By Heather Wolbers, Hayley Boxall and Anthony Morgan

Drawing on a large sample of female carers living in Australia (n=3,775), this study aims to document and explore children and young people’s experiences of abuse in the past 12 months. We focus on children’s exposure to intimate partner violence (IPV) perpetrated against their female carers, as well as children being the target of direct physical and emotional abuse themselves.

Overall, a significant proportion of respondents who had a child in their care during the past 12 months said that a child was exposed to IPV perpetrated against them (14.1%). One in nine said a child in their care had been the target of direct abuse perpetrated by their current or most recent former partner (11.5%). Critically, one-third of respondents who experienced IPV said a child was exposed to the violence at least once in the past 12 months (34.8%).

A number of factors were associated with an increased likelihood of children being subjected to direct abuse. These included the characteristics of respondents and their relationships, children and households. We also present evidence linking economic factors, including changes in employment, with the direct abuse of children.

Research Report no. 26. Canberra: Australian Institute of Criminology. 2023. 72p.

By Hayley Boxall, Samantha Lyneham, Christie Black and Alexandra Gannoni

Sexual exploitation can have significant short- and longer-term impacts on victim-survivors. However, there is currently a lack of research exploring the support needs of sexual exploitation victim-survivors accessing support in Australia, and barriers to support provision. To address this knowledge gap, we analysed case management records for 50 victim-survivors of sexual exploitation in Australia and conducted interviews with 12 victim-survivor caseworkers.

On average, victim-survivors required support across six domains, the most common being financial hardship, mental health, social isolation and housing and accommodation. The most crucial barriers to service provision were systemic in nature. For example, some victim‑survivors on temporary visas were ineligible for government funded medical services, affordable housing or welfare schemes, which placed significant financial burdens on victim‑survivors and support services.

These findings demonstrate that to support the recovery of victim-survivors, services need to be funded appropriately to ensure they can provide holistic wraparound interventions.

Research Report no. 29. Canberra: Australian Institute of Criminology. 2023. 51p.

By David Pyrooz

Between 1990 and 2021, for adult offenders, Colorado punished felony murder with a mandatory minimum sentence of life without parole. Felony murder was classified as a class 1 felony, along with other theories of first-degree murder, such as after-deliberation and extreme indifference murder, as well as first-degree kidnapping, until Governor Jared Polis signed Senate Bill 124, effective September 15, 2021, reclassifying the offense to a class 2 felony. As a result, felony murder is now punishable by a sentence of 16-48 years.

The purpose of this study is to provide a statistical portrait of people who have been convicted of felony murder between 1990 and 2021. Data were acquired through open records requests from the Colorado Department of Corrections (“CDOC”) and the State Court Administrator’s Office (“SCAO”), along with public data from the Colorado State Demography Office. This study’s primary unit of analysis is a criminal case, meaning a criminal case identifiable by a single case number in which a person was found guilty. With respect to felony murder, a felony murder case means one with one or more felony murder convictions where no other theory of first-degree murder was proven with respect to that or those homicide(s).

Unpublished paper, 2023.

By Hannah Miles and Samantha Bricknell

The National Homicide Monitoring Program is Australia’s only national data collection on homicide incidents, victims and offenders. This report describes 232 homicide incidents recorded by Australian state and territory police between 1 July 2022 and 30 June 2023. During this 12-month period there were 247 victims of homicide and 260 identified offenders

Statistical Report no. 46. Canberra: Australian Institute of Criminology, 2024. 49p.

David H. Ucko, Thomas A. Marks

Organized crime both preys upon and caters to human need. It is corrosive and exploitative, but also empowering, and therefore pervasive. Indeed, though often out of sight, organized crime is everywhere: wherever governments draw the line, criminal actors find profitable ways of crossing it; wherever governments fail to deliver on human need, criminal actors capitalize on unmet desire or despair. For those excluded from the political economy, from patronage systems or elite bargains, organized crime can offer opportunity, possibly also protection.

PRISM, Vol. 10, No. 3 (2023), pp. 92-117 (26 pages)

By David H. Ucko and Thomas A. Marks

Organised crime is not going well. According to the 2021 Global Organized Crime index, ‘the global illicit economy simply continue[s] along the upward trajectory it has followed over the past 20 years, posing an ever-increasing threat to security, development and justice – the pillars of democracy’ (Global Initiative, 2021, p. 8). Wherever governments seek to draw the line, criminal actors find profitable ways of crossing it; wherever governments fail to deliver on human need, criminal actors capitalise on citizens’ desire or despair. As of now, more than three-quarters of the world’s population ‘live in countries with high levels of criminality, and in countries with low resilience to organized crime’ (Global Initiative, 2021, p. 12). On aggregate, the associated activity amounts to an illicit form of governance, furnishing alternative services to a wide range of clients, be they the vulnerable and weak or a covetous elite. The breadth of organised crime, its clandestine nature, and its blending of creative and destructive effects make it difficult to counter. In past SOC ACE research, we argued that the response to organised crime often shares certain pitfalls with counterterrorism, at least since 9/11 (Ucko & Marks, 2022c). Both efforts have been stymied by 1) conceptual uncertainty of the problem at hand; 2) an urge to address the scourge head on (be it violence or crime), without acknowledging its socioeconomic-political context; and, therefore, 3) unquestioned pursuit of strategies that miss the point, whose progress is difficult to measure, and which may even be counterproductive. This convergence is based on the common features of the two phenomena, which are both concerned with i) collective actors, who ii) use violence and coercion among other methods; and who have iii) corrupting, or outright destructive effects on society. Though organised crime is not consciously political in its ideological motivation, it is – like terrorism – deeply political in its origins, activities, and effects. Given the conceptual overlap, and the common pathologies that undermine response, the lessons from countering terrorism are relevant also to the countering of organised crime. Focusing on the concept of ‘irregular warfare’, our past research identified six key lessons, touching upon 1) the socio-political embeddedness of the problem, 2) the tendency to militarise the response, 3) the mirror-imaging of state assistance programmes, 4) the invaluable role of community mobilisation, 5) the dearth of strategy, and 6) the need to engage more closely with questions of political will. As argued elsewhere, these challenges point to a need for greater strategic competence both in assessing the problem of organised crime and in designing a response (Ucko & Marks, 2022c).

To generate this strategic competence, this follow-on report sets out an analytical toolkit to assist planners and policymakers with the crafting of strategy. This ‘Framework of Analysis and Action’ builds upon lessons – negative and positive – learned via years of experience with irregular warfare, defined by the Department of Defense as ‘a violent struggle among state and non-state actors for legitimacy and influence over the relevant population(s)’ (U.S. Department of Defense, 2007, p. 1).1 It is a framework that finds its origins within the U.S. National Defense University’s College of International Security Affairs (CISA), where for two decades it has been used to teach strategic planning for complex and intensely political challenges (Ucko & Marks, 2022a). The framework consists of two parts: the Strategic Estimate of the Situation (which maps the problem, explores its drivers, frames, and methods, and critiques the current response) and the Course of Action (which uses the strategic estimate to design an appropriate strategy, guided by a theory of success). The framework is in this report adapted for organised crime, to enable the mapping of relevant actors and the crafting, thereby, of a viable response. By design, the framework responds to the six key lessons identified in our earlier work. This report goes through the framework and explains its adaptation to organised crime. Appendix A provides a summation of the toolkit, a ‘user’s guide’, that will facilitate application of the framework. Testing to date suggests great potential and we look forward to sustaining a dialogue with those engaged with countering organised crime to further evolve this toolkit. Indeed, since the beginning, this framework has been a living product, enriched by theoretical application in the classroom and practical use in the field.

SOC ACE Research Paper No. 19. Birmingham, UK: University of Birmingham, 2023. 45p.

By Ben Grunwald and Jeffrey Fagan

In 2000, the Supreme Court held in Illinois v. Wardlow that a suspect’s presence in a “high-crime area” is relevant in determining whether an officer has reasonable suspicion to conduct an investigative stop. Despite the importance of the decision, the Court provided no guidance about what that standard means, and over fifteen years later, we still have no idea how police officers understand and apply it in practice. This Article conducts the first empirical analysis of Wardlow by examining data on over two million investigative stops conducted by the New York Police Department from 2007 to 2012. Our results suggest that Wardlow may have been wrongly decided. Specifically, we find evidence that officers often assess whether areas are high crime using a very broad geographic lens; that they call almost every block in the city high crime; that their assessments of whether an area is high crime are nearly uncorrelated with actual crime rates; that the suspect’s race predicts whether an officer calls an area high crime as well as the actual crime rate; that the racial composition of the area and the identity of the officer are stronger predictors of whether an officer calls an area high crime than the crime rate itself; and that stops are less or as likely to result in the detection of contraband when an officer invokes high-crime area as a basis of a stop. We conclude with several policy proposals for courts, police departments, and scholars to help address these problems in the doctrine.

California Law Review 345-404 (2019

By Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime’s Observatory of Illicit Economies in South Eastern Europe.

In this issue, we focus on three cases where criminal groups from the region have been active in recent years: the Netherlands, Ecuador and parts of Africa.

These examples illustrate the growing involvement of Balkan criminal groups in some of the world’s hotspots for illicit activity. Research for these articles is facilitated by the Global Initiative’s network of contacts with local investigative journalists, as well as close cooperation between regional observatories of illicit economies, namely South Eastern Europe, West Africa and Latin America.

As part of the GI-TOC’s analysis of the risks of firearms trafficking from Ukraine, in this issue we show that the Western Balkans remain the main source of illegal weapons in Europe. At present, weapons are still cheap and plentiful in the region, and stockpiles have been augmented by inflows from Turkey via Bulgaria, particularly of gas and alarm guns. More on this topic can be found in a forthcoming GI-TOC report on trends in arms trafficking from the Ukraine conflict.

In this issue, we also report on a major crackdown by Serbian authorities in late 2023 on increasingly violent smugglers operating along the border between Serbia and Hungary, and examine how this has displaced migration flows towards Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Risk Bulletin No. 18. Geneva, SWIT: Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime, 2024. 25p.

By Billy Kyte | Giulia Roncon

With the aim to support individuals in building resilient communities working to prevent, counter, and limit the damage of environmental crime, this handbook documents the challenges faced by defenders working in the environmental crime field and provides guidance to support their resilience.

The first section of the handbook analyzes definitional understandings of environmental crime and explores the impacts and harms it can perpetuate. The second section assesses the risks and challenges commonly faced by environmental defenders, including an assessment of their needs, and explores emergent regional issues that may play a part in such vulnerabilities. The final section presents a repository of best practices and tools that can help stakeholders to access available resources and to mitigate the potential risks they face.

The handbook draws from consultations involving nearly 100 prominent figures from civil society and media across Africa and Asia. Whilst findings are therefore geographically specific to some extent, our work confirms that the challenges experienced by environmental defenders in these regions were replicated globally as well. Although each country and regional context is different, the handbook outlines strategies that could be broadly implemented to support the community of stakeholders dedicated to tackling environmental crime worldwide.

Geneva, SWIT: Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime (GI-TOC). 2023.

By Victoria Pedjasaar

In the EU, a third of women over the age of 15 have experienced physical or sexual violence and over half have been sexually harassed. According to a study by the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA), just 13% of women reported their most serious incident of non-partner violence to the authorities. Gender-based violence can occur in various situations and circumstances. According to an EU-wide survey report, 32% of perpetrators of sexual harassment in the EU come from the employment context. Although often overlooked, the majority of (workplace) violence takes place in the healthcare sector as healthcare professionals are 16 times more at risk of violence in comparison to other occupations. Violence does not only manifest in abusive behaviour toward workers on duty but can also be perpetrated on women as receivers of healthcare. High rates of violence in healthcare, brought on and exacerbated by gender stereotypes and inequality, point to dysfunctional health systems. This Paper is divided into the following chapters and provides policy recommendations on the way forward for the EU member states: 1. Gender-based violence against healthcare workers. 2. Obstetric and gynaecological violence against women. 3. Gender-based violence is a story of gender inequality. 4. Legislation and policies that protect women.

Brussels, Belgium: European Policy Centre, 2023. 12p.

By Amir Rotami

In this policy brief, based on published and forthcoming studies, author Amir Rostami outlines the changing nature of crime in Sweden, with a focus on organised crime, specifically lethal violence and fraud. What are the lessons learned from the Swedish crime paradox, namely the rise in organised crime, but not an equivalent rise in general crime, and what needs to be implemented to counter organised crime? The reaction to the question can be divided into two components: local and global/

European Liberal Forum Policy Paper . Brussels: European Liberal Forum, 2021. 19p.

By Atkins, Susan and Brenda Hale, Baroness

Women And The Law is a pioneering study of the way in which the law has treated women – at work, in the family, in matters of sexuality and fertility, and in public life. Originally published in 1984, this seminal text is one that truly deserves its 'groundbreaking' moniker. Predating many key moments in contemporary feminist history, it was written before Judith Butler’s Gender Trouble; before Naomi Klein’s The Beauty Myth, with the term ‘feminist jurisprudence’ having only been coined three years earlier. It went on to inspire a legion of women lawyers and feminist legal rulings, from the Family Law Act 1996 to the legal definition of ‘violence’ (Yemshaw v. LB Hounslow 2011). This 2018 edition comes with a new foreword by Susan Atkins and provides a timely analysis of women in law forty years on, how much has changed and the work still left to do

London: University of London Press, 2018. 284p.

By Faith Honor , Amanda Shaverand Devin Thorne

The trafficking of pangolins and their scales drives corruption, undermines the rule of law, creates public health risks, and even threatens local and regional security. Additionally, the illicit pangolin trade may have even played a role in onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.1 Critically, the trade—and all of its related challenges—appears to be growing: between 2015 and 2019, 253 tonnes2 of pangolin scales were confiscated, and the annual quantity of pangolin scales seized increased by nearly 400%. To expose the logistics of how these scales are trafficked internationally, Tipping the Scales uses publicly available seizure data and investigative case studies. The global plight of pangolins is increasingly well-known, but less understood are the opaque supply chains that enable pangolin trafficking. To trace this illicit system from consolidation hubs in West and Central Africa to China’s consumer markets, Tipping the Scales analyses 899 pangolin seizures. Drawing on C4ADS’ Wildlife Seizure Database, law enforcement partner seizure data, official government documents, corporate data, and expert interviews, the report details how traffickers nest their activities within licit systems of trade and commerce. To disrupt this trade, C4ADS identifies opportunities for intervention and capacity building.

In Section I, the report finds that pangolin scale traffickers have co-opted bushmeat supply chains and legal breeding programs for their illicit activities. Bushmeat scale trafficking supply chains are particularly prominent in Central and West Africa; 72% of African scale seizures over the last five years have come from those regions. Growing demand for pangolin meat and scales has made pangolins a dual-transaction good3 that relies on transport networks between rural areas and urban and coastal distribution hubs. Further, the report finds that pangolin breeding programs in sub-Saharan Africa obscure the lines between poaching, conservation, and science. In Section II, the report finds that bulk pangolin scale shipments often exit the continent through coastal countries in Central and West Africa. While 70% of intercontinental trafficking instances tied to Africa rely on the air transport sector, 81% of the total weight of pangolin scales are trafficked intercontinentally via the maritime transport sector. China and Hong Kong are the trade’s most prominent destinations. Since 2015, 42% of the 195 tonnes of pangolin scales seized throughout Asia originated in Africa and were seized in or bound for China or Hong Kong. In Section III, the report finds that there are more than 1,000 companies, hospitals, and other entities participating in China’s legal market for medicinal pangolin products. In this market, which allows companies to privately stockpile pangolin scales, traffickers exploit lax regulations to sell scales from Africa and Asia. Government-reported pangolin scale consumption quotas, geo-tagged company data, and seizures suggest that Guangdong and Hunan provinces have relatively high levels of exposure to both the legal pangolin market and pangolin trafficking. Based on these findings, Tipping the Scales makes 10 recommendations to increase detection of and improve enforcement against transnational criminal networks operating in Africa and Asia (see page 58).

Washington, D: C4ADS, 2020. 60p.

By Insight Crime

This present study on Bolivia was led by InSight Crime. The findings and analysis are based on one year of open-source and fieldwork investigation in the cities of La Paz and Santa Cruz, and desk research, phone, and face-to-face interviews with environmental experts, government and security officials, members of local communities, academics, and others.1 The report provides a snapshot of the complex web of actors (state and non-state) and relationships fueling environmental crime in the Bolivian Amazon. Rather than just diagnosing the issue, the study aims to raise new dialogue and intervention opportunities regarding environmental crime in the region. This study addresses long-standing issues of securing land rights to traditional communities in the Amazon, many of which currently face new forms of land grabbing and land trafficking, notably by export companies extracting natural resources. It also includes ideas for reforming and strengthening structurally weak and corruption prone public institutions in the Bolivian Amazon, notably those related to land, environmental, and security issues. Finally, the report also sheds light on the transnational and cross-border dynamics of environmental crime in Bolivia in activities such as wildlife trafficking and illegal mercury trafficking for river-gold mining and illegal logging exports. The complexity of increasingly globalized supply chains initiating in or cutting through the Bolivian Amazon call for more and stronger regional and international cooperation to dismantle environmental crime and protect the forest and its people

Washington, DC: Insight Crime, 2024. 73p.

By Ernesto Lopez, Robert Boxerman and Keley CundiffEErnes

Since shortly after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Council on Criminal Justice has tracked changing rates of violent and property crime in large cities across the United States. The pandemic, as well as the social justice protests during the summer of 2020 and other factors, have altered the motives, means, and opportunities to commit crimes.

Prepared for the Council on Criminal Justice’s Crime Trends Working Group, this report focuses on trends in shoplifting, a subset of retail theft which, in turn, is a subset of overall larceny-theft. The FBI defines larceny-theft as the unlawful taking of property without force, violence, or fraud.

The report looks at shoplifting patterns from before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic through mid-year 2023. To date, attempts to measure changes in retail theft, including organized retail theft, have relied on retail industry data5 or have been limited to one state.

The city-specific data included in this report are drawn from open-data sources from 24 cities that, over the past five years, have consistently reported specific shoplifting data. Additional data come from the U.S. Justice Department’s National Incident-Based Reporting Program (NIBRS).7 The NIBRS data include a sample of 3,812 local law enforcement agencies. The analyses examine the changing frequency of reported shoplifting, trends in other property offenses, changes in the value of stolen goods, offenses that co-occur with shoplifting, and the number of people involved in each incident.

This report does not discuss in detail shoplifting data from the National Retail Federation’s Retail Security Survey.8 The 2021 survey (data ending in 2020) was the last year the survey reported figures on the number of incidents and the value of stolen goods. Because of this change, data from the survey could not be included.

Due to a lack of available data, this report does not examine factors that could be influencing the trends. Potential factors include changes in retailers’ anti-theft measures and changes in how retailers report shoplifting to law enforcement, which could be based on their perceptions of the extent to which local police or prosecutors will apprehend suspects and pursue criminal charges. Because these data rely on reported incidents, they almost certainly undercount total shoplifting. The findings presented here should be viewed with these considerations in mind.

Washington, DC: Council on Criminal Justice, 2023. 8p.

By Savannah Minihan, Melanie Burton, Mariesa Nicholas, Kylie Trengove, Sarah Napier and Rick Brown

This study examines the prevalence of requests for facilitated child sexual exploitation (CSE) online. Of 4,011 Australians surveyed, 2.8 percent had received a request for facilitated CSE in the past year. Requests for facilitated CSE were significantly higher among those who had shared a photo of or information about children publicly online. Among respondents who had shared publicly, requests for facilitated CSE were significantly higher among men, younger individuals, linguistically diverse individuals, individuals with disability, and those who had experienced other sexual or violent harms online. The results highlight the need for increased awareness of the potential harms of posting photos of and information about children publicly online, and place onus on platforms to warn users of these potential harms.

Trends & issues in crime and criminal justice no. 692. . Canberra: Australian Institute of Criminology. 2024.

By Vlado Vivoda, Ghaleb Krame and Martin Spraggon

Oil theft refers to the exploitation of crude oil or refined petroleum products for criminal purposes. In Mexico, oil theft—referred to as huachicolero—is endemic and widespread. By framing it within the energy security and transition context, this paper offers a new perspective on the problem of oil theft in Mexico. Focusing on crude oil and refined petroleum, the paper demonstrates that Mexico’s energy security—as framed around the 4As (availability, accessibility, affordability, and acceptance)—has deteriorated over the past decade. Application of the 4As framework in the Mexican context shows that the increasing frequency of oil theft has contributed to this deterioration. The proposed solution to the energy security and oil theft problems is centred on Mexico moving from gasoline and diesel to electrification in the transportation sector. The paper demonstrates that, while transport electrification in Mexico has been lagging behind other countries, recent developments in the country point to growing momentum among the country’s political and business elites, in tandem with US partners, in support for the energy transition. Areas where further emphasis should be placed to accelerate Mexico’s energy transition in the transportation sector are identified. Finally, the feasibility of and potential limitations associated with implementing the transition are evaluated.

Resources 2023, 12(2), 30; https://doi.org/10.3390/resources12020030

By Lucy Bryant

Figures from the UK Office for National Statistics (2021a) suggest that alcohol-related violence in England and Wales has been declining – both as a total figure (1,001,000 in 2009/10 to 525,000 in 2019/20) and as a proportion of all violent incidents (54% in 2009/10 to 42% in 2019/20). ■ This decline remains unexplained and generally unexamined – however, there are existing bodies of research that might offer insight into this trend. ■ This report examines possible explanations for the decline seen in alcohol-related violence – drawing on existing literature exploring: changing patterns in violence (e.g., Farrell et al. 2014), alcohol’s relationship with violence (e.g., Graham & Livingston 2011), and the measurement of violence (e.g., Reiner 2016). ■ Changing patterns in youth drinking might contribute to this violence decline. It is younger, rather than older age groups, who predominantly engage in violence in night-time economy settings (Finney 2004). Youth drinking in England has seen a recent downturn (e.g., Oldham et al. 2018), corresponding to some degree with declines in alcohol-related violence.

■ A steeper decline in alcohol-related violence relative to violence overall appears to be accounted for by shi s in alcohol-related stranger and acquaintance violence. Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW) data show that the proportion of stranger and acquaintance violence incidents that were alcohol related fell between 2009/10 and 2019/20, whilst the proportion of domestic violence incidents which were alcohol-related generally remained stable. ■ It is possible data artefacts such as counting errors contained in national statistics form some part of the trend investigated here. While the CSEW is a widely respected data source (Tilley & Tseloni 2016), limitations in its capturing of violent incidents have been previously identified (e.g., Walby et al. 2016). It is important to consider the impact any such data artefact might have on alcohol related violence trends – investigation of the production of these National Statistics should be undertaken to assess this.   

London: Institute of Alcohol Studies, 2023. 21p.

By Damon L. Perry

In Britain, no one has the right not to be offended. Words or actions that are taken by some as offensive – whether they relate to religion, sexuality or race – are not criminal as long as they are not intentionally hostile and meant, or likely, to incite hatred. The statutory guidance on Non Crime Hate Incidents, revised in March 2023, is consistent with the law in this regard. It states: “Fundamentally, offending someone is not, in and of itself, a criminal offence. To constitute an offence under hate crime legislation, the speech or behaviour in question must be threatening, abusive or insulting and be intended to, or likely to, stir up hatred”. Yet, this does not seem to be fully acknowledged in Britain’s schools. As this revealing survey of over a thousand teachers from YouGov and Policy Exchange demonstrates, since the Batley Grammar School protests, a small but significant proportion of British teachers have self-censored to avoid offence on religious grounds – 16%. (That proportion is slightly higher for teachers of certain subjects, including almost a fifth of all English teachers and art teachers – 19%). In areas with the largest Muslim populations, around 10% fewer teachers do not self-censor than those in areas with the smallest Muslim populations. A worrying proportion believe that – regardless of a teacher’s intentions – images of the prophet Muhammad should never be used in classrooms, even in the teaching of Islamic art or ethics: In addition to the 55% of teachers that would not personally use an image of Muhammad independently from the Batley Grammar School protests, an additional 9% said they personally were less likely to use it as a result of the events in Batley. The case of the teacher at Batley Grammar who went into hiding after death threats thus appears to have had a significant impact on teachers’ confidence and willingness to use materials that fall within the scope of the law. Alarmingly, half of British teachers believe that if blasphemy-related protests led by activist and advocacy groups occur outside their schools, there would be a risk to their physical safety. Despite most teachers thinking that headteachers get the balance right – between supporting them to use materials that are on the right side of the law but which might offend, and ensuring no offence is caused – they are clearly in need of greater confidence in the support they can expect from their headteachers and, in the case of activist-led protests outside their school gates, the police. Recent events have given further impetus to concerns regarding the physical safety of teachers and the security at schools. On 13 October, 2023, in Arras, France, a literature teacher, Dominque Bernard, was killed in a knife attack; the suspect, an Islamist extremist, was looking for teachers  of history or geography. The case has been compared to that of Samuel Paty, the teacher who was killed three years ago by an Islamist extremist for showing cartoons of Muhammad to a class on freedom of expression. Both teachers have been described by President Macron as champions of the values of the French republic. Although this tragic incident took place across the Channel, France’s battle with Islamist extremism is one shared with the UK. Closer to home, in the wake of the Hamas terrorist attacks on hundreds of civilians in Israel on 7 October, protests on the streets of the UK against Israeli reprisals in the name of the Palestinian “resistance” have demonstrated alarming levels of hateful extremism and antisemitism.5 Some Jewish schools were forced to close on 13 October, when Hamas called for a “Global Day of Jihad”, and several Jewish schools were vandalised with red paint. The atmosphere has been fraught. The Department for Education wrote to school leaders “to ensure that any political activity from pupils in response to the crisis does not create an ‘atmosphere of intimidation’”  etc.

London: Policy Exchange, 2024. 51p.

By Yuhyeong Jang1 ·Raanju R. Sundararajan1 ·Wagner Barreto-Souza2 · Elizabeth Wheaton-Paramo

The article presents a robust quantitative approach for determining significant economic factors for sex trafficking in the United States. The aim is to study monthly counts of sex trafficking-related convictions and use a wide range of economic variables as covariates to investigate their effect on conviction counts. A count time series model is considered along with a regression setup to include economic time series as covariates (economic factors) to explain the counts on sex trafficking-related convictions. The statistical significance of these economic factors is investigated, and the significant factors are ranked based on appropriate model selection methods. The inclusion of time-lagged versions of the economic factor time series in the regression model is also explored. The authors’ findings indicate that economic factors relating to immigration policy, consumer price index and labor market regulations are the most significant in explaining sex trafficking convictions

Empirical Economics. 2024, 18pg