By Marly van Bruchem, Laura Hendriks, Hans Myhre Sunde, Don Weenink, Lasse Suonperä Liebst & Marie Rosenkrantz Lindegaard

The causes of riots have been extensively researched. Comparatively, little is known about how they are prevented from occurring. We address this gap with a qualitative study of the role of formal and informal guardians in Amsterdam in January 2021, when public disorder was widespread across the Netherlands after the government had announced a curfew to curb the spread of the Covid−19 virus. We used CCTV footage of two gatherings that had elements of disorder and two that occurred without them. We also rely on interviews with 40 so-called “intimate handlers” who were present during these gatherings to understand how they managed them. We find that the presence and actions of intimate handlers collaborating with the police during the gatherings, effectuated through frequent affiliative contacts with the crowd, had direct de-escalatory effects, operative because of their well-developed social community bonds: participants in gatherings avoided jeopardizing these bonds of attachment, which also created a more positive image of the police through citizen-police collaborations. Our findings thus stress the importance of social bonds for the effectiveness of riot prevention and we consider practical implications for public disorder and large-scale crowd management.

Deviant Behavior, Volume 44, 2023 - Issue 11

By Aaron Chalfin, Jacob Kaplan, Michael LaForest

 For more than one hundred years, street lighting has been one of the most enduring capital investments to maintain public safety. In this study, we provide a comprehensive examination of the effect of street lights on crime, by estimating the effect of nearly 300,000 street light outages in Chicago neighborhoods on crime. We find that outdoor nighttime crimes change very little on-street segments affected by street light outages, but that crime appears to spill over to nearby street segments during these outages. These findings suggest that crime may follow patterns of human activity and that the impact of localized street light outages can reverberate throughout a community. 

Working Paper,  2021.  56p. Final version is at: Journal of Quantitative Criminology 38(1):1-29

By Shelley Trevethan and Eva Maxwell

This report reviewed and synthesized literature in response to two guiding research questions: how have Indigenous cultural practices, traditions, and activities been included in crime prevention programming and what is their connection with crime prevention; how have culturally-relevant crime prevention programs been evaluated and what is their contribution to crime prevention outcomes? This literature review includes a review of risk/protective factors for crime among Indigenous persons; a summary of the literature on crime prevention programs for Indigenous Peoples; an analysis of the connection between cultural practices, traditions, and activities and crime prevention objectives; a review of program evaluations; a summary and analysis of evaluation approaches and methodologies; a review of the effectiveness of Indigenous cultural practices, traditions, and activities based on existing evaluation results; and, conclusions and recommendations. Articles reviewed for this review were published in English, dated from 1983 to 2021, and represented 22 countries. Countries of publication included Canada, Australia, the United States, New Zealand, the Philippines, and South Africa. Overall, the literature in this field (a total of 291 articles and publications) is relatively new and challenging to find, particularly so for literature on the evaluation of programs. Indeed, the majority of articles reviewed were from gray literature sources, indicating that the field has not been extensively researched in academia; thus, causality is difficult to establish. Key themes included over-representation of Indigenous Peoples in all stages of the criminal justice system (and the reasons); risk and protective factors; nature of existing programming; and approaches for culturally competent evaluation

Research Report: 2023-R009   Ottawa: Public Safety Canada, 2023. 301p.

By Hannah Cortés-Kaplan and Laura Dunbar

This research study sought to examine the unique implementation issues for crime prevention programs aiming to serve Indigenous populations. This was completed through the analysis of implementation data from 49 crime prevention projects with completed evaluations, funded under the National Crime Prevention Strategy. The purpose was to examine the information that currently exists related to the implementation process, to provide an in-depth understanding of the associated challenges and strategies, and to identify possible recommendations for moving forward. An exploratory research design was employed, whereby data obtained from evaluation reports and related documents, were analyzed using Microsoft® Excel and QSR International NVivo 10. Results demonstrated that projects experienced implementation challenges in the following areas: program accessibility; funding requirements; management and administrative issues; and time management and planning deficiencies. Although few strategies were identified overall, adding a cultural element or making cultural adaptations were acknowledged as important components in addressing challenges. Findings from this research study identified the importance of program readiness and planning, resource limitations, culturally relevant adaptations, and formative evaluation in the implementation process. Knowledge of the latter may in turn help to assist crime prevention practitioners and policy makers in their understanding of implementation issues and strategies for improving projects aimed at serving Indigenous populations moving forward. 

Research Report: 2021–R001  Ottawa: Public Safety Canada. 2021. 33p.