Compiled by Julia Stanyard, Michael McLaggan, Aron Hyman, Julian Rademeyer, Jenni Irish-Qhobosheane, Matt Herbert, Jason Eligh, Marcena Hunter and Livia Wagner

East and Southern Africa (ESA) is a pivotal node for organized crime, connecting regional criminal markets to global networks. From the shores of Somalia to border crossings and international air and seaports in Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, South Africa and Namibia, the region serves as a thriving source, hub and conduit for a wide variety of illegal commodities.

For example, heroin trafficked from Afghanistan via Pakistan and Iran is shipped across the Arabian Sea and Indian Ocean by dhow before it is deposited in northern Mozambique and Tanzania. There, it splits into two primary supply lines: one of higher purity bound for international markets in Europe and Australia, and another that is significantly adulterated and consumed in towns and villages across ESA.

Rhino horn is smuggled by air from Johannesburg and Addis Ababa, routed through Dubai and Doha and sometimes Paris and London to throw off law enforcement. Ivory departs in shipping containers from ports in Dar es Salaam, Nampula and Durban, ending up in Singapore, Sihanoukville, Huangpu and Haiphong. Gold mined illegally in Zimbabwe’s mineral-rich Kwekwe gold fields and deep shaft mines in the towns of Krugersdorp, Carletonville, Klerksdorp and Welkom on South Africa’s Vaal Reef is processed and eventually laundered through Dubai. Gold is smuggled by the tonne into countries along the strife-torn Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)’s eastern border and laundered through Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda, Tanzania and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). In northern Mozambique and South Africa’s KwaZulu-Natal province, Islamic State-aligned insurgents and supporters have been implicated in criminal economies, gold smuggling, and kidnapping and extortion schemes to raise funds.

In addition to local criminal actors, the region has attracted a coterie of international criminal players. For instance, networks from China, Pakistan and Iran are known to interface with African intermediaries for drug trafficking (drug precursor chemicals, methamphetamine and heroin) and wildlife smuggling (notably of abalone and ivory). In Southern Africa, Nigerian and Congolese syndicates, often operating from hubs such as Johannesburg, coordinate regional drug distribution and financial fraud schemes while also connecting to global diaspora networks.

Yet this chaotic mixture of different criminal commodities and networks is, in many ways, shaped by geography and coalesces around a spider’s web of regional hubs and economic centres. Environmental, social and regional dynamics in hinterlands allow warlords and smugglers to thrive, while bustling trade hubs provide cover for clandestine flows and access to key transport links. In urban slums, neglected towns and remote rural communities, criminal actors and parallel illicit economies rapidly fill the void left by an often absent state. Ancient trade and migratory routes over mountains and along rivers and coastlines that long pre-date colonial borders allow for the largely untrammelled movement of people and goods, both licit and illicit. This means many of these trafficking networks and criminal groups are found concentrated in certain illicit hubs.

The challenges in countering this are enormous. For example, Bole International Airport in Ethiopia, a key smuggling hub for extractives, wildlife products, people and drugs, handles more than 24 million passengers, 100,000 flights, 50 million pieces of luggage and around 226,000 tonnes of cargo every year. Yet it lacks sufficient screening equipment, staff and sniffer dogs. The South African port of Durban, notorious for its inefficiency, corruption and drug trafficking, handles around 60% of South Africa’s container traffic: 2.9 million 20-foot-equivalent units per year. Only a fraction can feasibly be scanned or searched.

This report aims to define where the illicit hubs of the region are and explain which factors shape the geography of organized crime in ESA across four main markets: drugs, wildlife, extractives, and human trafficking and smuggling. These illicit markets are often looked at in isolation by enforcement bodies, policymakers and analysts. While this is often justified, as it means action can be taken against a particular form of illicit trade, looking at a range of illicit markets together can better demonstrate where convergence occurs and illuminate the common factors that shape the geographical concentrations of these criminal markets.

Geneva, SWIT: Global Initiative against Transnational Organized Crime, 2025. 86p.

By Antonio Mazzitelli

According to the US Government, over 60 percent of the cocaine intended for the US market transit through Central American. Since the early 1990’s, Colombian and Mexican drug trafficking organizations (DTOs) established logistics bases both on the Atlantic and Pacific coasts of Central America, facilitating the movements of large shipments of cocaine. In establishing these routes, the DTOs took advantage of a number of local enabling factors. Among them, the preexistence of well-established smuggling networks, the weakness of law enforcement and judicial structures in most countries in the region, and the overall culture of lawless and impunity resulting from the civil conflicts that marked the paths to democracy of some of these nations. The tough campaigns launched against DTOs by the governments of Colombia and Mexico during the past eight years, coupled with the gradual evolution of both local and foreign criminal organizations (COs) involved in (but not exclusively) cocaine trafficking, seem to have further worsened the situation in Central America. Old styled DTOs and local “transportistas” are increasingly challenged by new criminal groups, usually emerging from the military and claiming specific territories. These new groups are exerting a capillary control over all types of criminal activity taking place in the territories under their control. The confrontation between two different criminal “cultures”-- the first, business oriented; the second one, territorial oriented-- constitutes a serious threat not only to the security of citizens, but also to the very consolidation of balanced democratic rule in the region. Mexican DTOs and COs poses a serious threat to Central American, if left unchecked. Responses by national institutions, assisted by their main international partners, will have to be carefully tailored according to the specific feature of the predominant foreign criminal organization operating in its territory. In the case of DTOs, interventions will have to privilege investments in the areas of financial investigations, specialized prosecution and international cooperation, as well as anti-corruption initiatives. In combating COs (Zetas type), intervention will have to privilege restructuring, professionalization and deployment of local police corps that would then be capable of controlling the territory and preventing the infiltration of external criminal actors. In both cases, governments need to strengthen the intelligence capacity of law enforcement agencies allowing the early identification of the likely threat, its analysis and its subsequent removal. National law enforcement and judicial efforts should also be geared toward the creation of a sincere and mutual beneficial international cooperation (both investigative and judicial) that is built not only on common objectives, but also on the use of common investigative instruments and harmonized procedures.

Miami: Florida International University, Western Hemisphere security Analysis Center, 2011. 49p

By the European Union Drugs Agency (EUDA)

A large variety of individuals, many of them designated as high-value targets, groups and networks shape the complex supply of cocaine to the EU. Criminal networks involved in cocaine trafficking are highly resilient, with some operating across several continents. For example, some locations in the Middle East, such as the United Arab Emirates, have emerged as a safe haven for top-level organisers of cocaine trafficking to the EU. Further, criminal networks originating from the EU or the EU’s neighbourhood have also become established in key locations in South America, or maintain direct contacts with suppliers. Trusted members of the criminal networks are sent to arrange and supervise these shipments.

Wholesalers are involved in the acquisition, storage and distribution of cocaine to regional and local markets. Local criminal networks then usually take care of mid-level or retail distribution or both. However, some Albanian-speaking criminal networks have made successful attempts to apply an end-to-end business model from producing or transit countries in South America to retail distribution within the EU and beyond (see Box Cocaine trafficking by criminal networks from Western Balkans). This includes financing, access to suppliers in the producing or transit countries, transportation, extraction, storage, distribution and money collection.

The substantial profits associated with the cocaine trade have attracted numerous EU-based criminal networks to become involved. Several of these operate in the main EU distribution hubs and also organise shipments from countries of origin and transit to the EU. The majority of the criminal networks reported to Europol have been active for more than 10 years, with some actors having played a key role for decades, such as Italian networks, while new players are on the lookout for a bigger share of the cocaine market, such as Albanian, Belgian, British, Dutch, French, Irish, Moroccan, Serbian, Spanish and Turkish networks (UNODC and Europol, 2021).

Lisbon: EUDA, 2023. 11p.

By Anthea McCarthy-Jones and Mark Turner

The growth of transnational organised crime has been widely perceived as a major national and international security threat. The growth has been facilitated by globalisation, in which people, money, information and goods flow more easily and rapidly across international borders. To take advantage of the illicit transnational business opportunities, crime groups have restructured from hierarchical organisations to more loosely structured configurations known as ‘dark networks.’ Crucial to the success of these networks are brokers, who enable exchanges between previously disconnected actors. In this paper, we present a new way in which to understand the role of the broker in illicit networks by distinguishing how brokers adopt different strategies that ultimately have a transactional or transformational impact on the networks they serve.

Journal of Illicit Economies and Development, 5(1): pp. 58–69.

By Raúl Zepeda Gil

Violence rising in Latin America since the early 1990s has puzzled media, policymakers and academia. Characterising high scales of violence in non-political confrontations has been one of the main challenges. The main argument of this essay is that the hybrid criminal nature of violence in Latin America by non-state organisations has pushed the discussion to several misinterpretations and conceptual stretching that produces fog rather than clarity. Instead, this essay proposes a conceptof criminal war that can capture the complex nature of violence in Latin America by drawing convergences and divergences from diverse fields of literature and confronting usual mischaracterisations in current Latin American research.

Third World QuarTerly2023, Vol. 44, No. 4, 776–794

By Nynke M. D. Niezink · Paolo Campana

This study examines the mechanisms underpinning the emergence of violence among individuals in the organized crime milieu. Methods : Relying on criminal event data recorded by a UK Police Force, we apply a longitudinal network approach to study violent interactions among offenders. The data span the period from 2000 to 2016 and include 6,234 offenders and 23,513 organized crime related events. Instead of aggregating these data over time, we use a relational event-based approach to take into consideration the order of events. We employ an actor-oriented framework to model offenders' victim choices in 156 violent events in the OC milieu. Results - We fnd that the choice of offenders to target a particular victim is strongly affected by their mutual history. A violent act is often preceded by a previous act of violence, both in the form of repeated violence and reciprocated violence. We show that violence is strongly associated with prior co-offending turning sour. We uncover a strong efect for previous harassment as a retaliation cum escalation mechanism. Finally, we fnd evidence of conflicts within organized crime groups and of violence being directed to offenders with the same ethnic background. Conclusions - Relational effects on victimization are consistently stronger than the effects of individual characteristics. Therefore, from a policy perspective, we believe that relational red fags (or risk factors) should play a more central role. A focus on harassment could be valuable in the development of an early intervention strategy.

Journal of Quantitative Criminology (2023) 39:655–678

Edited by Armon J. Tamatea, Andrew J. Day and & David J. Cooke

Preventing Prison Violence introduces the idea of ‘prison ecologies’ – a multi-layered perspective to understanding prison violence as a ‘product’ of human, environment (social and physical), systemic, and societal influences – and how an ecological approach is helpful to prevention efforts.

Interpersonal violence is a global concern and a significant cause of death around the world. In prisons, the human, financial, and health burden of violence presents a significant social issue – as well as a ‘wicked problem’ that does not permit of simplistic solutions. Recent innovations in data capture means that questions about violence, gang-affiliations, and prisons that could not be answered previously can now be explored. The central theme of this book is that prisons are ‘ecologies’ – spaces where people, resources, and the built environment are interrelated – and that violence is a product of a complex of interpersonal and environmental factors that increase the likelihood of assault – but also provide opportunities for solutions. Drawing on psychology, geography, indigenous knowledge, gang culture, and predictive modelling, this book expands beyond the conventional individual-focused ‘assessment-intervention-prevention’ approach to research in this field, towards a holistic and ecological way of thinking that recognises individual, organisational, and cultural factors, as well as the role of the physical environment itself in the facilitation and prohibition of aggression.

Providing a comprehensive resource for those who are interested in making prisons safer; firmly based in contemporary research and theory, Preventing Prison Violence will be of great interest to students and scholars of Penology, Violence and Forensic Psychology, as well as to professionals working in criminal justice settings.

London; New York: Routledge, 2023.

By Shadd Maruna

Early desistance research identified a key role for redemption scripts in the process of desisting from crime. This research emerged in an incredibly punitive environment at the turn of the century, when core beliefs about human redeemability were being challenged by popular and academic theories about incorrigible predators incapable of change. Desistance research made a profound impact, inspiring academic scholarship and changes to the policy and practice of reintegration. However, desistance research can also be accused of numerous crimes, as well, ranging from the adoption of an overly individualistic framing to the usurpation of the voices of research contributors. Fortunately, redemption is possible. A new generation of desistance theory and research now explicitly addresses the political and cultural factors impacting the desistance process and proposes that these hardened prejudices will only be changed by supporting a social movement led by and for system-impacted people. With their proven ability to inspire hope and promote action, redemption scripts may, again, be a key tool in such a movement.

Criminology, Volume63, Issue1

February 2025

Pages 5-25

By Lisa Blaydes, James D. Fearon, and Mae MacDonald

Violence against women occurs at high rates in societies across the world. The most common form is intimate partner violence, abuse perpetrated against a spouse or intimate relationship partner. We present a household bargaining model that seeks to clarify causal mechanisms and to identify key pathways by which economic, political, legal, and cultural factors external to households influence domestic abuse rates, gender equity within relationships, and rates of relationship dissolution. We relate key parameters to factors that differ across societies and over time, including economic opportunities for women, laws that criminalize domestic abuse, and social norms associated with gender equality. We review research associated with these topics to establish what we know and do not know about violence against women in households. While much of this literature is outside of the field of political science, we highlight opportunities for political scientists to contribute to our understanding of how and why domestic violence persists in the world today.

Annu. Rev. Political Sci. 2025. 28:351–74

By Edelyn Verona and Bryanna Fox

The United States has one of the highest rates of correctional supervision among all nations in the world, reflecting the disproportionate incarceration of racial minorities and economically disadvantaged groups. Scholars have emphasized the role of structural factors and governmental policies in longterm shifts in crime and incarceration. However, much of the psychological research on crime and antisocial behaviors has not deeply considered this broader context, focusing mostly on individual and proximal environmental risk factors. This article presents a novel synthesis of large cross-disciplinary literatures that have not been previously integrated. After a brief summary of dominant themes in psychological research on the topic, we review the strong evidence, primarily from fields outside of psychology, for structural forces that explain pathways into criminal justice involvement, independent of individual-level explanations. A broader ecological framework is outlined to help unconfound individual and structural influences, with the hope of motivating policy change that is evidence-based and equitable.

Annu. Rev. Clin. Psychol. 2025. 21:439–64

By Omar García-Ponce

The study of criminal violence has received increasing attention in political science over the past 15 years, as organized criminal groups have grown and diversified worldwide, unleashing unprecedented waves of violence. This article presents a critical assessment of the current state of political science scholarship on criminal violence. It discusses the sources and dynamics of organized criminal violence, emphasizing the reconceptualization of state–criminal group relationships in the literature, shifts in illegal markets, and the political incentives fueling criminal wars. It also examines how states and societies respond to criminal violence. State responses include punitive approaches, institutional reform, and community-based interventions, while societal responses can be examined through the lenses of exit (e.g., migration, disengagement), voice (e.g., political participation, collective resistance), and loyalty (i.e., compliance with state authorities or criminal groups). The article also addresses conceptual and methodological challenges, policy implications, and ethical considerations inherent in this field of study and identifies promising pathways for future research. 

Annu. Rev. Political Sci. 2025. 28:435–56 

By Katalin Parti

In an attempt to understand how differently fraud works depending on a victim’s age, we have examined the effects of situational (lifestyle-routine activities), self-control, and sociodemographic variables on scam victimization across age groups. The analysis was carried out on a national sample of 2,558 Americans, representative by age, sex, and race, and includes additional factors such as their education, living arrangement, employment, and propensity for reporting a crime or asking for help. The results substantiate research findings of the contribution of self-control and LRAT in predicting victimization in general but could not identify major situational and individual differences between older and younger Americans’ scam victimization. However, employment can function as a protective factor for older individuals in some online fraud scenarios. Furthermore, older adults show significantly more reluctance in asking for help or reporting than do younger ones. Future research must address these differences. The author also suggests developing specific variables for measuring how lifestyle-routine activity theory works in scam victimization.

International Journal of Cybersecurity Intelligence & Cybercrime: 5(3), 20-40

By Matthew La Lime

Black Axe’s violent organized criminal network undermines economic development and political reform within Nigeria while scamming victims abroad out of billions via cybercrime.

A 21-country INTERPOL initiative known as Operation Jackal III targeting Black Axe, the Nigerian organized crime group, led to the arrest of 300 suspects and the seizure of $3 million in assets in a sting operation culminating in July 2024. While a victory for law enforcement, the action is unlikely to make a dent in the operations of Black Axe, which has an estimated 30,000 members in dozens of countries and yearly proceeds estimated to exceed $5 billion.

First founded in 1977 at the University of Benin in Edo State as a pan-African Black Power student confraternity, Black Axe has since morphed into a sophisticated multinational criminal enterprise with cells in the United States, Canada, Italy, Brazil, Argentina, Ireland, the United Arab Emirates, South Africa, France, the United Kingdom, Spain, Portugal, and the Netherlands, among others. The organization also maintains a foothold in neighboring West African countries, such as Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire, and can be found operating as far afield as China, Japan, Malaysia, and Singapore.

The proceeds gained from cybercrime have spawned a complex web of money laundering networks spanning the globe.

Known for its violence and brutality in Nigeria, Black Axe members (referred to as Axemen) routinely engage in drug dealing, smuggling, kidnapping, and extortion. Axemen also compete over territory with rival criminal groups—like the Maphites, the Supreme Eiye Confraternity, and the Vikings—and are accused of perpetuating a culture of urban violence, political corruption, and juridical impunity. Nigeria recorded almost 6,000 gang-related deaths across 31 states from 2006 to 2021.

In its operations abroad, Black Axe members engage in crimes such as drug-trafficking, extortion, and sex worker management. The organization’s most profitable criminal enterprise, cybercrime, transcends geographic boundaries and is thought to have netted the organization tens of billions of dollars. Starting out as simple “Yahoo Boys” pulling advance-fee scams via email, many Black Axe members have grown into shrewd cybercriminals who specialize in defrauding businesses out of thousands if not millions of dollars. The proceeds gained from cybercrime have, in turn, spawned a complex web of money laundering networks spanning the globe.

Washington, DC: Africa Center for Strategic Studies, 2024. 8p.

By Valentín Figueroa and Guadalupe Tuñón

We show that the emancipation of enslaved Black people led to their subsequent incarceration in a context of urban slavery —a context that lacked the economic incentives for incarceration present in plantation economies such as the U.S. South. To establish causality, we study a lottery of certificates of freedom in nineteenth-century Buenos Aires that randomly freed a small group of enslaved persons. Through archival research and digitization of the full count of the handwritten 1810 census, we link lottery winners and sets of eligible nonwinners to police records until 1830. We find that emancipation increased the probability of incarceration, on average, by 11.8 percentage points. Exploring mechanisms, we find no evidence that the e↵ect was driven by rural labor shortages, bur rather by the criminalization of petty offenses..

Peinxwron, NJ: Princeton University,

Liechtenstein Institute on Self-Determination.

2023. 49p.

By Graeme R. Newman

This essay critiques a study by Copes and Vieraitis regarding the "bounded rationality" of identity thieves, arguing that a focus on offender psychology and rationalizations is insufficient for developing effective crime reduction policies[cite: ]Newman contends that current criminal justice approaches rely too heavily on punishment and victim vindication, which, while politically satisfying, fail to reduce the prevalence of identity theft.

The author advances the following arguments regarding the development of effective policy:

* Policies based on the "deep psychology" of offenders or their denial of victims are largely fruitless because these rationalizations are often unconscious defense mechanisms. Instead of asking “why” offenders commit crimes, policy should focus on “how” they are accomplished.

* Newman distinguishes between crime mitigation (reducing damage to victims) and crime prevention (reducing the number of crimes)[cite:. While legislation and credit reporting agencies have improved mitigation efforts for victims, these measures do not address the root causes of the crime.

* Effective prevention must target the technological and business arrangements that create opportunities for theft. This involves shifting focus from the offender to the "significant players" (businesses) who can implement standard security procedures, such as the use of PINs for credit cards, to harden targets.

* The essay concludes that businesses often view fraud merely as a cost of doing business rather than a crime to be prevented[cite:. Therefore, the government must establish policies that compel businesses to accept responsibility for crime reduction and eliminate the opportunities they create through their products and services[cite.

Criminology and Public Policy Vol. 8. Issue 2.

Wayne G. Sayles:

Classical Deception is a detailed and accessible exploration of the long history of counterfeit ancient coins and the methods by which they are produced, detected, and sometimes unwittingly circulated within the numismatic world. Designed for collectors, students of antiquity, and museum professionals alike, the book traces forgery practices from antiquity to the modern era, showing that imitations have accompanied genuine coinage for as long as coins have existed. Sayles examines a spectrum of deceptions — from ancient contemporary counterfeits meant to pass in daily commerce, to the sophisticated modern forgeries that challenge even seasoned experts.

A substantial portion of the book profiles well-known forgers, documenting their techniques, motives, and the specific pieces they produced. Sayles pays particular attention to the prolific work of modern reproduction artists, including Peter Rosa, whose replicas are widely encountered and often misunderstood by beginning collectors. More than 200 photographs allow readers to visually compare authentic coins with their deceptive counterparts, highlighting telltale markers in style, fabric, metallurgy, and die workmanship.

Sayles also introduces the scientific and observational tools available to detect fakes — from simple weight measurement and magnified study of surfaces to metallurgical testing, microscopy, and imaging technologies. Throughout, he emphasizes practical guidance: what warning signs to look for, how to assess provenance, and how to avoid costly errors in the marketplace.

Ultimately, Classical Deception serves both as a cautionary manual and as a historical study of ingenuity, fraud, and craftsmanship. It equips the reader to navigate the hazards of collecting while deepening appreciation for the authentic artistry of ancient coinage.

By Megan M. McNally and Graeme R. Newman

From the cover: There has been a glaring lack of scholarly attention to the crime of identity theft, according to the editors. The chapters in this volume attempt to fill some of this gap by exploring theory and research on identity theft, as well as situational measures to prevent its occurrence.

The editors' introduction outlines several key issues related to the definition, extent and commission of identity theft. The chapter by Graeme Newman applies the opportunity perspective to the study of identity theft. Megan

McNally uses the "script" approach to examine the meaning and mechanics of identity theft in all of its forms. Henry Pontell, Gregory Brown and Anastasia Tosouni present new findings on how identity theft affects victims, based on data collected by the Identity Theft Resource Center. Heith Copes and Lynne Vieraitis describe how a sample of identity theft offenders viewed their crimes. Michael Levi recounts the evolution of identity fraud and its control in the U.K. Russell Smith presents a framework for evaluating preventive measures, particularly document-based systems, biometric technologies and identity cards. Sara Berg considers how information technology can be used within a situational crime prevention framework to fight identity theft. Robert Willison examines the use of situational crime prevention to protect sensitive personal information in the context of information systems security.

Crime Prevention Studies, volume 23. Willan Publishing. Culmcott House, Uffculme, Cullompton Devon EX 15 3AT, U.K. 2008. 195p.

By Schouten, Peer; Barnett, James

Banditry in northwest Nigeria has emerged as a pervasive security challenge, yet remains overshadowed by the focus on jihadist violence in the region. This report examines the evolution of banditry as a decentralised and dynamic phenomenon, encompassing cattle rustling, kidnapping for ransom, extortion and illicit mining. Unlike jihadist groups, bandit networks operate without ideological ambitions but significantly influence rural governance, challenging state authority through both roving predation and stationary extortion. The study explores the structure of bandit society, revealing a fragmented yet resilient hierarchy where power is defined by access to weapons, wealth and followers. Based on extensive field research and historical analysis, the report highlights how contemporary banditry borrows from precolonial patterns of violent regulation. It maps the emerging political geography of banditry, which, like precolonial rule, involves a system of concentric circles: bandit heartlands marked by cohabitation and governance, tribute zones where communities pay levies for security, and volatile raiding frontiers. This spatial model offers new insight into the variable of banditry and its differential effects on rural communities

DIIS Report Vol. 2025 No. 07 Copenhagen: DIIS: Danish Institute for International Studies, 2025. 77p.

By Beth Mooney Isabella Ross Sophie Wilkinson Danielle Banks Teresa Hulme

Executive summary The Home Secretary announced plans to deliver a Neighbourhood Policing Guarantee (NPG) in November last year, with the aim of rebuilding trust between local police forces and communities. This followed a decade where neighbourhood policing was, in effect, deprioritised and levels of public trust in the police and feelings of safety had declined substantially. This report makes 11 recommendations around how the NPG can be implemented in a way which meets public expectations, overcomes barriers identified by current neighbourhood officers and actively takes into account lessons learned from delivering the 2019 Police Uplift Programme. There are three sets of findings: Public’s priorities As a priority, the public are clear that they want their local neighbourhood policing teams to be physically visible in the community. They want these officers to engage with the public regularly, serving as the ‘friendly face’ of policing. More broadly, the public want neighbourhood policing teams to be more accessible to them, with clear information available around how they can be contacted directly and improved communication about what they are doing and why. Barriers identified by current neighbourhood officers A key barrier emerged from our focus groups with current neighbourhood officers and staff - that neighbourhood policing was not actively viewed as a specialism within forces. Officers reflected that this had two consequences. Firstly, resource was abstracted more often from neighbourhood policing teams compared with other teams, which limited their delivery against neighbourhood priorities. Secondly, neighbourhood policing was not viewed as a long-term career option, making it difficult to retain experienced neighbourhood officers and staff. Lessons learned from the 2019 Police Uplift Programme As part of the NPG, the Government has pledged to deliver 13,000 additional neighbourhood officers, PCSOs and Special Constables. Officers and staff were clear that additional resource was necessary to successfully deliver the NPG. A review of how the 2019 Police Uplift Programme, which recruited 20,000 officers, impacted policing outcomes demonstrates that simply increasing resource will not necessarily directly lead to better outcomes. It is clear from our analysis that infrastructure around uplifted resources – including appropriate timeframes for onboarding new recruits, sufficient recruitment and vetting capacity, and training plans – is critical. Using the findings set out here, recommendations to support the implementation of the NPG have been made across 4 key themes: Recruitment and training specifically for neighbourhood policing roles, retaining skilled neighbourhood officers and Special Constables over the longer-term, setting strategic and operational plans to anchor the NPG implementation in every force.

London: Crest, 2025

By Sophie Davis Manon Roberts Freya Smith

Neighbourhoods — understood here as the small, local areas people identify with in their daily lives which do not necessarily align with official administrative boundaries — play a central role in shaping people’s experiences of crime and safety. This is particularly true in relation to anti-social behaviour (ASB) and visible disorder. These issues, while often seen as less serious than violent crime, directly affect people’s day-to-day lives by shaping perceptions of safety, trust in institutions, and community cohesion. This paper makes the case for why neighbourhoods must be at the heart of crime policy — both as spaces where crime is experienced and as sites of potential solutions. The evidence is clear: the social and physical conditions of neighbourhoods are not incidental to crime — they help to generate it and shape how people respond to it. Poor lighting, unmanaged public spaces, and the erosion of social ties can all create the conditions in which ASB and crime thrive. Crucially, these neighbourhood characteristics can also be changed. Interventions that enhance the built environment, foster informal guardianship, and build local trust can have a preventative effect, reducing demand and improving outcomes cost-effectively. Over the past three decades, policy has increasingly acknowledged this link with initiatives such as Crime and Disorder Reduction Partnerships, neighbourhood policing and the Safer Streets Fund. These initiatives reflect a wider recognition that local, place-based approaches, built on strong partnerships and trust, are essential. However, the effectiveness of such approaches has often been undermined by fiscal constraints, insufficient targeting of the most affected neighbourhoods and a lack of investment in the social connections that sustain resilient communities. The government wants to ‘take back our streets’ as one of its key missions. In its June 2025 Spending Review, the government announced a new national commitment to improving 350 deprived communities, and a £240 million investment in a Growth Mission Fund — signalling a renewed commitment to place-based approaches. It was also announced that police spending power will grow by 1.7% annually, to support the government’s mission to make streets safer, complementing a pledge made in April 2025 to ‘restore local policing’ and a commitment to placing 13,000 neighbourhood police officers and police community support officers (PCSOs) into dedicated community roles. To achieve its ambitions, the government needs to ‘think neighbourhoods’: focus on areas where harm is greatest, invest in the social foundations of safety and deliver quick, visible improvements. Neighbourhood-focused approaches are not only effective, they are efficient. With limited public finances, place-based approaches offer a strategic route to delivering high-impact, low-cost crime reduction, particularly in relation to ASB and disorder. But achieving the government’s mission to ‘take back our streets’ requires more than additional police officers. It requires investing in both places and people — building social capital and strengthening cohesion — to prioritise key issues and needs at a place-based level.Summary of key findings Crime is heavily concentrated and persistent in areas of multiple disadvantage. A small proportion of geographic areas account for a disproportionate share of crime and ASB. These areas often face persistent poverty, underinvestment, and institutional neglect, which foster conditions for crime to take root and persist. Residents in these areas report significantly greater concerns about ASB, illegal drugs and safety, and feel less connected and optimistic about their communities. Disadvantage and instability reinforce each other, weakening community control. Factors such as residential turnover can interact with disadvantage to undermine social cohesion, weakening informal social control and making communities more vulnerable to ASB and crime. The built environment shapes both risk and resilience. Urban design influences crime not only by affecting opportunities for offending but also by shaping perceptions of safety, trust and community pride, and enabling more positive use of public space, including through increased natural surveillance and by supporting informal guardianship. Social cohesion and trust can act as protective factors, particularly in areas of disadvantage. Strong social bonds, shared norms, and a collective willingness to intervene (collective efficacy) can help neighbourhoods resist crime and ASB, even in deprived areas. Crime and ASB matter to communities — they act as wider signals of neighbourhood decline. Visible signs of disorder and ineffective institutional responses erode trust and community pride, reinforcing a negative cycle of decline and inse

London: Crest, 2025. 46p.