By Pathfinders for Peaceful, Just and Inclusive Societies,

Most countries have actually experienced sustained declines in homicidal violence across several decades. Notwithstanding the disruptive effects of COVID-19 and associated economic stresses in 2020, these trends are expected to continue in several parts of the world. For most people, the world is a much safer place than it was at the beginning of the twenty-first century. This does not guarantee that the future will be more secure, but it does suggest whatever the causes, progress has been made.

A new report from Pathfinders – Future Trends in Homicide – finds that these positive trends could be undermined within the next decade unless more investment in violence prevention is undertaken. Specifically, the total number of homicides could rise by 28 percent over the next ten years – three times the expected rate of global population growth with increases most acute in the Americas and Africa. The cumulative total homicide count would reach 4.3 million by 2030. Similar trends are also evident in relation to terrorist killings, with increases across all regions especially Africa and Asia.

New York: Center on International Cooperation, 2020. 28p

By Kylie Murdock and Jim Kessler

Takeaways: The murder rate in the 25 states that voted for Donald Trump has exceeded the murder rate in the 25 states that voted for Joe Biden in every year from 2000 to 2020. Over this 21-year span, this Red State murder gap has steadily widened from a low of 9% more per capita red state murders in 2003 and 2004 to 44% more per capita red state murders in 2019, before settling back to 43% in 2020. Altogether, the per capita Red State murder rate was 23% higher than the Blue State murder rate when all 21 years were combined. If Blue State murder rates were as high as Red State murder rates, Biden-voting states would have sued over 45,000 more murders between 2000 and 2020. Even when murders in the largest cities in red states are removed, overall murder rates in Trump-voting states were 12% higher than Biden-voting states across this 21-year period and were higher in 18 of the 21 years observed.

Washington, DC: Third Way, 2023. 10p

By Philipp Schulz

Although wartime sexual violence against men occurs more frequently than is commonly assumed, its dynamics are remarkably underexplored, and male survivors’ experiences remain particularly overlooked. This reality is poignant in northern Uganda, where sexual violence against men during the early stages of the conflict was geographically widespread, yet now accounts of those incidents are not just silenced and neglected locally but also widely absent from analyses of the war. Based on rare empirical data, this book seeks to remedy this marginalization and to illuminate the seldom-heard voices of male sexual violence survivors in northern Uganda, bringing to light their experiences of gendered harms, agency, and justice.

Oakland, CA: University of California Press, 2020. 214p.

By Thomas Hogan  

History drives prosecutors and police. It may be time for prosecutors and police to drive history. There are four pillars of violent crime prevention that criminal justice actors can rely on to halt the current spike in homicides in America.Prosecutors and police are shaped by their times. After the discipline imposed by fighting in World War II and the orderliness of the 1950s, the American criminal justice system became less punitive in the 1960s, fueled by notions of flower power and the opinions of the Warren Supreme Court.[1] A great American crime wave followed, cresting with the extreme violence of the crack epidemic in the 1980s and early 1990s. American prosecutors, police, and politicians responded by pulling every lever available to them, desperate to restore order to increasingly dangerous cities. Prosecutors sought strict sentences. More police officers were deployed to the streets. Sophisticated computer programs were used to track crime. Mandatory minimum sentences and sentencing guidelines were imposed to constrain the discretion of judges. The strategies eventually worked—although nobody is sure exactly which responses worked and to what extent—leading to what became known as the great American crime decline. Crime rates fell for decades and even once-violent cities like New York became relatively safe, accompanied by persistent arguments that the U.S. incarcerated too many people to ensure this safety.In reaction to the illusion of a permanent victory over violent crime and the perception of over-incarceration, a new breed of prosecutors arrived on the American political scene in the 2010s, elected in liberal-leaning big cities. Called “progressive prosecutors,” these law-enforcement officials began to pull every lever in the opposite direction from that of their 1990s colleagues. They refused to prosecute entire categories of crimes, sought lesser sentences even for violent offenders, and viewed the police with open suspicion. ….Not surprisingly, violent crime began to rise again. The U.S. saw almost a 30% rise in homicides across the nation in 2020, a record for a one-year increase.[3] In 2021, homicides continued to climb, and many cities experienced the largest number of homicides in their history.[4] And even after courts reopened following the Covid era, cities as different as Portland, Milwaukee, and Albuquerque set new homicide records in 2022.There are vigorous debates about what caused this spike in homicides. Progressive prosecutors, de-policing, the Covid-19 pandemic, increased gun sales, violent protests, weakened pretrial detention and sentencing, and numerous other theories have been proposed by academics and law-enforcement professionals.

New York: The Manhattan Institute, 2023. 20p.

By Brian Braganza and Nick Cardone

One of the first questions that emerged after the murders that took place in Nova Scotia on April 18 and 19, 2020, was: What was the role played by harmful expressions of masculinity generally, and male violence against women specifically. Even before much was known about the perpetrator, there were calls for an inquiry that would look at the murders through a feminist lens, and for a full exploration of his history of violence against women (Henderson, 2020). This report does not seek to draw conclusions on the motivations for the murders or how past behaviour may or may not have served as a warning. Instead, it was commissioned to explore the relationship between traditional concepts of masculinity and violence. Doing this requires us to look critically at a broad range of issues so omnipresent that we are often unaware of them  

Halifax, NS: The Joint Federal/Provincial Commission into the April 2020 Nova Scotia Mass Casualty, 2022. 87p.

Edited by Sundari Anitha and Ruth Lewis  

Until recently, higher education in the UK has largely failed to recognise gender-based violence (GBV) on campus, but following the UK government task force set up in 2015, universities are becoming more aware of the issue. And recent cases in the media about the sexualised abuse of power in institutions such as universities, Parliament and Hollywood highlight the prevalence and damaging impact of GBV. In this book, academics and practitioners provide the first in-depth overview of research and practice in GBV in universities. They set out the international context of ideologies, politics and institutional structures that underlie responses to GBV in elsewhere in Europe, in the US, and in Australia, and consider the implications of implementing related policy and practice. Presenting examples of innovative British approaches to engagement with the issue, the book also considers UK, EU and UN legislation to give an international perspective, making it of direct use to discussions of ‘what works’ in preventing GBV.

Bristol, UK: Bristol University Press, 2018. 262p.

By R. J. B. Bosworth

FROM THE COVER: It was born before the embers of the First World War had cooled, as Italians struggled to come to terms with 600,000 dead and a generation hardened by militarization. Called Fascism, it was a form of political life that dealt in violence and demanded obedience-the model for so many dictatorships to come, includ- ing Hitler's. In this groundbreaking and utterly absorbing work, R. J. B. Bosworth-one of the world's foremost historians of modern Italy-reveals, as never before, how Il Duce's countrymen unleashed and then ultimately escaped the original totalitarianism. Mussolini's Italy is a landmark work and an unforgettable portrait of Italy's darkest hour.

NY. Penguin. 2006. 826p. USED BOOK. CONTAINS MARK-UP.

Edited by Jean-Marc Dreyfus and Élisabeth Anstett

This book outlines for the first time in a single volume the theoretical and methodological tools for a study of human remains resulting from episodes of mass violence and genocide. Despite the highly innovative and contemporary research into both mass violence and the body, the most significant consequence of conflict - the corpse - remains absent from the scope of existing research. Why have human remains hitherto remained absent from our investigation, and how do historians, anthropologists and legal scholars, including specialists in criminology and political science, confront these difficult issues? By drawing on international case studies including genocides in Rwanda, the Khmer Rouge, Argentina, Russia and the context of post-World War II Europe, this ground-breaking edited collection opens new avenues of research. Multidisciplinary in scope, this volume will appeal to readers interested in an understanding of mass violence's aftermath.

Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 2014. 218p.

By Allison B. Dymnicki, Beverly Kingston, Sabrina Arredondo Mattson, Elizabeth Spier, Susanne Argamaso Maher, Jody Witt

Researchers from the University of Colorado Boulder’s Center for the Study and Prevention of Violence (CSPV) partnered with educators in 46 middle schools to implement Safe Communities Safe Schools (SCSS). SCSS seeks to prevent and reduce behavioral incidents, address mental and behavioral health concerns, and increase prosocial behavior in the school setting through three core program components: developing a functioning multidisciplinary school team, building capacity around data use, and selecting and implementing evidence-based programs. The study explored research questions in three areas: readiness (whether schools met baseline criteria and experienced changes in readiness over time), implementation (whether the SCSS model was implemented as intended; whether it is feasible, acceptable, and effective when implemented schoolwide), and associated outcomes (effects on school climate, safety, related behavioral and mental health indicators, and academic outcomes). To explore questions in these three areas, CSPV and external evaluators from American Institutes for Research conducted a mixed-methods randomized control trial with a staggered implementation design using qualitative data (open-ended questions on implementation surveys, focus groups) and quantitative data (staff and student school climate data, attendance/truancy rates, suspension rates, and academic achievement data). The study found that (1) the participating schools met the pre-developed readiness criteria and reported some improvements in readiness constructs over time; (2) some components of the model were implemented as intended and were acceptable and effective (from the educators’ perspective), but increased knowledge, understanding, and skills were limited to school team members; and (3) there were mixed impacts on school climate, safety, behavioral and mental health indicators, and academic outcomes, with outcomes varying (to some extent) by implementation characteristics. This report discusses the study’s findings and their implications for criminal justice policy and practice.

Washington DC: American Institutes for Research. 26p

Edited by Maja Lundqvist, Angelica Simonsson and Kajsa Widegren

This book looks at what a Nordic perspective can teach us about sexual harassment. Bringing researchers, writers and policy makers into dialogue in an ambitious volume, the book moves beyond the juridical definitions of justice, coloniality, exploitation and work and offers knowledge that is implementable into policy making.

Bristol, UK: Policy Press, 2023. 259p.

By Jennifer Leigh Syvertsen  

The relationships between female sex workers and their noncommercial male partners are often assumed to be coercive and anchored in risk, dismissed as “pimp-prostitute” arrangements by researchers and the general public alike. Yet, these stereotypes unjustly erase the complexity of lives we imagine to be consumed by social suffering. Dangerous Love centers a framework of love to rethink sex workers’ intimate relationships as commitments to collective solidarity and survival in contexts of oppression. Combining epidemiological research and ethnographic fieldwork in Tijuana, Mexico, Jennifer Leigh Syvertsen examines how individuals try to find love and meaning in lives marked by structural violence, social marginalization, drug addiction, and HIV/AIDS. Linking the political economy of inequalities along the border with emotional lived experience, this book explores how intimate relationships become dangerous safe havens that fundamentally shape both partners’ well-being. Through these stories, we are urged to reimagine the socially transformative power of love to carve new pathways to health equity. “

Oakland, CA: University of California Press, 2022. 190p.

Edited by Daniel Becker, Annalisa Fischer, Yola Schmitz

Forgeries are an omnipresent part of our culture and closely related to traditional ideas of authenticity, legality, authorship, creativity, and innovation. Based on the concept of mimesis, this volume illustrates how forgeries must be understood as autonomous aesthetic practices – creative acts in themselves – rather than as mere rip-offs of an original work of art. The proceedings bring together research from different scholarly fields. They focus on various mimetic practices such as pseudo-translations, imposters, identity theft, and hoaxes in different artistic and historic contexts. By opening up the scope of the aesthetic implications of fakes, this anthology aims to consolidate forging as an autonomous method of creation.

 Bielefeld: transcript Verlag, 2018. 248p.

By Eli Sagan

From the Introduction: “…This tragic tale, however, is only half the story. Throughout history, human beings demonstrate an equally extraordinary capacity to renounce aggression and to widen the definition of human to include more and more of the people in the world. Christianity puts an end to the barbarism of the Roman arena and proclaims that even a slave has a soul, Islam puts an end to female infanticide, slavery practically disappears from the world, the barbarisms of early industrial capitalism are renounced, democracy asserts the individual worth of all in society, the noncannibal head-hunter renounces the great aggressive pleasure of eating human flesh…”

NY. Harper and Row. 1974. 168p.

United States. White House Office

From the document: "In this first-ever U.S. National Plan to End Gender-Based Violence (the National Plan or Plan), the Federal Government advances an unprecedented and comprehensive approach to preventing and addressing sexual violence, intimate partner violence, stalking, and other forms of gender-based violence (referred to collectively as GBV). This initiative builds on the lessons learned and progress made as the result of tireless and courageous leadership by GBV survivors, advocates, researchers, and policymakers, as well as other dedicated professionals and community members who lead prevention and response efforts. Gender-based violence is a public safety and public health crisis, affecting urban, suburban, rural, and Tribal communities in the United States. It is experienced by individuals of all backgrounds and can occur across the life course. GBV happens in all spaces and spheres of human interaction, public and private--in homes, schools, and public venues; through social media and other online spaces; and in workplaces. In today's globalized world, it can transcend national boundaries, including through online exploitation and abuse, human trafficking, and individuals fleeing GBV. The risks of GBV are heightened in conditions of disaster, conflict, or crisis, including public health crises such as a pandemic. [...] The priorities in this National Plan to End GBV, as well as those reflected in the 2022 update to the U.S. Global GBV Strategy, reflect our nation's ongoing commitment to continue advancing and integrating efforts to prevent and address gender-based violence both at home and abroad. Ending gender-based violence is, quite simply, a matter of human rights and justice."

United States. White House Office .2023. 149p.

By Hannah R. Johnson

The ritual murder accusation is one of a series of myths that fall under the label blood libel, and describes the medieval legend that Jews require Christian blood for obscure religious purposes and are capable of committing murder to obtain it. This malicious myth continues to have an explosive afterlife in the public sphere, where Sarah Palin's 2011 gaffe is only the latest reminder of its power to excite controversy. Blood Libel is the first book-length study to analyze the recent historiography of the ritual murder accusation and to consider these debates in the context of intellectual and cultural history as well as methodology. Hannah R. Johnson articulates how ethics shapes methodological decisions in the study of the accusation and how questions about methodology, in turn, pose ethical problems of interpretation and understanding.

Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2012. 250p

By Grace S. Liu, et al.

Problem/Condition: In 2020, approximately 71,000 persons died of violence-related injuries in the United States. This report summarizes data from CDC’s National Violent Death Reporting System (NVDRS) on violent deaths that occurred in 48 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico in 2020. Results are reported by sex, age group, race and ethnicity, method of injury, type of location where the injury occurred, circumstances of injury, and other selected characteristics.

Period Covered: 2020.

Description of System: NVDRS collects data regarding violent deaths obtained from death certificates, coroner and medical examiner records, and law enforcement reports. This report includes data collected for violent deaths that occurred in 2020. Data were collected from 48 states (all states with exception of Florida and Hawaii), the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico. Forty-six states had statewide data, two additional states had data from counties representing a subset of their population (35 California counties, representing 71% of its population, and four Texas counties, representing 39% of its population), and the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico had jurisdiction-wide data. NVDRS collates information for each violent death and links deaths that are related (e.g., multiple homicides, homicide followed by suicide, or multiple suicides) into a single incident.

• More...

  Results: For 2020, NVDRS collected information on 64,388 fatal incidents involving 66,017 deaths that occurred in 48 states (46 states collecting statewide data, 35 California counties, and four Texas counties), and the District of Columbia. In addition, information was collected for 729 fatal incidents involving 790 deaths in Puerto Rico. Data for Puerto Rico were analyzed separately. Of the 66,017 deaths, the majority (58.4%) were suicides, followed by homicides (31.3%), deaths of undetermined intent (8.2%), legal intervention deaths (1.3%) (i.e., deaths caused by law enforcement and other persons with legal authority to use deadly force acting in the line of duty, excluding legal executions), and unintentional firearm deaths (<1.0%). The term “legal intervention” is a classification incorporated into the International Classification of Diseases, Tenth Revision, and does not denote the lawfulness or legality of the circumstances surrounding a death caused by law enforcement.

  Demographic patterns and circumstances varied by manner of death. The suicide rate was higher for males than for females. Across all age groups, the suicide rate was highest among adults aged ≥85 years. In addition, non-Hispanic American Indian or Alaska Native (AI/AN) persons had the highest suicide rates among all racial and ethnic groups. Among both males and females, the most common method of injury for suicide was a firearm. Among all suicide victims, when circumstances were known, suicide was most often preceded by a mental health, intimate partner, or physical health problem or by a recent or impending crisis during the previous or upcoming 2 weeks. The homicide rate was higher for males than for females. Among all homicide victims, the homicide rate was highest among persons aged 20–24 years compared with other age groups. Non-Hispanic Black (Black) males experienced the highest homicide rate of any racial or ethnic group. Among all homicide victims, the most common method of injury was a firearm. Description text goes here

Washington DC. National Violent Death Reporting System, 2020.

By Alice M Ellyson , Emma L Gause , Sabrina Oesterle , Margaret R Kuklinski , John S Briney , Elizabeth H Weybright , Kevin P Haggerty , Vivian H Lyons , Julia P Schleimer , Ali Rowhani-Rahbar  

This study found distinct patterns of handgun carrying from adolescence to young adulthood in rural settings. Findings suggest that promoting handgun safety in rural areas should start early. Potential high-risk trajectories, including carrying at high frequencies, should be the focus of future work to explore the antecedents and consequences of handgun carrying in rural areas.

JAMA Netw Open. 2022 Apr 1;5(4):e225127. doi: 10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2022.5127. PMID: 35377427; PMCID: PMC8980900.

By Pitcavage, Mark

From the document: "[1] Every year, individuals with ties to different extreme causes and movements kill people in the United States; the ADL [Anti-Defamation League] Center on Extremism (COE) tracks these murders. Extremists regularly commit murders in the service of their ideology, in the service of a group or gang they may belong to, or even while engaging in traditional, non-ideological criminal activities. [2] In 2022, domestic extremists killed at least 25 people in the U.S., in 12 separate incidents. […] [3] The 2022 murder totals would have been much lower if not for two high-casualty extremist-related shooting sprees. Only 10 of the 25 deaths occurred outside of those sprees--and one of those 10 deaths occurred in a less lethal mass shooting attempt. [4] The issue of extremist-related mass killings is of growing concern and is the subject of a special section of this report. […] The Center on Extremism has identified 62 extremist-connected mass killing incidents since 1970, with 46 of them being ideologically motivated. […] [5] In 2022, 18 of the 25 extremist-related murders appear to have been committed in whole or part for ideological motives, while the remaining seven murders either have no clear motive or were committed for a non-ideological motive. [6] All the extremist-related murders in 2022 were committed by right-wing extremists of various kinds, who typically commit most such killings each year but only occasionally are responsible for all (the last time this occurred was 2012). […] [7] White supremacists commit the greatest number of domestic extremist-related murders in most years, but in 2022 the percentage was unusually high: 21 of the 25 murders were linked to white supremacists." This document includes charts, tables, and graphs to illustrate the text.

Anti-Defamation League. 2022

Edited by Carol Block and Richard Block

Papers examining recent and long-term trends in homicide in the United States discuss the relationships among youth violence, guns, and drug law offenses; age patterns in homicide; arrest trends and the impact of demographic changes; and the use of econometric forecasting to correct for missing data. Papers on international and regional violence patterns discuss trends in violence and homicide in the Netherlands and the southern subculture of violence. Nine papers on high-risk groups focus on violence and homicide against women and youth and in different types of workplaces, particularly convenience stores. Five papers focus on intervention strategies based on data analysis; topics include criminal justice sanctions for domestic assault, gun-related violence, violence in public schools in Atlanta, the impacts of exposure to violence on the behavior of inner-city youths and the impact of guidance and employment for adolescents. Further papers consider the use of the National Incident-Based Reporting System and the violence surveillance activities of the Centers for Disease Control. Figures, tables, sample data collection instruments and forms, footnotes, reference lists, and appended conference agenda and lists of participants and working group members

Washington D.C. US Department of Justice. Atlanta, Georgia. 1995. 349p.

By Eric Hobsbawm

“Two brief methodological notes. First, it will be clear that I have tried to explain why social banditry is so remarkably uniform a pheno­menon throughout the ages and continents. Can this explanation be tested? Yes, insofar as it predicts, broadly speaking, how bandits will act and what stories people will tell about them in areas hitherto un­studied. The present essay elaborates the ‘model’ originally sketched out in my Primitive Rebels, which was based exclusively on European - mostly Spanish and Italian - material, but does not, I hope, conflict with it. Still, the wider the generalization, the more likely it is that individual peculiarities are neglected. Second, I have relied largely on a rather tricky historical source namely poems and ballads. So far as the facts of banditry are concerned, these records of public memory and myth are of course quite unreliable, however remotely based on real events, though they give much inci­dental information about the social environment of banditry, at least insofar as there is no reason why this should be distorted. But there is a more serious difficulty. How far does the ‘myth' of banditry throw light on the real pattern of bandit behaviour? In other words, how far do bandits live up to the social role they have been assigned in the drama of peasant life ? There is plainly some connection. I hope that in formulating it I have not gone beyond the bounds of common sense.”

London. George Wedenfield & Nicolson Ltd. 1969. 157p.