By Fernando G. Cafferata. and Carlos Scartascini

Crime is a major problem in Latin America and the Caribbean. With 9 percent of the world's population, the region accounts for 33 percent of global homicides. Using new, extensive survey data, we endeavor to identify what anti-crime policies citizens in the region demand from their governments. We also analyze who is demanding what and why. We find that harsher penalties appear to be the preferred weapon in the anti-crime arsenal but people are willing to spend public moneys not only for punishment, but also for anti-poverty and detection policies. Citizens recognize that allocating resources to the police is better than subsidizing private security for citizens. Nevertheless, most oppose raising taxes to fund the police, a reluctance that might stem from mistrust in governments' ability to manage these resources. Mistrust, misinformation, and impatience combine to create flawed anti-crime policy. Educating citizens both about crime and about the fiscal consequences of their policy preferences may help move the region's public opinion toward a better policy equilibrium. Governments should also invest in their capability to design and deliver evidence-based solutions for fighting crime, and work to increase trust levels among citizens.

Washington, DC: Inter-American Development Bank, 2021. 68p.

By Meagan Cahill, Melissa M. Labriola, and Jirka Taylor

In this report, RAND Corporation researchers summarize what is currently known about killings committed by police officers in the United States and identify existing evidence about various ways to prevent these killings. A relatively large body of research on these topics exists, but these studies often suffer from methodological shortcomings, largely stemming from the dearth of available data. Recognizing the need for more-rigorous work to guide efforts to reform police — and, more specifically, to reduce police killings — the authors present work focused on the development of a research agenda, or a road map, to reduce police killings. The report, based on an extensive literature review as well as interviews with policing experts, contains a series of recommendations for areas in which research efforts may be most effective in helping inform policy-making and decision-making aimed at reducing police killings. The authors identified six focus areas — foundational issues (such as racial inequities, police culture, and police unions), data and reporting, training, policies, technology, and consequences for officers. Reviewing the priority research topics in each focus area, similar themes emerged, especially around the need for more-extensive and more-systematic data collection and around the use of agency policies to better govern a range of operations related to police violence, such as data collection and reporting and technology.

Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2021. 80p.

Edited by Sabelo Gumedze

This monograph on private security in Africa is the part-result of a two-year research project on the Regulation of the Private Security Sector in Africa. This report is based on three country case South Africa. In these countries private security companies are involved in a number of security-related operations. This research project was inspired by the need for Africa to engage in the debate around the manifestation of the private security sector on the continent, and to support its effective regulation through the establishment of a consistent and logical regulatory framework for national, sub-regional and regional legislation and protocols. Little research has been undertaken to inform a thorough understanding of the private security industry in Africa. To this end, the country reports provide insightful findings and are aimed at influencing policy making at national, sub-regional and regional level.

Pretoria, South Africa: Institute for Security Studies, 2008. 124p.

By Human Rights Watch

Police in the Brazilian state of Rio de Janeiro have killed more than 8,000 people in the past decade, including at least 645 in 2015. Three quarters of those killed were black. Given that Rio police face real threats of violence from heavily-armed gangs, many of these killings were likely the result of the legitimate use of force. But many others were extrajudicial executions. “Good Cops Are Afraid” draws on interviews with more than 30 police officers—two of whom admitted to participating in executions—and in-depth documentation of 64 cases where there is credible evidence that police sought to cover up unlawful killings. Government data examined by Human RightsWatch supports the view of local justice officials that this practice is widespread. Unlawful police killings take a heavy toll—not only on the victims and their families—but also on the police force itself. The killings fuel cycles of violence that endanger the lives of all officers serving in high-crime areas, poison their relationship with local communities, and contribute to high levels of stress that undermine their ability to do their jobs well. The officers responsible for unlawful killings and cover ups are rarely brought to justice. While investigations by civil police have been woefully inadequate, responsibility for this failure ultimately lies with Rio’s Attorney General’s Office. Unless authorities take urgent steps to ensure accountability for unlawful police killings, it will be very hard for Rio to make real progress in reducing violence and improving public security.

New York: HRW, 2016. 118p.

By Henk Elffers, Marlijn Peeters, Jasper van der Kemp & Guillaume Beijers

In three neighborhoods in the city of Amstelveen, the Netherlands, an experiment with near repeat patrolling after a burglary was implemented, during the 4th quarter of 2011. After a burglary had been reported to the police, two uniformed police officers were patrolling in a radius of 250 meter during two days from 7 am-11 pm. Though the near repeat patrols did influence the near repeat pattern of burglary in the experimental areas, crime rates in the experimental areas did not become more favorable, compared to those in a control area in the same city. It is suggested that the experiment, though asking for a considerable amount of officers' time, was not large enough to be able to demonstrate positive effects, which then implies that effects are at best small, if not absent. The report is a short resumé in English of an earlier publication in Dutch.

Amsterdam: Netherlands Institute for the Study of Crime and Law Enforcement NSCR , 2018. 9p.

By Smita Premchander, V. Prameela and M. Chidambaranatha

Millions of South Asian women, men and children are bonded to their employers, working for little or no wages because their earnings are retained in part or full to repay an outstanding loan. Many still work in agriculture, although bonded labourers are increasingly found in other sectors, including mining, brick making, textiles and domestic service. The victims of bonded labour tend to be drawn from the poorest and least educated segments of the population, from low castes and religious minorities – those who are vulnerable, excluded and voiceless. Bondage often begins when a worker takes a loan or salary advance from his or her employer to pay for a large expense, perhaps a religious ceremony, a wedding or a medical bill. Or the advance may come from a labour contractor who finds employment for migrant workers in distant areas. Then the debtor, and frequently other family members, is obliged to work for the employer or contractor for reduced wages until the debt is repaid. Additional loans are taken out to meet essential needs and the debt mounts, creating a perpetual cycle of over‐indebtedness and exploitation. Ever larger debts strengthen the employer’s control to the point where basic freedoms are denied to the whole household; the debt can even be passed down to the next generation.

Geneva, SWIT: International Labour Organization, 2014. 78p.

Edited by Ron Iphofen and Dónal O’Mathúna

The ebook edition of this title is Open Access and freely available to read online. The EU-funded PRO-RES Project aimed to produce a guidance framework that helps to deliver Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI). PRO-RES is a Horizon 2020 project coordinated by the European Science Foundation (ESF), involving 14 different partners across Europe. As one of a series of open access products of the Project, Ethical Issues in Covert, Security and Surveillance Research will be placed in the hands of policymakers and their advisors to offer practical and efficient ways to respond to the issues addressed. Understanding that the problem of covert research and surveillance research for security purposes have proven highly challenging for all research ethics appraisal services, the chapters here are valuable resources for expert reviewers, helping further the discussion of these complex ethical issues, and raising the standards applied to the process. Delivering an applied approach, and influencing where it counts, this volume showcases that it is only when the integrity of research is carefully pursued can users of the evidence produced be assured of its value and its ethical credentials.

Bingley, UK: Emerald Publishing, 2022. 241p.

Edited by Atsushi Yasutomi, Rosalie Arcala Hall, and Saya Kiba

An exploration of the roles that pro- and anti-government militias, private armed groups, vigilantes, and gangs play in local communities in the new democracies of Southeast Asia. Scholars have typically characterized irregular forces as spoilers and infiltrators in post-conflict peacebuilding processes. The contributors to this book challenge this conventional understanding of irregular forces in Southeast Asia, demonstrating that they often attract solid support from civilians and can be major contributors to the building of local security — a process by which local residents, in the absence of an effective police force, develop, partner or are at least included in the management of community crimes and other violence. They analyze irregular forces’ dealings with political actors at the community level, explaining why and how forces are incorporated in and collaborate with legitimate institutions without using violence against them. Offering a new approach to dealing with irregular forces in Southeast Asia, contributors explore new theoretical frameworks that are better suited for evaluating irregular forces’ relationship to different security providers and the political environments in the region. Specifically, they examine case studies from Indonesia, Timor-Leste, the Philippines, and Thailand. A valuable resource for researchers, students and practitioners in the areas of conflict resolution, peacebuilding, and security governance, especially those with a focus on Southeast Asia. This book will also be of great interest to scholars of the sociology and anthropology of the region.

Abington, Oxon, UK: New York: Routledge, 2022. 215p.

Edited by Millan, Matteo and Alessandro Saluppo

This book provides a comparative and transnational examination of the complex and multifaceted experiences of anti-labour mobilisation, from the bitter social conflicts of the pre-war period, through the epochal tremors of war and revolution, and the violent spasms of the 1920s and 1930s. It retraces the formation of an extensive market for corporate policing, privately contracted security and yellow unionism, as well as processes of professionalisation in strikebreaking activities, labour espionage and surveillance. It reconstructs the diverse spectrum of right-wing patriotic leagues and vigilante corps which, in support or in competition with law enforcement agencies, sought to counter the dual dangers of industrial militancy and revolutionary situations. Although considerable research has been done on the rise of socialist parties and trade unions the repressive policies of their opponents have been generally left unexamined. This book fills this gap by reconstructing the methods and strategies used by state authorities and employers to counter outbreaks of labour militancy on a global scale. It adopts a long-term chronology that sheds light on the shocks and strains that marked industrial societies during their turbulent transition into mass politics from the bitter social conflicts of the pre-war period, through the epochal tremors of war and revolution, and the violent spasms of the 1920s and 1930s. Offering a new angle of vision to examine the violent transition to mass politics in industrial societies, this is of great interest to scholars of policing, unionism and striking in the modern era.

Abingdon, Oxon. UK; New York: Routledge, 2021. 299p.

Edited by Atsushi Yasutomi, Rosalie Arcala Hall and Saya Kiba

An exploration of the roles that pro- and anti-government militias, private armed groups, vigilantes, and gangs play in local communities in the new democracies of Southeast Asia. Scholars have typically characterized irregular forces as spoilers and infiltrators in post-conflict peacebuilding processes. The contributors to this book challenge this conventional understanding of irregular forces in Southeast Asia, demonstrating that they often attract solid support from civilians and can be major contributors to the building of local security — a process by which local residents, in the absence of an effective police force, develop, partner or are at least included in the management of community crimes and other violence. They analyze irregular forces’ dealings with political actors at the community level, explaining why and how forces are incorporated in and collaborate with legitimate institutions without using violence against them. Offering a new approach to dealing with irregular forces in Southeast Asia, contributors explore new theoretical frameworks that are better suited for evaluating irregular forces’ relationship to different security providers and the political environments in the region. Specifically, they examine case studies from Indonesia, Timor-Leste, the Philippines, and Thailand. A valuable resource for researchers, students and practitioners in the areas of conflict resolution, peacebuilding, and security governance, especially those with a focus on Southeast Asia. This book will also be of great interest to scholars of the sociology and anthropology of the region.

Abingdon, Oxon ; New York: Routledge, 2022. 215p.

By Zoorob, Michael

Under what conditions can citizens hold government officials accountable for their behavior? I examine accountability over the police, a pervasive face of the state as experienced by most people. Like elected politicians, police enjoy significant discretion, limited oversight, power, and corruptibility. Continued problems of police violence and disparate treatment, especially against Black Americans, have shown the importance of accountable policing.

Using calls for service records, election returns, survey data, and case studies, I explore challenges of political accountability across the highly varied 18,000 police department in the United States. The police are both a nationally salient social group – evaluated differently by partisans in a national media environment – as well as a locally-provided government function that tens of millions of Americans encounter regularly. This decentralization complicates improvements to policing policies by limiting the impacts of reform activism to particular cities and by misaligning activism with local conditions.

Cambridge, MA: Harvard University, 2021. 207p.

By Nora C. Krinitsky

“The Politics of Crime Control: Race, Policing, and Reform in Twentieth-Century Chicago” is a political history of urban policing that examines the integral role of crime control in the governance of modern American cities. It does so through a case study of policing and reform in Chicago from the interwar decades through the post-World War II years, a period that saw massive changes including African American migration, immigration, industrialization, and labor unrest. Crime control served as the central political proxy through which city leaders, reformers, and law enforcement officers attempted to achieve urban order, and in so doing, constructed modern social and racial hierarchies. These officials and reformers contributed to the construction of the coercive state, a state apparatus that prioritized social order as the primary mode through which to express state legitimacy and exercise state power. In the context of early-twentieth-century Chicago, coercive state strategies worked in tandem with Progressive reformers and anti-crime activists to establish and reinforce spatial boundaries and to reify and redefine social hierarchies. Local police discretion represented the primary coercive state tool for addressing urban disorder, as well as one of the most intransigent and opaque modes of state power, especially in the service of defining and reinforcing racial hierarchy. The immediate, discretionary interactions between police and city residents served as one of the primary sites of racial formation in these decades, and elicited investigation, critique, and proposals for reform from myriad urban communities, other state institutions, and municipal reform organizations. Policing, therefore, represented the very intersection of coercive state power, municipal politics, racialization, and efforts for reform.

Ann Arbor, University of Michigan,2017. 409p.

By Roberts, T.; Mohamed Ali, A.; Farahat, M.; Oloyede, R. and Mutung’u, G..

This review provides the first comparative analysis of African legal surveillance frameworks. The study identifies nine core principles derived from existing guidelines as an analytical framework to identify opportunities to strengthen privacy protection, while narrowly targeting surveillance on the most serious crimes. Six detailed country reports are synthesised in this comparative analysis to produce a series of actionable recommendations for policy, practice and further research

Brighton, UK: Institute of Development Studies, 2021. 203p.

By Lind, J.; Mitchell, B. and Rohwerder, B.

This Evidence Report details key insights from the Institute of Development Studies Addressing and Mitigating Violence programme, which involved detailed political analysis of dynamics of violence as well as efforts to reduce and prevent violent conflict across a number of countries and areas in sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East and South Asia. In particular, the evidence highlighted here is from violent settings that do not neatly fit categories of ‘war’ or ‘peace’. The findings of these studies, published as a series of open-access reports, Policy Briefings and blogs, were discussed by conflict and security experts as well as thinkers from aid and advocacy organisations at a consultative session in London in November 2015. This report uses evidence from the programme to critically reflect on policy and programming policy approaches for reducing violence. Specifically, it provides a synthesis of findings around these themes: (1) the nature of violence and how it might be changing; (2) the connectivity of actors across levels and space; and (3) the significance of identities and vulnerabilities for understanding and responding to violence. The report concludes by examining the implications of the research for the violence reduction paradigm.

Brighton, UK: Institute of Development Studies. 2016. 33p.

By Amber Huff, et al.

This report develops evidence-based insights into contextual dimensions of violence and practices on reducing violence, from multiple perspectives and at multiple levels of governance. In presenting our analytic narrative we are particularly interested, first, in the intersection of three crucial dimensions of violence over time: (1) the incidence, types and overarching patterns of violence documented in and across the focal countries and regions, including sub-national and international geographies of violence; (2) key actors and institutions implicated in trajectories of violence and peace; and (3) processes of political change, including (but not limited to) violence reduction efforts. Across all four cases, the politicisation of ethnicity; sub-national variation in political power, inclusion, development and growth; and the variable types and consequences of violence across different groups and communities, are common threads that shape the trajectories of violence and the success and efficacy of mitigation and management strategies. Second, our cross-regional analysis assesses the role of trans-border, cross-regional and international processes in spanning systems of violence and mitigation, including legacies of colonisation and de-colonisation, influences of international peace-building initiatives, transnational actors and flows, and broad trends in extractionist development. The focus of our analysis is on two blocks of neighbouring countries in sub-Saharan Africa that have diverging violence trajectories and differing experiences of addressing violence: Kenya and Uganda in East Africa; and Ghana and Ivory Coast in West Africa. Using analyses of secondary literature and of data (from 1997) compiled by the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED), we combine mixed-method case studies with process tracing and tiered comparison. This approach facilitates an understanding of the role of multiple factors, including governance and the evolution of institutions and justice mechanisms over time, in facilitating the emergence of violence and reducing violence at multiple levels, from sub-national to cross-regional.

Brighton, UK: Institute of Development Studies, 201. 95p.

By Joseph. P. Chris Charley and Freida Ibiduni McCormack.

The Sierra Leone Police Force has its origins in the British colonial administration of the country. After Independence and with the consolidation of one-party rule the force slid into disrepute. The outbreak of civil conflict in 1991 largely decimated the force but the gradual restoration of peace provided an opportunity for police reform. This research report covers the aspects of the political and institutional environment that helped engender change, as well as constraints faced by the reform agenda. It considers how the officers actually carried out the task at hand, and shares lessons as to what reform tactics worked and which were less successful. While several challenges remain, the reform programme, centred around local needs policing has been largely successful, hinging on – among other factors – the appointment of a British Inspector General of Police, perceived to be neutral and above political machinations, supported by a core of reform minded officers; long-term external technical and financial assistance; and a conducive political environment for change.

Brighton, UK: Institute of Development Studies, 2011. 48p.

By Thierry Mayamba Niandu.

This paper examines the roles, responsibilities and interactions between the various formal and informal institutions and stakeholders involved in the management of police services in the DRC. It identifies informal networks that influence decision-making processes and policy implementation, and provides an analysis of interactions between the Congolese population and national and international actors. It also aims to highlight both horizontal and vertical accountability mechanisms within the existing legal framework, setting out to identify any legal gaps and contradictions, which could explain overlapping mandates. The study provides interesting geographical and administrative data on national security systems, and uses a multidimensional governance approach to understand the complexity of the security sector and the interconnectedness between the relevant actors. The study concludes that stakeholders of the security and police sectors of the DRC are linked together in a web of complex and dynamic systems, characterised by discrepancies between theory and practice. It is inaccurate to think of these systems and mechanisms as working either in opposition to one another or in parallel. In fact, these systems intertwine more than they conflict, and there are significant overlaps and confusion with regard to the mandates of the existing institutions, structures and actors involved. All security services in the DRC possess a legal framework within which they must operate. The legal contradictions and loopholes identified in this paper are often the result of dubious interpretations, or even deliberate misinterpretations of existing operational provisions underlying the functioning of security services. The research concludes that there is very poor coordination between the various actors and institutions involved in the management of security services in the DRC. This creates a dysfunctional structure characterised by a culture of impunity, with only a semblance of autonomy and independence among actors, but never with regard to senior civil servants in charge of coordination.

Brighton, UK: Institute of Development Studies, 2012. 107p.

By A. Ojebode; B.R. Ojebuyi; N.J. Onyechi; O. Oladapo; O.J. Oyedele and I.A. Fadipe

The problem of ineffective policing still persists in post-colonial Africa and as a result, both donors and governments are seeking non-state alternatives or complements to the state apparatuses. These alternatives include private sector provision, donor-driven interventions and community-based or community-driven crime prevention practices. There is no shortage of community-based crime prevention (CBCP) practices in Africa and they come in a variety of forms and models: neighbourhood watches, vigilantes, religious and ethnic militias, and neighbourhood guards. However, the effectiveness of CBCP practices is still a subject of controversy despite the widespread prevalence of these practices. This study looks at the effectiveness of CBCP practices, considers possible reasons for their effectiveness or ineffectiveness, and on the basis of the research, makes some policy recommendations.

Brighton UK: Institute of Development Studies, 2016. 59p.

By Yunus Raudah Mohd, Pauline Oosterhoff, Charity Jensen, Nicola Pocock and Francis Somerwell

This Emerging Evidence Report describes the availability of evidence on modern slavery interventions in Myanmar presented in the programme's interactive Evidence Map. This report on Myanmar uses the same methodology and complements the evidence map on interventions to tackle trafficking, child and forced labour in South Asia for Nepal, India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. The Evidence Map provides an outline of where evidence is concentrated and where it is missing by mapping out existing and ongoing impact evaluations and observational studies exploring different types of modern slavery interventions and outcomes for specific target populations (survivors, employers, landlords, service providers, criminal justice officials) and at different levels (individual, community, state). It also identifies key ‘gaps’ in evidence. Both the Evidence Map and this report foremost target the UK Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) and its partners in the CLARISSA research programme to support evidence-informed policymaking on innovations to reduce the worst forms of child labour. We hope that it is also useful to academics and practitioner

Brighton, UK: Institute of Development Studies, 2020. 60p.

By Joseph R. Nunez.

The author analyzes the drug intervention conundrum of Colombia. He then summarizes the reasons for the violent and anarchic situation that frustrates those wishing to make peace and expand democracy. After introducing what he calls the Hobbesian trinity, the author discusses alternatives to intervention and notes the complexity of the human rights challenge. He suggests a new strategy for improving human security, government accountability, democratic reform, and peace prospects. The author argues that the current approach is heading the wrong way, moving away from peace and fomenting greater instability. He concludes that there is a window of opportunity for the United States to support Colombia in a new way in its war against this anarchic trinity. But this will involve overcoming political factions responsible for the current policy that he argues is ineffective.

Carlisle, PA: U.S. Army War College Press, 2001. 53p.