By Mélanie S.S. Seabrook, Alex Luscombe, Nicole Balian, Aisha Lofters, Flora I. Matheson, Braden G. O’neill, Akwasi Owusu-Bempah, Navindra Persaud, Andrew D. Pinto

This longitudinal study found no consistent correlations between increased police spending and municipal crime rates.

The analysis found that police services are a top budget priority in most municipalities, with up to 26 percent of total expenditures allocated to police. However, the findings revealed net increases in per capita spending are not associated with larger reductions in crime rates.

The authors examined budgets of 20 urban municipalities in Canada: Toronto, Montreal, Peel Region, Calgary, York Region, Edmonton, Ottawa, Winnipeg, Vancouver, Waterloo Region, Surrey, Quebec City, Hamilton, Halifax, Laval, London, Gatineau, Saskatoon, Burnaby, and Longueuil.

The study looked at police funding and how it varies across Canadian municipalities over a long period of time. The data from 2010 to 2020 showed wide differences in spending. For example, Vancouver spent more than double per capita on policing in 2019 than Quebec City, highlighting the complexity of the interactions between crime rates and police funding.

Other studies have also had mixed results regarding the relationship between police funding and crime. A A 2014 found no clear relationship between crime rates and per capita police expenditures in Canadian provinces, and a 2015 studyof 50 Canadian municipalities found that higher spending on police was associated with higher rates of violent crime, but the direction of the relationship was not established.

Research on police funding is limited in Canada, partly due to the lack of publicly available data on police spending. The study calls for improved publishing of police expenditure data, and for future research to examine whether funding decisions may be based on past crime rates and explore whether investments in police impact future crime rates.

Although the authors do not make specific policy recommendations regarding police budgets, the findings raise questions about the reasoning for such vast differences in police funding across the country despite overall downward crime rates.

Canadian Public Policy, Volume 49 Issue 4, December 2023, pp. pp. 383-398

By Bram Ebus and Ulrich Eberle

The fires and clearcutting rampant in the Amazon have stoked global concern about the future of the world’s largest rainforest, which plays a vital role in containing climate change by absorbing the carbon dioxide produced by combustion of fossil fuels. What can get lost in the international debate is that organised crime is a major driver of this environmental destruction. Curbing the activity of illicit groups in the region is imperative, not just because of the environmental degradation these organisations inflict, but the increasing danger they pose to communities in the region.

Levels of violence in the Amazon are high, even by the standards of Latin America and the Caribbean, a region that, with only 8 per cent of the global population, accounts for 29 per cent of homicides worldwide. Homicide rates in the Amazon, moreover, surpass regional averages. This violence occurs in rural areas and smaller cities that tend to be under the radar of national governments, and is therefore widely overlooked.

Within the Amazon, territories that are host to legal and illegal logging and mining, coca cultivation and drug trafficking suffer both the worst ecological damage and the most violence. These areas often overlap with the ancestral lands of Indigenous peoples, who historically have played a crucial role in safeguarding the rainforest. Not surprisingly, crime rings plundering the Amazon’s bounty have made environmental activists their prime targets. In 2022, one in five killings of land and environmental defenders worldwide took place in the Amazon, with Colombia and Brazil the two most dangerous countries for this work.

The relationship between the escalating climate crisis and violent crime is finally getting the attention it warrants. The 28th UN climate summit, or COP28, in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, features “peace” on its agenda for the first time in this gathering’s history. By examining the interplay of violence and climate in different parts of the immense rainforest – the Amazon basin covers as much territory as India and the European Union combined – states and foreign partners can start to identify ways to protect it and the people who reside there. In three parts of the Amazon, as detailed below, the interplay between crime and environmental exploitation shine through.

Brussels: International Crisis Group, 2023. 15p.

By Louise Smith

What is fly-tipping? Fly-tipping is the illegal disposal of household, industrial, commercial or other 'controlled' waste. The waste can be liquid or solid. ‘Controlled’ waste includes garden refuse and larger domestic items such as fridges and mattresses. Fly-tipping is not the same as littering. Littering is commonly assumed to include materials, often associated with smoking, eating and drinking. More information on litter can be found in the Commons Library briefing on litter. How big is the problem? The most recent Government Fly-tipping statistics for England, 2021/22 show that: • For the 2021/22 year, local authorities in England dealt with 1.09 million fly-tipping incidents, a decrease of 4% from the 1.14 million reported in 2020/21. • The percentage of fly-tips involving household waste has fallen from 65% to 61% in 2021/22. Total incidents involving household waste were 671,000 in 2021/22, a decrease of 9% from 740,000 incidents in 2020/21. Responsibility for fly tipping and powers to require clearance • Local authorities are responsible for investigating, clearing and taking appropriate enforcement action in relation to small scale fly-tipping on public land. • In England the Environment Agency is responsible for dealing with larger-scale fly-tipping (more than a lorry load), hazardous waste and fly-tipping by organised gangs. • On private land, it is normally the responsibility of the landowner to remove the waste.   

London: UK House of Commons, 2023.

By Ulhas Gondhall and Gohar A. Petrossian

This study investigates the consumer markets and the role of YouTube as a driver of the trade of traditional medicines derived from spiny-tailed lizard. This research identified and analyzed 183 videos, 4240 comments, and associated content from YouTube. A systematic analysis of implicit and explicit content of the video and comments provides important insights into the modus operandi of the illegal trade, consumer markets, and users' responses and reactions to the content related to medicinal products containing spiny-tailed lizard fat. Up to 3/4th of the analyzed videos offered spiny-tailed lizard-based medicinal products for sale, and the majority of the videos aimed at reinforcing the authenticity of these products by providing detailed records of hunting and fat extraction. The majority of the commenters interacting with the videos expressed a ‘willingness to buy’ the offered products, showing the level of awareness they have about where to access this information to inquire, confirm, and potentially purchase the medicinal product. The geotagged comments shed light on the potential flows and volumes of spiny-tailed lizard medicinal products traded between the source (Pakistan) and major demand countries. Based on the findings of this research, we recommend targeted interventions that would focus on reducing the demand, strengthening law enforcement action on the surface web, and improving social media policy.

Forensic Science International: Animals and Environments

Volume 4, December 2023, 100072

By Ella Busch and Jacob Ware    

In an ever-evolving technological landscape, digital disinformation is on the rise, as are its political consequences. In this policy brief, we explore the creation and distribution of synthetic media by malign actors, specifically a form of artificial intelligence-machine learning (AI/ML) known as the deepfake. Individuals looking to incite political violence are increasingly turning to deepfakes– specifically deepfake video content–in order to create unrest, undermine trust in democratic institutions and authority figures, and elevate polarised political agendas. We present a new subset of individuals who may look to leverage deepfake technologies to pursue such goals: far right extremist (FRE) groups. Despite their diverse ideologies and worldviews, we expect FREs to similarly leverage deepfake technologies to undermine trust in the American government, its leaders, and various ideological ‘out-groups.' We also expect FREs to deploy deepfakes for the purpose of creating compelling radicalising content that serves to recruit new members to their causes. Political leaders should remain wary of the FRE deepfake threat and look to codify federal legislation banning and prosecuting the use of harmful synthetic media. On the local level, we encourage the implementation of “deepfake literacy” programs as part of a wider countering violent extremism (CVE) strategy geared towards at-risk communities. Finally, and more controversially, we explore the prospect of using deepfakes themselves in order to “call off the dogs” and undermine the conditions allowing extremist groups to thrive.  

The Hague?:  International Centre for Counter-Terrorism (ICCT), 2023.

By World Economic Forum

The Global Risks Report explores some of the most severe risks we may face over the next decade, against a backdrop of rapid technological change, economic uncertainty, a warming planet and conflict. As cooperation comes under pressure, weakened economies and societies may only require the smallest shock to edge past the tipping point of resilience.

Geneva, SWIT: World Economic Forum, 2024. 124p

By International Crisis Group

What’s new? Mexico’s criminal groups use social media to garner popular support, denigrate rivals, glorify narco-culture and coordinate violence. Social media is also crucial for providing timely information about flare-ups of violence, particularly since journalists face major threats to their safety, which heavily circumscribes their ability to report from many crime-affected municipalities.

Why does it matter? These criminal groups are recruiting and spreading disinformation online, making them stronger and creating a glut of unverified information that puts civilians at greater risk. Platforms have struggled to respond appropriately.

What should be done? Platforms should boost resources for online monitoring, especially when violence is spiking. Given social media’s importance in disseminating information, platforms should modify their algorithms to demote posts supporting criminal groups and work with civil society to identify trusted accounts, including anonymous ones. Mexico’s government should also invest in protecting journalists.

Brussels: Crisis Group, 2024

By Southern Poverty Law Center

Access to safe, stable housing is a human right. In the United States, however, the deprivation of this right leads to inequitable housing access. As a result, in addition to people with disabilities and members of the LGBTQ+ community, people of color — especially Black people — are more likely to experience homelessness or be at risk of homelessness. Compounding this issue, people of color and people with disabilities are also overrepresented in the criminal legal system because of mass incarceration. This intersection of housing inaccessibility and criminalization has resulted in the pernicious practice of the criminalization of people experiencing homelessness, a pressing issue across the country — including in the Deep South. In 2023, for example, Georgia enacted a law that forces cities and other localities to enforce bans on public camping, putting thousands of Georgians living unsheltered at risk of arrest for performing basic survival activities like rest, eating and asking for help.

Montgomery, AL Southern Poverty Law Center, 2024

By Kristen M. Budd 

Report examines misconceptions around crimes of a sexual nature that contribute to the rise in imprisonment rates and the lengthening of sentences, and offers recommendations for reform.  

Washington DC: The Sentencing Project, 2024. 14p.

By Brendan O'Flaherty and Rajiv Sethi

Crime and policing activities routinely involve interactions between strangers and require the interacting parties to make highly consequential decisions under time pressure. Under such conditions, stereotypes based on visual or other cues can influence behavior. This review considers the role of stereotypes in shaping the manner in which such interactions proceed and the likelihood with which they occur in the first place. Our focus is primarily on robbery, murder, police stops and searches, and the use of deadly force, but the arguments apply more generally. We also consider how stereotypes can become entrenched through the behavioral changes they induce, given large differences across offenses in rate of arrest and prison admission.

Annual Review of Criminology, Volume 7, Page 383 - 401

By Bill McCarthy and John Hagan

There is now a sizable literature on connections between homelessness, crime, and criminal legal system contact. We review studies on these relationships, focusing mostly on links between the adversity that often characterizes homelessness—the need for shelter, food, and income—and offending, victimization, and involvement with the criminal legal system. We concentrate on multivariate studies from the United States and Canada and consider research on youth and adults. We begin with a short discussion of some of the challenges of studying these relationships. We follow our review of research on homeless conditions with a summary of research that has used data from homeless samples to advance a broad array of explanations of crime; a collection that includes strain, routine activities and lifestyle exposure, differential association, social control, rational choice, life course, and criminal capital theories.

Annual Review of Criminology, Volume 7, Page 257 - 281

By Christopher Wildeman and Robert J. Sampson

Nearly 35 years ago, Sampson and Laub popularized the concept of desistance from crime and isolated core factors that promote and inhibit this process. In this article, we introduce the concept of intergenerational desistance and provide guidance on measuring and explaining this process, encouraging researchers to think of the life-course of crime in terms of both individuals and generations. We first review research on the intergenerational transmission of family criminality and criminal justice contact, relying also on research outside of criminology to highlight how using broader conceptions of the family, including social parents, entire generations, and three (or more) generations could enliven this area. Bridging these literatures allows us to then introduce the concept of intergenerational desistance and elaborate on the concept of intergenerational escalation and demonstrate how they can be measured using data from the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods (PHDCN). We close by developing a research agenda for considering intergenerational desistance and escalation in ways that enhance our understanding of how the life-course of crime, criminal justice contact, and other troubles in life (e.g., with alcohol, drugs, and mental health) progress through families.

Annual Review of Criminology, Volume 7, Page 85 - 104

By Thomas G. Blomberg, Jennifer E. Copp, and Jillian J. Turanovic

The relevance of criminology to matters of public policy has been hotly debated throughout the history of the discipline. Yet time and again, we have borne witness to the consequences of harmful criminal justice practices that do little to reduce crime or improve the lives of our most vulnerable populations. Given the urgent need for evidence-informed responses to the problems that face our society, we argue here that criminologists can and should have a voice in the process. Accordingly, this review describes challenges and prospects for evidence-informed policymaking on matters of crime and justice. In terms of challenges, we review discourse on what constitutes evidence, issues with providing guidance under conditions of causal uncertainty, and practical constraints on evidence-informed policymaking. For prospects, we consider the important roles of institutional support, graduate training, and multiple translational strategies for the evidence-informed movement. Finally, we end with several considerations for advancing translational criminology through expanded promotion and tenure criteria, curricula revision, and prioritizing the organization of knowledge. More broadly, our goals are to stimulate disciplinary thinking regarding the ways in which criminology may play a more meaningful role in effectively confronting the ongoing challenges of crime in society.

Annual Review of Criminology, Volume 7, Page 143 - 162

By Abigail Weitzman, Mónica Caudillo, and Eldad J. Levy

In this review, we argue that to understand patterns and causes of violence in contemporary Latin America, we must explicitly consider when violence takes on interpersonal qualities. We begin by reviewing prominent definitions and measurements of interpersonal violence. We then detail the proliferation of interlocking sources of regional insecurity, including gender-based violence, gangs, narcotrafficking, vigilantism, and political corruption. Throughout this description, we highlight when and how each source of insecurity can become interpersonal. Next, we outline mutually reinforcing macro and micro conditions underlying interpersonal violence in its many hybrid forms. To conclude, we call for more multifaceted conceptualizations of interpersonal violence that embrace the complexities of Latin American security situations and discuss the opportunities and challenges that lie ahead in this area.

Annual Review of Criminology, Volume 7, Page 163 - 186

By Lynn S. Chancer

This review looks at the main ideas that have animated cultural criminology in the past while suggesting new directions the perspective might follow going forward. It discusses early definitions and subject matters; the historical contexts within which cultural criminology was initially welcomed; and cultural criminology's special emphasis on the importance of studying emotions as well as rationality to fully comprehend crime and criminality. Three older critiques of cultural criminology and one lesser known one are also outlined: theoretical vagueness; under-emphases on class, structural factors, and conjunctural analyses; insufficient attention to gender and intersectionality; and, a relatively less discussed concern, prioritizing symbolic interactionism rather than sometimes tapping Freudian psychosocial concepts when investigating matters of individual agency. I argue that cultural criminology distinctively recommends multidimensional analyses as called for by the complex character of crime itself. Finally, drawing on and in agreement with Jonathan Ilin's work, I suggest that cultural criminology should routinely consider three levels both theoretically and methodologically: the macro (structural); the meso (cultural); and the micro (individual). The review concludes with examples that, if taken up in future research, would further widen cultural criminological interests, associations, and commitments to multidimensionality.

Annual Review of Criminology, Volume 7, Page 129 - 142

 By David C. Pyrooz, John Leverso, Jose Antonio Sanchez, and James A. Densley

For more than three decades, developmental and life-course criminology has been a source of theoretical advancement, methodological innovation, and policy and practice guidance, bringing breadth and depth even to well-established areas of study, such as gangs. This review demonstrates how the developmental and life-course perspective on gangs can be further extended and better integrated within broader developments in criminology. Accordingly, we structure this review within the fourfold paradigm on human development that unites seemingly disparate areas in the study of gangs: (a) historical time and place, or the foregrounding of when and where you are; (b) linked lives, or the importance of dynamic multiplex relationships; (c) timing, or the age-grading of trajectories and transitions; and (d) human agency, or taking choice seriously. We conclude by outlining a vision that charts new directions to be addressed by the next generation of scholarship on gangs.

Annual Review of Criminology, Volume 7, Page 105 - 127

By Philip J. Cook and Ashley Mancik

In 1962, the FBI reported a national homicide clearance rate of 93%. That rate dropped 29 points by 1994. This Great Decline has been studied and accepted as a real phenomenon but remains mysterious, as does the period of relative stability that followed. The decline was shared across regions and all city sizes but differed greatly among categories defined by victim race and weapon type. Gun homicides with Black victims accounted for most of the decline. We review the evidence on several possible explanations for the national decline, including those pertaining to case mix, investigation resources, and citizen cooperation. Our preferred explanation includes an upward trend in the standard for arrest, with strong evidence that although clearance-by-arrest rates declined, the likelihood of conviction and prison sentence actually increased. That result has obvious implications for the history of policing practice and for the validity of the usual clearance rate as a police performance measure.

Annual Review of Criminology, Volume 7, Page 59 - 83

By Matt Vogel and Steven F. Messner

Group threat theory has stimulated an impressive number of studies over the course of the past several decades. Our review takes stock of this literature, focusing on core issues of concern to the criminological community. We begin by documenting the theoretical origins of group threat theory and discussing the early research informed by the theory. We then highlight the ways in which criminologists have built on and extended the early research by expanding the theory's scope, clarifying mechanisms, and addressing methodological issues. In our concluding remarks, we direct attention to the more consequential limitations of the work to date and offer suggestions about areas for fruitful growth in the future

Annual Review of Criminology, Volume 7, Page 39 - 58

By Jamie J. Fader and Kenneth Sebastian León

This review, published on the twenty-fifth anniversary of the publication of Code of the Street (1999), considers the legacies of Elijah Anderson's groundbreaking analysis of the interactional rules for negotiating street violence within the context of racism and structural disadvantage in Philadelphia. Empirical testing has yielded substantial support for Code of the Street’s key arguments. In the process of assessing its generalizability, such scholarship has inadvertently flattened and decontextualized the theory by, for example, reducing it to attitudinal scales. We identify a more politically conscious analysis in the original text than it is generally credited with, which we use to argue that “code of the street” has outgrown its reductive categorization as a subcultural theory. We conclude that the pressing issue of urban gun violence makes now an ideal time to refresh the theory by resituating it within the contemporary structural and cultural landscape of urban violence, analyzing the social-ecological features that shape the normative underpinnings of interpersonal violence, and studying the prosocial and adaptive features of the code.

Annual Review of Criminology, Volume 7, Page 19 - 38

By The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, Research and Trend Analysis Branch

Preventing and reducing homicide means sparing hundreds of thousands of lives lost to violence every year. To do that, we must understand the complex and highly diverse range of threats and phenomena that drive and intersect with such lethal violence – from interpersonal dynamics to organized crime and rule of law to climate change, poverty and inequality to demographics, and much more – and how they differ across national and regional contexts. This Global Study on Homicide is an effort to reveal and delve into the facts behind the violence, to try and identify notable trends and to inform policies and solutions. The Study shows that 2021 was an exceptionally lethal year, with an estimated 458,000 intentional homicides worldwide, averaging 52 killings every hour. The global homicide rate was at 5.8 for every 100,000 persons, a number that sadly reflects little progress in reducing lethal violence worldwide since the launch of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development in 2015. The biggest share of the victims were killed with firearms, which accounted for 47 per cent of homicides committed with a known mechanism worldwide. That number rises to 75 per cent in the Americas, which has the highest homicide rate in the world, and where organized crime is responsible for at least half of all homicides. In different parts of the world, organized crime can lead to spikes in homicide, particularly as criminal groups compete for control. Organized crime has also had an impact on homicide rates in Europe. While the regional homicide rate has decreased over the last six years, there are signs of increased lethal violence connected to organized crime in various countries of the continent. Such organized crime-related killing – and all homicidal violence, in all parts of the world – is far more likely to be committed by, and against, men. Men account for 81 per cent of the victims of intentional homicide globally, and around 90 per cent of the suspects. Women, on the other hand, are more likely to be killed because of their gender, and more likely to lose their lives to violence at home. Women account for the victims in 54 per cent of killings in the home, and 66 per cent of intimate partner killings. Many people are also killed because of what they do, including human rights defenders, humanitarian workers, journalists, and environmental activists. The current global situation, characterized by growing conflicts and rule of law challenges, is fuelling such sociopolitical homicides, which in many cases happen with impunity. Given the broad and diverse factors driving lethal violence around the world, effective responses to homicide must cover a wide spectrum of context-specific interventions. Some interventions will be designed to reduce genderbased violence against women and girls, others will be geared towards reducing organized crime and gang violence, and others still may focus on firearm laws and regulations, vocational training to at-risk demographics, or mental health interventions. But all responses must share common threads, namely the need to be based on evidence, the need to prioritize prevention and address root causes, and the need to invest significantly. Investing in homicide prevention and responses is of particular priority in Africa, which this Global Study projects to be the most at-risk region over the coming decades, in large part due to its younger population, economic inequality levels, climate vulnerability, and weaker response capabilities. This study also highlights the significant limitations in the information available across regions, and the need to invest in better data collection. It is highly important to understand the types of homicide in any given context, whether family-related, gang-related, or any of the other identified typologies, yet more than a third of all detected homicides are classified as “unknown”. Similarly, four out of every ten killings of women and girls do not have information on the victim-perpetrator relationship, despite the prevalence of intimate partner killings against women and girls.

Vienna/New York: United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime; Research and Trend Analysis Branch, 2023. 155pp; December 2023