By Larrea-Schiavon, Silvana, Lina López-Lalinde, Isabel Vieitez Martínez, Ricardo Regules, Juan Pablo Gutiérrez, René Nevárez, Cristina Mac Gregor, Pablo López, Nicole Haberland, and Thoai Ngô

This report presents findings from the baseline survey of the Violence Outcomes in COVID-19 Era Study (VOCES-19). The study, conducted by Population Council Mexico in collaboration with the National Institute of Youth and the National Center for Gender Equity and Reproductive Health aims to understand the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and accompanying mitigation measures on the experience and perception of violence among 15–24-year-olds living in Mexico, as well as its effects on other social, economic, and health, related outcomes. The primary objectives for this first survey round were to gather baseline information on several outcomes of interest, assess differential effects by gender, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status, and establish a cohort of adolescents and young adults to measure the impact of the pandemic on young people in Mexico over time.

Mexico: Population Council, 2021. 153p.

By EUROPOL

The use of cryptocurrency as part of criminal schemes is increasing and the uptake of this payment medium accelerating. However, the overall number and value of cryptocurrency transactions related to criminal activities still represents only a limited share of the criminal economy when compared to cash and other forms of transactions. A range of constraints are related to the use of cryptocurrencies, with high volatility likely a major factor in criminals’ reluctance to use cryptocurrencies for long term investments. Recent years have seen cryptocurrency increasingly used as part of criminal activities and to launder criminal proceeds. Criminals have also become more sophisticated in their use of cryptocurrencies. In addition to using cryptocurrencies to obfuscate money flows as part of increasingly complex money laundering schemes, cryptocurrencies are increasingly used by criminals as a means of payment or as an investment fraud currency. The number of cases involving cryptocurrencies for the financing of terrorism remains limited. The criminal use of cryptocurrency is no longer primarily confined to cybercrime activities, but now relates to all types of crime that require the transmission of monetary value. However, the scale and share of the illicit use of cryptocurrencies as part of criminal activities is difficult to estimate. Criminals and criminal networks involved in serious and organised crime also continue to rely on traditional fiat money and transactions to a large degree, in addition to emerging value transfer opportunities.    

The Hague: EUROPOL, 2022. 20p.

By Matthew Simonson, Matthew Lacombe, Jon Green, and James Druckman

The last decade has given rise to substantial concern about democratic backsliding in the U.S. Manifestations include decreased trust in government, conspiratorial beliefs, contentious protests, and support for political violence. Surprisingly, prior work has not explored how these attitudes and behaviors relate to gun-buying, an action that provides people with the means to challenge the state. The researchers address this topic by focusing on individuals who took part in the unprecedented gun buying surge during the COVID-19 pandemic. Using a survey with over 50,000 respondents, they find that— relative to other Americans—pandemic gun buyers are more likely to distrust government, believe in conspiracies, protest, and support political violence. Moreover, the authors find that gun buyers who hold anti-government views and attend protests are especially likely to say they bought guns for political reasons. The researchers’ findings highlight a crucial dynamic underlying the recent spike in gun sales with consequences for American democracy.

Evanston, IL: Northwestern University, Institute for Policy Research, 2022. 62p.

By The City of Chicago

We know a great deal about the nature of violence in Chicago. An overwhelming number of homicides in the city are gun-related and victims are disproportionately African American and Latinx males. Most shootings and homicides happen outdoors in public spaces. In 2019, the median age of homicide victims was 271, and 50 percent of the city’s shooting victimizations occurred within 10 community areas that comprise 15 percent of the city’s population. These neighborhoods are located on the South and West sides of Chicago where poverty, low educational attainment, and poor health outcomes including shorter life expectancy are concentrated. While Chicago’s homicide and shooting numbers have ebbed and flowed in recent years, since 2016, which was the year of the recent peak in Chicago homicides, they have consistently exceeded those of New York City and Los Angeles, two cities larger and more populous. Since January 1, 2016 through August 16, 2020, 2,978 people have been killed and there have been 12,387 non-fatal shooting victims, with 11 percent of them being young people under the age of 18. Although most of Chicago’s shootings and homicides happen in public places, domestic violence is also pervasive. In the United States, 25 percent of women will experience severe physical violence by an intimate partner during their lifetime and at least 35 percent of female homicides are perpetrated by intimate partners. Gun violence and domestic violence, while often treated as distinct, are very much related. Not only are some domestic violence incidents gun

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  violence and vice versa, but we also know that many communities and families experience both. Thus, the approaches to reducing gun violence and domestic violence must be coordinated to maximize impact.

Chicago: City of Chicago, 2020. 108p.

By Ames C. Grawert, Adureh Onyekwere, and Cameron Kimble

This report analyzes available crime data from police departments in the 30 largest U.S. cities. It finds that across the cities where data is available, the overall murder and crime rates are projected to decline in 2018, continuing similar decreases from the previous year.

New York: Brennan Center for Justice, 2019. 10p. 

By María Alejandra and Chávez Báez

This paper examines how trust in institutions and organizations are shaped according to age and exposure to violence during La Violencia. It also evaluates how people's actual trust on different groups (out-group trust) changes in municipalities that were exposed to violence in comparison to municipalities that were not exposed. From 1950's to the mid 1960's, Colombia experienced a period of intense civil wars and conflicts between social classes known as La Violencia. Using evidence on the index of violence built by Guzman et al. (2006) during this period and the Political Culture Survey of 2019, the main objective of this paper is to find whether people trust on State's institutions and people from different groups in municipalities that were mostly affected by violence. To complement the analysis, I analyzed press articles and news by the newspaper El Tiempo from 1950 to 1990 to find how is the perception of the State's legitimacy. After gathering information on 13,413 interviewees, I found that people who live during La Violencia trust less on government institutions and more on certain groups of people (neighbours). Moreover, people over 84 years-old living in municipalities that were exposed to La Violencia trust less on strangers and immigrants than younger people living in the same municipalities. These findings are supported in two mechanisms: deficient government-citizens relationship over time and risk aversion. That is, people who live in municipalities affected by violence during the bipartisan conflict are more risk averse and therefore show less trust on different groups of people.

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  The revision of press articles suggest that there is a tendency of mistrust on State's actions, at least among highly educated individuals.

Bogotá: Universidad de los Andes, 2021. 53p.

By Amanda Ward, Christopher Donner, David Olson, Alexandre Tham and Kaitlyn Faust

To address escalating street and gun-violence in Rockford, Illinois, Winnebago County’s Criminal Justice Coordinating Council piloted the Focused Deterrence Intervention (FDI) between January of 2018 and November of 2019. The intervention utilized a “focused deterrence” or “pulling-levers” framework to identify and deter members of the community who are at a heightened risk of committing future acts of street and gun violence. Loyola University Chicago’s Center for Criminal Justice Research, Policy and Practice collaborated with Winnebago County’s Criminal Justice Coordinating Council to support the development, implementation and evaluation of the Focused Deterrence Intervention. The present report reviews FDI’s pilot years, with a focus on evaluating FDI processes key to the program design.

Chicago: Center for Criminal Justice Research, Policy & Practice, Loyola University Chicago, 2020. 50p.

By Alfonso Valenzuela Aguilera

Crime exhibits specific geographical and chronological patterns in Latin American cities, and data on criminal activity allows scholars to trace spatial and chronological patterns down to specific neighborhoods and certain hours of the day in these cities. Over the last three decades, numerous studies have explored the relationship between crime, space, and time, and some studies have even established strong correlations between different patterns of land use and specific types of crimes. Few of these studies, however, have focused on the spatial configurations of criminal activity in cities and the conditions that elicit criminal activity in certain locations. Using recent crime data for Mexico City, this study employs a methodology based on crime location quotients to establish correlations that spatially characterize crime. This information can substantially improve public safety policies applied to urban contexts.

Houston, TX: Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy, 2020. 25p.

By Ahmad Ilderim Tokey

Objectives: This study expands the literature by finding the associations of land use (LU) and road-related Built Environment with property and violent crime in Detroit from 2019-to 2021 and documenting if the relationships have changed during COVID-19. Method: This study uses property and violent crime location data from 2019 to 2021. It then builds Geographically Weighted Regression and Spatial Error Models to formalize the BE-crime relationship. Results: Findings indicate that multifamily LU and liquor stores are related to property crime but not much to violent crime. The retail and office LU proportion, bus stop density, and density of roads less than 40 miles per hour are positively linked with crime rates. Reversely, block groups' median income, population density, and tenure length are inversely associated with crime rates. The local association over the year is consistent for property crime but varied substantially for violent crime. In the low-income neighborhoods, single-family got more associated with violent crime during the pandemic while in a high-income neighborhood, single-family LU revealed a negative association with violent crime. Further, areas, where retail LU had a strong positive relationship with violent crime rates in 2019, attracted more crime afterward. The high bus stop densities downtown got more positively associated with violent crime in 2020-21 than in pre-pandemic time. Conclusion: This study advances understanding related to the BE-crime relationship, sheds new light on street-related BE, and documents the links between BE and crime. For local

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  policymakers in Detroit, this study leaves essential evidence that can help them make an informed move in the later stages of COVID-19.

Columbus, OH: Ohio State University, Department of Geography, 2022. 38p.

By Trine Syvertsen

‘Trine Syvertsen takes us on a historical journey through the underexplored history of how people and societies have been resisting media, from protesting and criticizing to outright rejecting them. The book is well-researched, insightful and, most of all, refreshing as it inspires readers to look and think beyond the more obvious and well-trodden paths when studying media.’

Cham: Springer International Publishing, 2017. 154p.

By Franklin E. Zimring

Many theories--from the routine to the bizarre--have been offered up to explain the crime decline of the 1990s. Was it record levels of imprisonment? An abatement of the crack cocaine epidemic? More police using better tactics? Or even the effects of legalized abortion? And what can we expect from crime rates in the future? Franklin E. Zimring here takes on the experts, and counters with the first in-depth portrait of the decline and its true significance. The major lesson from the 1990s is that relatively superficial changes in the character of urban life can be associated with up to 75% drops in the crime rate. Crime can drop even if there is no major change in the population, the economy or the schools. Offering the most reliable data available, Zimring documents the decline as the longest and largest since World War II. It ranges across both violent and non-violent offenses, all regions, and every demographic. All Americans, whether they live in cities or suburbs, whether rich or poor, are safer today.

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  Casting a critical and unerring eye on current explanations, this book demonstrates that both long-standing theories of crime prevention and recently generated theories fall far short of explaining the 1990s drop. A careful study of Canadian crime trends reveals that imprisonment and economic factors may not have played the role in the U.S. crime drop that many have suggested. There was no magic bullet but instead a combination of factors working in concert rather than a single cause that produced the decline. Further--and happily for future progress, it is clear that declines in the crime rate do not require fundamental social or structural changes. Smaller shifts in policy can make large differences. The significant reductions in crime rates, especially in New York, where crime dropped <em>twice the national average, suggests that there is room for other cities to repeat this astounding success. In this definitive look at the great American crime decline, Franklin E. Zimring finds no pat answers but evidence that even lower crime rates might be in store.

New York; Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2007. 258p..

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.

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 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 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 Dolgor Solongo

The period of transition from socialism to capitalism in the Russian Federation has appeared to present limitless opportunities for international money-laundering. This publication discusses this issue under such topics as: capital flight and money-laundering; dollarization of the Russian economy; privatization; shadow economy, tax evasion and lawlessness; financial liberalization and the banking system; crime and business; and countering money-laundering

United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, 2001. 31p.