By Fiona Mangan

This report explores how illicit drug trafficking and drug use in Libya has shaped and been shaped by the country’s ongoing conflict. Drawing on hundreds of interviews and dedicated research, it examines Libya’s pre-2011 illicit economy, delves into the social impact of drugs, and focuses on drug use on the frontlines of Libya’s ongoing conflict, the corrosive impact of drug trafficking and use on the justice and security sector, and how trafficking and organized crime undercut peacebuilding and state consolidation.

Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace, 2020. 36p.

By United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC)

This is a time for science and solidarity, as United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres has said, highlighting the importance of trust in science and of working together to respond to the global COVID19 pandemic. The same holds true for our responses to the world drug problem. To be effective, balanced solutions to drug demand and supply must be rooted in evidence and shared responsibility. This is more important than ever, as illicit drug challenges become increasingly complex, and the COVID-19 crisis and economic downturn threaten to worsen their impacts, on the poor, marginalized and vulnerable most of all. Some 35.6 million people suffer from drug use disorders globally. While more people use drugs in developed countries than in developing countries, and wealthier segments of society have a higher prevalence of drug use, people who are socially and economically disadvantaged are more likely to develop drug use disorders. Only one out of eight people who need drug-related treatment receive it. While one out of three drug users is a woman, only one out of five people in treatment is a woman. People in prison settings, minorities, immigrants and displaced people also face barriers to treatment due to discrimination and stigma. Of the 11 million people who inject drugs, half of them are living with hepatitis C, and 1.4 million with HIV. Around 269 million people used drugs in 2018, up 30 per cent from 2009, with adolescents and young adults accounting for the largest share of users. More people are using drugs, and there are more drugs, and more types of drugs, than ever.

Vienna: UNODC, 2020. 64p.

By Carina Gallo, Kerstin Svensson

. This book provides a rich analysis of the history of Swedish victim support. With the majority of research on victim support centering on the Anglosphere, this book offers a unique case study for considering the role of the victim in the criminal justice system. While Sweden has enacted many laws to support victims, and victim assistance programs have grown rapidly, welfare policy has become more restrictive and crime policy, to some degree, more punitive.

Routledge (2021) 186 pages.

By Ulrik Boesen

The crafting of tax policy can never be divorced from an understanding of the law of unintended consequences, but it is too often disregarded or misunderstood in political debate, and sometimes policies, however well-intentioned, have unintended consequences that outweigh their benefits. One notable example of this is the ever increasing tax rates on tobacco products. A consequence of high state cigarette excise tax rates has been increased smuggling as people procure discounted packs from low-tax states and sell them in high-tax states. Growing cigarette tax differentials have made cigarette smuggling both a national problem and, in some cases, a lucrative criminal enterprise. Each year, scholars at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, a Michigan think tank, use a statistical analysis of available data to estimate smuggling rates for each state.1 Their most recent report uses 2019 data and finds that smuggling rates generally rise in states after they adopt cigarette tax increases. Smuggling rates have dropped in some states, often where neighboring states have higher cigarette tax rates. T

Washington, DC: Tax Foundation, 2021. 8p.

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.

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.

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  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.

Edited by Richard F. Wetzell.

”There is a notable asymmetry between the early modern and modern German historiographies of crime and criminal justice. Whereas most early modern studies have focused on the criminals themselves, their socioeconomic situations, and the meanings of crime in a particular urban or rural milieu, late modern studies have tended to focus on penal institutions and the discourses of prison reformers, criminal law reformers, criminologists, and psychiatrists.”

Open Access Book (2018) 325p.

By Vania Ceccato.

Rural Crime and Community Safety makes a significant contribution to crime science and integrates a range of theories to understand patterns of crime and perceived safety in rural contexts. Based on a wealth of original research, Ceccato combines spatial methods with qualitative analysis to examine, in detail, farm and wildlife crime, youth related crimes and gendered violence in rural settings.

NY. Routledge (2016) 425 pages.

A Historical Sketch 1672-1916 by S. M. Edwardes. “A perusal of the official records of the early period of British rule in Bombay indicates that the credit of first establishing a force for the prevention of crime and the protection of the inhabitants belongs to Gerald Aungier, who was appointed Governor of he Island in 1669 and filled that office with conspicuous ability until his death in Surat in 1677.” Oxford University Press (1923) 240.

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By Bennett Clifford and Jon Lewis

On January 6, 2021, a mob composed of activists, unaffiliated sympathizers, and hardened extremists violently entered the United States Capitol, destroying property, assaulting law enforcement, and attempting to disrupt the American electoral process. During the siege, as it has come to be known, several thousand people are believed to have unlawfully breached the Capitol. The violence that day left five dead and more than a hundred injured.1 The Capitol Siege was a watershed moment for domestic violent extremism in the United States. In its immediate aftermath, the Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation launched a nationwide investigation into the alleged perpetrators of the violence. It quickly became the largest investigation of its type in the Bureau’s history, heralding investigations in nearly all 50 states and 704 criminal charges to date (as of January 1, 2022). The breadth of the federal 2 investigation has resulted in an unprecedented pace of prosecutorial activity, with nearly two criminal charges released per day on average during the first three months after the Capitol Siege. Today, a year after January 6, 2021, new charges are still being released every week, and the operational tempo for the DOJ and FBI has not significantly slowed. The events of that day also led the U.S. government to redesign its approach to counterterrorism, largely reorienting its focus from international to domestic extremism. At the same time, January 6, 2021, was not only a turning point for counterterrorism authorities, but has numerous ramifications for various American domestic violent extremist groups and their efforts to recruit and plan activities while avoiding law enforcement scrutiny. On the one-year anniversary of January 6, 2021, this report takes stock of the Capitol Siege’s impacts on domestic violent extremism in America, and the U.S. federal government’s efforts to respond to the threat over the past year. This research is based on the Program on Extremism’s Capitol Siege Database, a collection of over 20,000 pages of court documents from cases of individuals who have been federally charged for their participation in the Capitol Siege, as well as Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, interviews with U.S. government officials and defense attorneys, media reports, and other open-source information.

Washington, DC: George Washington University, Program on Extremism, 2022. 48p.

By The United Nations Office on drugs and Crime (UNODC)

The unique socioeconomic context in Palestine, characterized by political and economic tensions, has created conditions that facilitate the spread of illicit drug use among Palestinians. Data are lacking on the extent of high-risk drug use (HRDU) in both the West Bank and Gaza Strip but are a prerequisite to inform policy-making. HRDU is defined as ‘recurrent drug use that causes actual harm (negative consequences) to the person (including dependence, but also other health, psychological or social problems) or places the person at a high probability/risk of such harm’. The overall objective of this study was to provide insight into the extent of male HRDU in Palestine. This survey sampled only male participants based on findings from formative research indicating that females are not connected socially to males and/or to other females who use drugs. The study had four sites representing the Gaza Strip and the three regions in the West Bank: north, middle, and south. The study found that drug use is not confined to specific areas or localities within Palestine, but is widely distributed across the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Based on the data, it is estimated that there are 26,500 high risk drug users (HRDU) in Palestine, comprising 1.8% of the male population aged 15 and above.

Vienna: United Nations Offce on Drugs and Crime (UNODC). 2017. 77p.

By Mark Micallef

This report provides an assessment of drug smuggling routes and dynamics in Libya and aims to establish areas for further in-depth research. It draws on a mixed-methods approach, which includes the analysis of relevant open-source data alongside data from interviews with a variety of key stakeholders in the region. Libya’s smuggling and trafficking economies have been in a tumultuous state of flux since the 2011 revolution, and drug trafficking is no exception. The initial post-revolution period was characterised by changes that opened the door to new players, and even new markets, and led to a huge increase in the country’s internal consumption of illicit drugs, as well as to an expansion in its role as a transit point for drugs heading to Europe and countries neighbouring Libya. The disruption caused by the revolution also reordered the control of this profitable criminal activity, in some cases resulting in wars between criminal actors, including several tribes. Much of this reorganisation was related to the involvement of armed groups in drug trafficking. Two concurrent and conflicting developments in drug trafficking have taken place in the past few years.

Geneva: European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA), 2019. 29p.

By Fiona Mangan

This report explores how illicit drug trafficking and drug use in Libya has shaped and been shaped by the country’s ongoing conflict. Drawing on hundreds of interviews and dedicated research, it examines Libya’s pre-2011 illicit economy, delves into the social impact of drugs, and focuses on drug use on the frontlines of Libya’s ongoing conflict, the corrosive impact of drug trafficking and use on the justice and security sector, and how trafficking and organized crime undercut peacebuilding and state consolidation.

Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace, 2020. 36p.

By United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC)

This is a time for science and solidarity, as United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres has said, highlighting the importance of trust in science and of working together to respond to the global COVID19 pandemic. The same holds true for our responses to the world drug problem. To be effective, balanced solutions to drug demand and supply must be rooted in evidence and shared responsibility. This is more important than ever, as illicit drug challenges become increasingly complex, and the COVID-19 crisis and economic downturn threaten to worsen their impacts, on the poor, marginalized and vulnerable most of all. Some 35.6 million people suffer from drug use disorders globally. While more people use drugs in developed countries than in developing countries, and wealthier segments of society have a higher prevalence of drug use, people who are socially and economically disadvantaged are more likely to develop drug use disorders. Only one out of eight people who need drug-related treatment receive it. While one out of three drug users is a woman, only one out of five people in treatment is a woman. People in prison settings, minorities, immigrants and displaced people also face barriers to treatment due to discrimination and stigma. Of the 11 million people who inject drugs, half of them are living with hepatitis C, and 1.4 million with HIV. Around 269 million people used drugs in 2018, up 30 per cent from 2009, with adolescents and young adults accounting for the largest share of users. More people are using drugs, and there are more drugs, and more types of drugs, than ever.

Vienna: UNODC, 2020. 64p.

By Erik Hornung, Eduardo Hidalgo, Pablo Selaya

We study how NAFTA changed the geography of violence in Mexico. We propose that open borders increased trafficking profits of Mexican cartels and resulted in violent competition among them. We test this hypothesis by comparing changes in drug-related homicides after NAFTA’s introduction in 1994 across municipalities with and without drug-trafficking routes. Routes are optimal paths connecting municipalities with a recent history of drug trafficking with U.S. ports of entry. On these routes, homicides increase by 27% relative to the pre-NAFTA mean. These results cannot be explained by changes in worker’s opportunity costs of using violence resulting from the trade shock.

CEPR Press Discussion Paper No. 17608. 2022. 46p.

By the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime

In general, there was high level agreement reported by Member States on the need for alternatives to conviction or punishment in the responses to the NVs. Many countries already have legal provision for these to be applied to people with drug use disorder in contact with the criminal justice system and in some cases they have them at all stages in the criminal justice process (and even a range of different types of measures available at each stage).

Nevertheless, despite the high level of policy commitments, the realities of implementing alternative options are striking; some countries reported having no alternatives available, and others have legal provision for alternatives that are never or rarely used. This may be a reflection of wider issues around the overall availability of treatment for drug use disorders. According to the 2021 UNODC World Drug Report, 49 only 1 in 8 persons with a drug use disorder has access to treatment. This is a challenge that needs to be addressed jointly with developing the legal framework and the implementation of alternatives to conviction or punishment for people with drug use disorders in contact with the criminal justice system.

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  Alternatives can be challenging to establish as it is essential to have the infrastructure and trained human resources for evidence-based assessment, treatment, supervision, and other health and social support available and they should be evaluated to demonstrate their effectiveness and positive health, social and justice outcomes. Alternative measures also need to be designed so that those who should benefit from them are legally eligible – making the criteria for who can qualify overly complex and prescriptive can make alternatives difficult to be applied in practice. Also, both professionals and the public need to be supportive of the approach if it is to be successful so programmes need to be developed to ensure they have the information and knowledge and see the benefits of providing health services and other effective alternatives to conviction or punishment for people who use drugs in contact with the criminal justice system.

Vienna: UNODC, 2022. 64p.

By Peter Gastrow

Extortion is not likely to be uppermost in the minds of those South Africans, or the tens of thousands of international tourists, businesspersons and migrants who regularly flock to Cape Town to enjoy the beauty and prospects that the city has to offer. In the past, public discussion about extortion in South Africa was limited and media coverage sporadic. Reports focused mainly on isolated instances of extortion in the entertainment and nightclub areas of central Cape Town. Extortion-linked murders of foreign nationals running shops also received only occasional coverage. But the silence around extortion changed significantly during 2020. From about August and September 2020, the media began to increasingly report on a significant expansion of extortion rackets in central Cape Town.

The phenomenon, reportedly, was no longer confined to the night-time entertainment industry but increasingly affected small day-time businesses, including restaurants and coffee bars. This is likely to have been linked to the effect of the COVID-19 lockdown restrictions, which affected the night-time entertainment industry. More alarmingly, reports appeared of a surge in extortion incidents in township areas on the periphery of the city. In places such as Khayelitsha, Gugulethu and Philippi, South African residents were being targeted by extortion gangs.

Geneva: Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime, 2021. 63p.

By Philip Zimbardo

Renowned social psychologist and creator of the Stanford Prison Experiment Philip Zimbardo explores the mechanisms that make good people do bad things, how moral people can be seduced into acting immorally, and what this says about the line separating good from evil.. The Lucifer Effect explains how—and the myriad reasons why—we are all susceptible to the lure of “the dark side.” Drawing on examples from history as well as his own trailblazing research, Zimbardo details how situational forces and group dynamics can work in concert to make monsters out of decent men and women.

Here, for the first time and in detail, Zimbardo tells the full story of the Stanford Prison Experiment, the landmark study in which a group of college-student volunteers was randomly divided into “guards” and “inmates” and then placed in a mock prison environment. Within a week the study was abandoned, as ordinary college students were transformed into either brutal, sadistic guards or emotionally broken prisoners.

By illuminating the psychological causes behind such disturbing metamorphoses, Zimbardo enables us to better understand a variety of harrowing phenomena, from corporate malfeasance to organized genocide to how once upstanding American soldiers came to abuse and torture Iraqi detainees in Abu Ghraib. He replaces the long-held notion of the “bad apple” with that of the “bad barrel”—the idea that the social setting and the system contaminate the individual, rather than the other way around.

New York: Random House, 2008. 576p.

By INTERPOL and Enact (Africa)

The ‘Mobile money and organized crime in Africa’ report presents an overview of the criminal exploitation of mobile money services, including fraud, money laundering, extortion, human trafficking and people smuggling, the illegal wildlife trade and terrorism.

The African continent is the “world leader” in the mobile money industry, accounting for nearly half of all registered mobile money accounts globally.

The prominent role that mobile money plays in African societies and economies, and the rapid pace at which its infrastructure has been developed, has enabled criminals to “exploit weaknesses in regulations and identification systems” and commit mobile money-enabled crimes.

Lyon, France, INTERPOL, 2020. 53p.

By ENACT

As COVID-19 dominates the world’s stage, nearly every aspect of society has been affected by the deadly pandemic. While the impact of the contagion on countries’ economies, social cohesion, health and security has been widely reported on, less is known about its influence on criminal dynamics. The pandemic has not only become a central component of the everyday lives of Africans, but has also revealed the important role the continent plays in the global economy – both licit and illicit. COVID-19 measures have posed a double burden on African countries by heavily challenging people’s economic livelihood and restricting the freedom of movement of Africans, while also challenging governments in how they balance the need to address the health crisis with the provision of services and security amid declining economies. In this context, organised crime in Africa has evolved and taken advantage of the confusion and frustration wrought by the pandemic; it has filled in the gaps left by state institutions, by both adapting its illicit activities in order to circumvent COVID restrictions and providing new sources of livelihoods and parallel services. Institutional responses to stop the spread of the virus have had a profound impact on movement, trade and business, including in black markets and shadow economies. In Africa, COVID-19 was slower to take effect than in other parts of the world, and even though the continent has had experience in handling other major viral epidemics, the health, economic and security systems of many countries on the continent have found themselves ill-equipped to face the particular challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic. As legitimate businesses suffered extensive losses across the continent, people increasingly turned to the informal and illicit economies for alternative sources of livelihood. Meanwhile, those already vulnerable to exploitation become even more at risk due to the paucity of economic opportunities available to them and the isolating restrictions put in place in the interest of public health. While the closure of borders may have restricted illicit flows within and across countries in the short term, over the course of the pandemic, it has become clear that organised crime has found ways to adapt and bypass controls throughout Africa, with illicit activities continuing, often more covertly than ever before. As states diverted their attention and resources to curbing viral spread, new opportunities emerged for criminal groups to exploit gaps in service delivery and communities’ economic vulnerability, enabling them to expand their activities unchecked. For example, with limits on in-person interactions, illicit activities have increasingly shifted online, while cases of counterfeit, substandard and illegally diverted pharmaceuticals have been on the rise, marketed as ‘cures’ for COVID-19.

ENACT (Africa), 2021. 160p.

By Romi Sigsworth

Women play a range of roles in the grey economy on the fringes of organised criminal activities in East Africa. Using studies of illegal coltan mining in the Democratic Republic of Congo, sand trafficking in Kenya and wildlife crime in Uganda, this paper sets out the conundrum they face – the roles that give them agency and economic empowerment are those that law enforcement and social development interventions seek to dismantle. Can current responses be adapted to improve their lives?

EMACT (Africa), 22p.