By Lily Robin, Bryce Peterson and Daniel Lawrence

In 2016, the Urban Institute received funding from the National Institute of Justice to help the Milwaukee Police Department (MPD) optimize its surveillance system. Improvements included doubling the number of MPD public surveillance cameras across Milwaukee, integrating video analytic technologies, and other software and hardware upgrades. The department also strategically installed two types of cameras—pan-tiltzoom (PTZ) and panoramic—at intersections across the city. This brief explains how PTZ and panoramic cameras work and how they differentially impact crime and support criminal investigations.

Washington, DC: The Urban Institute, 2020. 12p.

By  Livia Mucciolo, Fay Walker, and Aravind Boddupalli 

State and local officials are starting to consider the disproportionate effects of criminal legal fines and fees on the lives of families with low incomes—especially Black, Latine, and Native American families. Although policymakers have focused mostly on court and prison fees, most individuals may interact with the criminal legal system via parking tickets, which if left unpaid can turn into lifelong financial burdens. Parking tickets serve as a way to streamline city services like plowing, accessibility to fire hydrants, and street cleaning, but research and news investigations show they can also especially harm people of color and those with low incomes (Brazil 2018). 1 Parking tickets (also called “tickets”) refer to citations issued by police officers or other government traffic officials to inactive motor vehicles for violations of local laws. In this research brief, we analyze three aspects of parking tickets: locations in cities where tickets are issued, the number and dollar amount of tickets assessed, and the types of violations for which tickets are assessed. We look at tickets between January 2018 to December 2019, and we focus on three large cities: Austin, Texas; Minneapolis, Minnesota; and Portland, Oregon. We selected these cities because of their accessible data and because they were not among the prominent places studied in fines and fees literature so far. Our analysis shows a majority of parking tickets were issued in downtown areas, which typically have a higher density of office buildings, shops, and restaurants. This likely corresponds to the higher concentration of parking meters installed and monitored in commercial corridors. Overall, the largest contributors to parking tickets by type included expired or missing meter receipts and failure to display registration and parking in no-parking and tow-away zones. Because of data limitations, we could not determine the demographic composition of those ticketed. 

Washington, DC: The Urban Institute, 2023. 26p.

By Ashlin Oglesby-Neal, KiDeuk Kim, Sam Tecotzky, Josh Fording

Since 2014, Oakland residents have supported violence reduction strategies through the Public Safety and Services Violence Prevention Act, commonly referred to as Measure Z. Measure Z funds strategies implemented by the Oakland Police Department (OPD) and the Oakland Department of Violence Prevention. The Urban Institute and the Urban Strategies Council were contracted by the City of Oakland to evaluate these strategies. This report focuses on the strategies implemented by the OPD under Measure Z since July 2022. Specifically, this report provides a process evaluation of Measure Z strategies implemented by the OPD, incorporating community survey results to capture residents' experiences and safety concerns. To conduct this evaluation, we analyzed OPD administrative data, interviewed OPD staff, participated in dealongs with officers, reviewed program documents, observed neighborhood council meetings, and surveyed Oakland residents regarding their experiences with crime and their perceptions of the OPD. Key Findings Our key findings are as follows:  The rate of violent crime in Oakland was on a downward trend from 1,977 violent crimes per 100,000 residents in 2013 to 1,299 in 2017, then plateaued from 2018 to 2020. The violent crime rate then increased by 35 percent from 2020 to 2023. » Relatedly, the number of shootings and homicides increased in 2020–2021 compared with 2017–2019. The number of shootings and homicides decreased in 2022–2023, but remained above 2017–2019 levels.  The City of Oakland receives hundreds of thousands of 911 calls for police service a year, with a large increase having occurred in calls involving shootings in 2020. The number of shooting calls decreased from 2022 to 2024, but remained higher than in 2017 to 2019. » From 2018 to 2024, the average response time to 911 calls for potential violent crimes became slower.  The OPD is implementing all three of the strategies funded under Measure Z: (1) geographic policing through crime reduction teams, (2) community policing through community resource officers (CROs), and (3) addressing domestic violence and child abuse through the Special Victims Section. » All three strategies face staffing shortages, with fewer officers assigned to the positions than were authorized or envisioned at the outset of Measure Z. » Coinciding with the reduced staffing, CROs implemented markedly fewer community policing projects from 2022 to 2024 than from 2011 to 2019. Alongside a rise in violent crime, the Special Victims Section (SVS), operating with approximately two-thirds of its positions filled, had several hundred cases a year assigned to each investigator in 2022 to 2024.  Oakland residents who participated in a community survey administered by the project team in the summer of 2023 reported mixed views of the social cohesion in their neighborhoods, but overall are happy with living in Oakland. » Most do not feel safe after dark, and more than 7 in 10 respondents are concerned about becoming victims of many types of crime, including robbery, burglary, and shootings. » Roughly 4 in 10 respondents have negative views of the OPD’s ability to make fair decisions and keep their neighborhoods safe, while 2 in 10 have positive views of the OPD’s ability to do so. The remaining 3 in 10 have neutral views. » For respondents who had called 911 in the past year, half said that the dispatcher treated them respectfully and half said the call was not answered in a timely manner.

Washington, DC: The Urban Institute, 2025. 60p.

By Ashlin Oglesby-Neal Alena Stern Kathryn L. S. Pettit

Public scrutiny of police in the US—especially regarding racial disparities—has increased in recent years, with many communities experiencing strained relations with their local police. Police departments have also increased transparency by making some data about their activity (primarily arrests and reported crimes) public. However, access to high-quality, disaggregated police data is insufficient—these data must also be analyzed to inform and empower people in communities most affected by crime and the justice system as well as to benefit law enforcement agencies and policymakers. When meaningfully analyzed and shared, these data can support conversations between communities and police and catalyze local reforms. Local organizations in the National Neighborhood Indicators Partnership (NNIP)—a learning network coordinated by the Urban Institute that connects independent partner organizations in 30 cities—regularly provide data and analysis to support discussions about key issues in their communities. The NNIP’s mission is to ensure all communities can access data and have the skills to use information to advance equity and well-being across neighborhoods. In 2018, NNIP and Microsoft partnered to use the network to spur data-driven and community-led criminal justice reforms with the goal of building police-community trust and improving public safety.1 As one of the project’s activities, we selected one city—Los Angeles—to explore how we could create a comprehensive measure of community-police engagement using publicly available police data. Our motivating research questions are the following: ◼ Are there different patterns of community-initiated and police-initiated engagement? ◼ How many distinct patterns are there, and what makes them distinct? ◼ How do the patterns of community-police engagement vary across neighborhoods? In collaboration with the Microsoft Criminal Justice Reform team, the Microsoft Data Science team, and the University of Southern California’s Sol Price Center for Social Innovation (Los Angeles’s local NNIP partner), we synthesized data sources (including information on calls for service, stops, arrests, and crime) to develop a typology that elucidates the relationship between resident-initiated and policeinitiated activity, as well as how that relationship varies across Los Angeles neighborhoods. Our typology of community-police interactions reveals patterns in how calls to police and police activity (which varies by the severity of crime and levels of economic hardship) differ across neighborhoods. We also discuss how this neighborhood-policing typology can inform conversations about police reform and support local movements for a more equitable criminal justice system. We hope this report informs conversations in Los Angeles and demonstrates how open data can be a powerful tool for local data organizations and criminal justice advocates nationwide

Washington, DC: The Urban Institute, 2020. 34p.

By Chauncee Smith, Senior Manager, Reimagine Justice & Safety, Catalyst California Elycia Mulholland Graves, et al.

Fundamentally transforming California’s approach to safety is long overdue. Communities disproportionately impacted by racist law enforcement practices—including violence, economic extraction, and dehumanization—have demanded that policymakers shift toward safety approaches that prioritize care and equity without harm reproduction. This report aims to contribute to those ends. Specifically, both lived experience and data continuously show that people of color are disproportionately profiled by law enforcement. In addition to confirming that problem, this report explains how patrol activities undermine safety and waste tremendous public dollars. It does so by analyzing Racial & Identity Profiling Act (RIPA) stop data from a sample of four sheriff’s departments (Los Angeles, Riverside, Sacramento, and San Diego) that collectively account for nearly 20% of the state’s sworn law enforcement personnel,1 have jurisdiction over counties that represent 44% of California’s population, and patrol areas covering approximately 17% of the state population.2 RIPA data analysis is combined with county budget estimates to show the tremendous cost of unproductive patrol activities. Key Findings ɟ Sheriff’s departments dedicate significant patrol time (and, in turn, public resources) to racially biased pretextual stops that undermine community safety. ɟ The impact of sheriff’s departments’ patrol activities is extremely detrimental to people of color because they are far more likely to experience numerous harms as a result of pretextual stops. ɟ Such unproductive and harmful law enforcement activities annually cost individual counties hundreds of millions to over one-billion dollars. Recommendations ɟ Justice Reinvestment: Research and demands from community partners show that redirecting government spending from the criminal legal system (i.e., law enforcement, district attorneys, and prisons) to investments that help people fulfill basic needs improves safety, and that doubling down on criminal legal system spending entrenches inequities. ɟ Care-Centered Community Safety: The general thrust of the community safety landscape increasingly trends toward community-connected approaches of harm prevention, such as increasing the capacity of organizations that provide violence intervention services, behavioral health support, homeless outreach, youth development, jobs, and housing. ɟ Limit Enforcement of Minor Traffic Violations Used for Racially Biased Pretextual Stops: Throughout California and around the U.S., there has been growing movement toward innovative approaches to roadway safety that do not rely on armed law enforcement. Policymakers should follow this trend by shifting away from armed law enforcement for minor traffic violations, investing in preventive roadway design upgrades that alleviate the need for enforcement, improving public transportation, and decriminalizing numerous low-level traffic violations that have little to no tangible connection to true safety.

Los Angeles:: Catalyst California; ACLU SoCal , 2023. 40p.

By Antonio Cediel

Community violence intervention (CVI) is a term recently coined by the federal government in order to encapsulate a set of strategies that have been used for decades to address gun violence in major cities across the country. While various versions of CVI have been implemented successfully for years, lack of awareness and funding for this work have kept it at a relatively small scale. The Biden administration’s recent promotion of CVI—egged on by years by grassroots advocacy—has accelerated public awareness and opened up new opportunities for scaling the work. However, how and if CVI can be sustained or dramatically expanded is far from certain.

New York: Square One Project at the Columbia University Justice Lab. 2024. 33p.

By Jim Mignano, Daniel Egel, Phoebe Rose Levine, Daniel Cunningham, Brian A. Jackson, John S. Hollywood, Lucy L. Thomson, Dulani Woods

The Federal Reserve’s exploration of a U.S. Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) raises questions about its impact on U.S. law enforcement’s ability to detect and investigate crime. This report, informed by expert interviews and a scenario-based workshop, identifies key CBDC design choices affecting law enforcement capabilities. It underscores the need to evolve investigative techniques to meet relevant challenges if a U.S. CBDC is launched.

Santa Monica, CA" RAND, 2025. 51p.

By Deepak Premkumar, Magnus Lofstrom, Joseph Hayes, Brandon Martin, Sean Cremin

Racial disparities within the criminal justice system continue to be a pressing issue in the U.S. In this paper, we analyze data for almost four million stops by California’s fifteen largest law enforcement agencies in 2019, examining the extent to which people of color experience searches, enforcement, intrusiveness, and use of force differently from white people. Black Californians are more likely to be searched than white Californians, but searches of Black civilians reveal less contraband and evidence. Black people are overrepresented in stops not leading to enforcement as well as in stops leading to an arrest. While differences in location and context for the stop significantly contribute to racial disparities, notable inequities remain after accounting for such factors. These disparities are concentrated in traffic stops. A notable proportion of which lead to no enforcement or discovery—suggesting that gains in efficiency and equity are possible. Through a “veil of darkness” analysis, we find evidence that racial bias may be a contributing factor to disparities in traffic stops for Black and Latino drivers. These findings suggest that traffic stops for non-moving violations deserve consideration for alternative enforcement strategies.

IZA DP No. 17729

Bonn: IZA – Institute of Labor Economics , 2025. 137p.

Edited by Vasilis Galis , Helene O.I. Gundhus , and Antonis Vradis

This is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 License. It is free to read, download and share on Elgaronline.com. Taking a critical approach, this book advances understanding of the social, legal and ethical aspects of digitalisation in law enforcement and the reliance on data-driven tools to predict and prevent crime. It shows how the proliferation of data analytics challenges citizens’ rights, at a time when what counts as ‘safety’ or ‘policing’ is being fundamentally transformed.

Cheltenham, UK: Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar Publishing, 2025. 200p.

By Mélanie Seabrook, Vardan Gupta, Alexander Luscombe, and Andrew Pinto

KEY TAKEAWAYS

Municipal police in Ontario are overburdened – they are called upon to respond to issues beyond their scope and training. Investing in a range of municipal services – including housing, public health, long-term care, social assistance, paramedics, and children’s services – would promote community health and wellbeing and reduce demand for police through preventing crime and other crises from occurring, freeing police capacity for core functions. Ontario municipal funding for services promoting health and wellbeing hasn’t kept up with police funding over the past 12 years. Despite public support, municipalities face challenges in de-prioritizing police budgets to reinvest in other services, mainly due to the influential role of police boards in budget-setting. Community Safety and Wellbeing Plans present an opportunity to better engage local communities in municipal priority setting and could support the reprioritization of resources in future budget-setting.

Toronto: University of Toronto, School of Cities, 2025. 21p.

By Sarah Bosman

Fencing constitutes knowingly and willingly dealing in stolen goods, such as smartphones, vehicles or jewellery. It includes a large variety of activities, not only buying, trading and selling stolen goods, but also safely transporting and storing these goods. It is often referred to as a ‘victimless crime’. Typically, the selling and purchasing of stolen goods is a voluntary exchange in which both the seller and customer are helped instead of harmed. Moreover, many of the customers do not even realise they are buying stolen goods. For this reason, no one will report it, meaning that little is known about the prevalence of this phenomenon. Fencing inherently cannot exist without a different prior offence (e.g. burglary or theft) occurring. According to criminal law, this constitutes two separate crimes, as first there is a theft, followed by selling or trading these stolen goods. Yet, from the offender’s perspective, these actions fall under the same objective, which is obtaining money. On one hand, the fences make an easy profit, and on the other, the thieves can acquire money to buy something else. In order to prevent fencing, it is necessary to implement a holistic approach that includes all the relevant partners and targets every aspect of the phenomenon. For this reason, four separate focus areas have been identified that together make up the general phenomenon (see figure 1). These focus areas are: (1) preventing (valuable) goods from being stolen, (2) preventing fences and their customers from selling as well as buying stolen goods, (3) tackling stolen goods markets in general, and (4) the creation of local and (inter)national partnerships. Many of the initiatives contained in this paper are already being implemented in practice and have great potential. The aim of these initiatives is to make it more challenging to deal in stolen goods and consequently also to discourage theft to begin with.

Brussels: European Crime Prevention Network (EUCPN) 2022. 24p.

By Michael Skidmore 

In 2022-23 there were an estimated 3.5 million fraud offences in England and Wales, with members of the public now more likely to fall victim to fraud than any other type of crime (ONS, 2023a). And accordingly, the police are seeing an overwhelming rise in reported fraud, with levels of recorded crime exceeding one million offences, reflecting not only fraud against the public but also the considerable impact on businesses (ONS, 2023a). These patterns are largely the consequence of living in an increasingly digitised society in which the opportunities to perpetrate fraud have proliferated. All this crime is reduced into one single offence category of ‘fraud’, which covers both a large volume and a wide variety of offenders, offending, victims, harm, and vulnerability. This paper focuses specifically on ‘online fraud’, forming part of a wider programme of work looking at fraud that is enabled by the internet and digital technology. The paper reviews the literature with the aim of unpacking the nature and particular characteristics of online fraud. It also examines how data and knowledge about fraud inform and direct the strategic and operational responses of the police and other organisations. The complexities of producing a ‘true’ picture of fraud are explored, including a discussion of the meaning and significance of fraud when it is ‘online’. It highlights the gaps and challenges in our current understanding of online fraud that will be addressed in our ongoing research programme  

Paper 10. 

London: The Police Foundation April 2024  16p.

By Melissa M. Labriola, Jill Portnoy Donaghy, Tiffany Keyes, Sarah Junghee Kang

oncerns about the physical health, mental health, and safety of first responders and law enforcement officers have been increasing for some time. The goal of this research is to synthesize evidence from the growing literature on mental health and wellness programs studied with law enforcement and first responder populations to help the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) identify and strengthen programs and policies and to conduct an evaluability assessment (EA) to provide direction for future research.

This report presents findings from multiple research tasks, including a review of domestic and international literature on first responder wellness programs and interviews with key stakeholders in DHS about existing DHS wellness programs, wellness program implementation, and subsequent challenges. Authors conducted an EA of programs identified as potentially ready for evaluation in the stakeholder interviews. The authors of this report synthesized the findings from these tasks to develop a research agenda for future DHS wellness research efforts.

Key Findings

• According to the literature within the scope of our parameters, the most studied wellness programs for law enforcement and first responders were group prevention skills and knowledge training, psychotherapy, physical fitness, and mindfulness training.

• According to our interviews, certain program types, such as suicide prevention training, physical fitness programs, mindfulness training, and mandatory postvention efforts, were generally viewed as effective.

• Overall, more research is needed with larger sample sizes, rigorous designs, and outcomes other than knowledge change.

• Some interviewees recommended adopting robust, evidence-informed, non-DHS programs and adapting them for DHS's population, with the related concern of the uniqueness of the agency and the applicability of programs designed for different populations.

• Stigma in seeking and receiving services is a critical barrier but, according to interviewees, might be improving.

• Organizational barriers to participation include (1) a lack of resources to fund programs and/or on-site mental health clinicians, (2) employees feeling that they do not have sufficient time to seek out support (especially employees who have very demanding roles), (3) employee concerns about confidentiality, (4) insufficient leadership support, and (5) a lack of awareness about the resources available to employees.

• More research is needed with larger sample sizes, rigorous designs, and outcomes other than knowledge change, such as mental health and wellness outcomes.

Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2025, 107p.

By IBAC - Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission

The Focused Police Complaints Pilot (Pilot) was a trial by the Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission (IBAC) to establish a dedicated team to assess and investigate single incident complaints about the conduct of Victoria Police personnel from people who are at a higher risk of experiencing misconduct. These communities included: • Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples • people with disability • people who identify as LGBTIQA+ • people from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds • people aged under 25 years • people with mental illness, where their mental illness is linked to their engagement with police • people who have a reasonable fear of their safety. As Victoria’s anti-corruption and police oversight agency, the purpose of IBAC is to prevent and expose public sector corruption and police misconduct. IBAC relies on the trust of the Victorian community to perform our role to keep the public sector and Victoria Police accountable. In practice, this means we rely on community members to know about IBAC, feel confident to contact us to make a complaint and feel assured that IBAC will fairly and independently assess the complaint and investigate it when appropriate. IBAC recognises the challenges faced by people making a complaint about suspected corruption or police misconduct. Whether these challenges arise for social, economic or cultural reasons or because it can be difficult to speak out, IBAC understands that making a complaint or being part of an IBAC investigation may be a confronting experience. To help address these barriers, the objectives of this Pilot were to: • improve the timeliness of IBAC’s complaints assessment, investigation and outcome notifications to reduce IBAC’s response times for complainants through an accelerated pathway for police complaints from the identified communities • increase transparency and complainants’ understanding of the outcomes of complaints • trial better means to identify focus community complainants. The Pilot ran from October 2023 to April 2024 and an internal evaluation was completed in June 2024. This report provides an overview of IBAC’s work to establish and operate the Pilot. It also outlines the outcomes of the Pilot and the next steps for this important work.

Melbourne: State of Victoria , (Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission) 2024. 16p.

By Elle Wadsworth, Mafalda Pardal, Lucy Strang, Laura Atuesta, Fin Oades, Emily Hutton, Eric Sevigny, Emily Lawso

The report concludes with reflections and implications from this review’s findings (Chapter 6), as follows:

Overall, the available evidence suggests that drug-related law enforcement activities are of limited effectiveness in reducing violence. Indeed, more studies demonstrated an association between drug-related law enforcement activities and increased violence than decreased violence. Selective enforcement tactics appeared the most promising in their capacity to reduce violence, although the evidence base covered in this review is limited.

Passive drug-related law enforcement activities, such as increasing police presence in known drug market areas, appear promising in reducing violence. However, less evidence is available on the effectiveness of these interventions than on active law enforcement activities.

The causal mechanisms of violence reduction are under-explored in the literature. However, several studies discussed supply disruptions, focused deterrence and positive relationships between police and communities as potential success factors.

Barriers to the effectiveness of violence-reduction efforts included the resilience of drug markets, the cultural significance of violence in some drug trafficking organisations, and law enforcement’s limited resources.

This review did not identify any UK-based evidence – most research came from the Americas. While most law enforcement activities in this review also occur in the UK, the results are not directly replicable in a UK setting.

Evidence on the relationship between drug-related law enforcement and serious violence and homicide over the last decade is lacking. What was previously effective (or ineffective) in reducing violence may yield different results now.

More evidence is needed on the effectiveness of drug-related law enforcement activities in retail-level markets or prison settings in reducing violence.

Relevant agencies planning and implementing drug-related law enforcement activity should consider the risk of increased violence, particularly for interventions for which available evidence suggests a strong association (for example, leadership removal and seizures).

Future UK research on drug-related law enforcement and violence could focus on interventions that may reduce violence, such as selective enforcement, and whether the findings presented can be validated.

London: Home Office, 2025. 63p.

By ANINE KRIEGLER, VANYA GASTROW AND ASIVE XALI

This report documents South Africa’s first multi-site, evidencebased policing experiment. The DKNG Hotspots Policing Project was a collaboration between the South African Police Service (SAPS), the Western Cape Government (WCG), and the City of Cape Town (CCT). Implementation was supported by the Institute for Security Studies (ISS) and the Hanns Seidel Foundation (HSF). The project aimed to reduce violent crime by implementing tested evidence-based policing (EBP) strategies. Using data, research, and analysis, EBP ensures that policing strategies are informed by the best available evidence of what works. The strategy tested was a specific approach to hotspot patrols. The first test was in 2023 as part of South Africa’s first EBP experiment in Mitchells Plain, which used data-driven methods to identify and direct patrols to a violent-crime hotspot in Tafelsig. The Mitchells Plain pilot experiment demonstrated that the strategy had the potential to contribute to a reduction in violent crime. The DKNG hotspots policing project builds on the success of the initial intervention in Mitchells Plain by incorporating lessons learned and expanding the strategy to four new areas: Delft, Khayelitsha, Nyanga, and Gugulethu (DKNG). It comprises the first multi-site, hotspots policing experiment on the continent and is a significant step in bringing EBP to South African policing. In just four months, the DKNG intervention demonstrated significant impacts across various areas of public safety. These impacts include:

• Preventing 100 violent crimes in eight hotspots: During the four-month monitored deployment period, there was a notable reduction in contact crimes compared with the same four months of the previous year. Specifically, there were 100 fewer contact crimes recorded in the hotspots than expected if these areas had followed the same trend as the control areas. This indicates that the intervention effectively prevented these crimes in the targeted hotspots. • Substantial year-on-year reductions in multiple crime categories: The intervention contributed to significant decreases across various crime categories. This achievement highlights the effectiveness of the targeted strategies employed. • Efficient use of resources: The strategy demonstrated that it is possible to achieve marked improvements in safety without additional resources. By optimising existing capabilities and focusing efforts where they are most needed, the project managed to enhance overall effectiveness. • Management improvements: The intervention also led to management and leadership enhancements at the station level. Commanders adopted new tracking and monitoring tools, which improved the oversight and execution of policing strategies. These achievements underline the potential of EBP strategies to significantly enhance public safety outcomes, even within a limited timeframe and without increasing resources . Targeted hotspot patrols are not the singular solution to South Africa’s challenge of violent crime, a highly complex phenomenon requiring a multifaceted approach. However, the strategy’s effectiveness indicates that it could be a valuable component of a broader violent-crime reduction strategy. It also demonstrates the value of testing strategies to ensure their efficacy in terms of crime reduction and preserving limited state resources. This report describes the project’s careful planning and rigorous implementation and assesses the strategy’s impact on crime. It highlights the strategy’s contributions, challenges, and lessons learned, offering practical, scalable recommendations for future public safety and policing strategies. By promoting awareness of EBP principles in South Africa, the report seeks to encourage the broader uptake and scaling of EBP for greater impact. While addressing crime requires broader efforts beyond policing, this approach can play a key role in fostering safer communities by providing tested strategies and services, helping communities move closer to living in peace and safety

Pretoria: Institute for Security Studies 2025. 48p.

By Tin Kapetanovic 

This article analyses the expansion of Jama’at Nasr al-Islam wal Muslimin (JNIM) across the Sahara-Sahel, using the transplantation framework from criminology to explore how the group relocated. By focussing on this case study, the article offers an examination of how JNIM strategically embedded itself in a new environment. The study incorporates qualitative data from semi-structured interviews with NATO analysts and military personnel involved in counterterrorism in the Sahara-Sahel, data from the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project and a review of open source literature. The findings show that JNIM’s expansion was driven by push factors, including military pressure in northern Mali following the French-led Operation Serval in 2013 and competition with other illicit groups. Pull factors encompassed weak state presence, ethnic tensions between Fulani herders and Dogon farmers, economic opportunities in illicit gold mining and smuggling routes and the region’s strategic location. JNIM adapted organisationally by integrating local leaders, intermarrying, providing services, and establishing Sharia governance structures. However, their expansion faced constraints from local self-defence militias and increased military operations by Malian and international forces. The transplantation framework reveals JNIM’s strategic organisational adaptations and environmental exploitation, offering insights beyond traditional models of ideological diffusion or networks.

Journal of Illicit Economies and Development, 7(1): pp. 1–19

By Alex H. Kral, Jamie L. Humphrey, Clyde Schwab, Barrot H. Lambdin, Bradley Ray,

Importance Opioid-involved overdose mortality has been on the rise for 2 decades in the US, exacerbated by an unregulated drug supply that is unpredictable and has increasingly contained highly potent fentanyl analogs starting a decade ago.

Objective To determine whether there is a geospatial association between law enforcement drug seizures and opioid-involved overdose mortality in San Francisco.

Design, Setting, and Participants This cross-sectional study used location- and time-stamped overdose mortality data from the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner and publicly available crime data from the San Francisco Police Department between 2020 and 2023 to assess whether location and time of law enforcement drug seizures were associated with subsequent opioid-involved overdose mortality. Data were analyzed from January 2020 to September 2023.

Exposures Time-stamped locations of law enforcement drug seizures involving a drug distribution charge.

Main Outcomes and Measures The primary outcomes were the time and location of (1) overdose mortality involving any opioid and (2) overdose mortality involving fentanyl or any fentanyl analog. The relative risk (RR) and 95% CIs for endemic and epidemic factors were calculated.

Results There were 2653 drug seizure crime events that involved any drug distribution charge and 1833 overdose deaths that tested positive for any opioid or synthetic opioid, including heroin and fentanyl analogs. Within the surrounding 100 meters, law enforcement drug seizures were associated with increase risk of fatal opioid-involved overdoses the day following the drug seizure event (RR, 1.74; 95% CI, 1.06-2.83; P = .03) and elevated risk persisted for 7 days (2 days: RR, 1.55;95% CI, 1.09-2.21; P = .02; 3 days: RR, 1.45; 95% CI, 1.08-1.93; P = .01; 7 days: RR, 1.27; 95% CI, 1.11-1.46; P = .001). Similar statistically significant spatiotemporal patterns were observed in the 250- and 500-meter spatial bandwidths. Within each space-time kernel, the strength of the association, all of which were statistically significant, dissipated the further away in time and distance from the law enforcement drug seizure event.

Conclusions and Relevance The findings of this cross-sectional study suggest that the enforcement of drug distribution laws to increase public safety for residents in San Francisco may be having an unintended negative consequence of increasing opioid overdose mortality. To reduce overdose mortality, it may be better to focus on evidence-based health policies and interventions.

JAMA Netw Open. 2025, 11p.

By His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue (UK)

The effective investigation of crime is fundamental to the legitimacy of policing and to public confidence. It also influences how safe people feel and it prevents future offending. When a crime is reported, the public have a right to expect that the police will record and investigate the crime effectively. There has been a long-term decline in successful prosecutions, meaning that too few criminal investigations are leading to justice for victims. There is a general perception among the public that the police aren’t doing a good job of tackling the crimes that affect local communities. Therefore, as part of our 2022–25 programme of inspections, we inspected how effectively the police investigate crime. During our inspection, we saw numerous examples of initiatives forces have introduced to improve the standard of crime investigations and achieve better outcomes for victims. We have included 24 case studies in this report to highlight some of these initiatives. Understanding demand Crime experienced by individuals and households has generally decreased over the last 10 years. However, since 2015, police-recorded crime rates per 1,000 population have increased by 44 percent. Improved police recording practices, and an increase in public reporting of crime, are likely to have contributed to this increase in police-recorded crime. Since 2010, after accounting for changes in the population, the number of police officers in England and Wales has decreased by 6 percent. Over this period, the number of police staff decreased by 13 percent and the number of police community support officers decreased by 59 percent. We have previously reported that a shortage of resources negatively affects the police’s ability to detect crime. During our fieldwork, we heard about a lack of resources in every force we inspected. Interviewees told us that officers and staff often couldn’t investigate crime as well as they wanted to because their workloads were too high, they were under pressure and they didn’t have enough time. Frequently, we also saw the effect of this strain on their supervisors, line managers and chief officers, who repeated the same message. We concluded that in order to investigate volume crime more effectively, forces need more officers and staff. Forces don’t have an in-depth understanding of their crime-related demand. Most forces have a good understanding of their crime patterns, but analysis of future crime rates is inconsistent. The amount of digital evidence that investigators need to gather and examine has increased considerably over the past decade. This increase in digital evidence adds complexity to crime investigations. Forces need to consider this when analysing their crime-related demand. 

Birmingham, UK:His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue, 2025. 135p.

By Monica C. Bell

The Black Lives Matter movement has operated alongside a growing recognition among social scientists that policing research has been limited in its scope and outmoded in its assumptions about the nature of public safety. This essay argues that social science research on policing should reorient its conception of the field of policing, along with how the study of crime rates and police departments fit into this field. New public safety research should broaden its outcomes of interest, its objects of inquiry, and its engagement with structural racism. In this way, next-generation research on policing and public safety can respond to the deficiencies of the past and remain relevant as debates over transforming American policing continue.

  Journal of Economic Perspectives—Volume 35, Number 4—Fall 2021—Pages 29–48