By Andrew Scheibe, Shaun Shelly, M. J. Stowe

The illicit drug trade generates billions of dollars and sustains transnational criminal organisations. Drug markets can destabilise governance and undermine development. Data indicate increasing drug use in South Africa. However, information on the size and value of the drug market is limited. This is the first study to estimate the market value of cocaine, heroin and methamphetamine in South Africa. People who use drugs were meaningfully involved in all aspects of implementation. We used focus group discussions, ethnographic mapping, brief interviews, and the Delphi method to estimate the number of users, volumes consumed, and price for each drug in South Africa in 2020. Nationally, we estimated there to be: 400,000 people who use heroin (probability range (PR) 215,000–425,000) consuming 146.00 tonnes (PR 78.48–155.13) with a value of US$1,898.00 million (PR US$1,020.18–US$2,016.63); 350,000 people who use cocaine (PR 250,000–475,000) consuming 18.77 tonnes (PR 13.41–25.47) with a market value of US$1,219.86 million (PR 871.33–1,655.52) and 290,000 people who use methamphetamine (PR 225,000–365,000) consuming 60.19 tonnes (PR 6.58–10.68) and a market value of US$782.51 million (PR 607.12–984.88). The combined value was calculated at US$3.5 billion. Findings can be used to stimulate engagement to reform drug policy and approaches to mitigate the impact of the illicit drug trade. Additional studies that include people who use drugs in research design and implementation are needed to improve our understanding of drug markets.

Journal of Illicit Economies and Development, 5(3): pp. 1–17

By Police Executive Research Forum

Jurisdictions across the United States have struggled with a dramatic rise in carjackings since 2020, leaving police leaders with questions about why this spike is occurring, why juveniles are committing this crime in unprecedented numbers, and why carjacking numbers remained elevated when the number of homicides and aggravated assaults started to decline. With those questions in mind, the Police Executive Research Forum (PERF) assembled a group of over 130 people from more than 50 different agencies for a National Summit on Carjacking in early 2024 in Washington, D.C. Throughout the day, police leaders, federal officials, local and federal prosecutors, researchers, executives, and business and community leaders discussed the situation in 7. D.C. Metropolitan Police Department. MPD Carjacking Dashboard. https://mpdc.dc.gov/page/carjacking. their communities and the challenges they have faced effectively addressing these incidents, particularly when juveniles are involved. Jurisdictions that have successfully brought their numbers down shared lessons learned and promising strategies for preventing carjackings. This report is drawn from the comments and observations of those who attended PERF’s summit and follow-up interviews. It looks at the carjacking problem in cities and counties across the country, offers insights into the factors causing the increase, and shares some of the innovative approaches jurisdictions are implementing — including the use of technology, data analysis, and cross-agency partnerships. The report includes 10 recommendations to help police and other stakeholders effectively respond to carjackings in their communities.

Washington, DC: Police Executive Research Forum, 2024. 62p.

By Allison Lind , Ryan P. Larson , Susan M. Mason , Christopher Uggen

There is abundant research showing the disproportionate impacts of violence on health in disadvantaged neighborhoods, making an understanding of recent violent crime trends essential for promoting health equity. Carjackings have been of particular interest in the media, although little research has been undertaken on this violent crime. We use interrupted time series models to examine the impact of the police killing of George Floyd on the spatiotemporal patterns of carjacking in Minneapolis in relation to neighborhood disadvantage. To provide grounding, we compare our results to the well-studied patterns of homicides. Results indicate that carjackings both increased and dispersed spatially after the murder of George Floyd and subsequent social unrest, more so than homicides. Socially disadvantaged neighborhoods experienced the greatest absolute increase while more advantaged neighborhoods saw a greater relative increase. The challenge ahead is to identify policy responses that will effectively curb such violence without resorting to harsh and inequitable policing and sentencing practices.

By Timantha Goff, et al.

Black migrants are subject to abuse and a disturbing pattern of racism, violence and harm at disproportionately higher incidence than non-Black migrants while in the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), according to a groundbreaking report released today by Black-led and immigrants rights organizations.

Authored by the Black LGBTQIA+ Migrant Project (BLMP), Black Alliance for Just Immigration (BAJI), UndocuBlack Network, and Freedom for Immigrants (FFI), the first-of-its-kind study draws on nearly 17,000 call records from FFI’s National Immigration Detention Hotline spanning a six year period.

The data reveal a disturbing pattern of abuse perpetrated against Black migrants by ICE, private detention contractors and officials at contracting jails. Key findings include:

28 percent of all abuse-related reports made to the FFI hotline come from Black migrants, despite accounting for only only six percent of the total ICE detention population;

In some detention facilities in Alabama, Georgia and Louisiana, Black migrants are almost twice as likely to experience abuse inside detention compared to non-Black migrants;

Black non-binary migrants are 3.5 times more likely to experience abuse in immigration detention;

A new FOIA request corroborated a previous study that found that 24 percent of all people in solitary confinement are Black;

Over 53 percent of the most high-intensity and life-threatening cases that FFI intervened on in the six year period were on behalf of Black migrants.

“No one should live in fear or face punishment like this, especially not for the color of their skin or where they were born,” said Moussa Haba, an author of the report and monitoring fellow with Freedom for Immigrants who was previously detained by ICE. “The United States calls itself the land of the free, but for this to be true, Black migrants like me deserve to live in freedom, not from behind bars. What I experienced in detention was the opposite of freedom. Significant trauma was inflicted upon me during this time. I was subject to an unending racism in detention, and our new report demonstrates that I am not alone. It’s clear that detention must end to stop this cycle of abuse—and our fight to abolish detention is really a fight for freedom.”

“Being detained as an immigrant and having to fight for my freedom, I have faced discrimination based on my race,” said Marlissa, a 22-year-old Bahamian woman from South Florida currently detained at the Baker County Detention Center in Florida. “I have faced a lot of racism, a lot of disrespect, and a lot of unfairness in this system. I was threatened with solitary confinement after officers used racial slurs against me. Being detained, it’s like you have no say and you have no rights. It’s as if they look at you like you're beneath them, and the door is just being slammed in your face like you're an animal. Once released and given a second chance, the first thing I want to do is see my family because it's been almost three years. Then I want to continue my enrollment in college to follow my dream, and I want to continue to try to be successful in life and be a role model to my siblings and society.”

“It is not shocking that Black migrants in detention describe their conditions as torture, because detention is torture,” said Ronald Claude, director of policy & advocacy with Black Alliance for Just Immigration (BAJI). “Our report ‘Uncovering the Truth’ makes it clear that the U.S. immigration system is anti-Black. Detention is one of the enduring legacies of this country’s history of slavery and Jim Crow laws. Collecting race and ethnicity data is critical as it makes visible the Black people detained by the U.S. government.”

“The profit-driven mass incarceration system of the U.S. is built on the backs of formerly enslaved Black people and Black migrants,” said Haddy Gassama, policy and advocacy director of UndocuBlack Network. “White supremacist sentiments and anti-Blackness are not only endemic in the current systems of policing and immigration enforcement, they were the driving factors for the existence of these inhumane institutions. The U.S. has the world's largest carceral system, and Black folks bear the heaviest brunt of its cruelty. Immigration is a Black issue, and as long as the practice of detention exists, Black migrants will always face anti-Blackness within the system that was built to uniquely harm them. The findings of this report affirm the call for the complete abolition of all forms of detention.

Black Alliance for Just Immigration (BAJI) , 2022. 31p.

By Vanya Petrova

Illicit cross-border financial flows – estimated at US$1–1.6 trillion a year globally – are harming economic development on a national and global level. This is particularly true when such flows originate in heavily étatist economies, with no effective division or independence of the private from the public or state-owned sector. Autocracies have long utilized obfuscated corporate ownership structures and illicit financial flows (IFFs) for nefarious purposes such as bribery, corruption and improper lobbying to secure anything from technologies and know-how to economic and political influence on countries of interest. Russia has established a pattern of malign economic impact in Europe through its cultivation of ‘an opaque network of patronage across the region that it uses to influence and direct decision-making’ in key markets and institutions. IFFs in the Balkan region, in particular, are manifold, multi-directional and, proportionally, large as a percentage of GDP. While global illicit outflows are 3–5% of world GDP, IFFs in the Balkans are estimated at about 6% of the region’s GDP. The common denominator of the Western Balkan countries is their vulnerabilities kindled by institutional weakness and state capture. IFFs promote rent-seeking and criminal behaviour, reduce governments’ capacity to support development and inclusive growth, undermine the rule of law and jeopardize the business environment. Illicit flows drain public resources, reduce the scope and quality of public services and, thus, undermine confidence in state institutions. The Kremlin has repeatedly taken advantage of its integration into the Western financial system to exploit governance gaps through the corrosive effect of illicit finance.7 The brutal invasion of Ukraine shed a harsh light on the sobering dangers of kleptocracy and the risks to which Europe – and the world – has exposed itself by taking a lax approach to dirty money. Russia’s war in Ukraine could exacerbate these circumstances and accelerate further IFFs in the Balkan region – a crucial entry point and essential route for a plethora of illegal activities, such as drug trafficking, human smuggling, illicit trade and contraband.8 Due to imposed travel bans, Serbia is one of the few remaining routes for Russians to establish themselves in the region. Since the start of the invasion of Ukraine, Russian nationals have registered more than 5 000 companies in Serbia, over 1 000 being limited liability companies and nearly 4 000 entrepreneurial businesses.9 The establishment of so many companies in the country offers fertile ground for money laundering.10 As observed in the Serbian national risk assessment by the Administration for the Prevention of Money Laundering, limited liability companies and entrepreneurs pose a particularly high degree of threat with respect to money laundering. Through such means wealthy Russians could seek investment opportunities and use existing connections to launder money in real estate and other sectors traditionally vulnerable to IFFs in the region. The primary goal of this report is to assess the major enablers and vulnerabilities of illicit finance in the eight Balkan countries (Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Serbia) after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. More concretely, the study aims to analyze the primary IFFs sources and channels in the region, and identify any emerging trends concerning modus operandi, routes, business models, use of information and communications technology. In addition, the study intends to inspect the pressing challenges to border control, police and anti-money laundering authorities to effectively prevent, investigate and counter organized crime involved in cash smuggling and money laundering. Finally, the report aims to suggest feasible recommendations for improvement. The analysis presented is based on information collected through mixed methods research consisting of qualitative and quantitative desk research and in-depth interviews with key professionals from different organizations and professional affiliations in the eight countries. A total of 15 semi-structured interviews were conducted with experts from regional organizations, customs agencies, national anti-money laundering authorities, national revenue agencies, national customs agencies and NGOs, as well as with journalists and academics. A guiding questionnaire with key questions and topics was shared with the field researchers to facilitate the work and to ensure consistency in the information collection process.

Geneva, SWIT: Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime (GI-TOC)’s , 2023. 24p.

By Lisa Cameron, Jennifer Seager, Manisha Shah

We examine the impact of criminalizing sex work, exploiting an event in which local officials unexpectedly criminalized sex work in one district in East Java, Indonesia, but not in neighboring districts. We collect data from female sex workers and their clients before and after the change. We find that criminalization increases sexually transmitted infections among female sex workers by 58 percent, measured by biological tests. This is driven by decreased condom access and use. We also find evidence that criminalization decreases earnings among women who left sex work due to criminalization, and decreases their ability to meet their children's school expenses while increasing the likelihood that children begin working to supplement household income. While criminalization has the potential to improve population STI outcomes if the market shrinks permanently, we show that five years post-criminalization the market has rebounded and the probability of STI transmission within the general population is likely to have increased.

Working Paper 27846

Cambridge, MA: National Bureau of Economic Research, 2020. 52p.

By Sophie Davies | Manon Roberts | Amber Evans | Freya Smith | Alex Murray,

Fraud is now the most commonly experienced crime in the UK, making up over 40 per cent of all recorded crime. Instances of fraud have risen substantially over the last decade, from 510,403 offences recorded in the year ending 2013 to 1.16 million offences recorded in the year ending 2023, with online fraud contributing significantly to the increase (the Crime Survey for England and Wales estimates that over 60 per cent of cyber incidents take place online). Yet our understanding of online fraud in particular — its typology, scale and impact — is limited. Crest Advisory, in partnership with the Police Foundation and Birkbeck, University of London (Institute for Crime and Justice Policy Research), and with funding from the Dawes Trust, is carrying out a large research project into tackling online fraud. The first part of our project focuses on developing a better understanding of the impact of online fraud on victims and the wider public. In September 2023, Crest published findings from large-scale online surveys of the public and small and medium enterprises (SMEs) which explored public perceptions and experiences of online fraud. This report presents the findings from interviews with 20 victims and 12 focus groups (with 96 members of the public) to build on the survey findings and deepen our insight and knowledge of online fraud victimisation and its impact. It addresses a key gap as most existing studies do not distinguish between online and offline fraud victimisation, in part because many fraudulent activities combine offline and online elements. Key findings from the interviews and focus groups are set out below.

London: Crest Advisory, 2024. 36p.

By The Better Business Bureau

CRIMINALS ARE FINDING NEW METHODS WITH THE CRYPTOCURRENCY MARKET, LIKE BITCOIN AND ETHEREUM, TO STEAL FROM UNSUSPECTING INVESTORS OR VICTIMS OF COMMON SCAMS. | Cryptocurrency Scams As Bitcoin and other types of cryptocurrencies gain attention in the news for their volatility, novelty and celebrity investors, scammers are quickly discovering how to use people’s lack of knowledge about the system to rip off investors and dress up old scams. Early entrants into the market made enormous amounts of money, and later others rushed in with hopes of similar gains. The total value of all bitcoins in the world is estimated at $1.03 trillion. A single bitcoin, worth $2,000 in 2017, reached an all-time high of $67,549 in 2021. But Bitcoin is volatile, and the value can swing wildly. After hitting a high in 2021, it declined to $35,484 in early 2022. Purchasing power of a bitcoin can vary day-to-day. Nonetheless, cryptocurrency — a digital payment system that does not rely on banks to verify transactions — has now grown into a major worldwide industry. New York, Arkansas, Brazil, and Puerto Rico expressed interest in becoming attractive locations for the cryptocurrency industry. However, in the spring of 2021 China banned cryptocurrency. It was the second largest country using cryptocurrency. A virtual tug of war exists between the legitimate and fraudulent use of cryptocurrency. This study examines digital currencies and the scams that use them. It provides background on key terms and concepts, examines cryptocurrency’s susceptibility for large-scale scams, and notes the risks and provides tips for common investors and others using cryptocurrency as a payment method.

Washington, DC: BBB, 2022. 18p.

By EUROPOL and Basel Institute on Governance,

These recommendations follow the 6th Global Conference on Criminal Finances and Cryptocurrencies on 1–2 September 2022. The conference was hosted by Europol at its headquarters in The Hague, the Netherlands, together with the Basel Institute on Governance through the Joint Working Group on Criminal Finances and Cryptocurrencies.

The Recommendations are intended to highlight broad approaches and best practices. They are designed to help public and private actors stay one step ahead of those seeking to abuse crypto assets (also known as virtual assets) and services to make, hide and launder illicit money.

The main message is that as the use of crypto assets expands into practically every country and sector, so does its abuse to commit new forms of crime and launder criminal proceeds. Yet with the right tools, capacity and cooperation, the unique characteristics of blockchain-based technologies offer an unprecedented opportunity to investigate organised crime and money laundering networks and to recover stolen funds.

The five recommendations cover:

1. Breaking down silos between “traditional” and “crypto”

2. Regulating broadly and make full use of existing laws 

3. Taking advantage of the blockchain to disrupt organised crime 

4. Raising crypto literacy through capacity building and clear communication 

5. Increasing public-private cooperation

EUROPOL and Basel Institute on Governance, 2022. 6p.

By Nancy Isarin, Claudia Baez Camargo and Amanda Cabrejo le Roux

Executive summary Waste management is a huge industry at the local, national and international levels. Public services play a key role in dealing especially with waste generated by households. Getting it right is essential if we are to achieve a circular economy and the Sustainable Development Goals. Complex legal frameworks and their weak implementation open up spaces for criminals to profit from illegally managing or trading in waste. The consequences on the environment and human health can be severe. The role of corruption in crimes involving waste is unexplored. An initial analysis of five cases shows the potential for corruption to play a role in: • influencing policy decisions involving waste management; • corrupt deals involving the selection of waste management companies linked to powerful elites; • schemes to gain lucrative waste management contracts through systematic bribery; • illegal imports of hazardous waste for profit, avoiding or suppressing formal controls. Different corruption risks affect different steps of the waste management chain: 1. Policies and procedures: Undue influence, state capture 2. Procurement: Bribery, nepotism, favouritism 3. Inspections: Bribery, undue influence, collusion External factors make corruption and crime linked to waste management easier to get away with, including: • poor record keeping and a lack of access to information even where records exist; • low awareness and understanding of the field among public procurement officers, law enforcement and the judiciary; • insufficient monitoring and lack of inspection and enforcement capacities; • poor cooperation between environmental, (financial) investigation and other government agencies. In addition to reforming the legal frameworks governing waste, basic steps to start addressing corruption risks are: • More research and corruption risk assessments on waste management supply chains Greater investment in preventive measures, starting with digitalising administrative processes. • More joined-up enforcement of waste management legislation through inter-agency cooperation and joint investigations. • Extending wider transparency and accountability measures like open data and whistleblowing systems to the waste management field. • Targeted capacity building and awareness raising for regulators and law enforcement. • Collective Action initiatives between public, private and civil society actors in the waste management field, to build trust and understanding, share good practices and co-develop self-regulatory standards.

Basel, SWIT: Basel Institute on Governance, 2023. 62p.

By Angus K Ryan

Crime can evade detection and prosecution by criminal justice systems. This can include safety crime, briefly defined here as violations of law that either do, or have the potential to cause sudden death or injury as a result of work-related activities. Research estimates that 2.3 million people across the globe succumb to work-related incidents and diseases every year, and that safety crime causes nearly 900 annual deaths in Britain. Despite this largescale harm, safety crime fails to attract major political, public, or academic attention. One consequence of the lack of attention to safety crime in policy discussions is a significant gap in the body of knowledge on how to effectively punish safety criminals. This thesis aims to address how the effectiveness of penalties for safety criminals can be improved to reduce safety crime. To fulfil this aim, this study answers: which theories are currently informing the punishment of safety criminals in England and Wales? Which theories are effective at punishing safety criminals and why are they effective? How can penalties be used to effectively punish safety criminals? This qualitative study explores 21 stakeholders’ views on the relationship between the punishment of safety criminals and the prevalence of the theories of deterrence, retributive justice, rehabilitation, and incapacitation in England and Wales. The findings of this study indicate that there is a lack of punishment for safety criminals in England and Wales, and that the theories of deterrence, retributive justice, rehabilitation, and incapacitation can be used in varying degrees of effectiveness against these persons, typically dependent on how penalties are used to achieve these theories. The interview data suggests numerous methods of improving current penalties and effectively punishing safety criminals. This study concludes that a mixture of sanctions in a pyramid of penalties should be used to punish safety criminals more effectively.

Bristol, UK: University of Bristol, 2022. 300p.

By Jack Nicholls; Aditya Kuppa; Nhien-An Le-Khac

Machine Learning and Deep Learning methods are widely adopted across financial domains to support trading activities, mobile banking, payments, and making customer credit decisions. These methods also play a vital role in combating financial crime, fraud, and cyberattacks. Financial crime is increasingly being committed over cyberspace, and cybercriminals are using a combination of hacking and social engineering techniques which are bypassing current financial and corporate institution security. With this comes a new umbrella term to capture the evolving landscape which is financial cybercrime. It is a combination of financial crime, hacking, and social engineering committed over cyberspace for the sole purpose of illegal economic gain. Identifying financial cybercrime-related activities is a hard problem, for example, a highly restrictive algorithm may block all suspicious activity obstructing genuine customer business. Navigating and identifying legitimate illicit transactions is not the only issue faced by financial institutions, there is a growing demand of transparency, fairness, and privacy from customers and regulators, which imposes unique constraints on the application of artificial intelligence methods to detect fraud-related activities. Traditionally, rule based systems and shallow anomaly detection methods have been applied to detect financial crime and fraud, but recent developments have seen graph based techniques and neural network models being used to tackle financial cybercrime. There is still a lack of a holistic understanding of the financial cybercrime ecosystem, relevant methods, and their drawbacks and new emerging open problems in this domain in spite of their popularity. In this survey, we aim to bridge the gap by studying the financial cybercrime ecosystem based on four axes: (a) different fraud methods adopted by criminals; (b) relevant systems, algorithms, drawbacks, constraints, and metrics used to combat each fraud type; (c) the relevant personas and stakeholders involved; (d) open and emerging problems in the financial cybercrime domain.

IEEE Access ( Volume: 9), 2021, 22p.

By David B. Hinchman,

Ransomware is a malicious software that encrypts files and leaves data and systems unusable. With ransomware attacks, hackers gain entry into a system, lock out users, and demand payment to regain access.

Homeland Security, FBI, and Secret Service help state, local, and other governments prevent or respond to ransomware attacks on systems like emergency services. Most government entities said they're satisfied with the agencies' prevention and response efforts. But many cited inconsistent communication during attacks as a problem. We recommended that the federal agencies address cited issues and follow key practices for better collaboration.

Washington, DC: U.S. Government Accountability Office, 2022. 70p.

By Mark Button · David Shepherd · Jeyong Jung

This paper explores the use of fake social media accounts for economic espionage. It focuses solely on the first step of the recruitment process, the link requests. There has been very little research on economic espionage and none on the use of fake social media profiles as a means of recruitment. The methodology is built upon an inductive approach based on a survey of 2,000 UK professionals who use social media for professional purposes to provide practical and theoretical insights into the problem drawn from a Qualtrics panel. The results illustrate that a quarter of professionals are ill-prepared for the threat of fake social media profiles for the purposes of espionage because they either do not check link requests or accept them even with risky attributes. It further finds a substantial minority are carelessly indifferent to information security and computer network security, and are so indifferent to the identities behind link requests that they auto-link with everyone. The paper also explores the homophily-heterophily orientation of professionals. It argues that homophily-orientated professionals tend to reject profiles with espionage characteristics, whilst heterophily-orientated professionals are susceptible because they embrace social difference. The practical implications are that employers need to strengthen their information security training programmes, the security services need to be more explicit in characterising the threats, and regulation is required to force the social media companies to focus on tackling the fake profle problem.

Security Journal (2025) 38:30

By George Herbert

This rapid research review provides an overview of the current state of knowledge on the scale and dynamics of trade-based money laundering (TBML) and key challenges and opportunities in relation to TBML, both globally and in relation to the United Kingdom (UK) specifically. The study took place over ten days in August and September 2022, and involved a review of existing literature, as well as two interviews with experts. Much of the literature reviewed originated from international organisations and publications by national governments, supplemented by news reports and publications by private sector firms.

K4D Emerging Issues Report 55.

Brighton, UK: Institute of Development Studies. .2022.165p.

By Michael Skidmore and Beth Aikenhead

This study aims to improve our understanding of the most serious fraud offences perpetrated in the UK, specifically the diversity of methods for committing these crimes, the characteristics and pathways of offenders involved and where applicable, how the groups or networks of offenders operate. This is an exploratory study which used qualitative data taken from the documents compiled by police practitioners in 25 separate criminal investigations. The cases included in this analysis do not constitute a representative sample of frauds in England and Wales during this period. The selection of cases reflects the choices made by the research team to incorporate a diversity of methods, offenders and settings to capture the breadth of fraud. Furthermore, the sampling frame is the product of practitioner choices over which crimes to assign investigation by specialist teams; these are a limited resource and due to the challenges of international investigation, will likely prioritise offending that has a footprint in the UK. Furthermore, in focusing on frauds that were perpetrated (at least in part) from within England and Wales it does not represent fraud offending that emanates from other countries. The specific fraud cases were serious for different reasons; high financial losses (£100,000 or more), high volume offending (50 or more known victims) and high victim impact (assessed by the victim and/or police practitioner). These dimensions of harm reflect those used in practitioner assessments for deciding which frauds are high harm and a priority for intervention. Only three cases satisfied all three harm criteria, all of which involved the mis-selling of investments. Twelve cases satisfied only one criterion and those linked to each dimension of harm were associated with different methods and victims; all cases that fulfilled the high financial loss criterion had defrauded businesses, and two out of three that fulfilled the high-volume criterion involved taking advance payment from consumers In five cases the scale of victimisation and impact was hidden, but they were included because they involved high-risk offenders suspected of being engaged in serious and complex offending. There was considerable diversity in the methods for perpetrating serious fraud and this study borrows from a typology of acquisitive crime developed in a previous study (Naylor, 2002). This model provided a good fit for distinguishing serious frauds on the basis of two overarching models of offending, and this delineation simultaneously revealed distinctions in the situational context, victim and offender profiles: • Commercial frauds: perpetrated from within a legitimate or pseudo-legitimate business setting and included the sale of investments or the mis-selling of products or services online or face-to-face, and nearly all had victimised individual members of the public. • Predatory frauds: involved theft by impersonating legitimate individuals or organisations, mostly by offenders operating from outside of a business setting and without the pretence of a legitimate commercial exchange. The victim profile was more varied, and over half had victimised businesses (for example, payment diversion fraud). There was divergence in the types of fraud offence encompassed by each category of fraud.

London: Police Foundation 2023. 39p.

By Robert Leiter

  In debates over the Second Amendment, the conventional view is that the government ought to possess a monopoly of legitimate force, subject to the right of individuals to act in emergency self-defense. Many treat the non-defensive circumstances in which our system decentralizes force as holdovers from the days of nonprofessional police and soldiers. When it comes to the Second Amendment, many believe that the only legitimate reason individuals may bear arms today is for individual self-defense against isolated criminal violence (e.g., to resist a home invasion). This Symposium Essay attacks the monopoly-of-force account, justifying the continued relevance of American law’s decentralization of legitimate force. This Essay argues that decentralization of force remains important for three reasons. First, despite the rise of professional police, American law enforcement still enforces core crimes below desirable levels, particularly in disadvantaged and rural communities and during times of civil unrest. Decentralization of force mitigates this underenforcement problem. And decentralization may be a better solution than providing more police because many areas where law is under-enforced also (paradoxically) suffer from the effects of overcriminalization. Second, American law has a mismatch between public duties and private rights. Providing effective law enforcement is only a public duty. Individuals have no private claim that the government adequately enforce the law or protect them against unlawful violence. Self-help and private law enforcement are the best remedies when governments undersupply needed levels of police protection. Third, even if the government has a monopoly of force, it does not follow that government officers are the only ones in whom the government’s monopoly may be vested. The “government” is an incorporeal entity whose power must be exercised by human agents. Agents do not perfectly carry out the tasks of their principals; some government officers commit malfeasance and nonfeasance. The decentralization of force provides a remedy for such abuses of office. Ultimately, this Essay concludes that the individual right to bear arms still has relevance for public defense and security. This fact should warrant consideration when determining the scope of the right, including that the  arms protected by the Second Amendment should continue to include those arms that are primarily useful for public security.   

 116 Nw. U. L. Rev. 35 (2021), 46p.

By Peter Leasure and Robert Kaminski

The current study used a time series design with Ohio State Highway Patrol and Ohio Department of Public Safety data to explore whether sales of recreational marijuana increased incidents of operating a vehicle while impaired (OVI) in Franklin County, Ohio and vehicle crashes in Columbus, Ohio. Two different statistical models were used to ensure the robustness of the results (a generalized linear model and Linden's itsa). In other words, we would want to see the same results from both models for moderate support of a particular finding. The results were mixed regarding the impact of recreational marijuana sales on total OVIs in Franklin County, Ohio. The generalized linear model showed a statistically significant increase in OVIs after recreational sales began, but the itsa model failed to replicate that finding. The results were also mixed regarding the impact of recreational marijuana sales on marijuana OVIs in Franklin County, Ohio. The generalized linear model showed a statistically significant increase in marijuana OVIs after recreational sales began, but the itsa model failed to replicate that finding. However, both models failed to find that recreational sales increased vehicle crashes in Columbus, Ohio, meaning that there is modest evidence that recreational sales did not increase vehicle crashes in Columbus, Ohio. A sensitivity analysis that used a balanced time series (91 days before the intervention and 91 days after) was also utilized, and those results largely confirmed the above findings.

Ohio State Legal Studies Research Paper No. 915

Columbus, OH Ohio State University (OSU) - Michael E. Moritz College of Law

By Moises Rendon, Linnea Sandin, and Claudia Fernandez

While the economic, humanitarian, and political crisis in Venezuela worsens, criminal groups—including gangs, Colombian guerrilla groups, and colectivos (paramilitary groups)—are competing for control of the country’s valuable mineral resources. These resources include bauxite, coltan, diamonds, and, particularly, gold. Illegal mining is causing irreversible damage to the environment, fueling human rights abuses, and creating significant security threats for Venezuela and the region.

At the same time, as significant sanctions and diplomatic isolation have not yet impacted Nicolas Maduro’s hold on power, illegal mining raises three fundamental issues for policymakers: (1) the implications of further instability in an already failed state, (2) the impact on sanctions policies, and (3) the challenge of getting these territories back from armed groups once there is a transition.

Washington DC: Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), 2020. 9p.

By The Children's Commission of the UK

“Maybe young girls will not post what they want to post or do something they would like to do just in case there’s this fear of ‘Oh I might be abused, this might be turned into a bit of sexual content’ when it shouldn’t have been.” – Girl, 17, focus group Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) is transforming the online world. AI models can generate text, images, videos, and hold conversations in response to a handful of prompts and are rightly being seen as a development with huge potential for the enhancement of people’s lives. However, these tools are also being misused at an alarming cost to children’s online and offline safety. ‘Nudification’ tools are apps and websites that create sexually explicit deepfake images of real people, and at the time of writing, this technology is legal in the UK. GenAI, which is often free to use and easy to programme, has supercharged the growth of these tools. Despite this being a relatively new technology, the high risk of harm it presents to children is increasingly evident. Children told the Children’s Commissioner’s Office (CCo) team that the very existence of technology, that could strip people of their clothes, frightened them. In a series of focus groups held with children in their schools (quoted throughout this report), the team heard girls describe how they were trying to reduce the chance of featuring in a sexually explicit deepfake by limiting their participation in the online world- a space which could enhance their social lives, play and learning, if it were safe for them. This report identifies the threat that sexually explicit deepfake technology presents to children. Currently, it is illegal to create a sexually explicit image of a child. Yet, the technology that is used to do so remains legal and accessible through the most popular parts of the online world, including large social media platforms and search engines. After analysing what is known about this new technological threat, assessing what it looks like in the online landscape, and speaking to children about what it means for them, this report has found: • Nudification tools and sexually explicit deepfake technologies present a high risk of harm to children: o Nudification tools target women and girls in particular, and many only work on female bodies. This is contributing to a culture of misogyny both online and offline. o The presence of nudification technology is having a chilling effect on girls’ participation in the online world. Girls are taking preventative steps to keep themselves safe from being victimised by nudification tools, in the same way that girls follow other rules to keep themselves safe in the offline world – like not walking home alone at night. o Children want action to be taken to tackle the misuse of AI technology. One girl questioned what the point of it was, if it only seemed to be used for bad intentions: “Do you know why deepfake was created? Like, what was the purpose of it? Because I don't see any positives” – Girl, 16. • Nudification tools and sexually explicit deepfake technologies are easily accessible through popular online platforms o Search engines and social media platforms are the most common way that users access nudification apps and technologies. o GenAI has made the development of nudification technology easy and cheap. o Open-source AI models that are not primarily designed to create overtly sexually explicit images or videos still present a risk of harm to children and young people The Children’s Commissioner wants GenAI technology, and future AI technology, to be made safe for children, and calls on the Government to: 1. Ban bespoke nudification apps. 2. Bring in specific legal responsibilities for the companies developing GenAI tools to screen their tools for nudifying risks to children and mitigate them. 3. Provide children with an effective route to have sexually explicit deepfake images of themselves removed from the internet. 4. Committo making the online world safer for girls, by recognising sexually explicit deepfake abuse - and bespoke services used to carry this out - as acts of violence against women and girls 

London: The Children's Commissioner, 2025. 34p.