By William Garriott

In its steady march across the United States, methamphetamine has become, to quote former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, “the most dangerous drug in America.” As a result, there has been a concerted effort at the local level to root out the methamphetamine problem by identifying the people at its source—those known or suspected to be involved with methamphetamine. Government-sponsored anti-methamphetamine legislation has enhanced these local efforts, formally and informally encouraging rural residents to identify meth offenders in their communities.
Policing Methamphetamine shows what happens in everyday life—and to everyday life—when methamphetamine becomes an object of collective concern. Drawing on interviews with users, police officers, judges, and parents and friends of addicts in one West Virginia town, William Garriott finds that this overriding effort to confront the problem changed the character of the community as well as the role of law in creating and maintaining social order. Ultimately, this work addresses the impact of methamphetamine and, more generally, the war on drugs, on everyday life in the United States.

New York; London: NYU Press, 2011. 201p.

By Eugenia C. South,  John MacDonald,  Vincent Reina,

Importance  The root causes of violent crime in Black urban neighborhoods are structural, including residential racial segregation and concentrated poverty. Previous work suggests that simple and scalable place-based environmental interventions can overcome the legacies of neighborhood disinvestment and have implications for health broadly and crime specifically. Objective  To assess whether structural repairs to the homes of low-income owners are associated with a reduction in nearby crime. Design, Setting, and Participants  This cross-sectional study using difference-in-differences analysis included data from the City of Philadelphia Basic Systems Repair Program (BSRP) from January 1, 2006, through April 30, 2013. The unit of analysis was block faces (single street segments between 2 consecutive intersecting streets) with or without homes that received the BSRP intervention. The blocks of homes that received BSRP services were compared with the blocks of eligible homes that were still on the waiting list. Data were analyzed from December 1, 2019, to February 28, 2021. Exposures  The BSRP intervention includes a grant of up to $20 000 provided to low-income owners for structural repairs to electrical, plumbing, heating, and roofing damage. Eligible homeowners must meet income guidelines, which are set by the US Department of Housing and Urban Development and vary yearly. Main Outcomes and Measures  The main outcome was police-reported crime across 7 major categories of violent and nonviolent crimes (homicide, assault, burglary, theft, robbery, disorderly conduct, and public drunkenness). Results  A total of 13 632 houses on 6732 block faces received the BSRP intervention. Owners of these homes had a mean (range) age of 56.5 (18-98) years, were predominantly Black (10 952 [78.6%]) or Latino (1658 [11.9%]) individuals, and had a mean monthly income of $993. These census tracts compared with those without BSRP intervention had a substantially larger Black population (49.5% vs 12.2%; |D| = 0.406) and higher unemployment rate (17.3% vs 9.3%; |D| = 0.357). The main regression analysis demonstrated that the addition to a block face of a property that received a BSRP intervention was associated with a 21.9% decrease in the expected count of total crime (incidence rate ratio [IRR], 0.78; 95% CI, 0.76-0.80; P<.001), 19.0% decrease in assault (IRR, 0.81; 95% CI, 0.79-0.84; P<.001), 22.6% decrease in robbery (IRR, 0.77; 95% CI, 0.75-0.80; P<.001), and 21.9% decrease in homicide (IRR, 0.78; 95% CI, 0.71-0.86; P<.001). When restricting the analysis to blocks with properties that had ever received a BSRP intervention, a total crime reduction of 25.4% was observed for each additional property (IRR, 0.75; 95% CI, 0.73-0.77; P<.001). A significant dose-dependent decrease in total crime was found such that the magnitude of association increased with higher numbers of homes participating in the BSRP on a block. Conclusions and Relevance  This study found that the BSRP intervention was associated with a modest but significant reduction in crime. These findings suggest that intentional and targeted financial investment in structural, scalable, and sustainable place-based interventions in neighborhoods that are still experiencing the lasting consequences of structural racism and segregation is a vital step toward achieving health equity.

Pennsylvania: JAMA Network Open, 2021. 12p.

MAY CONTAIN MARKUP

RALPH NAFER

In "UNSAFE AT ANY SPEED: The Designed-In Dangers of the American Automobile," readers are taken on a thought-provoking journey through the intricate web of risks intertwined with the iconic American car industry. Delving deep into the history and mechanics of automobile design, this compelling book challenges conventional perceptions of safety and unveils the unsettling truths behind the glossy facades of popular car models.

With meticulous research and stark analysis, the author sheds light on the overlooked perils that lurk beneath the surface of these ubiquitous machines. From flawed engineering practices to profit-driven decision-making, "UNSAFE AT ANY SPEED" serves as a wake-up call for consumers and enthusiasts alike, urging them to confront the uncomfortable realities of an industry built on speed, power, and, at times, compromise.

This eye-opening exposé prompts readers to question the status quo and demand greater transparency and accountability from manufacturers. "UNSAFE AT ANY SPEED" is a must-read for anyone concerned about the hidden hazards that accompany the freedom of the open road.

New York. Published by Pocket Books. 1966. 285p.

RAND CORP.

Facilitator, law law enforcement, and and community organizers introduce themselves and and summarize overall aim of the dialogue. For example, “Now we’d like to tell you why of the example, "Now we'd like to tell we we are are engaged in in this this work. In In recent years, we've seen many examples of tension of between police and the communities they serve. Importantly, events that happen and the that elsewhere can also affect and inform local community-police relations. We're doing also affect and inform this this exercise to help community members and police better communicate their to and police expectations." expectations.” It It also helps participants participants to to think about " “what what if if something happened here that is similar to what we’re seeing nationally?” “Would we be prepared?” here “Would that we is know similar how to what to respond? we're ” seeing “How nationally? should we " " respond? Would we ” be p

Santa Monica. CA. RAND CORP. 2023. 28p.

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Edited by Marcus Felson and Ronald V. Clarke

Business should become a central theme in criminology and crime prevention should become a core concern among business leaders.Contributors to Business and Crime Prevention include academic criminologists, representatives of the British Home Office, security industry experts, insurance data analysts, and consultants to the retail and telecommunications industries. The authors discuss crime prevention initiatives now underway in Australia, Canada, Great Britain, Holland and the US.

Criminal Justice Press, Jan 1, 1997 , 293 pages

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By Dionne Barnes-Proby ,Samuel Peterson, Alex Andra Mendoza-Graf, Pierrce Holmes, Danielle Sobol, Nipher Malik A. Malika And Meagan Cahill

Despite widespread recognition that community engagement is important for improving community-police relations, there is little guidance for how to systematically promote and sustain long-term relationship building. This guide was developed to share best practices from the RAND Corporation's work in implementing six community-police dialogues across four sites. This guide provides background on the purpose for the development of the community-police dialogue, guidance for planning and implementing the dialogue, and materials to help carry out the dialogue effectively.

By Marke Geisy da Silva Dantas, Luciano Menezes Bezerra Sampaio, Thadeu Gasparetto

Background: The violent behavior of football fans is constantly associated with their drinking habits. Aiming to reduce its impact, policy makers often ban the sales and consumption of alcohol beverages during matches. Nonetheless, there are few papers that empirically analyzed such relationship, and our paper aims to shed light on this question. Methods: Out dataset comprises 4,560 matches from the first and second tiers of the Brazilian League, where 245 exhibited at least one antisocial behavior from fans. Ordered logistic regressions are used as method. Results: Our empirical findings evidence that the sales of alcoholic drinks do increase the likelihood of severe antisocial behavior. We also observed a higher likelihood of violent cases when the home club loses its match as well as during crowded matches. Conclusions: We conclude that the change in the alcohol police in Brazil did show a significant association with the likelihood of antisocial behavior among football fans. However, since the magnitude of such effect is small, further research is needed to examine the potential benefits of this policy changes

International Journal of Drug Policy, Volume 123, January 2024, 10427

By Robert Doar

“Given New York Today, Could Anyone Lead It?” So bemoaned a 1991 New York Times headline after decades of failure and futility.1 Crime was endemic, schools were failing, poverty was pervasive, and the economy had stagnated. From John Lindsay to David Dinkins, mayor after mayor had tried to tackle these problems. They had all failed. After three decades of policy futility, New Yorkers were giving up. In 1991, surveys indicated that more than half of New Yorkers wanted to leave.2 Political leadership had come to regard the city’s ills as intractable pathologies. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, then New York senator, said at one public hearing on juvenile violence in 1993, “There is nothing you’ll do of any consequence, except start the process of change. Don’t expect it to take less than thirty years.”

Washington, DC: American Enterprise Institute, 2023. 10p.

By Micere Keels

There is increasing pressure for the juvenile criminal legal system to address trauma; this is in response to advances in the science of trauma and adversity, evidence from interventions showing promising outcomes for juveniles coping with trauma, and development of systemic frameworks for providing trauma-informed care. This review details how exposure to potentially traumatic events can create primary, secondary, and tertiary effects that are relevant to how the criminal legal system engages with juveniles coping with trauma. Associations that could be dismissed on methodological challenges can no longer be ignored as an increasingly sophisticated body of prospective studies replicate previous cross-sectional and retrospective studies, which found a higher prevalence of trauma among system-involved juveniles and show that exposure to potentially traumatic events and trauma symptoms play causal roles in engaging in behaviors that can be classified as criminal offending. Additionally, several examples are used to illustrate how racialized exposure to systemic trauma across generations underlies racialized disparities in persistent criminal offending—over exposure to potentially traumatic events and underexposure to coping resources. A broad range of developmental and criminological research is drawn upon to provide frameworks for implementing trauma-informed care as a systemic intervention aimed at minimizing retraumatization and using every interaction that juveniles have with the criminal legal system to contribute to recovery and prevent recidivism.

Annual Review of Criminology, Volume 7, Page 329 - 355

By United Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC); the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the International Criminal Police Organization (INTERPOL)

The exponential growth of the sports business market, extensive media coverage and the global growth of real-time online betting have created an environment in which many individuals and organizations have a direct or indirect financial interest in the course or the outcome of sports competitions. Such an environment can incentives those seeking to exploit sport for illicit gain. The nature of competition manipulation involves criminal acts that are not unique to sport, including fraud and money-laundering as well as the involvement of organized crime. It is viewed as an attractive area to infiltrate because of the opportunity to make large profits with limited risk of detection and sanction as a result of a lack or non-uniformity of laws and regulations around the world.

The implication is that sports organizations cannot deal with this issue on their own and cooperation with law enforcement agencies and criminal justice authorities can only strengthen the fight against competition manipulation. Sport organizations only have the power to take disciplinary measures, while criminal justice authorities and law enforcement agencies have a wider range of measures at their disposal. Because of the complex and transnational nature of competition manipulation, the investigation of offenses can be challenging for a wide range of stakeholders and jurisdictions. Effective and timely investigations play a crucial role in prevention strategies. At the same time, the failure to investigate or ineffective investigations can embolden would-be offenders.

At the national, regional and international levels, there is growing recognition that more needs to be done to tackle these threats effectively, including the allocation of more resources. This has been highlighted at the international level, including by the Conference of the States Parties (the main policymaking body of the United Nations Convention against Corruption), the General Assembly and the Group of 20 Anti-Corruption Working Group, and by the entry into force on 1 September 2019 of the Council of Europe Convention on the Manipulation of Sports Competitions, the only legally binding international instrument solely dealing with the issue of competition manipulation.

Vienna, Austria: United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, 2023. 71p.

By Piotr Bakowski

Corruption is a major challenge for the European Union (EU), with all its Member States affected by the problem to some extent. Its scale, however, is difficult to measure both in Europe and elsewhere. Surveys on the perception of corruption among citizens and experts – such as the Global Corruption Barometer and Eurobarometer surveys – are the principal measurement tool. Since the 1990s, countries around the world have joined efforts to address corruption collectively. This has led to the emergence of widely recognised international laws and standards, adopted in particular by the Council of Europe, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and the United Nations. Mechanisms, such as the Council of Europe Group of States against Corruption (GRECO), have been developed to monitor implementation of these rules. The EU has gradually adopted laws addressing a range of corruption-related issues. These include a Directive on the Fight against Fraud to the Union's Financial Interests, as well as directives on public procurement, whistleblowers and money-laundering. However, the legal framework thus created remains patchy, the lack of minimum rules on the definition of criminal offense and sanctions in the area of corruption being one important missing element. The EU has also developed its own tool for monitoring anti-corruption efforts – the EU anti-corruption report – only to abandon it after having issued its first edition. Recently, corruption-related issues have been addressed almost exclusively within the EU rule of law framework, a development criticised by various stakeholders, including the European Parliament. The latter has adopted numerous resolutions on corruption addressing, among other things, the impact of COVID 19, as well as systemic challenges to rule of law and deficiencies in the EU's fight against corruption. This briefing updates an earlier one published in 2022, which built on a study by 00 and Sofija Voronova, published in 2017.

Brussels: European Parliament, 2023. 11p.

By Bradley Sauve, Jessica Woodley, Natalie J. Jones, & Seena Akhtari

This literature review provides a comprehensive summary of methods commonly used to prevent corruption in both the private and public sectors and where possible, provides insight on which preventative methods have empirical value and demonstrated effectiveness.

Several key findings were identified, including:

·  Four main approaches to preventing corruption are highlighted. Namely, these include: 1) value-based approaches; 2) compliance-based approaches; 3) risk management approaches; and, 4) awareness and participation-based approaches. Within these four approaches, 18 specific corruption prevention methods are examined and assessed;

·     Findings demonstrate wide variability in the empirical effectiveness of existing prevention methods;

·     Findings demonstrate: 1) the tone at the top principle 2) ethics training programs; 3) top-down auditing; 4) merit-based recruitment; 5) E-government; and, 6) freedom of the press all show signs of empirical effectiveness;

·     The literature demonstrates mixed results regarding: 1) intrinsic motivations; 2) extrinsic motivations; 3) bottom-up monitoring; 4) public awareness campaigns; and, 5) freedom of information laws;

·     The four-eyes principle was the only method found to be effective, with the remaining methods lacking sufficient evidence to support their use; and

·     Analysis of the finding points towards the conclusion that organizations should seek to develop compliance programs and anti-corruption strategies that: 1) involve multiple evidence-based methods; 2) tailor prevention methods to meet the specific needs and context of the organization.

 Ottawa: Public Safety Canada, 2023. 63p.

By Simon A. Cole and Juan R. Sandoval

Police misconduct represents a profound societal issue with far-reaching consequences. Its detrimental effects encompass the discriminatory application of laws, harassment, physical violence and murder, corruption, wrongful arrests and wrongful convictions.1 These concerns are particularly pressing for underserved communities of color, where heightened levels of police contact and incarceration have effectively eroded the legitimacy of law enforcement.2 While police misconduct has been a long-standing concern, it has garnered heightened attention in recent years, primarily fueled by extensive media coverage of egregious acts of police violence, such as the killings of Michael Brown, George Floyd, and Tyre Nichols. An important recent concern about police violence has been the problem of “repeat offenders”— instances of police misconduct are not isolated events but rather involve particular officers who engage in misconduct repeatedly, with impunity. Discussion of this issue has focused on two key aspects: first, the existence of officers with extensive histories of misconduct that are often concealed from criminal defendants, judges, reporters, and the public; and second, the phenomenon of the “wandering officer” who commits misconduct in a particular department, is fired or leaves that police force, and then is hired by another police department in a different jurisdiction, where stakeholders are unaware of that officer’s history.3 The first issue came to light when it was revealed that in certain jurisdictions, including Los Angeles County and Baltimore, prosecutors maintained undisclosed “do not call” lists of police officers who should not be presented as witnesses in criminal trials due to their known histories of misconduct, perjury, or both. 4 The second problem came to light through the exposure of several infamous cases in which police officers effectively erased records of serious misconduct, secured  more widely accessible to stakeholders. This type of information has historically enjoyed legal protection, making it challenging for the public to access in numerous states.6 Notable disclosure efforts include the Invisible Institute’s publication of Chicago police misconduct data on a dedicated website, 7 and the New York Legal Aid Society's creation of a mobile device “app” designed for recording and accessing public information about individual police officers, which subsequently gained national traction through the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers.8 Finally, there have been persistent lobbying efforts aimed at persuading legislators to increase the transparency of information related to police misconduct for the general public. In California, these lobbying efforts have succeeded. In 2019, the legislature enacted new laws transforming the state from one that “without question, had the worst laws governing the disclosure of adjudicated findings of police misconduct” to one with “some of the strongest transparency laws” in the U.S.9 A consortium of stakeholders, including academic institutions, civil rights organizations, journalists, public defenders, and innocence organizations (including the National Registry of Exonerations), has formed the California Law Enforcement Accountability Network (CLEAN) to coordinate efforts of gathering, archiving, analyzing, and making public this newly accessible data.10 This report seeks to support these initiatives by exploring possible uses of information from the National Registry of Exonerations. This online publicly accessible archive contains data and narratives about all known exoneration cases in United States history. Police misconduct is important to the Registry because it is widely recognized as one of the key contributors to wrongful convictions in the United States. Police misconduct contributed to 43% of the wrongful convictions that resulted in exonerations since 1989.11 In addition, the Registry tracks clusters of exonerations through its Groups Registry. This includes exonerations centered around notorious rogue officers, such as former sheriff's deputy Tom Coleman in Tulia, Texas, former Sergeant Ronald Watts in Chicago, and Rafael Perez, the former Los Angeles Police detective at the heart of the Rampart scandal.   

 Ann Arbor: National Registry of Exonerations, 2023. 13p.

By The Womens Refugee Commission

In October 2023, the Women’s Refugee Commission’s (WRC) Migrant Rights and Justice program visited San Diego, California, and Tijuana, Baja California, Mexico, to assess the conditions that people seeking asylum at the US-Mexico border face. We visited a migrant shelter and an encampment located between two border walls where migrants await apprehension, and volunteered to aid migrants and people seeking asylum following their release from immigration custody. We also met with local officials, nonprofit organization partners, and individuals seeking asylum. Based on what we learned, WRC compiled this report on our assessments and recommendations.

United States, Women's Refugee Commission. 2023, 9pg

United States. Federal Emergency Management Agency

From the document: "Disaster recovery begins shortly after a disaster when survivors start to rebuild their community. The disaster recovery process creates opportunities for communities to rebuild thoughtfully, equitably, and resiliently. 'Achieving Equitable Recovery: A Post-Disaster Guide for Local Officials and Leaders' (hereafter the 'Guide') helps communities focus their efforts on forming relationships, holding conversations about equity, and prioritizing post-disaster recovery projects and resources that meet the needs of each community member. [...] This Guide identifies eight goals that organize actions to work towards achieving equitable recovery outcomes through an accessible, inclusive, and equitable recovery planning process. These goals are action-oriented to better provide local recovery officials with strategies for implementing focused and system-wide changes to the disaster recovery process."

United States. Federal Emergency Management Agency. 2023. 144p.

By Toner, Helen; Ji, Jessica; Bansemer, John; Lim, Lucy; Painter, Chris; Corley, Courtney D.; Whittlestone, Jess; Botvinick, Matt; Rodriguez, Mikel; Shankar Siva Kumar, Ram

From the document: "AI is experiencing a moment of profound change, capturing unprecedented public attention and becoming increasingly sophisticated. As AI becomes more powerful, and in some cases more general in its capabilities, it may become capable of posing novel risks in domains such as bioweapons development, cybersecurity, and beyond. Two features of the current AI landscape are especially challenging from a policy perspective: the rapid pace at which research is advancing, and the recent development of more general-purpose AI systems, which--unlike most AI systems, which are narrowly focused on a single task--can be adapted to many different use cases. These two elements add new layers of difficulty to existing AI ethics and safety problems. In July 2023, Georgetown University's Center for Security and Emerging Technology (CSET) and Google DeepMind hosted a virtual roundtable to discuss the implications and governance of the advancing AI research frontier, particularly with regard to general-purpose AI models. The objective of the roundtable was to help bridge the gap between the state of the current conversation and the reality of AI technology at the research frontier, which has potentially widespread implications for both national security and society at large."

Georgetown University. Walsh School Of Foreign Service. Center For Security And Emerging Technology . 2023. 23p.

By Magdalena Domínguez

Worldwide, gang proliferation is fought mostly with tough punishment strategies such as sweeps. In this paper, I study their causal effect on crime for arrested individuals and known peers following a difference-in-differences strategy. I also take advantage of the network structure I retrieved to assess peer effects and identify key players. I perform such an analysis with novel administrative data from the Metropolitan Area of Barcelona, where Latin gangs expanded rapidly and where a stark policy change occurred. Results show significant reductions in crimes of arrested individuals and their peers, particularly in crimes against the person. The areas of the sweeps benefit from improvements in crime, health and education. I further conduct an innovative counterfactual policy exercise comparing sweep outcomes with theoretically predicted crime reductions when removing key players. This exercise indicates that sweeps could have achieved a 50% larger reduction in criminal activity had key players been removed. In this way, a network analysis provides insights on how to improve policy design.

IEB Working Paper 2021/03. University of Barcelona, Institute of Economics, 2021. 55p.

By Michael German and Kaylana Mueller-Hsia

The failure of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and other law enforcement agencies to anticipate and prepare for the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol by far-right insurrectionists has elicited proposals to expand the bureau’s authority to investigate domestic terrorism.

The FBI already received expansive new powers after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and its current guidelines place few limits on agents’ ability to search broadly for potential threats. Confusion about the current scope of the bureau’s powers is understandable, however, as FBI leaders have regularly misstated their authorities in public testimony.

These misstatements deflect FBI accountability by focusing overseers on filling perceived gaps in its authority rather than examining how the bureau uses, misuses, or fails to use the tools it already has.

The real problem is not that the FBI’s authorities are too narrow, but rather that they are overbroad and untethered to evidence of wrongdoing. After 9/11, the Department of Justice (DOJ) reduced or eliminated reasonable evidentiary predicates to justify broader collection and sharing of Americans’ personal information. This new domestic intelligence process replaced evidence-driven investigations of suspected criminal activities with mass data collection and untriaged reporting of speculative harms unsupported by facts. The sheer volume of threat reporting resulting from this system suffocates effective intelligence analysis, flooding law enforcement leaders with thousands of specious threat warnings a day. In addition to unjustified invasions of privacy, the high rate of false alarms that this process produces naturally dulls the response, and the disconnect from evidence of criminality opens the door to bias-driven law enforcement responses. As they have in the past, the FBI’s unbridled authorities have resulted in abuses of civil rights and civil liberties without improving its ability to identify and mitigate real threats.

Misinformation from FBI officials has confused the policy debate. When senators investigating the January 6 attack asked Jill Sanborn, then the assistant director of the FBI’s Counterterrorism Division, whether FBI agents monitored the multitude of threats made in public forums prior to the attack, Sanborn replied, “It’s not within our authorities.”

Sanborn claimed that the FBI cannot collect information involving First Amendment–protected activities without a predicated investigation or a tip from a community member or law enforcement officer. These statements are inaccurate, yet they featured prominently in the Senate’s report on the security, planning, and response failures regarding the attack on the Capitol.

New York: Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law, 2022. 21p.

By Emilee Green, Brian Kuczynski, Morgan McGuirk and Jessica A. Reichert

Repeated and deadly encounters between law enforcement officers and Black Americans have given way to mounting calls for police reform. Reformers have proposed reallocating funds from policing to communities and social services, rethinking police use of force policies, and improving measures for officer accountability. This literature review briefly describes the impetus for police reform, reviews proposed police reforms, and examines available research on the effectiveness of police reforms. Overall, research indicates police agencies should not only focus on reducing crime, but also protecting and fostering the relationship between the public and police.

Chicago: Illinois 2022. 20p.

By Jody van der Heyde, Andrew Faull and Martin Sycholt

Trust in the police is vital to a functioning democracy, but relations between South Africa’s residents and police have long been characterised by mistrust. This report introduces procedural justice as a cost-effective, evidence-informed practice that can increase public trust and confidence in the police, and enhance police legitimacy and social cohesion. The report provides an overview of the theory and presents data on trust, customer satisfaction and police morale in South Africa.

South Africa: Institute for Security Studies, 2023. 16p.