By Linda M. Williams, April Pattavina, Alison C. Cares, and Nan D. Stein

Given the considerable changes in federal legislation and the pressing requirements that colleges and universities develop policies and practices that meet the needs of victims and of those accused of sexual assault, there is a critical need to document and understand how colleges are handling these demands and coordinating campus approaches to investigation and adjudication of sexual assaults. In 2015, the National Institute of Justice (NIJ) funded a project to commence January 2016, designed to examine the variations in policies and practices and understand more about challenges and emerging best practices. The research reported here was designed to identify the range and scope of policies and practices related to the investigation and adjudication of sexual assault on college campuses in the U.S. The Wellesley Centers for Women (WCW) with the assistance of an expert panel of advisory board members has documented and classified the current landscape (the breadth and differences) of campus approaches to investigations and adjudication of sexual assault. Our first step, informed by a victim-centered focus, was a web-based search of a randomly selected sample of four year colleges and universities (Institutions of Higher Education, IHEs) on policies and practices for investigation and adjudication of sexual assault reports. This web search was a systematic broadbased environmental scan designed to examine the policies and practices promulgated to the public and, most importantly, made available to students by IHEs. This environmental scan was followed by interviews with Title IX coordinators to develop a clearer understanding of the challenges and successes of these policies.

Washington, DC: U.S. National Institute of Justice, 2020. 91p.

By The Victorian Law Reform Commission

This report contains 45 recommendations for stalking law reform. They aim to improve the ways that the justice system treats people who have experienced stalking in a non-family violence context.

The report recommends that victims should have easier access to financial and practical support, such as technology to prevent cyberstalking. Victims should be supported by independent advocates to guide them through every stage, from reporting the stalking activity to accessing support services and any court actions.

The report also recommends improvements to the personal safety intervention order (PSIO) system. The system is currently swamped, so non-family violence stalking matters do not receive the attention they need. The VLRC recommends developing guidance on how to identify and prioritise stalking cases.

Another recommendation calls for the Crimes Act to be amended to make the stalking offence clearer and easier to apply.

Melbourne: The Commission, 2022. 238p.

By John Coyne and Teagan Westendorf

THis report helps develop an understanding of the quantum of profits being made and where in the value chain they occur. Australians spent approximately A$5.8 billion on methamphetamine and A$470 million on heroin in FY 2019.

Approximately A$1,216,806,017 was paid to international wholesalers overseas for the amphetamine and heroin that was smuggled into Australia in that year. The profit that remained in Australia’s economy was about A$5,012,150,000. Those funds are undermining Australia’s public health and distorting our economy daily, and ultimately funding drug cartels and traffickers in Southeast Asia.

One key takeaway from the figures presented in this report is that the Australian drug trade is large and growing. Despite the best efforts of law enforcement agencies, methamphetamine and heroin use has been increasing by up to 17% year on year. Falling prices in Southeast Asia are likely to keep pushing that number up, while drug prices and purity in Australia remain relatively stable.

Canberra: Australian Strategic Policy Institute, 2021. 40p.

By Shannon Brennan and Benjamin Mazowita

 Between 2011 and 2016, 2,362 people in British Columbia had a fatal overdose from illicit drugs, with 332 occurring in Surrey specifically. The majority of individuals who died of an illicit drug overdose in British Columbia (66%) and specifically in the City of Surrey (64%) had no contact with police in the 24 months preceding their overdose death. For the purposes of this study, a contact with the police is defined as an official intervention, where the individual was identified by police as a person accused of a criminal incident.  Overall, most of the decedents (66%) held some form of employment in at least one of the five years preceding their overdose death, regardless of any contact with police. That said, decedents who had a formal contact with the police were less likely to have experienced consistent employment over the 5 years. One in five (20%) decedents who had contact with police were employed in each of the 5 years prior to their fatal overdose, compared to 29% of decedents who did not have contact.  More than two-thirds (68%) of decedents who had contact with police had also received social assistance benefits in the 5 years prior to their death, a proportion that was significantly higher than their counterparts who had no contact with police (55%).  In general, most decedents were not hospitalized in the year before their death. This held true for both those who had contact with police (72%) and those who did not (75%). The remaining one in four decedents were hospitalized at least once in the year preceding their death. The most common reasons for hospitalization among decedents in the year before their death besides opioid poisonings were in connection to substance use related disorders and mental health conditions.  While the majority of decedents never came into contact with police, among those who did (34%), many did so multiple times. Overall, 15% of decedents in British Columbia and 16% of decedents in the City of Surrey had three or more formal contacts with police in the 24 months preceding their overdose death.  Overall, among decedents who had a contact with police, 33% in British Columbia (and 24% in the City of Surrey) had a fatal overdose in the 90 days following their last contact with police. These findings indicate the need for timely interventions.  The majority of decedents who came into contact with police prior to their fatal overdose did so for a non-violent crime: 83% of police contacts were for non-violent offences whereas the remaining 17% involved violent offences. Shoplifting of items valued at $5,000 or under was the most common reason decedents came into contact with police in the 24 months prior to their death. Aside from property offences and, more specifically, shoplifting, offences against the administration of justice were also among the most common reasons decedents came into contact with police. These offences were also highly represented among the decedent cohort, relative to the province as a whole.  In line with their police interactions, most of the decedents who appeared in a criminal court within the 2 years preceding their overdose death did so in relation to property offences and offences against the administration of justice. Specifically, cases involving theft, breach of probation and failure to comply with an order were among the most prevalent

Ottawa: Statistics Canada, 2019. 18p.

By Katherine A. Fowler, Rachel A. Leavitt, Carter J. Betz, Keming Yuan & Linda L. Dahlberg

Multi-victim homicides are a persistent public health problem confronting the United States. Previous research shows that homicide rates in the U.S. are approximately seven times higher than those of other high-income countries, driven by firearm homicide rates that are 25 times higher; 31% of public mass shootings in the world also occur in the U.S.. The purpose of this analysis is to examine the characteristics of mass, multiple, and single homicides to help identify prevention points that may lead to a reduction in different types of homicides.

We used all available years (2003–2017) and U.S. states/jurisdictions (35 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico) included in CDC’s National Violent Death Reporting System (NVDRS), a public health surveillance system which combines death certificate, coroner/medical examiner, and law enforcement reports into victim- and incident-level data on violent deaths. NVDRS includes up to 600 standard variables per incident; further information on types of mental illness among suspected perpetrators and incident resolution was qualitatively coded from case narratives. Data regarding number of persons nonfatally shot within incidents were cross-validated when possible with several other resources, including government reports and the Gun Violence Archive. Mass homicides (4+ victims), multiple homicides (2-3 victims) and single homicides were analyzed to assess group differences using Chi-square tests with Bonferroni-corrected post-hoc comparisons.

Results: Mass homicides more often had female, child, and non-Hispanic white victims than other homicide types. Compared with victims of other homicide types, victims of mass homicides were more often killed by strangers or someone else they did not know well, or by family members. More than a third were related to intimate partner violence. Approximately one-third of mass homicide perpetrators had suicidal thoughts/behaviors noted in the time leading up to the incident. Multi-victim homicides were more often perpetrated with semi-automatic firearms than single homicides. When accounting for non-fatally shot victims, over 4 times as many incidents could have resulted in mass homicide.

Conclusions: These findings underscore the important interconnections among multiple forms of violence. Primary prevention strategies addressing shared risk and protective factors are key to reducing these incidents.

Injury Epidemiology (2021) 8:49

USED BOOK. MAY CONTAIN MARK-UP

By Luke Harding

FROM THE FOREWORD: “Edward Snowden is one of the most extraordinary whistleblowers in history. Never before has anyone scooped up en masse the top-secret files of the world's most powerful intelligence organisations, in order to make them public. But that was what he did. His skills are unprecedented. Until the present generation of computer nerds came along, no one realised it was possible to make off with the electronic equivalent of whole libraries full of triple-locked filing cabinets and safes - thousands of documents and millions of words. His motives are remarkable. Snowden set out to expose the true behaviour of the US National Security Agency and its allies. On present evidence, he has no interest in money - although he could have sold his documents to foreign intelligence services for many, many millions….”

NY. Vingtage. 2014. 350p.

By Kathryn E. Schertz, James Saxon, Carlos Cardenas-Iniguez, Luís M. A. Bettencourt, Yi Ding, Henry Hoffmann & Marc G. Berman

Crime is a costly societal issue. While many factors influence urban crime, one less-studied but potentially important factor is neighborhood greenspace. Research has shown that greenspace is often negatively associated with crime. Measuring residents’ use of greenspace, as opposed to mere physical presence, is critical to understanding this association. Here, we used cell phone mobility data to quantify local street activity and park visits in Chicago and New York City. We found that both factors were negatively associated with crime, while controlling for socio-demographic factors. Each factor explained unique variance, suggesting multiple pathways for the influence of street activity and greenspace on crime. Physical tree canopy had a smaller association with crime, and was only a significant predictor in Chicago. These findings were further supported by exploratory directed acyclic graph modeling, which found separate direct paths for both park visits and street activity to crime.

Urban Sustainability (2021) 1-19.

By Salma Hamza , Imran Khan, Linlin Lu , Hua Liu , Farkhunda Burke , Syed Nawaz-ul-Huda, Muhammad Fahad Baqa and Aqil Tariq

The geographical concentration of criminal violence is closely associated with the social, demographic, and economic structural characteristics of neighborhoods. However, few studies have investigated homicide patterns and their relationships with neighborhoods in South Asian cities. In this study, the spatial and temporal patterns of homicide incidences in Karachi from 2009 to 2018 were analyzed using the local indicators of spatial association (LISA) method. Generalized linear modeling (GLM) and geographically weighted Poisson regression (GWPR) methods were implemented to examine the relationship between influential factors and the number of homicides during the 2009–2018 period. The results demonstrate that the homicide hotspot or clustered areas with high homicide counts expanded from 2009 to 2013 and decreased from 2013 to 2018. The number of homicides in the 2017–2018 period had a positive relationship with the percentage of the population speaking Balochi. The unplanned areas with low-density residential land use were associated with low homicide counts, and the areas patrolled by police forces had a significant negative relationship with the occurrence of homicide. The GWPR models effectively characterized the varying relationships between homicide and explanatory variables across the study area. The spatio-temporal analysis methods can be adapted to explore violent crime in other cities with a similar social context.

Sustainability 2021, 13, 5520. https://doi.org/10.3390/ su13105520

Julia P Schleimer , Shani A Buggs , Christopher D McCort , Veronica A Pear , Alaina De Biasi , Elizabeth Tomsich , Aaron B Shev , Hannah S Laqueur , Garen J Wintemute

Objectives. To describe associations between neighborhood racial and economic segregation and violence during the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods. For 13 US cities, we obtained zip code-level data on 5 violence outcomes from March through July 2018 through 2020. Using negative binomial regressions and marginal contrasts, we estimated differences between quintiles of racial, economic, and racialized economic segregation using the Index of Concentration at the Extremes as a measure of neighborhood privilege (1) in 2020 and (2) relative to 2018 through 2019 (difference-in-differences). Results. In 2020, violence was higher in less-privileged neighborhoods than in the most privileged. For example, if all zip codes were in the least privileged versus most privileged quintile of racialized economic segregation, we estimated 146.2 additional aggravated assaults (95% confidence interval = 112.4, 205.8) per zip code on average across cities. Differences over time in less-privileged zip codes were greater than differences over time in the most privileged for firearm violence, aggravated assault, and homicide. Conclusions. Marginalized communities endure endemically high levels of violence. The events of 2020 exacerbated disparities in several forms of violence. Public Health Implications. To reduce violence and related disparities, immediate and long-term investments in low-income neighborhoods of color are warranted.

(Am J Public Health. 2022;112(1):144-153. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2021.306540).

By Nicholas Pope

This thesis examines the emergence and sustainment of milícias (militias) in the 1990s in the West Zone ‘margins’ of the city of Rio de Janeiro. It considers the rise of milícias as they coincide with urbanisation, economic liberalisation, democratisation, decentralisation and the rise of violent drug trafficking organisations. This thesis sets out to answer the following overarching research question: ‘How and why did milícias emerge in Rio de Janeiro’s West Zone since the 1990s and how and why were they sustained? What is their relationship to the management of (dis)order?’ The analytical approach developed to answer this question draws on an historically situated political settlements framework to understand milícias as power relations within coalition formations and as facilitators of rent extraction and distribution. The framework introduces urban and political geography literatures on frontiers to advance a thesis that milícias in Rio de Janeiro are coercive brokers that mediate urban frontier zones. This study draws on ethnographic fieldnotes from direct and participant observation, in-depth interviews and oral histories, and extensive archival research of parliamentary documents. It argues that milícias emerged to provide temporary ‘solutions’ to address the violent inequalities, structural insecurities, and the threats and insecurities posed by drug trafficking organisations in the urban frontiers. They emerged through ‘bottom-up’ processes but were also seen as convenient to political and economic elites in the central state who were unable (or unwilling) to provide formal security in the West Zone. However, this thesis makes the case that there was a trade-off for the central state as paramilitaries, as accrued power in the urban frontier, they also attempted to reshape state institutions. Because of their roots in local communities, this thesis also recognises the dependency of milícias on legitimacy, ideas, beliefs and norms, and the power imbued in community relations. This study contributes to the literatures on milícias by accounting for their role as co-producers of (dis)order in the urban margins, the literature on political settlements by intertwining questions of violence and conflict with spatiality, and finally the Latin American literatures on local political order and governance by advancing a conceptualisation of armed groups straddling state and society and challenging conventional state/-non-state binaries.

London: Department of Development Studies SOAS, University of London , 2019. 307p.

By Cheyenne Pamela Hodgen

This thesis presents two individual research papers that examine the relationship between greenspaces and crime in Portland, Oregon. The two papers use an adapted street network buffer to better measure crime concentration around discrete locations. This methodological development allows for an improved measure of crime concentration around discrete locations. The first contribution, presented in Chapter 2, explores the relationship between different greenspace types and crime, breaking down different crime types into discrete categories. The results of this study suggest that overall, Portland greenspaces do not experience a concentration of crime, however, different patterns emerge as greenspace and crime types are disaggregated. Only one greenspace type, small parks, appear to be important local features—experiencing a high concentration of crime—while other types experienced a concentration of a few crime types, or none at all. Building off of these results, the second contribution—Chapter 3—examines the relationship between small parks and crime in more detail, looking at the level of crime concentration beyond the park, the presence of certain amenities, and the surrounding landuse zoning. A non-linear pattern in the level of crime concentration was found in the 3- block area around parks. Three park characteristics (statues/public art, water features/fountains, and plazas) were found to be associated with higher levels of crime at parks, while one characteristic (unpaved paths) and two activity generators (soccer fields and softball fields) were associated with lower levels of crime. The surrounding zoning also had an impact on crime at parks, with parks with exclusively or majority residential land use experiencing lower levels of crime.

Portland, OR: Portland State University 2023.

By Yiying Wang

This Paper Is Dedicated To The Completion Of A Visual Urban Report On Safety In Informal Settlements. This Research Explores The History Of Apartheid In South Africa And Investigates How Urban Development Processes Within Informal Settlements Contribute To The Development Of Unsafe Neighbourhoods. Cape Town And The Largest Of These Slums, Khayelitsha, Were Selected As Macro And Micro Cases. Also The Barrio Ciudad Project In Honduras Was Analysed In This Study As A Best Practice Case Study. This Provides Insight Into How Design And Non-Design Measures Can Be Used To Address Insecurity In Informal Settlements.

2022 5th International Conference on Economy Development and Social Sciences Research (EDSSR 2022) 7p.

By Zahid ul Arefin Choudhoury, Fahima Durrat, Maria Hussain, et al.

The study takes up the pertinent challenges in human rights work of consistent lacks, deficiencies and uncertainties in human rights work and human rights reporting. These challenges pose questions to the human rights community on how to provide reliable information on violence, torture and ill-treatment, which includes the detection and identification of both victims and perpetrators necessary to ensure individual justice and institutional accountability. The report demonstrates that it is possible to address sensitive political issues of governance and violence, even in a nervous political setting, and produce relevant and solid data on violent encounters, that describes the unfolding of these events and the effects on life and livelihood, including health and economy, of the individuals and families involved. The richness and depths of the data confirms the usefulness of the methodological approach, at least in Korail Basti in the centre of Dhaka. It indicates a potential for broader and hopefully general applicability in other similar areas of the city, the country or the region and perhaps even at a global level. Confirming this general applicability would entail the need to replicate, adapt and carry through the study in additional sites and places with other contextual social, political and economic conditions and configurations. The solidity of the survey’s findings is a promising result of the study and could be a possible departure point for further testing of the proposed methodology

Bangladesh, UK and Denmark: University of Dhaka Department of Peace and Conflict Studies, DIGNITY and University of Edinburgh Anthropology Department, 2016. 110p.

By The Blue Ribbon Panel on MTA Fare and Toll Evasion, Metropolitan Transportation Authority

Fare and toll evasion is a sensitive issue that raises difficult questions about social cohesion, inequality, and appropriate use of enforcement. But the situation in New York has reached a crisis level, and avoiding the topic is no longer a viable option. Losses to the MTA’s operating budget are staggering, with nearly $700 million in revenue not collected in 2022 alone. This includes $315 million lost in bus fares, $285 million in subway fares, $46 million in bridge and tunnel tolls, and $44 million in railroad fares. Fares and tolls account for a significant proportion of the MTA’s annual budget revenue — almost $7 billion a year. But every dollar lost to evasion impairs the MTA’s financial stability, threatens reliable transit for all New Yorkers, and increases the need for alternative revenue sources, including through larger fare and toll hikes. The MTA convened a Blue-Ribbon Panel of high-profile New Yorkers with expertise in relevant fields to better understand fare and toll evasion, and develop fresh solutions to the issue. Panelists spent the better part of a year meeting with stakeholders inside and outside the MTA, speaking with transit users, and observing fare and toll collection operations throughout the system. The panel’s final report proposes a cohesive and comprehensive set of strategies around education, environment, equity, and enforcement.

New York: MTA, 2023. 125p.

By Laure de Batza and Evžen Kočendab

We provide the first quantitative synthesis of the literature on how financial markets react to the disclosure of financial crimes committed by listed firms. While consensus expects negative stock price returns, the exact size of the effect is far from clear. We surveyed 111 studies published over three decades, from which we collected 480 estimates from event studies. Then, we perform a thorough meta-analysis based on the most recent available techniques. We show that the negative abnormal returns found in the literature seem to be exaggerated by more than three times. Hence, the “punishment” effect, including a reputational penalty, suffers from a serious publication bias. After controlling for this bias, negative abnormal returns suggest the existence of an informational effect. We also document that accounting frauds, crimes committed in common-law countries such as the United States, and allegations are particularly severely sanctioned by financial markets, while the information channels and types of procedures do not influence market reactions.

Munich : Munich Society for the Promotion of Economic Research - CESifo, 2023. 82p.

By Karen Allen and Isel van Zyl

This paper explores the links between digital vigilantism and organised crime in South Africa and Kenya.

Social media platforms have become powerful tools to amplify and share narratives. Like many evolving technologies, platforms such as Twitter or Facebook may be used for social good or for ill. Digital vigilantism (whereby social media platforms are used for organised shaming, hounding or doxing of a target deemed by the online community to have transgressed norms) may have real-world consequences. In extreme cases this may result in acts of ‘terrorism’ or other forms of unlawful killing. Yet while digital vigilantism may appropriate traditional law enforcement mechanisms, in some cases it may also try to hold law enforcement to account.

ENACT-Africa, 2020. 16p.

By Marisol Cruz Cain, Gretta L. Goodwin

Cybercrime, such as hacking and ransomware attacks, is increasing in the United States—leading to billions of dollars in losses and threatening public safety. Several federal agencies work to detect, investigate, and prosecute cybercrimes. Agencies vary in how they collect data on these crimes, and there is no official definition of cybercrime. As a result, this data may not be consistent or complete. In 2022, Congress required the Department of Justice to develop definitions and categories for cybercrimes in its national crime reporting system—which should help law enforcement agencies comprehensively track and monitor these crimes.

Washington DC: U.S. Government Accountability Office, 2023. 40p.

By Anthony Morgan and Isabella Voce

This paper draws on data from a large national survey conducted in 2021 to examine the prevalence of data breaches among Australian computer users and the relationship between data breaches and other forms of cybercrime victimisation. Almost one in 10 respondents (9.3%) said they were notified their information was exposed in a data breach in the 12 months prior to the survey. Nearly one-third of these respondents (28.0%) had also been a victim of identity crime in the same period. Respondents who had been notified of a data breach were 34 percent more likely than other respondents to have been a victim of identity crime in the 12 months prior to the survey. They were also more likely to have been a victim of online scams or fraud and ransomware. Measures to protect individuals whose information has been exposed in a data breach from other potentially related cybercrimes are essential and should be prioritised when data breaches occur.

Statistical Bulletin no. 40. Canberra: Australian Institute of Criminology. 2022. 16p.

By Merran McAlister, Emily Faulconbridge, Isabella Voce and Samantha Bricknell

This study presents findings from the Australian Cybercrime Survey related to identity crime and misuse. Thirty-one percent of respondents experienced identity crime in their lifetime and 20 percent in the past 12 months. Almost half of identity crime victims reported that suspicious transactions appeared in their bank statements or accounts. The type of personal information most commonly misused was names, followed by credit or debit card information. While one quarter of respondents did not know how their information was obtained, 16 percent believed it to be due to the hacking of a computer or device. Twenty-nine percent of past 12 month victims experienced a financial loss. The median amount initially lost was $300. Nineteen percent of victims had money reimbursed, the median amount being $250.

Statistical Bulletin 42. Canberra: Australian Institute of Criminology, 2023. 18p.

By Isabella Voce and Anthony Morgan

This is the first report in the Cybercrime in Australia series, which aims to provide a clearer picture of the extent of cybercrime victimisation, help-seeking and harms among Australian computer users. It is based on a survey of 13,887 computer users conducted in early 2023. In the 12 months prior to the survey, 27 percent of respondents had been a victim of online abuse and harassment, 22 percent had been a victim of malware, 20 percent had been a victim of identity crime and misuse, and eight percent had been a victim of fraud and scams. Overall, 47 percent of respondents experienced at least one cybercrime in the 12 months prior to the survey—and nearly half of all victims reported experiencing more than one type of cybercrime. Thirty-four percent of respondents had experienced a data breach. Cybercrime victimisation was not evenly distributed, with certain sections of the community more likely to have been a victim, and certain online activities associated with a higher likelihood of victimisation.

Most cybercrime victimisation went unreported to police or to ReportCyber, meaning official statistics significantly underestimate the size of the problem. Satisfaction with the outcomes of these reports was mixed, and relatively few reports resulted in an offender being apprehended. Rates of help-seeking varied and were influenced by the perceived seriousness of cybercrime and knowledge of how and where to report it.

The financial losses experienced by victims were wide ranging. Some victims reported losing large sums of money, but most victims reported relatively small financial losses. This report measures, for the first time, the harms experienced by individual victims and small businesses that extend beyond these financial costs. Twenty-five percent of respondents were negatively impacted by cybercrime in the 12 months prior to the survey, while 22 percent of respondents who owned or operated a small to medium business said their business was negatively impacted by cybercrime.

Statistical Bulletin, 43. Canberra: Australian Institute of Criminology, 2023. 113p.