By National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.

Injury and death from use of excessive force by police officers remain a common concern in countries across the globe. Despite local, national, and international attempts to legislate and provide guidance for police use of force, there continue to be global accounts of excessive force by law enforcement. Reports of officer-involved killings, injuries to citizens, and attempts to control protests and demonstrations with chemical irritants, rubber bullets, and sometimes shooting into crowds with live ammunition frequently appear in the press worldwide. However, reliable data on and accounting for these incidents are both lacking.

A large network of international and regional organizations, bilateral donors, international financial institutions, and civil society organizations aim to work with governments to improve policing practices and reduce police use of excessive force. As a part of that network, the U.S. Department of State, through its Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL), provides foreign assistance to and supports capacity building for criminal justice systems and police organizations in approximately 90 countries. Like many donors, it strives to direct its resources to the most effective approaches to achieve its mission.

Policies and Practices to Minimize Police Use of Force Internationally, the third in a series of five reports produced for INL, addresses what policies and practices for police use of force are effective in promoting the rule of law and protecting the population (including the officers themselves). This report looks at what is known about effective practices and their implementation and identifies promising actions to be taken by international donors in their efforts to strengthen the effectiveness of law enforcement agencies.

Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.2022. 84p.

By Committee on Evidence to Advance Reform in the Global Security and Justice Sectors; Committee on Law and Justice; Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education; National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.

FROM THE PREFACE: “The movement for evidence-based policing in the 1990s came on the heels of the concept of evidence-based medicine in the same decade, but with far less clinical research to apply in policing practices. Since then, police research findings have been growing at a rapid rate and have been reviewed by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine on repeated occasions in the last two decades. However, scant research findings have been reported at the country level, examining differences in police systems and policies across nations. In an era when the U.S. Congress has mandated better evidence to support public expenditure, the application of that mandate to overseas police development requires two responses. One is to do the best translation possible from existing research comparing differences between and within countries. The other is to map out research and action agendas that will promote the growth of new evidence to provide better guidance to policing in the international context.”

Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. 2021. 96p.

By Daniel Meji and Pascual Restrepo

This paper develops a simple model of the war against illegal drugs in producer and consumer countries. Our analysis shows how the equilibrium quantity of illegal drugs, as well as their price, depends on key parameters of the model, among them the price elasticity of demand, and the effectiveness of the resources allocated to enforcement and prevention and treatment policies. Importantly, this paper studies the trade-off faced by drug consumer country`s government between prevention policies (aimed at reducing the demand for illegal drugs) and enforcement policies (aimed at reducing the production and trafficking of illegal drugs in producer countries). We use available data for the war against cocaine production and trafficking in Colombia, and that against consumption in the U.S. in order to calibrate the unobservable parameters of the model. Among these are the effectiveness of prevention and treatment policies in reducing the demand for cocaine; the relative effectiveness of interdiction efforts at reducing the amount of cocaine reaching consumer countries; and the cost of illegal drug production and trafficking activities in producer countries.

Bogotá, Colombia: Universidad de los Andes–Facultad de Economía–CEDE, 2011. 31p.

By U.S. Secret Service National Threat Assessment Center (NTAC)

When incidents of school violence occur, they leave a profound and lasting impact on the school, the community, and our nation as a whole. Ensuring safe environments for elementary and secondary school students, educators, administrators, and others is essential. This operational guide was developed to provide fundamental direction on how to prevent incidents of targeted school violence, that is, when a student specifically selects a school or a member of the school community for harm. The content in this guide is based on information developed by the U.S. Secret Service, Protective Intelligence and Assessment Division, National Threat Assessment Center (NTAC).

Washington, DC: U.S. Secret Service National Threat Assessment Center (NTAC), 2018. 32p.

By Juhu Thukral and Melissa Ditmore

Police and prostitutes1 engage in a cat-and-mouse dynamic, in which the police seek to control the activities of prostitutes, and prostitutes respond by trying to avoid them. This report examines the impact of law enforcement approaches to street-based sex work in New York City and proposes a series of policy and practice recommendations for reform based on the researchers’ analyses of the data collected. This report also seeks to promote reasoned, fact-based, and informed debate regarding street-based prostitution in New York City. Public discussion of this issue usually occurs in flashy headlines that are meant to titillate rather than to explore the consequences of policy decisions in depth. This is a special effort to give voice to the problems faced by street-based sex workers, using their own words, since this is a voice that is almost always left out of policy debates. We propose recommendations based on programmatic possibilities that can create effective solutions for this population and the broader community. The researchers focused on street-based prostitution primarily because these sex workers have the greatest contact with law enforcement and with the community at large, and thus receive the majority of police attention. Most are economically deprived and vulnerable. Current law enforcement approaches include arrest or giving a summons or desk-appearance ticket, often during the course of police sweeps (the practice of arresting all women or all people in a known prostitution area, temporarily removing prostitutes from the street.)

New York: Urban Justice Center, 2003. 100p.

By Laura Wolfgram, Cyndy Pollan, Kirstie Hostetter, Amy Martin, Tina Spencer, Scott Rodda, and Andrew Amey

This report explores in detail the recent past and emerging future of fare enforcement on transit systems. While the focus is on North American transit systems, the research also provides examples from some agencies abroad, primarily in Europe, Australia, and South America. The intent of this research is to discuss the many facets of fare evasion that must be considered to successfully measure and manage it. These include changing attitudes about fare enforcement and penalties for evading fare, how these impact the ability to manage fare evasion, and the role of new technologies and emergent enforcement alternatives in changing the purpose of and approach to managing fare evasion. The evolution of fare collection methods and technologies has required transit agencies to develop new ways to verify and enforce fare payment, increase their understanding as to why and where fare evasion occurs, take proactive approaches to increasing fare compliance, and respond to emerging community sensitivities and social issues related to discrimination and systemic bias, use of police, and needs of vulnerable populations. This research effort involved three core activities: a review of the existing literature (which included documents from and studies of U.S. and Canadian transit agencies, as well as agencies elsewhere in the world), phone surveys conducted with 18 North American transit agencies, and follow-up communications with those tran

Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. 2022. 452p.

By World Bank Group

Over the next 13 years, Feira de Santana, in the state of Bahia (BA), and Aracaju, in the state of Sergipe (SE) will both benefit from significant investments in street lighting. Several studies have discussed the many benefits of this type of investment, including the effects of street lighting on people’s perceptions of safety and security. This study aims to provide a baseline to support those lighting interventions and contribute to an evaluation exercise at the end of the investment cycle. The analysis contained herein tries to explore the potential impacts on people’s behavior and perceptions of safety and security, especially among women. It also addresses education and job opportunities. The study adopted a mixed-methods approach, including qualitative and quantitative tools. It conducted 21 semistructured interviews with local authorities from both cities, as well as police officers, business association representatives, civil society organizations (CSOs), and school representatives. In addition, the research team carried out phone interviews with 602 respondents living in Aracaju and Feira de Santana. The survey data show that 56 percent of the Aracaju respondents are not satisfied with their street lighting, rating it as regular (37 percent), bad (7 percent), or terrible (12 percent). In Feira de Santana, an even larger share of the population (approximately 71 percent) think the same: 37 percent consider it regular, 9 percent consider it bad, and 25 percent rate it as terrible. Seventy-seven respondents, or 12 percent of the total, declared they had been a victim of nighttime crime within the previous 12 months. Almost 62 percent of them saw a link between poor lighting and crime. People from both cities feel less safe while walking on the streets during nighttime hours as opposed to walking during the day. Data also show that women feel less safe than men both during the day and in the evening or night. Poor lighting is one of the main reasons for this sense of insecurity, although empty streets were mentioned as an even more important factor. Since perceptions of security directly affect people’s behavior, 32 percent of all respondents from both cities reported that they always change routes in search of better lighting.

Washington, DC: World Bank, 2020. 143p.

By Cornelius Friesendorf

Intervening states apply different approaches to the use of force in war-torn countries. Calibrating the use of force according to the situation on the ground requires a convergence of military and police roles: soldiers have to be able to scale down, and police officers to scale up their use of force. In practice, intervening states display widely differing abilities to demonstrate such versatility. This paper argues that these differences are shaped by how the domestic institutions of sending states mediate between demands for versatile force and their own intervention practices. It considers the use of force by Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom and the United States in three contexts of international intervention: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo and Afghanistan. The paper highlights quite different responses to security problems as varied as insurgency, terrorism, organised crime and riots. This analysis offers important lessons. Those planning and implementing international interventions should take into account differences in the use of force. At the same time, moving towards versatile force profoundly changes the characteristics of security forces and may increase their short-term risks. This difficulty points to a key message emerging from this paper: effective, sustainable support to states emerging from conflict will only be feasible if intervening states reform their own security policies and practices.

London: Ubiquity Press, 2013. 97p.

By Lutterbeck, Derek

This paper describes and explains the evolution of gendarmerie-type forces, i.e. police forces with a military status, over the past three decades. It focuses on their institutional features and functions, including material and human resources, and uses case studies from Europe, the Middle East and North Africa to illustrate these characteristics in different contexts. The overall development of gendarmeries has been a somewhat paradoxical one. On the one hand, most of these forces have witnessed a considerable expansion, and come to assume an increasingly prominent role in addressing many of the currently most important security challenges, ranging from border control and counterterrorism to public order tasks in international peace operations. On the other hand, there has also been a trend towards the demilitarization of gendarmeries, which in some European countries has ultimately led to their dissolution and integration into the civilian police. The paper suggests an explanation of these seemingly contradictory developments with reference to two broad â and at least partly opposing â trends: the convergence of internal and external security agendas, which to a large extent is a post-Cold War phenomenon; and the demilitarization of internal security, which is a more long-term historical trend and part of the more general democratization process. Based on this analysis, the paper predicts that in the long run gendarmeries are likely to be further demilitarized, eventually losing their formal military status, although in the context of international peace operations militarized gendarmerie forces are expected to play an increasingly significant part.

London: Ubiquity Press, 2013. 66p.

By Bryan Vossekuil; Robert A. Fein; Marisa Reddy; Randy Borum; and William Modzeleski

This publication results from ongoing collaboration between the U.S. Secret Service and the U.S. Department of Education. Its goals are to determine whether it could have been known that incidents of targeted violence at schools were being planned and whether anything could have been done to prevent them from occurring. Results from the Secret Service's Exceptional Case Study Project (ECSP) are used to organize planning. This report describes the Safe School Initiative, defines "targeted" school violence, and discusses the prevalence of school violence in American schools. The methodology of this study, sources of information, and an analysis of survey responses are also discussed. Incidents of targeted school violence are characterized, including characteristics of the attacker, conceptualization of the attack, and signaling, advancing, and resolving the attack. Implications of study findings and the use of threat assessment as a strategy to prevent school violence are presented.

Washington, DC: United States Secret Service and United States Department of Education, 2004. 54p.

By Joseph M. McKenna and Anthony Petrosino

In 2019, the National Institute of Justice (NIJ) was directed to provide Congress with a report on the state of school policing in the United States that examined the current role of police in schools and provided recommendations on how they can better serve the needs of students. To address this directive, NIJ engaged two consultants to conduct a comprehensive literature review and examination of data sources, facilitate four days of expert panel discussions, and synthesize the results from these data collection efforts. This report is the result of those efforts. The report focuses exclusively on the United States and on sworn officers and does not consider the use of school police in nations outside the United States or on the employment of private security, retired military, or other types of non-sworn police in schools. Much of the writing of this report occurred in 2020 amid the civil unrest stemming from the murder of George Floyd and the police killings of other people of color. It also was written during the COVID-19 pandemic, which undoubtedly will also have impacts on school policing. This report focuses on what we currently knew at the time of its writing.

Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice Office of Justice Programs National Institute of Justice, 2022. 105p.

By International Crisis Group

What’s new? The theft and illicit sale of fuel, known in Mexico as huachicoleo, experienced an enormous spike after 2010. Rising fuel prices and other unintended effects of energy reforms and security policies have attracted organised crime into this domain, driving up murder rates. Why does it matter? President Andrés Manuel López Obrador made fighting fuel theft a central item on his anti-crime agenda. But although he has had some success, enduring progress toward stopping huachicoleo could be elusive, largely due to pervasive official corruption and the failure to promote licit alternatives for earning a living. What should be done? The government should tackle collusion between state officials and criminal outfits by introducing external oversight over state energy and security institutions. Conflict mitigation plans tailored to violent regions should offer legal alternatives to illicit livelihoods, protect civilians through focused police or military deployments, and support local security and justice institutions.

Mexico City/New York/Brussels: International Crisis Group, 2022. 24p.

Edited by David A. Shirk, Duncan Wood, and Eric L. Olson

Mexico has suffered a severe security crisis over the last decade. As in several other Latin American countries, elevated levels of crime and violence—and especially the proliferation of violent organized crime groups—have presented a serious threat to the Mexican state and to ordinary citizens. During the presidency of Felipe Calderón (2006–2012), the Mexican government attempted to address these problems primarily through law enforcement and military operations to combat organized crime and reforms to enhance the institutional integrity and efficacy of police and judicial sectors. Calderón’s successor, President Enrique Peña Nieto (whose six-year term began in 2012) spent much of his first year in office attempting to shift the narrative within and about Mexico from security issues to other matters, including political, economic, and social reforms to help move the country forward. However, while placing less emphasis on such matters, Peña Nieto also largely continued Calderón’s approach to security by targeting major organized crime figures, deploying federal forces to address urgent local security crises, and pushing ahead with efforts to implement Mexico’s new criminal justice system. Still, for many Mexicans, there have been few improvements in their dayto-day sense of security, their confidence in law enforcement authorities, or their ability to attain access to justice. Indeed, crime and violence remains such a serious concern in certain parts of the country that ordinary citizens have taken to extraordinary measures—hiring private security guards and embracing vigilantism—to protect themselves. In recent years, the emergence of self-professed citizen self-defense groups has introduced a new dimension to Mexico’s security situation. Such developments raise concerns about the course of Mexico’s security situation over the longer term. On the one hand, there are serious questions about the capacity of the Mexican government to fulfill its responsibility to provide for basic citizen security. While not a failed state, Mexico has proved highly vulnerable to penetration and corruption by powerful organized crime groups, and the government’s ability to maintain a monopoly on the legitimate use of force has been challenged by both political insurgents and violent criminal organizations.

Washington DC: Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars; San Diego University of San Diego Justice in Mexico Project, 2014. 294p.

By Marcos Pablo Moloeznik, Maria Eugenia Suárez de Garay, and David A. Shirk

This report presents a first look at the results from the study titled Justiciabarómetro: Comprehensive Study of Municipal Police in Ciudad Juárez, which was designed to evaluate the provision of public security in one of Mexico’s most troubled cities through the viewpoints, experiences, and opinions of law enforcement officers themselves. To do so, this study relied on two distinct methodological approaches: 1) A qualitative inquiry into the structural and organizational conditions present within the Ciudad Juárez Department of Public Security (Secretaría de Seguridad Pública Municipal de Ciudad Juárez, SSPM), using a variety of techniques —including participant observation, individual and group interviews, focus group studies, field visits, seminars, and analysis of archival documents— that allowed for detailed analysis of three priority areas in police institutions: organizational and operational, intelligence and counter-intelligence, and psychology, health, and work atmosphere; 2) A quantitative analysis of the organizational culture that prevails within the SSPM through a survey of the entire police department to examine their experiences and opinions regarding their professional careers, working conditions, adherence to due process, and relations to crime and society.

San Diego: Justice in Mexico, University of San Diego, 2011. 52p.

By Juan Pablo Pérez Sáinz, et. al.

This paper offers insights into dynamics of urban violence in two Central American countries that have evolved very differently historically. Costa Rica boasts the lowest overall levels of poverty and inequality of any country on the Isthmus, and has benefited from decades of stable and relatively inclusive governance highlighted by ambitious social policies. El Salvador, by contrast, exhibits severe levels of poverty and inequality typical of its neighbors, as well as a long history of exclusionary rule and corresponding inattention to social welfare. Yet our research reveals significant parallels between the two countries. This three-year, multi-method comparative study, carried out by teams at FLACSO-Costa Rica and FLACSO-El Salvador in collaboration with American University and with support from the IDRC/DFID Safe and Inclusive Cities program, focused on violence in two impoverished urban communities in Costa Rica and three in El Salvador. In all five settings, we analyzed neighborhood dynamics as well as community assessments of anti-violence interventions. We identified numerous lessons, some of which are counterintuitive, as well as concrete measures for consideration by regional, national, and local policymakers and community actors.

Washington, DC: American University - Center for Latin American & Latino Studies (CLALS), 2015. 20p.

By Stephen Smallbone, William L. Marshall and Richard Wortley

Although child sexual abuse (CSA) is generally referred to as a distinct and singular phenomenon, there is a remarkably wide range of circumstances and events that may constitute CSA. Wide variations have been observed in the characteristics, modus operandi and persistence of CSA offenders, in the characteristics, circumstances and outcomes for victims, and in the physical and social settings in which CSA occurs. These multiple dimensions of CSA, and the wide variations within them, may at first seem to make the task of prevention overwhelmingly difficult, if not impossible. However, it is important to recognise that on virtually none of these dimensions is the incidence of CSA evenly distributed. Not all children are equally at risk of falling victim to sexual abuse, not all victims will be affected in the same way, not all adolescents and adults are equally at risk of becoming offenders, not all offenders are equally at risk of proceeding to a chronic pattern of offending, and not all physical and social environments present the same risk for CSA to occur. The first step towards developing a comprehensive, evidence-based approach to preventing CSA is therefore to understand the patterns of variation within, and the interactions between, its key empirical dimensions. To the extent these patterns can be reliably identified, the focus of prevention strategies can be narrowed, and prevention resources can accordingly be prioritised. Notwithstanding the limitations of the current knowledge base, the main aim of the present chapter is to specify where, when, how, to whom and by whom CSA occurs.

Cullompton, Devon, UK: Willan Publishing, 2008. 267p.

By Nadia Wager, Alexandra Robertshaw Seery, and Diana Parkinson

This report sets out the findings from a scoping review to explore the existing literature on the use of disruption measures by police forces in relation to child sexual abuse, and the effectiveness of those measures. The scoping review laid the groundwork for two national surveys of police, described in the report Police Disruption of Child Sexual Abuse: Findings from a National Survey of Frontline Personnel and Strategic Leads for Safeguarding. Few reports of child sexual abuse result in a conviction, meaning that many suspects remain at liberty to offend against children and young people; efforts to disrupt their circumstances and behaviours are therefore vitally important.

The term ‘disruption’ is used to describe activities which attempt to interfere with suspects’ behaviours and circumstances so they are less able to commit crime. There are three fundamental approaches to disruption, with some overlap between them: The first approach uses direct measures to impose legal sanctions on suspects, making it harder for them to commit or continue to commit child sexual abuse. The second approach uses disruption supportive measures which disable or disrupt criminal activity in the community.

A third approach uses online measures to disrupt criminal activity taking place or being facilitated over the internet. In addition to reviewing empirical research studies, the scoping review included material identified from serious case reviews, policy documents, practice guidelines and other sources. The search produced more than 250 relevant documents.

Ilford, Essex, UK:Centre of Expertise on Child Sexual Abuse, 2021. 40p.

By Nadia Wager, Alexandra Robertshaw Seery, Diana Parkinson

This research study was commissioned by the Centre of expertise on child sexual abuse (CSA Centre) to explore the ways in which police forces across England and Wales seek to disrupt child sexual abuse. Disruption, alongside enforcement and prevention, is one of the principal ways in which police respond to criminality and criminal activity. While enforcement focuses on the prosecution of past crimes, and prevention aims to stop whole groups of suspects or protect potential victims, disruption is a more flexible and dynamic approach which seeks to disrupt offenders’ networks, lifestyles, and routines so that it is harder for them to commit crime. Disrupting child sexual abuse is a vital activity because most incidents of such abuse are never reported to or discovered by the police – meaning that many individuals who sexually abuse children remain at liberty to commit further abuse. Disruption measures have the potential to swiftly interrupt contact between a suspect and a child or young person, and to help stop further abuse in the longer term.

Ilford, Essex, UK: Centre of Expertise on Child Sexual Abuse, 2021. 68p.

By Fabien Jobard and René Lévy

French residents of immigrant origin, particularly those of North African and sub-Saharan African background, have long complained that police single them out for unfair, discriminatory, and unnecessary identity checks. If these perceptions are true, it means that French police are engaged in “ethnic profiling.” That is, police officers are basing decisions about who may be suspicious on the basis of the color of their skin or their assumed ethnic identity rather than on the basis of their individual behavior. In 2007, the Open Society Justice Initiative launched a study to examine whether and to what extent law enforcement officers stop individuals based on their appearance. This study was conducted in collaboration with Fabien Jobard and René Lévy, researchers with the National Center for Scientific Research (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique) in France. The study was carried out under the technical supervision of Lamberth Consulting. Examining five locations in and around the Gare du Nord and Châtelet-Les Halles rail stations, all important transit points in central Paris that are also the sites of heavy police activity, Profiling Minorities : A Study of Stop-and-Search Practices in Paris gathered data on police stops carried out by National Police and Customs officers, including information on the ethnicity, age, gender, clothing, and bags carried by the persons who were stopped. This study, which generated unique information on over 500 police stops, is the first to gather the quantitative data necessary to identify and detect patterns of ethnic profiling in France. The study confirmed that police stops and identity checks in Paris are principally based on the appearance of the person stopped, rather than on their behavior or actions. Persons perceived to be ethnic minorities were disproportionately stopped by the police. The results show that persons perceived to be “Black” (of sub-Saharan African or Caribbean origin) and “Arab” (of North African or Maghrebian origin) were stopped at proportionally much higher rates than persons perceived to be “White” (of Western European origin). Across the five observations sites, Blacks were overall six times more likely than Whites to be stopped by police ; the site-specific rates of disproportionality ranged from 3.3 to 11.5. Arabs were generally 7.6 times more likely than Whites to be stopped by the police, although again, the specific rate of disproportionality across the five locations ranged from 1.8 and 14.8. Follow-up interviews with the individuals who were stopped also suggest that these two groups regularly experience far more police stops than Whites.

New York: Open Society Institute, 2019. 82p.

By Joshua D. Freilich, Steven M. Chermak and Brent R. Klein.

Research Summary: In this article, we argue that situ- ational crime prevention (SCP) strategies can be used to prevent public mass violence, as well as to mitigate the harms caused from those attacks that still occur. We draw from the SCP perspective generally, and its application to terrorism particularly, as well as from the public mass violence literature. We focus on the pillars of opportunity that include target selection, weapon selection, tools used, and conditions that facilitate public mass violence attacks.

Policy Implications: We conclude that SCP’s EVIL DONE risk assessment template could be refined for the public mass violence context. We argue that the exposed, occupied, nearer, and easy dimensions, along with a newly created personal grievance dimension, could be used to identify more at-risk settings that should receive more situational interventions to prevent these attacks. We similarly conclude that SCP’s other pillars could be used to prevent these attacks. We outline specific hard and soft interventions that could thwart these attacks. Importantly, we use examples to illustrate that SCP’s strategies could effectively mitigate the harms caused by public mass violence attacks that do occur. We also set forth research strategies to test our claims.

Criminology & Public Policy. 2020;19:271–293. DOI: 10.1111/1745-9133.12480