By The National Association of Manufacturers

Amid an unprecedented global health crisis, manufacturers have stepped up and taken the lead, working together and with national, state and local governments to fight the spread of COVID-19. Manufacturers deliver day-to-day necessities, lifesaving medical innovations and products that improve people’s lives in countless ways. While the pandemic has demonstrated anew the importance of American innovation and ingenuity, it has also revealed a serious threat: counterfeit products that put lives and livelihoods at risk. Counterfeiting is not a new problem; it has harmed manufacturers, American workers and consumers for years. But the problem is getting worse, and the COVID-19 pandemic has shown just how dangerous inaction can be. As part of the nation’s critical response effort, manufacturers have been supplying health care workers and other Americans on the front lines of this crisis with vital goods, including personal protective equipment, hospital beds, ventilators, hand sanitizers, cleaning supplies and other critical health care and safety products. But while manufacturing men and women work long hours to ramp up production of desperately needed products to fight the spread of this deadly illness, counterfeiters have exploited the crisis to peddle fake tests, dangerous vaccines and ineffective protective gear. These counterfeits are harming American citizens and hindering manufacturers’ efforts to protect their workers and communities. The prevalence of counterfeits in the COVID-19 response has brought new urgency to this long-simmering issue. So the National Association of Manufacturers is leading the charge against fake and counterfeit goods, bringing together diverse stakeholders and driving innovative policy solutions to address these issues once and for all and to ensure the long-term success of our sector and the safety and security of the people who rely on our products. 

Washington, DC: National Association of Manufacturers, 2020.  21p.

By John Dunham & Associates

The Retail Industry Leaders Association (RILA) is the US trade association for retailers that have earned leadership status by virtue of their sales volume, innovation, or aspiration. The Buy Safe America Coalition (BSA) represents a diverse group of responsible retailers, consumer groups, manufacturers, intellectual property advocates and law enforcement officials who support efforts at all levels of government to protect consumers and communities from the sale of counterfeit and stolen goods. One important issue facing US retailers is the growth in the availability and sales of illicit products, both from counterfeit imports and from products stolen from legitimate retailers. These products are increasingly sold online through third-party marketplaces. RILA and BSA asked John Dunham & Associates (JDA) to examine the data around these illicit sales to determine how they impact the US economy, federal tax revenues, and criminal activity. This is the second in a series of papers examining the issue of organized retail crime (ORC), and its effect on the United States economy. This analysis will focus on product theft from brick-and- mortar retailers and the rise of organized theft operations that fence illegally obtained goods to consumers, increasingly online. While this paper focuses solely on those goods stolen from retail locations, there is a growing problem with consumer goods being stolen from containers and trucks as the supply chain has backed up in recent months. For the purpose of this analysis, cargo theft was not included. According to the analysis: • As much as $68.9 billion worth of products were stolen from retailers in 2019. This represents about 1.5 percent of total retail sales. • Law enforcement and retail asset protection officials have found that the availability of anonymous online marketplaces has provided an easy way to sell stolen goods, and that the growth of these marketplaces coincides with a recent surge in organized retail crime that puts both employees and customers in harm’s way. • Academic research has suggested that most retail theft represent crimes of opportunity. In other words, people steal when it is easy to do so. Other causes include poor economic conditions, and dissatisfaction among workers. However, professionals in the field identify the availability of anonymous on-line marketplaces as ways to easily fence goods, and prosecutorial changes as being major factors contributing to the growth in ORC. • The growth in on-line marketplaces is highly correlated (61 percent) to the number of shoplifting events reported each year. • In addition, those retail categories most subject to shoplifting activities are also the ones most sought after through on-line marketplaces. • Nearly 67 percent of asset protection managers at leading retailers surveyed report a moderate to considerable increase in organized retail crime, while 80 percent believe it will only get worse in the future.  The economic impact of retail crime is profound. Retailers face increased costs for lost product, security, and labor, which lead to higher prices for consumers and ultimately, lower sales. Lower sales translate to fewer jobs throughout the economy. The result is $125.7 billion in lost economic activity and 658,375 fewer jobs, paying almost $39.3 billion in wages and benefits to workers. • Retail theft is not a problem just in major metropolitan areas, it is pervasive across America. In fact, one factor that is associated with lower levels of retail theft is the density of retail locations. • The impact of theft is felt through higher prices, and this impact is more acutely felt by low- and middle-income families. • It is estimated that retail theft costs federal and state governments nearly $15 billion in personal and business tax revenues, not including the lost sales taxes.

Washington DC: Retail Industry Leaders Association (RILA) ;  Washington, DC:  Buy Safe American Coalition, 75p.

By John Dunham & Associates

The Buy Safe America Coalition represents a diverse group of responsible retailers, consumer groups, manufacturers, intellectual property advocates and law enforcement officials who support efforts at all levels of government to protect consumers and communities from the sale of counterfeit and stolen goods. One important issue facing US businesses is the massive growth in the availability and sales of illicit products, both from counterfeit imports — increasingly from China — and from products stolen from legitimate retailers and sold through online marketplaces, where the anonymity of a screenname has made it easier and more profitable to fence counterfeit and stolen goods. The Coalition asked John Dunham & Associates (JDA) to examine the data around these illicit sales to determine how they impact the US economy, federal tax revenues, and criminal activity. This is the first of a series of papers examining the issue of counterfeit and stolen goods and its effect on the United States economy. This analysis will focus on the importation of illicit products, notably counterfeits that violate producers’ intellectual property rights. Future analysis will examine the effects of domestic smuggling, the resale of stolen goods, and the effects of contraband on overall criminal activity. According to the analysis: • A large share of contraband items are delivered to US consumers by mail or by express consignment. These transactions account for over 60.8 percent of all seizures by the US customs service and over 90 percent of intellectual property rights (IPR) seizures. The growth in these types of shipments has increased along with the use of online marketplaces. Amazon, for instance, now derives more than 75 percent of their ecommerce revenue from marketplace sales. • In effect, as companies like the Chinese ecommerce marketplace Alibaba and the Amazon marketplace, have linked more consumers to more shippers, many companies producing illegitimate products have gained access to unwitting consumers in America. • The bulk of counterfeit products to the US come from China and its dependent territories, accounting for over 90.6 percent of all cargo with IPR violations. Of the $1.23 billion in total IPR violations intercepted, $1.12 billion was from China. • Examining just those data where CBP can provide an HS code, in some cases, the amount of contraband cargo is nearly equal to the entire import base. For example, imports of certain sweaters, jumpsuits and toys from China are almost 100 percent contraband, as are large amounts of handbags, jewelry and belts. • While there is substantial academic literature on the smuggling of narcotics, people and tobacco, there is very little written on counterfeit products. Using a very conservative model it is estimated that $44.3 billion in additional illicit cargo is escaping detection. • These lost sales alone mean that over 39,860 jobs in wholesaling and nearly 283,400 retail jobs are lost due to the impact of counterfeit goods skirting normal trade channels. All told, the sale of counterfeit items is expected to cost the wholesale and retail sectors of the US economy nearly 653,450 full-time equivalent jobs that pay over $33.6 billion in wages and benefits to US workers. • It is estimated that the smuggling of counterfeit goods costs the US government nearly $7.2 billion in personal and business tax revenues alone. • This analysis is based on the current level of CBP intercepts of illicit cargo. It is likely that the number of illegal imports is much larger than even estimated here.  

Washington, DC: Buy Safe America Coalition, 2021. 25p.

By Jodie Wrigley

While scholarly debate continues about possible causal links between climate events and violent extremism, the evidence suggests that these events make communities more vulnerable to recruitment, provide fertile ground for anti-democracy sentiment, and erode trust in institutions and governments. It is recognised that many of these challenges play out in and leverage the on- and offline public sphere. Strategic communication, therefore, is an essential tool to utilise in this space to help prevent and counter violent extremism. This Policy Brief provides a starting point to explore further the potential nexus between climate events, violent extremism, and strategic communication. It explores a whole-of-society view of the potential strategic communication challenge and what actions practitioners could implement now to help address or minimise this existing or potential emerging threat . For the latest updated statistics on wildlife crime visit the World Animal Foundation website.

The Hague: The International Centre for Counter-Terrorism - ICCT, 2024. 30p.

ByThomas D. Akoensi, Justice Tankebe

Using an experimental vignette design, the study inves-tigates the effects of criminal records on the hiring deci-sions of a convenience sample of 221 human resource(HR) managers in Ghana. The HR managers were ran-domly assigned to read one of four vignettes depicting job seekers of different genders and criminal records:male with and without criminal record, female with and without criminal record. The evidence shows that a criminal record reduces employment opportunities for female offenders but not for their male counter-parts. Additionally, HR managers are willing to offer interviews to job applicants, irrespective of their crim-inal records, if they expect other managers to hire ex-convicts. The implications of these findings are dis-cussed.

The Howard Journal of Crime and Justice, online first, May 2024

By Frances Thomson, Patrick Meehan & Jonathan Goodhand (02 Apr 2024):

his article and the forum it introduces examine illicit drug crop (IDC) economies from agrarian perspectives. Examining IDCs as a group implies analysing how prohibition distinguishes them from other (licit) crops. We identify seven mechanisms through which prohibition shapes the agrarian political economy of IDCs and explore how these mechanisms and their effects generate distinctive patterns of development and political action amongst ‘illicit peasantries’. We also examine connections between illicit and licit crops, including how licit crop crises and illicit crop booms intertwine. We argue that IDC economies provide a bulwark for smallholders but are by no means peasant idylls.

The Journal of Peasant Studies. 2024. 39p.

By David H. Ucko and Thomas A. Marks

Organised crime is not going well. According to the 2021 Global Organized Crime index, ‘the global illicit economy simply continue[s] along the upward trajectory it has followed over the past 20 years, posing an ever-increasing threat to security, development and justice – the pillars of democracy’ (Global Initiative, 2021, p. 8). Wherever governments seek to draw the line, criminal actors find profitable ways of crossing it; wherever governments fail to deliver on human need, criminal actors capitalise on citizens’ desire or despair. As of now, more than three-quarters of the world’s population ‘live in countries with high levels of criminality, and in countries with low resilience to organized crime’ (Global Initiative, 2021, p. 12). On aggregate, the associated activity amounts to an illicit form of governance, furnishing alternative services to a wide range of clients, be they the vulnerable and weak or a covetous elite. The breadth of organised crime, its clandestine nature, and its blending of creative and destructive effects make it difficult to counter. In past SOC ACE research, we argued that the response to organised crime often shares certain pitfalls with counterterrorism, at least since 9/11 (Ucko & Marks, 2022c). Both efforts have been stymied by 1) conceptual uncertainty of the problem at hand; 2) an urge to address the scourge head on (be it violence or crime), without acknowledging its socioeconomic-political context; and, therefore, 3) unquestioned pursuit of strategies that miss the point, whose progress is difficult to measure, and which may even be counterproductive. This convergence is based on the common features of the two phenomena, which are both concerned with i) collective actors, who ii) use violence and coercion among other methods; and who have iii) corrupting, or outright destructive effects on society. Though organised crime is not consciously political in its ideological motivation, it is – like terrorism – deeply political in its origins, activities, and effects. Given the conceptual overlap, and the common pathologies that undermine response, the lessons from countering terrorism are relevant also to the countering of organised crime. Focusing on the concept of ‘irregular warfare’, our past research identified six key lessons, touching upon 1) the socio-political embeddedness of the problem, 2) the tendency to militarise the response, 3) the mirror-imaging of state assistance programmes, 4) the invaluable role of community mobilisation, 5) the dearth of strategy, and 6) the need to engage more closely with questions of political will. As argued elsewhere, these challenges point to a need for greater strategic competence both in assessing the problem of organised crime and in designing a response (Ucko & Marks, 2022c).

To generate this strategic competence, this follow-on report sets out an analytical toolkit to assist planners and policymakers with the crafting of strategy. This ‘Framework of Analysis and Action’ builds upon lessons – negative and positive – learned via years of experience with irregular warfare, defined by the Department of Defense as ‘a violent struggle among state and non-state actors for legitimacy and influence over the relevant population(s)’ (U.S. Department of Defense, 2007, p. 1).1 It is a framework that finds its origins within the U.S. National Defense University’s College of International Security Affairs (CISA), where for two decades it has been used to teach strategic planning for complex and intensely political challenges (Ucko & Marks, 2022a). The framework consists of two parts: the Strategic Estimate of the Situation (which maps the problem, explores its drivers, frames, and methods, and critiques the current response) and the Course of Action (which uses the strategic estimate to design an appropriate strategy, guided by a theory of success). The framework is in this report adapted for organised crime, to enable the mapping of relevant actors and the crafting, thereby, of a viable response. By design, the framework responds to the six key lessons identified in our earlier work. This report goes through the framework and explains its adaptation to organised crime. Appendix A provides a summation of the toolkit, a ‘user’s guide’, that will facilitate application of the framework. Testing to date suggests great potential and we look forward to sustaining a dialogue with those engaged with countering organised crime to further evolve this toolkit. Indeed, since the beginning, this framework has been a living product, enriched by theoretical application in the classroom and practical use in the field.

SOC ACE Research Paper No. 19. Birmingham, UK: University of Birmingham, 2023. 45p.

By Ben Grunwald and Jeffrey Fagan

In 2000, the Supreme Court held in Illinois v. Wardlow that a suspect’s presence in a “high-crime area” is relevant in determining whether an officer has reasonable suspicion to conduct an investigative stop. Despite the importance of the decision, the Court provided no guidance about what that standard means, and over fifteen years later, we still have no idea how police officers understand and apply it in practice. This Article conducts the first empirical analysis of Wardlow by examining data on over two million investigative stops conducted by the New York Police Department from 2007 to 2012. Our results suggest that Wardlow may have been wrongly decided. Specifically, we find evidence that officers often assess whether areas are high crime using a very broad geographic lens; that they call almost every block in the city high crime; that their assessments of whether an area is high crime are nearly uncorrelated with actual crime rates; that the suspect’s race predicts whether an officer calls an area high crime as well as the actual crime rate; that the racial composition of the area and the identity of the officer are stronger predictors of whether an officer calls an area high crime than the crime rate itself; and that stops are less or as likely to result in the detection of contraband when an officer invokes high-crime area as a basis of a stop. We conclude with several policy proposals for courts, police departments, and scholars to help address these problems in the doctrine.

California Law Review 345-404 (2019

By Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime’s Observatory of Illicit Economies in South Eastern Europe.

In this issue, we focus on three cases where criminal groups from the region have been active in recent years: the Netherlands, Ecuador and parts of Africa.

These examples illustrate the growing involvement of Balkan criminal groups in some of the world’s hotspots for illicit activity. Research for these articles is facilitated by the Global Initiative’s network of contacts with local investigative journalists, as well as close cooperation between regional observatories of illicit economies, namely South Eastern Europe, West Africa and Latin America.

As part of the GI-TOC’s analysis of the risks of firearms trafficking from Ukraine, in this issue we show that the Western Balkans remain the main source of illegal weapons in Europe. At present, weapons are still cheap and plentiful in the region, and stockpiles have been augmented by inflows from Turkey via Bulgaria, particularly of gas and alarm guns. More on this topic can be found in a forthcoming GI-TOC report on trends in arms trafficking from the Ukraine conflict.

In this issue, we also report on a major crackdown by Serbian authorities in late 2023 on increasingly violent smugglers operating along the border between Serbia and Hungary, and examine how this has displaced migration flows towards Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Risk Bulletin No. 18. Geneva, SWIT: Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime, 2024. 25p.

By Billy Kyte | Giulia Roncon

With the aim to support individuals in building resilient communities working to prevent, counter, and limit the damage of environmental crime, this handbook documents the challenges faced by defenders working in the environmental crime field and provides guidance to support their resilience.

The first section of the handbook analyzes definitional understandings of environmental crime and explores the impacts and harms it can perpetuate. The second section assesses the risks and challenges commonly faced by environmental defenders, including an assessment of their needs, and explores emergent regional issues that may play a part in such vulnerabilities. The final section presents a repository of best practices and tools that can help stakeholders to access available resources and to mitigate the potential risks they face.

The handbook draws from consultations involving nearly 100 prominent figures from civil society and media across Africa and Asia. Whilst findings are therefore geographically specific to some extent, our work confirms that the challenges experienced by environmental defenders in these regions were replicated globally as well. Although each country and regional context is different, the handbook outlines strategies that could be broadly implemented to support the community of stakeholders dedicated to tackling environmental crime worldwide.

Geneva, SWIT: Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime (GI-TOC). 2023.

By Faith Honor , Amanda Shaverand Devin Thorne

The trafficking of pangolins and their scales drives corruption, undermines the rule of law, creates public health risks, and even threatens local and regional security. Additionally, the illicit pangolin trade may have even played a role in onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.1 Critically, the trade—and all of its related challenges—appears to be growing: between 2015 and 2019, 253 tonnes2 of pangolin scales were confiscated, and the annual quantity of pangolin scales seized increased by nearly 400%. To expose the logistics of how these scales are trafficked internationally, Tipping the Scales uses publicly available seizure data and investigative case studies. The global plight of pangolins is increasingly well-known, but less understood are the opaque supply chains that enable pangolin trafficking. To trace this illicit system from consolidation hubs in West and Central Africa to China’s consumer markets, Tipping the Scales analyses 899 pangolin seizures. Drawing on C4ADS’ Wildlife Seizure Database, law enforcement partner seizure data, official government documents, corporate data, and expert interviews, the report details how traffickers nest their activities within licit systems of trade and commerce. To disrupt this trade, C4ADS identifies opportunities for intervention and capacity building.

In Section I, the report finds that pangolin scale traffickers have co-opted bushmeat supply chains and legal breeding programs for their illicit activities. Bushmeat scale trafficking supply chains are particularly prominent in Central and West Africa; 72% of African scale seizures over the last five years have come from those regions. Growing demand for pangolin meat and scales has made pangolins a dual-transaction good3 that relies on transport networks between rural areas and urban and coastal distribution hubs. Further, the report finds that pangolin breeding programs in sub-Saharan Africa obscure the lines between poaching, conservation, and science. In Section II, the report finds that bulk pangolin scale shipments often exit the continent through coastal countries in Central and West Africa. While 70% of intercontinental trafficking instances tied to Africa rely on the air transport sector, 81% of the total weight of pangolin scales are trafficked intercontinentally via the maritime transport sector. China and Hong Kong are the trade’s most prominent destinations. Since 2015, 42% of the 195 tonnes of pangolin scales seized throughout Asia originated in Africa and were seized in or bound for China or Hong Kong. In Section III, the report finds that there are more than 1,000 companies, hospitals, and other entities participating in China’s legal market for medicinal pangolin products. In this market, which allows companies to privately stockpile pangolin scales, traffickers exploit lax regulations to sell scales from Africa and Asia. Government-reported pangolin scale consumption quotas, geo-tagged company data, and seizures suggest that Guangdong and Hunan provinces have relatively high levels of exposure to both the legal pangolin market and pangolin trafficking. Based on these findings, Tipping the Scales makes 10 recommendations to increase detection of and improve enforcement against transnational criminal networks operating in Africa and Asia (see page 58).

Washington, D: C4ADS, 2020. 60p.

By Insight Crime

This present study on Bolivia was led by InSight Crime. The findings and analysis are based on one year of open-source and fieldwork investigation in the cities of La Paz and Santa Cruz, and desk research, phone, and face-to-face interviews with environmental experts, government and security officials, members of local communities, academics, and others.1 The report provides a snapshot of the complex web of actors (state and non-state) and relationships fueling environmental crime in the Bolivian Amazon. Rather than just diagnosing the issue, the study aims to raise new dialogue and intervention opportunities regarding environmental crime in the region. This study addresses long-standing issues of securing land rights to traditional communities in the Amazon, many of which currently face new forms of land grabbing and land trafficking, notably by export companies extracting natural resources. It also includes ideas for reforming and strengthening structurally weak and corruption prone public institutions in the Bolivian Amazon, notably those related to land, environmental, and security issues. Finally, the report also sheds light on the transnational and cross-border dynamics of environmental crime in Bolivia in activities such as wildlife trafficking and illegal mercury trafficking for river-gold mining and illegal logging exports. The complexity of increasingly globalized supply chains initiating in or cutting through the Bolivian Amazon call for more and stronger regional and international cooperation to dismantle environmental crime and protect the forest and its people

Washington, DC: Insight Crime, 2024. 73p.

By Damon L. Perry

In Britain, no one has the right not to be offended. Words or actions that are taken by some as offensive – whether they relate to religion, sexuality or race – are not criminal as long as they are not intentionally hostile and meant, or likely, to incite hatred. The statutory guidance on Non Crime Hate Incidents, revised in March 2023, is consistent with the law in this regard. It states: “Fundamentally, offending someone is not, in and of itself, a criminal offence. To constitute an offence under hate crime legislation, the speech or behaviour in question must be threatening, abusive or insulting and be intended to, or likely to, stir up hatred”. Yet, this does not seem to be fully acknowledged in Britain’s schools. As this revealing survey of over a thousand teachers from YouGov and Policy Exchange demonstrates, since the Batley Grammar School protests, a small but significant proportion of British teachers have self-censored to avoid offence on religious grounds – 16%. (That proportion is slightly higher for teachers of certain subjects, including almost a fifth of all English teachers and art teachers – 19%). In areas with the largest Muslim populations, around 10% fewer teachers do not self-censor than those in areas with the smallest Muslim populations. A worrying proportion believe that – regardless of a teacher’s intentions – images of the prophet Muhammad should never be used in classrooms, even in the teaching of Islamic art or ethics: In addition to the 55% of teachers that would not personally use an image of Muhammad independently from the Batley Grammar School protests, an additional 9% said they personally were less likely to use it as a result of the events in Batley. The case of the teacher at Batley Grammar who went into hiding after death threats thus appears to have had a significant impact on teachers’ confidence and willingness to use materials that fall within the scope of the law. Alarmingly, half of British teachers believe that if blasphemy-related protests led by activist and advocacy groups occur outside their schools, there would be a risk to their physical safety. Despite most teachers thinking that headteachers get the balance right – between supporting them to use materials that are on the right side of the law but which might offend, and ensuring no offence is caused – they are clearly in need of greater confidence in the support they can expect from their headteachers and, in the case of activist-led protests outside their school gates, the police. Recent events have given further impetus to concerns regarding the physical safety of teachers and the security at schools. On 13 October, 2023, in Arras, France, a literature teacher, Dominque Bernard, was killed in a knife attack; the suspect, an Islamist extremist, was looking for teachers  of history or geography. The case has been compared to that of Samuel Paty, the teacher who was killed three years ago by an Islamist extremist for showing cartoons of Muhammad to a class on freedom of expression. Both teachers have been described by President Macron as champions of the values of the French republic. Although this tragic incident took place across the Channel, France’s battle with Islamist extremism is one shared with the UK. Closer to home, in the wake of the Hamas terrorist attacks on hundreds of civilians in Israel on 7 October, protests on the streets of the UK against Israeli reprisals in the name of the Palestinian “resistance” have demonstrated alarming levels of hateful extremism and antisemitism.5 Some Jewish schools were forced to close on 13 October, when Hamas called for a “Global Day of Jihad”, and several Jewish schools were vandalised with red paint. The atmosphere has been fraught. The Department for Education wrote to school leaders “to ensure that any political activity from pupils in response to the crisis does not create an ‘atmosphere of intimidation’”  etc.

London: Policy Exchange, 2024. 51p.

By Mary Louise Frampton, Ian Haney Lopez, and Jonathan Simon

Since the 1970s, Americans have witnessed a pyrrhic war on crime, with sobering numbers at once chilling and cautionary. Our imprisoned population has increased five-fold, with a commensurate spike in fiscal costs that many now see as unsupportable into the future. As American society confronts a multitude of new challenges ranging from terrorism to the disappearance of middle-class jobs to global warming, the war on crime may be up for reconsideration for the first time in a generation or more. Relatively low crime rates indicate that the public mood may be swinging toward declaring victory and moving on.
However, to declare that the war is over is dangerous and inaccurate, and After the War on Crime reveals that the impact of this war reaches far beyond statistics; simply moving on is impossible. The war has been most devastating to those affected by increased rates and longer terms of incarceration, but its reach has also reshaped a sweeping range of social institutions, including law enforcement, politics, schooling, healthcare, and social welfare. The war has also profoundly altered conceptions of race and community.
It is time to consider the tasks reconstruction must tackle. To do so requires first a critical assessment of how this war has remade our society, and then creative thinking about how government, foundations, communities, and activists should respond. After the War on Crime accelerates this reassessment with original essays by a diverse, interdisciplinary group of scholars as well as policy professionals and community activists. The volume's immediate goal is to spark a fresh conversation about the war on crime and its consequences; its long-term aspiration is to develop a clear understanding of how we got here and of where we should go.

New York; London: NYU Press, 2008.256p

By  James B. Jacobs and Kerry T. Cooperman

In 1988, Manhattan U.S. Attorney Rudy Giuliani brought a massive civil racketeering suit against the leadership of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT), at the time possibly the most corrupt union in the world. The lawsuit charged that the mafia had operated the IBT as a racketeering enterprise for decades, systematically violating the rights of members and furthering the interests of organized crime. On the eve of trial, the parties settled the case, and twenty years later, the trustees are still on the job.

Breaking the Devil’s Pact is an in-depth study of the U.S. v. IBT, beginning with Giuliani’s lawsuit and the politics surrounding it, and continuing with an incisive analysis of the controversial nature of the ongoing trusteeship. James B. Jacobs and Kerry T. Cooperman address the larger question of the limits of legal reform in the American labor movement and the appropriate level of government involvement.

New York; London: NYU Press, 2011. 320p.

By Vivian Miller

Peter Christian "Paddy" Barrie was a seasoned fraudster who transferred his horse doping and horse substitution skills from British to North American racetracks in the 1920s. His thoroughbred ringers were entered in elite races to guarantee winnings for syndicates and betting rings in the prohibition-era United States. This case study of a professional travelling criminal and the challenges he posed for the Pinkerton National Detective Agency in the early 1930s war on crime highlights both the importance of illegal betting to urban mobsters and the need for broader and more nuanced critiques of Depression-era organised crime activities and alliances.

Journal of American Studies, 2021. 35p.

By Marcial A. G. Suarez, Luís Antônio Francisco de Souza, Carlos Henrique Aguiar Serra

This paper discusses the deadly use of violence as a public security agenda, focusing on police lethality and military interventions. Through a literature review to understanding concepts – such as “war,” for example – used in public security policy agendas, the study seeks to frame the notion of political violence, mainly referring to the policies designed to combat violence in Brazil. The objective is to problematize the public security policy based on the idea of confrontation, which adopts the logic of war and the notion of “enemy”. The paper is divided into three parts. The first is a conceptual approach to violence and war, and the second is the analysis of the dynamic of deadly use of force. Finally, the third part is a contextual analysis of violence in Rio de Janeiro, its characteristics, and central actors, using official statistics on violence in the region.

Brazil: Oñati Socio-Legal Series, 2021. 22p.

By Reynell Badillo-Sarmiento & Luis Fernando Trejos-Rosero 

This article explores how organized criminal organizations exercise criminal governance over other organized and non-organized criminals using public messaging, lethal and extra-lethal violence. Drawing on extensive fieldwork, over 350 press reports, and an original database on inter-criminal lethal violence, we show, in line with recent literature on organized crime, that while these organizations use violence to build their reputation as actors willing to use force, they also provide benefits to other criminals such as financing and protection from state and competitors. This article contributes to the literature on criminal governance by elaborating on the mechanisms shown in recent work and by detailing an unexplored case study in Barranquilla (Colombia).

Colombia: Trends in Organized Crime, 2023. 27p.

By Jakiyah Bradley

In recognition of Black History Month, this TMI brief examines the ramifications of attempts by anti-truth groups to remove or whitewash our nation’s history and legacy of racism from K-12 public school classrooms. The Legal Defense Fund (LDF) fights tirelessly for safe, inclusive, and high-quality education, and we believe that proper education requires an honest, accurate, and comprehensive understanding of our past to create a more just and inclusive future. The current efforts to silence discussions on race and its intersections with inequalities based on sexuality and gender are not the first attempts to distort and erase U.S. history. This is a centuries old war on truth that continues to evolve. Today’s attacks on truth are born out of a broader history where a small minority tries to use their power and privilege to eclipse racial justice progress. One way in which truth is attacked is through controlling the narratives told in children’s history textbooks, a practice dating back to the U.S. Civil War.

New York: NAACP Legal Defense Fund , Thurgood Marshall Institute, 2023, 12p

By Michele Goodwin

On August 31, 2017, The New York Times published a provocative news article, “The Incarcerated Women Who Fight California’s Wildfires.” California is particularly known for its wildfires.1 The dry-air, hot-weather conditions that persist much of the year and limited rainfall create the conditions that make pockets of the state ripe for devastating wildfires. Strong winds, often referred to as the Diablo (or the devil), radiate in the northern part of the state, exacerbating the already vulnerable conditions. The Santa Ana winds do the same in southern counties. Fighting these fires can be a matter of life or death. In fact, Shawna Lynn Jones died in 2016, only hours after battling a fire in Southern California. She was nearly done with a three-year sentence—barely two months remained of her incarceration. However, the night before, at 3 a.m., she and other women had been called to put out a raging fire. Tyquesha Brown recalls that the fire that night required traversing a steep hillside of loose rocks and soil.2 This made their task even more challenging. Another woman told a reporter that Jones struggled that night—the weight of her gear and chain  made it difficult for her to establish footing to hike up the hill where the fire blazed.3 However, she and the other women of Crew 13-3 performed their duties, holding back the fire so that it did not “jump the line.”4 By doing so, they saved expensive properties in Malibu. However, Jones was dead by 10 a.m. the next morning.5 For “less than $2 an hour,” female inmates like Shawna Jones and Tyquesha Brown “work their bodies to the breaking point” with this dangerous work.6 The women trudge heavy chains, saws, medical supplies, safety gear, and various other equipment into burning hillsides surrounded by intense flames. On occasion, they may arrive “ahead of any aerial support or local fire trucks,”7 leaving the prisons in the peak of night, when it is pitch black, arriving before dawn to the color of bright flames and intense heat. Sometimes the women are called upon to “set the line,” meaning they clear “potential fuel from a six-foot-wide stretch of ground” between the source of the fire (or whatever is burning) and the land or property in need of protection.8 They dig trenches, moving toward the fire with tools in hand, keeping about ten feet apart from each other while calling out conditions.9 The women cut wood, clearing it before the flames lick at its brittle brush. After, they scrape or shovel—all in syncopation—while clouds of smoke envelope them. For protection, thin bandanas or yellow handkerchiefs cover their mouths. They operate in a frightening rhythm of sorts: saw, hook, shovel, and rake charred earth, trees, or whatever remains from the blazing fire. To the naked eye, the women could appear to represent progress. For too long, state, federal, and local agencies excluded women from professions that demanded the service of their bodies at the front lines of anything other than childbearing, motherhood, and domestic duties. Women waged legal battles to become firefighters and police officers.10 Thus, a glance at the women battling California’s fires might convey a message of hope and that the only battles left are the fires themselves—and not the persistent claims of institutional and private discrimination,11 such as colleagues urinating on their beds,12 sexual harassment,13 and retaliation for performing their jobs well.

New York: Cornell Law Review, 2019.