By Jerome Hall

From the introduction: “Theories of social science, especially those concerning methodology, are often presented very abstractly and in technical vocabularies which seem remote from the actual problems of research. This does not imply that theory should be abandoned or subordinated to practical guidance on research. What is involved is precisely the question of cogent, critical, realistic social theory. Under the circumstances, it occurred to me that a report and discussion of methods and theories employed in this research on theft might be of Interest. The general approach to the problems studied was simply one of curiosity about many phases of law, an attitude conditioned by strong intellectual currents in the social sciences.

New York. Bobbs-Merrill. (1992) 1995. 409p. CONTAINS MARK-UP

By Jonathan Beller

The Message is Murder analyses the violence bound up in the everyday functions of digital media. At its core is the concept of 'computational capital' - the idea that capitalism itself is a computer, turning qualities into quantities, and that the rise of digital culture and technologies under capitalism should be seen as an extension of capitalism's bloody logic. Engaging with Borges, Turing, Claude Shannon, Hitchcock and Marx, this book tracks computational capital to reveal the lineages of capitalised power as it has restructured representation, consciousness and survival in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Ultimately The Message is Murder makes the case for recognising media communications across all platforms - books, films, videos, photographs and even language itself - as technologies of political economy, entangled with the social contexts of a capitalism that is inherently racial, gendered and genocidal.

London: Pluto Press, 2018. 225p.

By Insecurity Insight

• Gang-related violence has continued to increase due to the worsening security situation and the growing power of the gangs. • On New Year’s Day, Prime Minister Ariel Henry fled a mass he was attending to celebrate Haiti’s Independence Day before he could give his planned speech. • Gang leaders have continued to exert their power over the territories they control, defying the rule of law and committing more acts of violence and extortion. The leader of a gang operating in Gonaïves threatened to kill the judge in charge of an investigation case that involves several gang leaders. The gang leader warned in an audio message that he had killed the judge’s cousin and another man who were discovered to be informants for the police. • There have been numerous other kidnaps for ransom and killings, including the murder of two Haitian journalists who were shot and then burned alive just outside Port-au-Prince. These are VERY LIKELY to increase further in the coming months given the grim security situation and political power vacuum. • Six political blocs, as well as academics and Haitian NGOs, met at the Haiti Unity Summit in Baton Rouge, Louisiana from 13 – 19 January. • Haiti’s Senate sat for the first time in a year on 10 January. • Despite both the Summit and the Senate meeting, concern is building on the ability to develop governance structures.

Switzerland: Insecurity Insight, 2022. 11p.

By Michelle Young

A new diagnosis of gang activity in Belize City, sponsored by the government of Belize and undertaken with the support of the Inter-American Development Bank, reveals issues of significant concern not only for Belize, but also for the Latin American and Caribbean region as a whole. Gang violence has dramatically increased with increased gang access to guns; the risk factors for gang involvement show broader and deeper risk exposure, expanding the pool of youth vulnerable to gang recruitment; and these developments have exposed the weaknesses of government responses to the gang problem, highlighting the need for a sustained and coordinated response across agencies. The assessment explores three years of violent crime incident reports; local demographic data; interviews with current and former gang members; interviews with key leaders and professionals who regularly interact with gang members; surveys of youth, community residents, and community leaders; surveys and focus groups with teachers, youth-serving professionals, and parents; and school performance data. It concludes with broad recommendations for future strategies and activities to reduce gang-related violence in Belize City.

Washington, DC: Inter-American Development Bank, 2019. 75p.

By The Harvard Law School International Human Rights Clinic

Over the course of President Jovenel Moïse’s presidency, Haitian civil society has raised alarm that armed gangs are carrying out heinous, state-sanctioned attacks against civilians in impoverished neighborhoods in Port-au-Prince. The scale, pattern, and context of the attacks indicate that they may amount to crimes against humanity. The attacks have taken place in the context of an escalating political crisis. President Moïse’s rule has become increasingly authoritarian and has turned to repression to quell dissent. Since 2018, massive public protests calling for government accountability and Moïse’s resignation have periodically shut down the country. The government has responded to the protests with aggressive measures, including criminalizing common non-violent protest tactics and increasing illegal surveillance of opponents. Targeted assassinations and threats against government critics have been carried out with impunity. During the four years of Moïse’s presidency, human rights observers have documented at least ten brutal attacks in impoverished parts of the capital where opposition against his administration runs strong. Three attacks—in La Saline, Bel-Air, and Cité Soleil—are particularly well-documented and severe. These three attacks offer insights into the means and methods used to carry out the assaults, and the ways in which state actors have supported the orchestration and execution of the attacks. When viewed together, they reveal a pattern of state-sanctioned violence, human rights abuses, and refusal to hold perpetrators accountable that likely amounts to crimes against humanity.

Cambridge, MA: Harvard Law School International Human Rights Clinic, 2021. 57p.

By The United Nations Integrated Office in Haiti (BINUH) and the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights

1. In early July 2022, Rose1 , 25 years old, was one of at least 52 women and girls who were collectively raped by armed elements during a week of intense violence opposing two rival gang coalitions in Cité Soleil. In the afternoon of 7 July 2022, Rose, a mother of four and five-months pregnant, was severely beaten and raped, in the presence of her children, by three heavily armed masked men. The latter had forced their way into her home during an attack launched against the residents of Brooklyn, in Cité Soleil. Earlier that day, Rose’s husband had been shot dead by members of the same gang. Before leaving, the armed individuals set her house ablaze, forcing Rose and her children to sleep out in the open in a public space for many nights. The story of Rose, like that of many other women, illustrates the ordeal of victims of sexual violence who are targeted by armed gangs. This report, jointly published by the United Nations Integrated Office in Haiti (BINUH) and the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), shows how armed gangs have used rape, including collective rapes, and other forms of sexual violence to instill fear, punish, subjugate, and inflict pain on local populations with the ultimate goal of expanding their areas of influence, throughout the metropolitan area of Port-au-Prince. As of August 2022, large swathes of the capital, accounting for at least 1.5 million people, were reportedly under the control or the influence of gang elements.

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  Gangs are able to commit acts of sexual violence and other human rights abuses mainly because of widespread impunity and ease of access to high caliber weapons and ammunitions trafficked from abroad. Women, girls and boys of all ages, as well as to a lesser extent men, have been victims of ruthless sexual crimes. Children as young as 10 and elderly women were subjected to collective rapes for hours in front of their parents or children by more than half a dozen armed elements during attacks against their neighborhoods. Viewed as enemies for their real or perceived support to rival gangs, or for the simple fact of living in the same areas as those rival gangs, some of these victims were mutilated and executed after being raped. Gangs have also resorted to sexual violence as a weapon to disrupt the social fabric by targeting women and girls crossing “frontlines” or moving across neighborhoods on foot or in public transport to carry out their daily livelihood activities, such as going to work, to marketplaces or to schools.

United Nations Integrated Office in Haiti (BINUH) and the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, 2022. 25p.

By Marc-André Lagrange and Thierry Vircoulon

The current rise in insecurity in Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), is often attributed to urban youth gangs – the Kulunas. Embedded in Kinshasa’s neighbourhood life and partnered with local political parties and law enforcement agencies, these gangs threaten urban security in the city. This paper examines the rise of the Kulunas from a historical and sociological perspective, and analyzes the state’s security responses to address it.

Geneva: Global Initiative Against Transnational Crime, 2021. 24p.

By Alex Cobham and Petr Jansky

Illicit financial flows constitute a global phenomenon of massive but uncertain scale, which erodes government revenues and drives corruption in countries rich and poor. In 2015, the countries of the world committed to a target to reduce illicit flows, as part of the UN Sustainable Development Goals. But five years later, there is still no agreement on how that target should be monitored—to say nothing of how it will be achieved. The term ‘illicit financial flows’ covers a range of corrupt practices, aimed at obtaining immunity or impunity from criminal law, from market regulation and from taxation. Illicit flows occur through many different channels, whether they involve laundering the proceeds of crime, for example, or shifting the profits of multinational companies. There are two consistent features. First, illicit flows are deliberately hidden. These cross-border movements of assets and income streams depend on a set of common tools including opaque company accounts, legal vehicles for anonymous ownership, and the secrecy jurisdictions that provide these services. Second, the overall effect of illicit flows is to reduce the revenue available to states, and to weaken the quality of governance—so there is less money to support human development, and it is less likely to be spent well. In this book, two of the economists most closely involved in the process to develop UN indicators of illicit financial flows offer a critical survey of the existing data and methodologies, identifying the most promising avenues for future improvement and setting out their own proposals.

Oxford, UK; New York: Oxford University Press, 2020. 224p.

By Simone Haysom and Mark Shaw

Over the past 15 years, there has been significant growth in awareness that environmental crime constitutes serious organized crime. There has also been a development of laws and policies to accompany that. However, despite the urgency and importance of the issue, responses still fall far short of what is needed. Leading scientists have contributed to these shifts in awareness by producing major syntheses that delineate the vast scale of global risk that environmental damage is unleashing.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPPC) and Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) have both released dire warnings, with the landmark 2019 IPBES report concluding that over a million species are at risk of extinction in the coming decades. IPBES has also warned that environmental crisis undermines progress towards 80% of the assessed targets of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Environmental crime has a key and underappreciated role in this developing crisis.

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  Our analysis shows that all of the contributing factors identified by IPBES have both direct and indirect connections to criminal networks and transnational criminal flows. We also know that, at its worst, environmental crime is intimately bound up with threats to global peace and stability. It provides a soft entry point into global illicit flows for traffickers, and is often accompanied by widespread human rights abuses and dispossession by criminal networks and actors.

  The corruption related to environmental crime can be so damaging that it creates political instability and entrenches systems of patronage or the elite capture of democratic institutions. While there has been a significant increase in multilateral investments in responding to wildlife and timber crime, some of these interventions are themselves producing harms that outweigh or undermine their benefits. Human-rights abuses, such as torture, rape and displacement, are also bound up in militarized responses to environmental crime. All of this points to the conclusion that the international community is still failing to support effective, sustainable ways of combatting environmental crime. There is still much to do and much to learn – all within a narrow window of time. The severity of these problems and the pressing time constraints on responding are linked to their intersection with other crises – a broader global failure to address the drivers of climate change; the rapid growth of organized crime and illicit trade over the past two decades; and the fall-out of the enormous shifts wrought by the greater social and economic integration of globalization, particularly through the changes introduced by digital communication and commerce on virtual platforms. The latter is having a transformative impact on all sectors, not least of which is the illicit trafficking of multiple commodities.

Geneva; Global Initiative Against Transnational organized Crime, 2022. 44p.

By Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime

This report builds on the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime (GI-TOC’s) ‘Forest crimes in Cambodia’ study (March 2021) by further exploring the networks of state and military control that facilitate the illegal timber trade. High-volume logging and trafficking of luxury wood continue unabated despite years of legislation, export bans and high-profile crackdowns. Examples abound. ‘Forest crimes in Cambodia’ presented compelling evidence of this in Prey Lang.1 Hong Kong SAR customs officials seized 211 tonnes of endangered Cambodian timber in May 2021.2 COVID-19 border closures failed to prevent 27 498 cubic metres of high-risk Cambodian sawn timber making its way through official Vietnamese customs in 2020.3 Moreover, the resilience, mutability, earning power and scale of the illicit industry is evidenced by decades of rigorous investigation, monitoring and analysis by Cambodian NGOs, grassroots activism networks and international NGOs.4 Benefiting from, and expanding on, this wealth of evidence, this report adds to the existing knowledge on Cambodia’s illegal logging by shedding light on the actors behind this vast trade and the practices they employ. The emerging picture is one of complex and interdependent networks.

Geneva: Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime, 2022. 61p.

By Théo Clément and Sam Inglis

Vietnam is known for its highly diverse tropical fauna and is considered to be a major hub for wildlife trafficking in South East Asia – and globally for certain highly trafficked species, such as rhinoceros and tigers. The country has a globalized, export-driven economy with extensive trade links and has been identified as a key node in the wildlife trafficking chain in previous research. Vietnamese networks abroad have been found to be involved in the poaching of at least 18 000 elephants, 111 000 pangolins and nearly 1 000 rhinoceroses since 2010. However, these investigations have led to only a few prosecutions.

Geneva: Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime. 2022. 26p.

By Gavin Hayman and Duncan Brack.

This paper summarizes the discussions and conclusions of a workshop on the nature and control of environmental black markets held at the Royal Institute of International Affairs, London on 27–28 May 2002. Thanks to generous support from the European Commission (DG Environment) and UNEP Ozone Secretariat, some eighty participants from over thirty different countries were able to attend.

Rather than simply collect and repeat what is known about the extent of the illegal activities in specific jurisdictions – a traditional indulgence of the regulatory community – the workshop was intended to provide a more systematic understanding of the driving forces behind international environmental crime. Efforts to tackle the smuggling of environmental contraband have been dogged by an ad hoc and unsystematic approach where individual enforcement agencies attempt to headhunt environmental criminals without reducing the size of the illegal market in which they operate. The failure of the international ‘war on drugs’ suggests that this policy is doomed: as long as demand and supply pressures that shape profit-making opportunities remain, other operators will expand their operations or new operations will enter the international market. Thus, the workshop raised the need to think beyond simply increasing enforcement effort to minimize overall levels of environmental harm by addressing the demand and supply of the contraband.

Copenhagen: Royal Institute of International Affairs, 2002. 42p.

By Wilson K. Korir

The objective of the study was to determine the effectiveness of environmental crime management in Kenya. Specifically, this included determination of factors affecting environmental crime management, causes of environmental crime, establishment of the nature and extent of environmental crime. All these assisted in understanding the effectiveness of environmental crime management in Kenya. Research questions which the study attempted to answer include what factors affect environmental crime management, the causes of environmental crime, the nature and the extent of environmental crime and the effectiveness of environmental crime management in Kenya. A conceptual framework was used to simplify the relationship between variables in the study. The relationship shows that environmental crime management in Kenya faces several challenges that in varied ways hinder proper environmental crime management. The methodology adopted during the study included desktop review of existing scholarly materials for secondary data and focused questionnaire tool for primary data. The respondents were also made aware of the purpose of the research and informed on how and when they will get feedback on the study. The questionnaire was administered to key respondents and their profiles captured so as to give a picture of their understanding of their background and input to the study.

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  The study concludes that lack of understanding of the long term effects of environmental crimes among key stakeholders has led to crimes being treated as misdemeanors thus attracting low penalties if any, hence resulting in poor management of the crime. The study recommends that the process of enacting legislation on environmental crime should be all inclusive, adopting a wider consultative approach. The study encourages the strengthening of environmental crime management policies. At the moment environmental crime management is a loose concept with weak policy. Environmental crimes should be addressed by policy and legislation that ensures that local communities benefit from the country‘s natural resources so that they value and protect them. Environmental crime management should be greatly enhanced by improving the capacity of the environmental law enforcement officials and other stakeholders through training

Nairobi: University of Nairobi, 2014. 146p.

By Duncan Brack

This paper summarizes the discussions and conclusions of a workshop on the nature and control of environmental black markets held at the Royal Institute of International Affairs, London on 27–28 May 2002. Thanks to generous support from the European Commission (DG Environment) and UNEP Ozone Secretariat, some eighty participants from over thirty different countries were able to attend. Rather than simply collect and repeat what is known about the extent of the illegal activities in specific jurisdictions – a traditional indulgence of the regulatory community – the workshop was intended to provide a more systematic understanding of the driving forces behind international environmental crime. Efforts to tackle the smuggling of environmental contraband have been dogged by an ad hoc and unsystematic approach where individual enforcement agencies attempt to headhunt environmental criminals without reducing the size of the illegal market in which they operate. The failure of the international ‘war on drugs’ suggests that this policy is doomed: as long as demand and supply pressures that shape profit-making opportunities remain, other operators will expand their operations or new operations will enter the international market. Thus, the workshop raised the need to think beyond simply increasing enforcement effort to minimize overall levels of environmental harm by addressing the demand and supply of the contraband.

London: Royal Institute of International Affairs (RUSI), 2002. 42p.

By Claude-Hélène Mayer

This brief explores wildlife crime and its international and culture-specific combat in South Africa from a green psychology perspective, focusing on a specific method of forensic trace recovery by analysing and evaluating the use of gelatine lifters. It provides theoretical and applied insight into visualising and sequential processing of finger-, shoe- and footprints, and environmental traces. It allows the reader in-depth insight into effective methods of international wildlife crime combat, based on the South African perspective. This brief gives theoretical and applied recommendations for international, regional and local actors for successful cooperation on wildlife protection.

As global and local programs, actions and law enforcement strategies to combat wildlife crime are gaining strength, forensic trace evidence is a useful method for investigative and preventive success. This brief will be useful for students and researchers in forensic science, wildlife crime, green criminology, as well as for law enforcement and international actors combating wildlife crime practically on both international and local levels.

Cham: Springer, 2019. 90p.

By John M. Sellar

The UN's Lone Ranger tells of law enforcement and diplomacy. It is also the first book, written from an international perspective, about a subject that warrants much greater attention, if the world's most threatened species are to be safeguarded for future generations. John Sellar describes why organized crime has turned to robbing nations, especially in the developing world, of their animals and plants and how this is bringing several species to the brink of extinction. It illustrates, in words and images, how criminal networks recruit, equip and direct poachers and wildlife contraband couriers; arrange the smuggling of species and products, often involving transportation across many borders and several continents; use bribery and violence against law enforcement personnel; and the nature of the markets in which illegal-origin wildlife is being consumed.

Dunbeath, Caithness, Scotland: Whittles Publishing, 2014. 201p.

Edited by Gary R. Potter, Angus Nurse, Matthew Hall

This book critically examines both theory and practice around conservation crimes. It engages with the full complexity of environmental crimes and different responses to them, including: poaching, conservation as a response to wildlife crime, forest degradation, environmental activism, and the application of scientific and situational crime prevention techniques as preventative tools to deal with green crime.

Through the contributions of experts from both the social and ecological sciences, the book deals with theoretical and practical considerations that impact on the effectiveness of contemporary environmental criminal justice. It discusses the social construction of green crimes and the varied ways in which poaching and other conservation crimes are perceived, operate and are ideologically driven, as well as practical issues in environmental criminal justice. With contributions based in varied ideological perspectives and drawn from a range of academic disciplines, this volume provides a platform for scholars to debate new ideas about environmental law enforcement, policy, and crime prevention, detection and punishment.

London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015. 246p.

By Tanya Wyatt

The global illegal wildlife trade is a burgeoning black market which is threatening the survival of numerous species. Wyatt's unique analysis provides new theoretical conceptualisations of the victims and offenders of wildlife trafficking, and furthers the discussion of these crimes through a distinctive green criminological perspective. This book begins with essential background information into the scale and scope of the smuggling of animals and plants bringing to light the often unknown magnitude of this black market. Wyatt considers the threats posed to the environment, people and the economy and evaluates the reasons behind wildlife trafficking by exploring the demand for wildlife.

Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013. 216p.

Edited by William D. Moreto

The editors and contributors toWildlife Crimeexamine topical issues from extinction to trafficking in order to understand the ecological, economic, political, and social costs and consequences of these crimes. Drawing from diverse theoretical perspectives, empirical and methodological developments, and on-the-ground experiences of practitioners, this comprehensive volume looks at how conservationists and law enforcement grapple with and combat environmental crimes and the profitable market for illegal trade. Chapters cover criminological perspectives on species poaching, unregulated fishing, the trading of ivory and rhino horns, the adoption of conservation technologies, and ranger workplaces and conditions. The book includes firsthand experiences and research from China, Indonesia, Kenya, Madagascar, Morocco, Peru, Russia, South Africa, Tanzania, and the United States. The result is a significant book about the causes of and response to wildlife crime.

Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2018. 330p.

By A.M. Lemieux, R.S.A. Pickles and D. Weekers

This guide equips analysts to support decision-makers in preventing wildlife crime by applying a problem-oriented approach. It sets out how to make the analytic process work and offers methods to examine a problem from multiple angles to identify a suitable response. The guide provides analysts with techniques to assess whether or not the response worked and communicate findings with purpose.

Phoenix, AZ: Center for Problem-Oriented Policing, Arizona State University, 2022. 160p.