also integrates criminological frameworks, testing social disorganization and strain to explain hate crime. Using negative binomial regression analyses with a pooled cross-sectional design, the current study provides a thorough analysis of hate crime in New York City as well as further insight into hate crime in the context of defended neighborhoods.

New York: City University of New York, 2007. 211p.

By Paul Iganski

The impression often conveyed by the media about hate crime offenders is that they are hate-fuelled individuals who, in acting out their extremely bigoted views, target their victims in premeditated violent attacks. Scholarly research on the perpetrators of hate crime has begun to provide a more nuanced picture. But the preoccupation of researchers with convicted offenders neglects the vast majority of hate crime offenders that do not come into contact with the criminal justice system.This book, from a leading author in the field, widens understanding of hate crime by demonstrating that many offenders are ordinary people who offend in the context of their everyday lives. Written in a lively and accessible style, the book takes a victim-centred approach to explore and analyse hate crime as a social problem, providing an empirically informed and scholarly perspective. Aimed at academics and students of criminology, sociology and socio-legal studies, the book draws out the connections between the individual agency of offenders and the background structural context for their actions. It adds a new dimension to the debate about criminalising hate in light of concerns about the rise of punitive and expressive justice, scrutinizing the balance struck by hate crime laws between the rights of offenders and the rights of victims.

Bristol, UK: Policy Press, 2008. 168p.

By James B. Jacobs and Kimberly Potter

In the early 1980s, a new category of crime appeared in the criminal law lexicon. In response to concerted advocacy-group lobbying, Congress and many state legislatures passed a wave of "hate crime" laws requiring the collection of statistics on, and enhancing the punishment for, crimes motivated by certain prejudices. This book places the evolution of the hate crime concept in socio-legal perspective. James B. Jacobs and Kimberly Potter adopt a skeptical if not critical stance, maintaining that legal definitions of hate crime are riddled with ambiguity and subjectivity. The book contends that hate crime as a socio-legal category represents the elaboration of an identity politics now manifesting itself in many areas of the law. But the attempt to apply the anti-discrimination paradigm to criminal law generates problems and anomalies. For one thing, members of minority groups are frequently hate crime perpetrators. Moreover, the underlying conduct prohibited by hate crime law is already subject to criminal punishment. Jacobs and Potter question whether hate crimes are worse or more serious than similar crimes attributable to other anti-social motivations. Advancing a provocative argument in clear and persuasive terms, Jacobs and Potter show how the recriminalization of hate crime has little (if any) value with respect to law enforcement or criminal justice. Indeed, enforcement of such laws may exacerbate intergroup tensions rather than eradicate prejudice.

Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1998. 224p.

Edited by Gerben Bruinsma

In the past two decades, the study of transnational crime has developed from a subset of the study of organized crime to its own recognized field of study, covering distinct societal threats and requiring a particular approach. This volume provides examples of transnational crime, and places them in a broad historical context, which has so far been missing from this field of study. The contributions to this comprehensive volume explore the causes and historical precursors of six main types of transnational crime: piracy, human smuggling, arms trafficking, drug trafficking, art and antique trafficking and corporate crime. The historical contributions demonstrate that transnational crime is not a novel phenomenon of recent globalization and that, beyond organized crime groups, powerful individuals, governments and business corporations have been heavily involved.

New York: Springer, 2015. 201p.

By Maziyar Ghiabi

Iran has one of the world’s highest rates of drug addiction, estimated to be between two and seven per cent of the entire population. This makes the questions this book asks all the more salient: what is the place of illegal substances in the politics of modern Iran? How have drugs affected the formation of the Iranian state and its power dynamics? And how have governmental attempts at controlling and regulating illicit drugs affected drug consumption and addiction? By answering these questions, Maziyar Ghiabi suggests that the Islamic Republic’s image as an inherently conservative state is not only misplaced and inaccurate, but in part a myth. In order to dispel this myth, he skilfully combines ethnographic narratives from drug users, vivid field observations from ‘under the bridge’, with archival material from the pre- and post-revolutionary era, statistics on drug arrests and interviews with public officials

Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2019. 236p.

Edited by Julia Buxton Mary Chinery-Hesse Khalid Tinasti

The 12th volume of International Development Policy explores the relationship between international drug policy and development goals, both current and within a historical per-spective. Contributions address the drugs and development nexus from a range of critical viewpoints, highlighting gaps and contradictions, as well as exploring strategies and opportunities for enhanced linkages between drug control and development programming. Crim-inalisation and coercive law enforcement-based responses in international and national level drug control are shown to undermine peace, security and development objectives. Readership: Academic scholars and researchers, policymakers and development practitioners interested in international development policy, drug policies and their effects on development, global economic and political trends, and local development issues.

Leiden; Boston: Brill, 2020. 335p.

By Hikmet Karčić

Half a century after the Holocaust, on European soil, Bosnian Serbs orchestrated a system of concentration camps where they subjected their Bosniak Muslim and Bosnian Croat neighbors to torture, abuse, and killing. Foreign journalists exposed the horrors of the camps in the summer of 1992, sparking worldwide outrage. This exposure, however, did not stop the mass atrocities. Hikmet Karčić shows that the use of camps and detention facilities has been a ubiquitous practice in countless wars and genocides in order to achieve the wartime objectives of perpetrators. Although camps have been used for different strategic purposes, their essential functions are always the same: to inflict torture and lasting trauma on the victims. Torture, Humiliate, Kill develops the author’s collective traumatization theory, which contends that the concentration camps set up by the Bosnian Serb authorities had the primary purpose of inflicting collective trauma on the non-Serb population of Bosnia and Herzegovina. This collective traumatization consisted of excessive use of torture, sexual abuse, humiliation, and killing. The physical and psychological suffering imposed by these methods were seen as a quick and efficient means to establish the Serb “living space.” Karčić argues that this trauma was deliberately intended to deter non-Serbs from ever returning to their pre-war homes. The book centers on multiple examples of experiences at concentration camps in four towns operated by Bosnian Serbs during the war: Prijedor, Bijeljina, Višegrad, and Bileća. Chosen according to their political and geographical position, Karčić demonstrates that these camps were used as tools for the ethno-religious genocidal campaign against non-Serbs. Torture, Humiliate, Kill is a thorough and definitive resource for understanding the function and operation of camps during the Bosnian genocide.

Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 277p.

By Jyoti Puri

In Sexual States Jyoti Puri uses the example of the efforts to decriminalize homosexuality in India to show how the regulation of sexuality is fundamentally tied to the creation and enduring existence of the state. Between 2001 and 2013 activists attempted to rewrite section 377 of the Indian Penal Code, which outlaws homosexual behavior. Having interviewed activists and NGO workers throughout five metropolitan centers, investigated crime statistics at the National Crime Records Bureau, visited various state institutions, and met with the police, Puri found that section 377 is but one element of the large and complex systems of laws, practices, policies, and discourses that regulate Indian sexuality. Intended to mitigate sexuality's threat to the social order, this regulation works to preserve the views of the state as inevitable, legitimate, and indispensable. By highlighting the various means through which the regulation of sexuality constitutes India's heterogeneous and fragmented.

Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 233p;.