By Daniel Eizenga and Amandine Gnanguênon

HIGHLIGHTS • Extremist violence in the Sahel is spilling over into coastal West African countries. • Governments in coastal West African countries play the leading role in responding to this threat by proactively strengthening ties with local communities in vulnerable regions. • Regional security cooperation can bolster national defenses through intelligence sharing, coordinating border patrols, and training focused on community protection. • Forging a multitiered strategy—linking support to communities with regional and international bodies—would help contextualize local responses while sustaining regional cooperation to address the mplex threat posed by violent extremist groups 

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Africa Security Brief no. 43

 Washington, DC: Africa Center for Strategic Studies, 2024. 12p.

By Anita S. Hargrave, Kelly R. Knight, Zena K. Dhatt, Grace Taylor, Dez Martinez and Margot Kushel

Homelessness is a public health concern in California and throughout the United States. Intimate partner violence (IPV) is a risk factor for experiencing homelessness. Few studies have examined the interplay between IPV, homelessness, and housing. Qualitative methods can provide a greater understanding of the lived experience of IPV and homelessness to identify potential solutions. We purposefully sampled 104 adults who reported experiencing IPV in the California Statewide Study of People Experiencing Homelessness (CASPEH), a representative, mixed-methods study. We administered semi-structured interviews focusing on IPV and six other topic areas pertaining to homelessness from October 2021 to May 2022. We created and applied a codebook with a multidisciplinary team using a hybrid of deductive and inductive logic. Our analysis included all participants who discussed IPV and homelessness across the seven studies. We conducted a thematic analysis using an interpretivist approach and informed by grounded theory. We found that violence within a partnership was multidimensional (physical, sexual, emotional, and financial) and bidirectional. We identified six themes: (1) IPV precipitated and prolonged homelessness; (2) Need for housing, financial stability, and material resources influenced staying in abusive relationships; (3) Alcohol and illicit substance use exacerbated violence between partners; (4) Participants struggled to find resources in domestic violence (DV) shelters; (5) The healthcare system did not provide substantial support; and (6) discrimination and stigma influenced equitable access to housing and DV resources. Experiencing IPV contributed to homelessness and impeded returns to housing. Limitations in current IPV resources impede care. We propose equitable expansion of survivor-centered services that improve access to long-term subsidized housing, prevent IPV and homelessness with flexible funding options, and facilitate rapid exits from homelessness through trauma-informed, non-congregate shelter that transitions to permanent housing.

Journal of Interpersonal Violence 0 0:0 2024. Online before print.

By Human Rights WatchNew

In Ecuador, sexual violence is endemic in schools, and survivors face an uphill battle to finding support and accessing justice. In 2020, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights ruled against Ecuador in Paola Guzmán Albarracín v Ecuador, the court’s first ever case on school-related sexual violence. The Court ordered Ecuador to improve prevention of and response to sexual violence in schools, and to ensure access to justice and comprehensive reparations. “Like Patchwork”: Ecuador’s Slow Progress Tackling and Preventing School-Related Sexual Violence examines the progress the Ecuadorian government has made toward tackling sexual violence in schools, including the measures the government has adopted to comply with the Inter-American court’s ruling. Based on 68 interviews between 2022 and 2024, the report finds that despite commitments by government institutions, sexual violence remains endemic in Ecuador’s schools. Ecuador reports thousands of cases of school-related sexual violence perpetrated by teachers, directors, other school staff, janitors, bus drivers, and often students. Many schools still fail to report abuses, contravening their obligations. Survivors also face obstacles in the judicial system. Barriers to carrying out robust investigations and effective prosecutions of cases of school-based sexual violence obstruct survivors’ ability to find justice, contribute to their re-traumatization, and lead to impunity for perpetrators. Human Rights Watch calls on the Ecuadorian government to effectively tackle and prevHunt sexual violence against students. It should also ensure effective investigations and prosecutions of all cases of school-related sexual violence, so survivors can find justice and reparations for the abuses they have suffered. 

New York:  Human Rights WAtch, 2024. 65p.

By Violence Policy Center

   Since the mid-1960s, self-defense has been the foundational argument used by the gun industry to sell firearms, primarily handguns, in the United States. In this effort, gunmakers have been aided by the gun lobby, most notably the National Rifle Association of America (NRA). This is despite the fact that evidence consistently shows that guns are rarely used to kill criminals or stop crimes. Instead of protecting its owner, family, and friends, the presence of a gun in the home actually increases the risk of suicide, homicide, and unintentional death. Historically, the primary demographic targeted by the gun industry has been white males. This is now changing as the result of the fact that this traditional customer base is aging and dying off and gunmakers, to paraphrase a tobacco industry term, have failed to recruit a sufficient number of ‘replacement shooters’ to fill their thinning ranks. As a result, household and individual gun ownership over the past few decades in the United States have declined significantly and remain relatively stagnant. While children and women have been the default targets of the industry in the wake of stagnation of the white male market, there has also been a growing focus on marketing guns, primarily for self-defense, to Latinos, Blacks, and other minority groups in America. And there is no reason to believe that the real-world impact of gun ownership on newly minted Black and Brown gun owners will be any different than their white predecessors — increased risk of death and injury in suicides, homicides, and fatal unintentional injuries. What is different is that these communities are already disproportionately impacted by lethal firearms violence and that increased gun ownership can only increase death and injury among them. Historically, Blacks and Latinos in the United States have relatively low rates of gun ownership. Yet, the majority of both Blacks and Latinos, like most Americans, falsely believe “that a gun in the home is much more likely to be used to protect, rather than harm, members of the household.” One survey found that 75  percent of Blacks and 73 percent of Latinos felt that it was more likely that a gun would be “used to protect members of the home.” Only 18 percent of Blacks and 22 percent of Latinos felt that it would be more likely that the gun would be “used to harm someone in the home, either accidentally or on purpose.” This is despite the fact that guns, in any hands, are rarely used to kill criminals or stop crimes and that both the Black and Brown communities are disproportionately impacted by lethal gun violence. This combination — low gun ownership coupled with a mistaken belief in the efficacy of the self-defense handgun — is the sweet spot for the gun industry and its financial partners in the NRA. And just as important as future sales are the potential political benefits outreach to minority communities may represent. Compared to whites, Blacks and Latinos show stronger support for gun violence prevention measures.6 And recognizing the continuing growth of the U.S. Latino population, the potential political benefits of increased gun ownership among this group are clear. The brazenness of this marketing shift is striking, recognizing that for decades members of the gun lobby and firearms industry have played on fear of crime and community disorder in their marketing efforts. And while rarely stated outright, often implicit is that those to be feared come from communities of color.

Washington, DC: Violence Policiy Center, 2021. 43p.  

By Violence Policy Center

   Since the mid-1960s, self-defense has been the foundational argument used by the gun industry to sell firearms, primarily handguns, in the United States. In this effort, gunmakers have been aided by the gun lobby, most notably the National Rifle Association of America (NRA). Firearms are promoted as risk-free tools necessary for the defense of self and family from myriad threats, most frequently an attack by a stranger. Never acknowledged is the demonstrable fact that guns are rarely used to kill criminals or stop crimes, and that most homicides occur between people who know one another. Also missing from this false and simplistic narrative is the reality of the trauma, legal and financial risk, and long-term emotional repercussions that can come with the act of taking another human life. Historically, the primary demographic targeted by the gun industry has been white males. This is now changing as the result of the fact that this traditional customer base is aging while gunmakers, to paraphrase a tobacco industry term, have failed to recruit a sufficient number of ‘replacement shooters’ to fill their thinning ranks. As a result, household and individual gun ownership over the past few decades in the United States have declined significantly and remain relatively stagnant.3 While children and women have been the default targets of the industry in the wake of stagnation of the white male market, there has also been a growing campaign to market guns to minority groups in America, primarily for self-defense. Latino and Black    Americans have been the primary focus of these efforts. This has begun to shift in the wake of high-profile racist attacks on members of the Asian American/Pacific Islander (AAPI) community, including a mass shooting in Atlanta, Georgia, during the COVID-19 pandemic. As an April 2021 Pew Research survey found, “Amid widespread reports of discrimination and violence against Asian Americans during the coronavirus outbreak, 32% percent of Asian adults say they have feared someone might threaten or physically attack them – a greater share than other racial or ethnic groups. The vast majority of Asian adults (81%) also say violence against them is increasing, far surpassing the share of all U.S. adults (56%) who say the same....”4Seeing an opportunity to exploit the fear spurred by these horrific attacks, the firearms industry has moved swiftly to expand its efforts targeting the AAPI community

Washington DC: Violence  Policy Center, 2021.26p.

By Brice Terpstra, Michael D. White,  Aili Malm

Over the last few years, thousands of law enforcement agencies in the United States have adopted body-worn cameras (BWCs), and they have subsequently had to deal with the tremendous amount of digital evidence generated by the technology. Digital evidence management (DEM) is the process by which an agency manages, stores, shares, and integrates the data generated by BWCs and other imaging devices (e.g., dashboard cameras, license plate readers (LPRs), cell phones). Addressing DEM is a critical feature of a successful BWC program.

To explore how agencies handle DEM, Arizona State University (ASU) conducted an online survey of agencies receiving federal funding for BWCs through the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) BWC Policy and Implementation Program (BWCPIP). ASU asked the agencies approximately 30 questions related to DEM, including questions about basic program management, internal use of footage, external sharing of footage, challenges, and future developments. In the first edition of this report published in 2022 (accessible here), ASU presented results from 68 agencies that completed the survey. This second edition of the report includes results from an additional 22 agencies, for a total sample of 90. The primary findings are as follows:

• Most responding agencies routinely monitor the flow of footage into their organization. Most of the agencies regularly track storage use (69 percent), uploads (60 percent), and activations (43 percent). Most responding agencies also have a process to review untagged footage (83 percent).

• More than half of agencies (56 percent) indicated that they have a specific BWC management unit. These units perform all BWC-related tasks, from camera assignments and maintenance to audits and redaction.

• Nearly all agencies use BWC footage to accomplish an internal objective, whether that be investigating uses of force and citizen complaints (99 percent), monitoring BWC use (i.e., activation compliance; 85 percent), or conducting performance evaluations (44 percent). More than one-quarter of agencies (29 percent) examine metadata to inform their BWC program.

• About three-quarters of responding agencies (74 percent) share BWC footage with the public. Among those that do, nearly all have a policy in place to govern that public release process.

• Most agencies also share the footage with external stakeholders, including city and county prosecutors, public defenders, private attorneys, and other law enforcement agencies. Agencies use several methods to share footage, including providing direct access to cloud storage, secure email links, and physical copies (USB devices). Sharing methods vary notably based on who is receiving the footage. Agencies generally reserve direct access to cloud storage for prosecutors (48 percent have provided access to their prosecutors).

• The primary DEM-related challenges are associated with costs, staffing, and resources (28 percent); storage and infrastructure (19 percent); and video redaction (13 percent). Agencies also identified these same issues as areas for future development. Most of the identified future developments were internally focused (i.e., things that the departments themselves can or should do to address challenges). Very few responding agencies mentioned future developments involving the vendors or others outside their agency.

Tempe: Arizona State University, Southern Illinois University Carbondale, California State University, Long Beach, 2024. 17p.

By Vincent Freigang and Maíra Martini

Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 ignited a global reckoning over the dangers of kleptocracy and the international community’s decades-long complicity. The initial response of the advanced Western economies was to unleash new waves of targeted sanctions against Kremlin-linked individuals. But denying safe haven to Russian kleptocrats calls for multilateral efforts, including tracking down the illicit wealth they have diligently hidden across the globe.

In a welcome step, several governments – primarily Western economies such as those making up the G7 – are now joining efforts to share intelligence and cooperate across borders as part of a dedicated task force. This study assesses how well countries leading multilateral efforts to freeze and seize kleptocrats’ assets are equipped to deliver on their objectives. The comparative analysis covers eight countries: Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and the United States.

Transparency International, 2022. 52p.

By Maíra Martini and Theo Van der Merwe

The decision of where to invest in real estate will depend on the stability and reliability of the real estate market in the country, as well as on the risks of having a dirty deal uncovered and punished. Not surprisingly, the corrupt and criminal favour stable markets with inadequate anti-money laundering laws and where anonymity is guaranteed.

Investigations show real estate data can be a powerful tool to detect potential money laundering and other criminal activities. Access to property-related data – such as legal and beneficial ownership, historical ownership data, value and dates of purchase – can go a long way towards exposing key red flags for authorities, journalists and activists.

In 2017, Transparency International published an analysis of anti-money laundering and corruption prevention mechanisms in the real estate sector in four key markets. The report – Doors wide open – identified ten main problems that have enabled corrupt individuals and other criminals to easily purchase luxurious properties anonymously and hide their stolen money in Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States. Now, our new report analyses the availability of key real estate data in these four significant property markets.

The limited availability of real estate data and of beneficial ownership data, in particular, means that we still know very little about who owns properties, and whether they have been purchased with dirty money. This continues to be the case in the four markets – Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States.

Transparency International Australia, 2020. 18p.

A call for civilian reserves in hybrid warfare

By Dan Svantesson

Australia’s cyber environment is under constant attack. The threats are multi-faceted and growing. Beyond the well-known cybercrime and cybersecurity challenges, we face a barrage of online mis- and dis-information aimed at undermining our social cohesion. Despite increased emphasis on the cyber domain, our existing public and private capacity is likely insufficient to counter the full range of threats we face in cyberspace.

Against this background, Australia must adopt a whole-of-society approach to the defence of the cyber environment. This discussion paper seeks to canvass options for an Australian ‘cyber intelligence and information militia’; that is, a ‘crowdsourced’ civilian volunteer cyber reserve capability fit to engage in open-source intelligence (OSINT) and information warfare. Such a resource could play an important role in supplementing existing or developing capabilities.

Canberra: Australian Capital Territory, Social Cyber Institute, 2024. 

By Jade McEwan, Rachel Carson, Rae Kaspiew, John De Maio, Briony Horsfall

The abuse of older people has devastating physical, emotional and social consequences for older Australians, their families and communities. At least one in six older Australians experience abuse, and that when abuse occurs, only around one third of victims seek help.

The key policy framework for tackling this abuse, the National plan to respond to the abuse of older Australians 2019-2023, was recommended in the Australian Law Reform Commission’s 2017 Elder abuse – a national legal response final report.

This independent evaluation finds that the National Plan is achieving its aims of uniting governments, agencies and organisations in tackling the abuse of older people.

The evaluation highlights a range of important achievements under the National Plan, including the delivery of Australia’s first National Elder Abuse prevalence Study, funding of innovative service responses, and a range of awareness raising initiatives.

Australian Institute of Family Studies (AIFS) , 2024. 209p.

 By Europol’s European Migrant Smuggling Centre (EMSC)

  Migrant smuggling and trafficking in human beings (THB) pose a serious threat to the EU’s security, as well as to the irregular migrants and THB victims involved. Both crime areas are embedded in the broader serious and organised crime environment, with criminals taking advantage of existing infrastructures and engaging in multiple illegal activities. The criminals involved in these crime areas constantly adapt their methods to maximise profits and evade law enforcement. Geopolitical events, economic and social crises, as well as the digital environment, have provided new opportunities for criminals to exploit. Against the backdrop of irregular migration at EU’s external borders reaching in 2023 the highest levels since 2016, Europol’s European Migrant Smuggling Centre (EMSC) is at the forefront of the EU’s fight against migrant smuggling, supporting EU Member States in disrupting the criminal networks that orchestrate this form of organised crime. The EMSC also continues to stand together with law enforcement in EU Member States to combat the criminal exploitation of vulnerable people for the purpose of economic gain. The EMSC’s mandate is first and foremost to provide operational support to cross-border investigations in the Member States, but also to deliver expertise and resources, as well as a platform for the swift and safe exchange of information. The successful operations supported by the EMSC reflect the pivotal role played by law enforcement authorities in the Member States in sharing information and initiating cross-border investigations, as well as the importance of joining efforts at EU level and beyond, to disrupt criminal networks active in migrant smuggling and THB.  

Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European Union;, 2024. 15p.

By Michael Ostermann, Nathan W. Link, Jordan M. Hyatt

Legal financial obligations (LFOs) associated with justice system involvement are increasingly a focus for policymakers and researchers seeking to understand sources of inequality and the factors that promote successful reentry. These conversations often rely on an assumption that LFOs are associated with or may even drive higher rates of recidivism. The empirical research in this area, however, has not kept up with the growing strength of these claims. This study reports findings that may offer a new perspective and contribute to an evidence-based debate. Multi Sourced administrative data on all individuals released from carceral supervision in an East Coast state (N = 21,301) over 3 years are used to examine the complex relationship between criminal justice debt and reoffending. We detail the results of survival analyses estimating the impact of these debts on various forms of recidivism. Broadly, we find that even though the relationship between case-level LFO assessments and future offending did not reach statistical significance, the association with the cumulative effect of monetary sanctions over the life course did. Furthermore, the impact of LFO debt is greater for certain racial groups, supporting theoretical and practical inquiries into factors informing structural disadvantage. Implications for policy and future research are considered.

Criminology, 

Volume62, Issue2

May 2024

Pages 331-363

By Robert J. Sampson, Roland Neil

Although racial disparities in criminal justice contact are long-standing and the subject of continuing public debate, few studies have linked early-life social conditions to racial disparities in arrest over the life course and in changing times. In this article, we advance and test a theoretical model of racial inequality in long-term arrest histories on a representative sample of nearly 1,000 individuals from multiple birth cohorts in the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods. Large Black–White disparities in arrests from ages 10 to 40 arise from racial inequalities in exposure to cumulative childhood advantages and disadvantages rather than from race-specific effects. Smaller but meaningful Hispanic–White gaps follow a similar pattern, and the same explanations of racial disparities hold across different offense types and across birth cohorts who came of age at different times during 1995 to 2021. These findings indicate that inequalities in early-life structural factors, which themselves are historically shaped, trigger processes of cumulative advantage and disadvantage that produce racial disparities in arrests over the life course and that persist across different points in contemporary history.

Criminology, Volume62, Issue2

May 2024

Pages 177-204

By Seena Fazel, Matthias Burghart, Achim Wolf, Daniel Whiting, and Rongqin Yu  

  To address the societal harms of violence, many violence prevention interventions have been developed, tested, and implemented in the general population. These have been reported in systematic reviews and meta-analyses, which have typically focused on one type of intervention or outcome. We aimed to provide a comprehensive overview of the current evidence regarding the effectiveness of different psychosocial interventions in reducing all forms of violence toward others. We have conducted an umbrella review of previous meta-analyses using standard approaches and converted findings on effectiveness into odds ratios. We tested for the underlying quality of the meta-analytic evidence by examining heterogeneity, excess statistical significance, prediction intervals, and small study effects. We identified 16 meta-analyses, including nine investigating psychosocial interventions, and five legislative and policy changes. Most meta-analyses reported positive effects of tested interventions. The strongest effects were found for sports-based initiatives, and the weakest for general population programs aimed at early childhood, youth development, and reducing sexual assault perpetration by men. Legislative changes had varying effectiveness. We conclude that simple, scalable, and cost-efficient programs, such as sport-based initiatives, have the clearest empirical support as population-based approaches to violence prevention.  

  TRAUMA, VIOLENCE, & ABUSE 2024, Vol. 25(2) 1709 –1718

By Brice J. Terpstra

The findings of this study on the role of military service in the lives of justice-involved military veterans suggest that the role of military service is nuanced and that for many veterans the military directly impacted both deviance and mental health outcomes. Further, emotionality of these veterans is quite variant over time, while social togetherness and engagement in activity show to be impactful on emotional well-being. Overall, this research expands the understanding of the role of military service in the life-course and provides an in-depth look into the daily and life-course experiences of justice-involved veterans, ultimately giving voice to the veterans themselves to articulate their own experiences and needs. This study explores the life-course experiences of justice-involved veterans in three separate, yet interconnected ways: (1) trajectories of deviance across the life-course and the impact of military service on deviance; (2) the relationships between military service, mental health, and negative life-course outcomes; and (3) the daily experiences of justice-involved veterans, including who they spend time with, what they spend time doing, and how these factors impact emotion. This work is one of the few to utilize qualitative inquiry to better understand the relationship between military service and trajectories of deviance for justice-involved veterans, and is the first to use ecological momentary assessment (EMA) methodology to examine the daily experiences of justice-involved veterans.

Tempe, AZ: Arizona State University, 2024. 215p.

By Terra Wiens 

  The devastation homicide inflicts on Black teens and adults is an ongoing national crisis, yet it is all too often ignored outside of affected communities. This study examines the issue of Black homicide victimization by analyzing 2022 WISQARS mortality data1 from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and Supplementary Homicide Report (SHR) data submitted to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). This analysis offers national and state data, ranks the states by their Black homicide victimization rates, and offers additional information on the 10 states with the highest rates. Previous versions of this report used exclusively FBI SHR data to describe Black homicide victimization. In January of 2021, the FBI changed the way crime data are collected in the United States, which negatively impacted the reliability of such data from some states. As a result of the incomplete nature of state-by-state SHR crime data for 2022, using this data for ranking the states is not possible. In order to continue examining state-specific Black homicide victimization rates and offering state rankings, this report utilizes CDC WISQARS data to describe victim demographics and weapons used at both the national level and the state level for the 10 states with the highest Black homicide victimization rates. To offer further detail on Black homicide victimization in the United States, FBI SHR data are used to describe the victim and offender relationship and homicide circumstances at the national level. The Violence Policy Center hopes that at some point in the near future FBI crime data will once again be sufficiently robust to allow for a more complete analysis of the data.  

Washington, DC: Violence Policy Center  2024. 24p.

By Romi Sigsworth

Summary   Artificial intelligence (AI) offers innovative solutions for addressing a range of illegal activities that impact Africa’s environment. This report explores how AI is being used in Africa to provide intelligence on organised environmental crime, craft tools to assess its impact, and develop methods to detect and prevent environmental criminal activities. It discusses the challenges and opportunities AI poses for policing environmental crime in Africa, and proposes recommendations that would allow AI-powered policing to make a real difference on the continent. Recommendations • African governments and organisations should invest in gathering large, local data sets to allow AI models to produce appropriate and relevant solutions. • Investments in digital and communication infrastructure need to be made across Africa to improve and expand access to and affordability of AI solutions. • Police forces across Africa should include technology and AI skills capacity building into their basic and professional development training curricula. • Guardrails should be established through legislation to protect data, ensure privacy where necessary, and regulate the use of AI. • Public-private partnerships must be strengthened for law enforcement agencies across Africa to receive the technology and training they need to effectively embed AI tools into Research Paper their methodologies to combat environmental (and other) organised crime. 

ENACT Africa, 2024. 29[p.

By EUROPOL

 Europol’s Internet Organised Crime Threat Assessment (IOCTA) 2024, the most comprehensive yearly analysis of the latest threats posed by cybercrime in the EU. This edition marks 10 years since the release of Europol’s first IOCTA. Throughout this time, the threats posed by cybercrime have evolved dynamically in terms of volume, intensity and harm potential. The number of cybercriminals entering the market continued to grow steadily, thanks to the adoption of new technologies as well as the increasing complexity of digital infrastructures, which expands the potential attack surface. In 2023, millions of victims across the EU were attacked and exploited online on a daily basis. Small and medium businesses were increasingly popular targets for cyber-attacks, while e-merchants experienced the most digital skimming attacks. Adults were victimised through phishing, investment and romance frauds, and more and more minors were targeted by child sexual exploitation offenders and online sexual extorters. In parallel, a number of worldwide law enforcement actions shook the cybercriminal underground through continued arrests of ransomware affiliates IOCTA 2024 and operators. Law enforcement also carried out coordinated disruption operations against cybercriminals’ digital infrastructures. Notwithstanding the growing presence of law enforcement in the dark web, this environment continues to function as an enabler for cybercrime, allowing offenders to share knowledge, tools and services in a more concealed way. In addition, the use of cryptocurrencies in a wider variety of crime areas has become more noticeable in 2023, alongside the growing number of requests for investigative support in cryptocurrency tracing received by Europol. Cybercriminals are keen to leverage Artificial Intelligence, which is already becoming a common component in their toolbox and is very likely to see even wider application. Law enforcement agencies are expected to build a robust capacity to counter the growing threats stemming from this, both in terms of human resources and technical skills. An additional concerning aspect of cybercrime is the young age of the offenders. As cybercriminals appear to be in many cases underage, a greater focus on offender prevention could discourage young people from entering a criminal career.

  The Hague: European Union Agency for Law Enforcement Cooperation, 2024  38p.

By Pip McKnight, Jenny Phillimore and Dawn River with support from Rainbow Migration 

  Over the past six years, the SEREDA (Sexual and gender-based violence in the refugee crisis: from displacement to arrival) project has been examining the experiences and incidents of sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) across the forced migration journey. Initial findings from SEREDA suggested that LGBTQI+ people who seek asylum face incidents of and vulnerability to SGBV that are distinct from heterosexual and cisgender populations, including in countries of sanctuary seemingly accepting of sexual and gender diversity. This project aimed to build on the initial findings of SEREDA to gain a more complete understanding of the current situation in the UK. Against an international backdrop of increasingly draconian anti-LGBTQI+ laws fuelled by fundamentalist religious and right-wing groups, this research sought to examine the experiences of queer people seeking asylum in the UK.  

Birmingham, UK: University of Birmingham and Rainbow Migration,2024. 28p.

 by Katy Swaine Williams with assistance from Jon Collins and Cassie Edmiston  

   This small study confirms that undertaking education, employment and other purposeful activity in prison is of fundamental importance for young women (aged 18–24) during their imprisonment and after their release. While in prison, having access to the right opportunities can offer satisfaction and a sense of pride and achievement; it can provide a distraction from worries and a valuable sense of purpose. Physical activity, including use of the gym, and purposeful social interaction are particularly valued. Education, employment and other purposeful activities for young women in prison can also help young women to envisage a positive future after their release and offer a practical stepping stone towards further study, employment, or simply development of a hobby that is beneficial to their wellbeing. Conversely, where young women in prison are denied opportunities for education or employment which they value, or indeed other purposeful or socially interactive activity, this is likely to be severely detrimental. The histories of several young women who took part in this study included childhood trauma, domestic abuse – including coercive control – and exploitation, which had had a direct impact on their engagement with education. Some of the young women identified lack of access to mental health assessment and support as a key barrier to their engagement in activities and overall well being, and a cloud over their present and future. Some complained they could not access education and work opportunities in prison until they had undertaken their Maths and English Level 1, which felt to them like an arbitrary barrier. Several women found inactivity and excessive time in their cell very difficult to cope with and wanted more opportunities for purposeful activity and social interaction, including through team sports. Others described the satisfaction they gained from purposeful activity in prison, including work. Each of the participants described past achievements in education, employment and family life of which they were proud, and aspirations for the future as well as worries and fears. Through this study we aim to help inform improvements to ensure that every young woman can experience the benefits of education, employment and other purposeful activity while in prison. We hope it will also be of interest to education providers in the community. We urge the Ministry of Justice to renew its efforts to develop a Young Women’s Strategy, to do so through co-production with young women, and to include a distinct focus on education, employment and other purposeful activity. The aim should be to develop tailored support which is gender-specific, age-specific, and is accessible to all young women – including Black, minority ethnic and migrant young women.  

London: Prisoners Education Trust, 2024. 38p.