MAY CONTAIN MARKUP

Mike Hough and Mike Maxfield

Join us as we delve into the evolution of crime surveying in the 21st century with a special focus on the landmark British Crime Survey. In this comprehensive exploration, we reflect on the past quarter-century of crime trends, methodologies, and societal shifts that have shaped our understanding of criminal behavior.

From the inaugural survey in 1999 to the latest data-driven analyses, this commemorative edition offers valuable insights into the complex landscape of crime detection and prevention. Uncover how technology, demographic changes, and policy initiatives have influenced the prevalence and perception of crime across the United Kingdom.

Celebrate this milestone anniversary by delving into the intricate tapestry of crime surveying, where data meets narrative to illuminate the challenges and triumphs of combating crime in the modern era.

Crime Prevention Studies Volume 22. Criminal Justice Press Monsey, NY, U.S.A.. Willan Publishing Cullomptom, Devon, U.K.. 2007. 321p.

By Cameron Holley, Tariro Mutongwizo, and Clifford Shearing

  This review explores past and future shifts in policing and criminology scholarship that have shaped, and been shaped by, what is done to enhance safety within political domains. Investigating established policing conceptualizations, the review demonstrates how the ideal of state-delivered safety as a public good was challenged by a sizeable policing industry, giving rise to debates about legal context, service provision, and conceptualizations of policing and security nodal arrangements. This review argues that these understandings are now confronted by new harms and new conceptualizations of social institutional affairs. Interrogating these claims through an examination of the Anthropocene and technologies of cyberspace, we canvass debates and show that a shared focus of attention for the future of policing will be a decentralization of security and an expansion of private security governance professionals (both human and nonhuman)  

Annual Review of Criminology,  3:341-358, 2020

By Rachel Harmon

Coercive policing is conducted mostly by means of commanding officers usually cannot use force unless they have first issued an order. Yet, despite widespread concern about force and coercion in policing, commands are both underregulated and misunderstood. Officers have no clear legal authority to give many common commands, almost no departmental guidance about how or when to issue them, and almost no legal scrutiny for many commands they give. Scholars rarely study commands, and when they do, they get them wrong. As a result of vague law and inadequate analysis, basic questions about police commands—what role they play, where officers get authority to issue them, and how law regulates them—remain unanswered. Instead, officers interact with the public in a legal gray zone, a recipe for illegitimacy and conflict. This Article offers initial answers to these questions. First, it explains the constitutivecommands play in policing: Long-standing law dictates that officers usually cannot compel people, including by stop or arrest, without issuing commands that impose new legal duties. Second, it contends that although statutes sometimes authorize specific commands, officers’ authority to issue many orders comes from—and is limited by—officers’ authority to stop, search, and arrest suspects. Third, the Article argues that the legal functions commands serve—namely, generating and communicating legal duties—dictate that lawful orders must satisfy three constraints: They must be authorized by state law; they must obey constitutional limits; and they must provide adequate notice and opportunity for individuals to comply. These constraints are embedded in the law, but few avenues exist for challenging commands. Courts have therefore not defined or enforced limits on command authority well, except when commands violate constitutional rights. Courts can easily do better, and legislative and departmental action could clarify, extend, and enforce appropriate limits on police authority.

Rachel Harmon, Law and Orders, 123 Colum. L. Rev. 1 (2023).

By Goldstein, Josh A.; Sastry, Girish; Musser, Micah; Diresta, Renee; Gentzel, Matthew; Sedova, Katerina

From the Executive Summary: "This report aims to assess: how might language models change influence operations, and what steps can be taken to mitigate these threats? This task is inherently speculative, as both AI [artificial intelligence] and influence operations are changing quickly. Many ideas in the report were informed by a workshop convened by the authors in October 2021, which brought together 30 experts across AI, influence operations, and policy analysis to discuss the potential impact of language models on influence operations. The resulting report does not represent the consensus of workshop participants, and mistakes are our own. We hope this report is useful to disinformation researchers who are interested in the impact of emerging technologies, AI developers setting their policies and investments, and policymakers preparing for social challenges at the intersection of technology and society."

Georgetown University. Walsh School Of Foreign Service. Center For Security And Emerging Technology; Openai; Stanford Internet Observatory. 2023. 85p.

By Kevin W Whiteacre; Lindsay Medler; Dan Rhotonand Raeann Howes

Highlights of summary findings include: (1) from January to March of 2008, there were 768 metal thefts reported in Indianapolis; (2) copper was the most stolen metal, with copper pipes and plumbing accounting for more than 17 percent of all items and copper wires accounting for 8 percent; (3) on average, one catalytic converter was stolen every day during the reporting period; (4) 25 percent or 169 of the crime reports contained estimates of the values for the stolen items for those 169 cases, the average value of the stolen items was $4,314; (5) extrapolating those values to the other 75 percent of cases suggests the value of stolen metals thefts averaged just under $1 million per month; and (6) the Northeast District had the most residential metals theft, while the Southeast and Southwest Districts had the most commercial and vehicle related metals thefts. Metal theft describes the theft of items for the value of their constituent metals. It is generally agreed that metals theft has risen because of steep increases in the prices of metals. Law enforcement agencies across the country report growing concerns over metals thefts. The Indianapolis Metals Theft Project seeks to gather and analyze a wide variety of data to provide a clearer understanding of the incidence, types, costs, and impacts of metals thefts in Indianapolis. This is the first report on a pilot study to establish protocol for collecting, coding, and analyzing metals theft data from crime reports. It provides descriptive data on metals thefts from January through March of 2008.

Indianapolis: University of Indianapolis Community Research Center, 2008. 16p.