By William J. Aceves

On the eve of the 1992 Los Angeles uprising, a small group of gang leaders and community activists drafted an agreement to curtail violence in south Los Angeles. Several gangs in Watts accepted the truce and established a cease-fire agreement. By most accounts, the 1992 Watts Gang Treaty succeeded in reducing gang violence in Los Angeles. Local activists attributed the reduction in shootings to the Treaty. Even law enforcement officials grudgingly recognized the Treaty’s contribution to reducing gang violence and a corresponding decrease in homicides. The origins of the Watts Gang Treaty can be traced to gang leaders recognizing that the devastating struggle between rival gangs was analogous to a military conflict—complete with “no-man’s land,” assault weapons, targeted killings, and civilian casualties—and, therefore, it required a diplomatic solution. Seeking inspiration from international conflict resolution efforts, gang members looked to the 1949 Armistice Agreement adopted by Egypt and Israel to end the Arab-Israeli War. The drafters of the Watts Gang Treaty mirrored the key provisions of the Armistice Agreement, including a cease-fire agreement and other confidence-building measures. The drafters then built a social movement to support the Treaty. This Article examines the origins, impact, and legacy of the Watts Gang Treaty. It also pursues a prescriptive agenda. It supports the study of hidden history that runs counter to the common narrative of power and privilege in the United States. Moreover, this Article argues that social movements can achieve meaningful change even in the face of poverty, violence, and structural racism.

Harvard Civil Rights- Civil Liberties Law Review (CR-CL), Vol. 57, 2022. 63p.

By Jonathan Klick and John MacDonald

Objectives This study examines the impact of alcohol consumption in a Major League Baseball (MLB) stadium on area level counts of crime. The modal practice at MLB stadiums is to stop selling alcoholic beverages after the seventh inning. Baseball is not a timed game, so the duration between the last call for alcohol at the end of the seventh inning and the end of the game varies considerably, providing a unique natural experiment to estimate the relationship between alcohol consumption and crime near a stadium on game days. Methods Crime data were obtained from Philadelphia for the period 2006–2015 and geocoded to the area around the MLB stadium as well as popular sports bars. We rely on difference-in-differences regression models to estimate the change in crime on home game days around the stadium as the game time extends into extra innings to other areas of the city and around sports bars in Philadelphia relative to days when the baseball team plays away from home. Results When there are extra innings and more game-time after the seventh inning alcohol sales stoppage crime declines signifcantly around the stadium. The crime reduction beneft of the last call alcohol policy is undone when a complex of sports bars opens in the stadium parking lot in 2012. The results suggest that alcohol consumption during baseball games is a contributor to crime. Conclusions The fndings provide further support for environmental theories of crime that note the congregation of people in places with excessive alcohol consumption is a generator of violent crime in cities. The consumption of alcohol in MLB stadiums appears to increase crime.

Journal of Quantitative Criminology (2021) 37:813–834

By Irwin, Véronique; Wang, Ke; Cui, Jiashan; Thompson, Alexandra (Statistician)

From the document: "'Report on Indicators of School Crime and Safety: 2022' provides the most recent national indicators on school crime and safety. The information presented in this report serves as a reference for policymakers and practitioners so that they can develop effective programs and policies aimed at violence and school crime prevention. Accurate information about the nature, extent, and scope of the problem being addressed is essential for developing effective programs and policies. This is the 25th edition of Indicators of School Crime and Safety, a joint effort of the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) and the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES). This report provides summary statistics to inform the nation about current aspects of crime and safety in schools. 'Report on Indicators of School Crime and Safety' includes the most recent available data at the time of its development, compiled from a number of statistical data sources supported by the federal government. Such sources include results from the School-Associated Violent Death Surveillance System, sponsored by the U.S. Department of Education, the U.S. Department of Justice, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC); the National Vital Statistics System, sponsored by CDC; the School Shooting Safety Compendium, sponsored by the U.S. Department of Defense; the Studies of Active Shooter Incidents, sponsored by the Federal Bureau of Investigation; the National Crime Victimization Survey and School Crime Supplement to that survey, sponsored by BJS and NCES, respectively; the Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System, sponsored by CDC; the School Survey on Crime and Safety, Fast Response Survey System, ED'Facts', and National Teacher and Principal Survey, all sponsored by NCES; and the Campus Safety and Security Survey, sponsored by the U.S. Department of Education. Some of these data are collected annually, while others are collected less frequently."

Washington D.D. National Center For Education Statistics; United States. Bureau Of Justice Statistics. 2023.. 38p.

Edited by Danilo Antonio Baltieri

This book covers some recent researches on the interface between drug misuse and crime and demonstrates that some types of violent crimes are more intimately related to alcohol and / or drug consumption. It is written for researchers, health and law professionals engaged in the evaluation, management and treatment of different types of offenders. It is organized by a number of phenomena that are known (or supposed) to link drugs and crime. This book shows that the application of punishment under the guise of deterrence, despite its ineffectiveness, is frequently preferred to a more adequate management for some types of offenders. This book provides ten manuscripts that describe different aspects of the relationship between drugs and crimes, always focusing on Brazilian reality. It shows that a partnership between specialized mental health professionals, lawyers and policy makers is urgent with respect to this subject in Brazil and other countries.

Bentham Books, 2009. 100p.

By Gary Sweeten and Matthew Larson

This report describes a project that had the main goal of developing a broad, nationally representative understanding of how often statutory rape occurs in the U.S., who the victims and perpetrators are, how self-reported estimates compare to estimates from law enforcement data, and whether short- and/or long-term consequences exist and if they do, what the consequences might be. In order to accomplish that goal, the project had four specific objectives: to estimate nationally representative rates of statutory rape victimization and perpetration using the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 (NLSY97); to assess situational differences between first sexual experiences that are statutory rape compared to those that are not; to estimate the likelihood of women’s statutory rape victimization being reported to police, using data from the National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS); and to assess the short- and long-term consequences of statutory rape victimization, based on the nature and characteristics of relationships as well as on the age differences between victims and perpetrators. The authors provide a breakdown of their research design, methods, analytical and data analysis techniques, results and findings for the four objectives, research limitations, artifacts, datasets generated, and dissemination activities.

Washington, DC: National Institute of Justice Research and Evaluation on Violence Against Women, 2023. 57p.

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.