By Steve Kirkwood

Mentoring is an increasingly popular approach for supporting people who have a history of offending. Previous research provides some evidence that it may contribute to reductions in offending behavior and support desistance from crime. The present study analyzed interviews with 33 people who used mentoring services in Scotland to examine the relationships between mentoring, motivation, and desistance. The findings suggest that the offer of mentoring may translate a general desire to change into motivation by providing the means to achieve this change. Mentoring may help people develop ‘hooks for change’ through practical assistance that leads to positive changes and by encouraging people to see the value of such changes. Mentors can also model ways of being that outline possible future selves and services can be structured in pro-social activities that support stakes in conformity. The article contributes to theoretical understandings of motivation and desistance by specifying the interplay of agency and structure.

Criminology & Criminal JusticeVolume 23, Issue 2, April 2023, Pages 183-199

By Timothy Hsiao

Critics of American policing often make the claim that it is a direct descendant of antebellum slave patrols, the mostly voluntary groups organized to capture runaway slaves and stifle slave rebellions in the early eighteenth century. Consider just a few examples:

• “The origins of modern-day policing can be traced back to the ‘Slave Patrol.’” — NAACP

• “Policing itself started out as slave patrols. We know that.” — Rep. James Clyburn.

• “Slave patrols . . . morphed directly into police.” — Nikole HannahJones.

• “[M]odernized police actually emerged in the South during slavery— they literally were slave catchers.” — Scalawag Magazine.

Even pro-law enforcement organizations such as the National Law Enforcement Memorial and Museum in Washington, D.C. have come to accept this claim. According to one criminal justice textbook, it is “widely recognized that law enforcement in the 20th-century South evolved directly from these 18th and 19th-century slave patrols.”

While it is true that slave patrols were a form of American law enforcement that existed alongside other forms of law enforcement, the claim that American policing “traces back” to, “started out” as, or “evolved directly from,” slave patrols, or that slave patrols “morphed directly into” policing, is false. This widespread pernicious myth falsely asserts a causal relationship between slave patrols and policing and intimates that modern policing carries on a legacy of gross injustice. There is no evidence for either postulate.

In order to demonstrate causation, one must show that modern policing drew its distinctive practices and structure from slave patrols. But the evidence shows that American law enforcement—whether in the form of sheriffs, town watches, constables, or police—all emerged from distinctly English influences. Both slave patrols and modern police departments drew from these influences. The fact that the latter did so after the former does not mean that the latter emerged from the former.

New York: National Association of Scholars, 2023. 6p.

By HM Inspector of Constabulary and HM Inspector of Fire & Rescue Services

This report focuses on the police response to antisocial behaviour. It also highlights examples of positive practice and joint working between the police and other organisations to address antisocial behaviour.

We drew on evidence from academic research, national guidance and findings from:

• our police effectiveness, efficiency and legitimacy (PEEL) programme;

• force management statements (self-assessments that chief constables and their London equivalents prepare and give to us each year);

• a request for promising practice to all forces by the College of Policing; and publicly available data.

HM Inspector of Constabulary and HM Inspector of Fire & Rescue Services 2024. 60p.

By Eon Kim, Kate Bowers , Dan Birks Shane D. Johnson

If and how policing affects crime has long been studied. On the relationship between police force size and crime, different authors come to different conclusions. This study examines the relationship between police resourcing, including workforce size, structure and stability over time using data for 42 police forces in the UK over a 13-year period.

We construct two novel panel datasets. The first comprises measures of police workforce Size, Structure and Stability. The second provides measures of both crime frequency and crime severity. Issues of endogeneity make the modelling of the police-crime association complicated. Consequently, we analyse the data using a panel vector autoregression (PVAR) model which is capable of forecasting a temporal sequence of the interdependencies between police-crime relationships.

Changes in total police personnel play an important role in reducing both crime frequency and severity, but the findings are more nuanced than this. Results highlight that the structure and stability of police organisations are important although these impacts are not always the same for crime volume and crime severity. We find that increases in frontline (non-sworn) support staff are associated with reductions in crime, while turnover rates of police staff are associated with increases in crime. In contrast, changes to the number of sworn police officers do not appear to be a good predictor of crime volume.

The findings suggest that investment in frontline support staff and the development of strategies to retain skills and knowledge by reducing staff turnover may be efficient approaches for Police Forces to maximise the impact on crime of their workforce in resource-pressed policing settings. While previous research has found that police force size has a limited effect on crime, our findings indicate that more nuanced measurements of police resourcing are necessary to understand how police impact upon crime risk. The idea of police forces using basic officer-to-population ratios to make staffing decisions appears outdated and over-simplistic.

Journal of Criminal Justice, Volume 95, November–December 2024, 102291

By Rick Muir

This report, produced in partnership with Virgin Media O2 Business, provides a strategic roadmap for police forces to make the most of digital systems, data and technology. It addresses the challenges with using technology, including upgrading outdated technology and unifying data management systems – both of which will be critical to modernisation.

We found that police forces are grappling with outdated legacy systems, complex procurement procedures, fragmented data-sharing, and a lack of digital knowledge and skills at all levels of policing. These challenges are stifling the full potential of data, digital and technology to transform modern policing.

With expertise from an advisory panel of leaders across national policing, the report makes a number of recommendations to enable officers to work more efficiently and use data to empower them with real-time insights:

• Develop a national strategy for interoperability enabling all 43 police forces to integrate their technology and share data.

• Invest in modern, scalable technology to transition from outdated systems to cloud-based platforms, real-time data and AI insights.

• Change the leadership culture to promote technological literacy at senior and executive leadership levels, ensuring that decision-makers understand the benefits of innovation and act accordingly.

London: Police Foundation, 2024. 28p.

By Frank Rudy Cooper 

There is a new police criticism. Numerous high-profile police killings of unarmed blacks between 2012 and 2016 sparked the movements that came to be known as Black Lives Matter, #SayHerName, and so on. That criticism merges race-based activism with intersectional concerns about violence against women, including trans women. There is also a new police resistance to criticism. It fits within the tradition of the “Blue Wall of Silence,” but also includes a new pro-police movement known as Blue Lives Matter. The Blue Lives Matter movement makes the dubious claim that there is a war on police and counterattacks by calling for making assaults on police hate crimes akin to those addressing attacks on historically oppressed groups. Legal scholarship has not comprehensively considered the impact of the new police criticism on the police. It is especially remiss in attending to the implications of Blue Lives Matter as police resistance to criticism. This Article is the first to do so. This Article illuminates a heretofore unrecognized source of police resistance to criticism by utilizing diversity trainer and New York Times best-selling author Robin DiAngelo’s recent theory of white fragility. “White fragility” captures many whites’ reluctance to discuss ongoing racism, or even that whiteness creates a distinct set of experiences and perspectives. White fragility is based on two myths: the ideas that one could be an unraced and purely neutral individual—false objectivity—and that only evil people perpetuate racial subordination—bad intent theory. Cop fragility is an analogous oversensitivity to criticism that blocks necessary conversations about race and policing. Blue Lives Matter exemplifies false objectivity when it asserts that police should be their judges of what is appropriate in law enforcement. Likewise, Blue Lives Matter relies on bad intent theory when it implies that only a few “bad apples” create racial disparities. Cop fragility is dangerous because it blames the victims of police misconduct, constructs a false victim status for the police, and undermines civil rights. Racial minority communities will only give police the cooperation they need if they perceive the police to be listening to them. This Article’s specific proposal is for police departments to hold mediated listening sessions with the new police critics based on a proven methodology for mediating difficult conversations. The goal is to identify reforms that would rebuild community trust of the police. These listening sessions hold the potential to turn police resistance to criticism into meaningful cooperation 

622 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS LAW REVIEW [Vol. 2020       

By Mia Karisa Dawson, Asia Ivey and Shani Buggs

Community violence—defined as unsanctioned violence between unrelated individuals in public places—has devastating physical, psychological, and emotional consequences on individuals, families, and communities. Immense investments in policing and incarceration in the United States have neither prevented community violence nor systemically served those who have been impacted by it, instead often inflicting further harm. However, the logics that uphold policing and incarceration as suitable or preventative responses to community violence are deeply ingrained in societal discourse, limiting our ability to respond differently. In this perspective, we draw from interviews with leading voices in the field of outreach-based community violence intervention and prevention to consider alternative ways to address community violence. We begin by demonstrating that policing and incarceration are distinguished by practices of retribution, isolation, and counterinsurgency that are counterproductive to the prevention of community violence. Then, we identify alternative practices of outreach-based community violence intervention and prevention that include (1) fostering safety nets through relationships among individuals, families, and neighborhoods, (2) fighting poverty and increasing access to resources, and (3) building political capacity among organizations to transform the broader systems in which they are embedded. They also include accountability practices that are preventative and responsive to the needs of those who are harmed. We conclude that elevating the language, narratives, and values of outreach-based community violence intervention and prevention can transform our responses to violence, interrupt cycles of harm, and foster safer communities

Front Public Health 2023 Apr 17:11:1143516. doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2023.1143516. eCollection 2023.

By Emily A. Greene-Colozzi, Joshua D. Freilich

Situational crime prevention (SCP) is an environmental crime control perspective with enormous practical and policy relevance due to its practitioner-friendly theoretical approach. This study examines whether SCP interventions reduce incident casualty outcomes in active shooter incidents. We used an inductive, open-source data set of 555 active shooter and mass public shooting sites to study the applicability of SCP to active shooter and mass public violence. Our findings suggest a harm mitigation role for SCP: active shooter sites with stronger holistic SCP had fewer casualties. We assessed perpetrator motivation to test displacement, a core critique of SCP, and found that the harm mitigation potential of SCP persists even in the presence of a highly motivated offender.

Policy summary

SCP could be a practical and effective method to decrease casualties in the event of an active shooting, which is a highly motivated crime type that is difficult to predict and prevent. Public locations may select a range of appropriate SCP techniques based on individual resources and needs. The totality and interactions of these techniques may contribute to public safety in general, with diffuse benefits. This policy solution is highly oriented toward practice and real-life application, and may be used to supplement existing preventative measures like threat assessment and gun legislation.

Criminology & Public Policy Volume 23, Issue 4 Nov 2024 Pages 801-1017

By Ben Grunwald

Beginning in 2020, law enforcement experts widely claimed that a surge in police separations triggered a national retention crisis and that political activism after George Floyd's murder was a principal cause. We lack data, however, to track such trends in the national police labor market. Using information from Police Officer Safety and Training (POST) agencies, I constructed an Interstate Police Employment Database (IPED) on every job held by every officer in all 6,800 local law enforcement agencies across fifteen states that, together, cover half the U.S. population. I then conduct the largest empirical study of the law enforcement labor market to date. My findings show that the increase in separations in IPED agencies after the summer of 2020 was smaller, later, less sudden, and possibly less pervasive than the retention-crisis narrative suggests. All told, the cumulative impact on the labor force by the end of 2021 was just 1%. Aggregate figures, however, mask variation at the agency level. As I show, a substantial minority of large agencies meaningfully shrank by the end of 2021. I also provide evidence that local political activism cannot explain local separation rates, raising some doubt about whether the protests were a principal cause of rising turnover.

Duke Law School Public Law & Legal Theory Series No. 2024-41

By Kristi Barksdale and Tully Yount

Since December 2018, the National Sheriffs’ Association (NSA) and the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS Office) have been hosting and actively participating in meetings with border sheriffs to discuss their unique needs and challenges. The purpose of these meetings was to provide the NSA, the COPS Office, and other DOJ stakeholders with a better understanding of border security needs and to identify gaps for personnel and equipment, as well as training and technical assistance. More than 130 people participated in three roundtable and focus group discussions. The first meeting, held in December 2018 in Rockwall, Texas, featured a roundtable of Texas sheriffs discussing their need for support and equipment needs, funding opportunities, personnel shortages, and operational control. Promising practices discussed included an introduction to the North Texas Criminal Interdiction Unit (NTXCIU). Continuing the conversations, the NSA and the COPS Office called on the Southwestern Border Sheriffs’ Coalition (SWBSC) to participate in two focus group sessions facilitated by NSA, the COPS Office, and CNA on next steps. The first focus group session took place during the Western State Sheriffs’ Association meeting in Reno, Nevada, and the second, in which the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) also took part, at the SWBSC annual conference in Del Rio, Texas. They continued the discussion of the DOJ and DHS’s commitment to supporting sheriffs. Federal representatives presented on initiatives and projects being deployed to meet the needs of sheriffs. Throughout these meetings, border sheriffs made it clear that they were facing a number of challenges. Participating sheriffs agreed that they could always use more training and would continue to accept any training opportunities that were made available. They responded well to the NTXCIU presentations where they gained knowledge on basic criminal interdiction and how to build a criminal interdiction unit. Participants also discussed their need for more technology, such as automatic license plate readers and x-ray machines. To allow sheriffs who had not participated in the roundtables an opportunity to voice their needs, the NSA, in coordination with the COPS Office, sent a needs assessment to northern and southwestern border sheriffs to gather a comprehensive list.  

Washington, DC: Office of Community Oriented Policing Services , 2020. 28p.

By The International Association of Chiefs of Police.

Published by the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS), this publication discusses peer support as an important part of an officer wellness strategy. Employees may feel more comfortable initially seeking support from a peer who understands the context and has experienced the same stressors. This guide provides a road map for small and rural law enforcement agencies implementing or enhancing peer support services. It highlights promising practices and provides brief case studies of peer support programs in three small or rural agencies. Topics include establishing trust and buy-in; identifying, training, and supporting team members and leaders; confidentiality; local and regional partnerships; and evaluation metrics.

Washington, DC: Office of Community Oriented Policing Services. Published 2023 ..32p.

By  Michael Vitoroulis, Cameron McEllhiney, Liana Perez

In the 2010s, viral videos of seemingly routine police encounters depicting tragedy have sent shockwaves through both communities and law enforcement agencies across the country, setting off a national conversation on the relationship communities have with law enforcement. At the national level, these encounters have coincided with reduced public confidence in American policing, particularly among youth and minority populations.  While low levels of trust have existed in certain communities throughout history, the most recent wave of high-profile incidents has prompted widespread calls to meaningfully address issues of community concern, such as officer-involved shootings and excessive force, discriminatory policing, aggressive crime fighting strategies, and accountability for misconduct. Across the nation, law enforcement leaders, academics, and government officials have seemingly reached a consensus that addressing such issues with a focus on public trust and legitimacy is integral to fair and effective public safety in an increasingly diverse nation. The response by governments, law enforcement executives, community groups, and technical advisors to the challenge of mending police-community relations has been significant. In the aftermath of unrest in Ferguson, Missouri, and elsewhere, then President Barack Obama established the Task Force on 21st Century Policing to identify policing practices that promote public safety and build community trust in law enforcement. The Final Report of the President’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing, published in May 2015, offered several recommendations, including many relating to public trust, procedural justice, and legitimacy; accountability and transparency; community policing efforts; and the inclusion of community members in policy development, training programs, and review of force incidents. In addition, the task force’s report recommended that civilian oversight of law enforcement be established in accordance with the needs of the community and input from local law enforcement stakeholders. Civilian oversight of law enforcement can contribute significantly to the implementation and institutionalization of many of the task force’s recommendations and further the development of public trust, legitimacy, cooperation, and collaboration necessary to improve police-community relations and enhance public safety. Community efforts to address the issue of police-community relations increasingly include civilian oversight of law enforcement as a means of building trust. Traditionally, high-profile incidents have spawned the creation of new or strengthened civilian oversight.  However, decision makers in jurisdictions throughout the country are increasingly establishing civilian oversight proactively in recognition of its ability to promote public trust in law enforcement and reduce exposure to the risks of misconduct. At its core, civilian oversight can be broadly defined as the independent, external, and ongoing review of a law enforcement agency and its operations by individuals outside of the law enforcement agency being overseen. Civilian oversight may entail, but is not limited to, the independent investigation of complaints alleging officer misconduct, auditing or monitoring various aspects of the overseen law enforcement agency, analyzing patterns or trends in activity, issuing public reports, and issuing recommendations on discipline, training, policies, and procedures. Taken together, these functions can promote greater law enforcement accountability, increased transparency, positive organizational change, and improved responsiveness to community needs and concerns. By acting as an independent and neutral body reviewing the work of the law enforcement agency and its sworn staff, civilian oversight of law enforcement offers a unique element of legitimacy that internal accountability and review mechanisms simply cannot. Because civilian oversight agencies operate outside of the overseen law enforcement agency, and report to local stakeholders outside of its chain of command, the findings and reports of an oversight agency are free from the real or perceived biases that are often the source of mistrust in a law enforcement agency’s internal systems. Similarly, a civilian oversight agency’s impartiality, neutrality, and adherence to findings of fact can alleviate officer skepticism in internal systems and bolster procedural fairness within the law enforcement agency as a whole. The organizational structure and authority of civilian oversight agencies in the United States varies widely. While civilian oversight agencies can be broadly categorized into review-focused, investigation-focused, or auditor/monitor-focused models, no two oversight agencies are exactly alike. There is no one-size-fits-all approach that makes one form of civilian oversight better than another.6 Effective civilian oversight systems will reflect the particular needs of their local partners and incorporate feedback from community members, law enforcement and their unions, and government stakeholders in order to achieve the most sustainable and appropriate structure. As the field of civilian oversight grows in sophistication, many cities are combining various aspects of traditional oversight models to produce “hybrid” forms best suited for their local context. 

While the establishment of civilian oversight alone cannot restore law enforcement’s legitimacy, it is difficult, if not impossible, to maintain public trust without it. As such, developing effective and adequately resourced civilian oversight is among the several strategies that must be employed to rebuild community relations with law enforcement. This report is intended to provide the reader with the information necessary to better understand civilian oversight, its principles, and its history; discuss effective practices; and guide communities in the establishment of sustainable civilian oversight mechanisms. The first half of this report provides a brief overview of the history of civilian oversight, the features of traditional oversight models, and original insights on trends and developments on the current state of the field. This includes information on the geography of civilian oversight, patterns in oversight agency functions and authority, oversight staffing and resourcing, oversight agency access to department records and information, and developments in community outreach functions performed by oversight agencies across the country. This information is intended to fill existing gaps in the literature on civilian oversight and provide stakeholders with a broader understanding of the contemporary civilian oversight landscape. The second half of this report focuses on the principles that underlie effective civilian oversight and the recommended practices that bolster an oversight agency’s ability to adhere to these principles. In total, this report offers 73 recommendations across 16 core areas of civilian oversight, such as independence, access to information, processing and managing complaints, analyzing law enforcement policies and data, issuing public reports, evaluating a civilian oversight agency, and performing community outreach. These recommendations have been developed with input from seasoned oversight professionals throughout the country and include commentary as well as additional references that can assist in their implementation. While these recommendations do not cover all aspects of civilian oversight, stakeholders should take them into consideration and determine their propriety in their local contexts. As a whole, this report is one of many ongoing efforts to expand and improve civilian oversight of law enforcement throughout the country. Moving forward, additional research and resources from a variety of sources are still necessary to develop further guidance and understanding of this rapidly growing and evolving field.    

Washington, DC: Office of Community Oriented Policing Services, 2021. 176p.

By Hayli Millar, Yvon Dandurand , Marcella Chan With the Assistance of Abeni Steegstra, Raelyn O’Hara, and Kia Neilsen 

The international community is attempting to eliminate forced labour and the worst forms of child labour, including hazardous work likely to harm children’s health, safety, or morals. Child and forced labour can be present at various points of a company’s supply chains, often out of sight of buyers, labour inspectors, and consumers. Many governments have resorted to legislation to motivate companies to be more transparent about their supply chains and to adopt due diligence measures to prevent child and forced labour. At present, there is no specific supply chain transparency legislation in Canada. Canadian private companies under applicable securities legislation do not have an obligation to disclose material labour exploitation risks within their supply chains. Given the complex, evolving and often obscure nature of supply chains, too many Canadian companies fail to offer consumers any meaningful environment, social or governance disclosure. As a result, consumers are unaware of whether the products and services at local Canadian retailers have connections to human rights abuses or detrimental environmental practices. At the same time, companies increasingly feel the pressure from investors, consumers, NGOs, industry associations and others to disclose and address the risks of labour exploitation in their supply chains. To prevent and eliminate child and forced labour, a new statutory framework may be needed to clearly define the transparency and due diligence obligations of enterprises throughout their operations and supply chains. In their efforts to prevent and combat child and forced labour globally, national and regional governments are increasingly turning to mandated disclosure (transparency) and due diligence regimes as an indirect method of regulating corporate behaviour throughout various supply chains. Recent disclosure laws require companies to provide information on their global supply chains, including due diligence measures that they have taken to prevent human rights violations by third-party suppliers. Some of these laws now extend beyond targeted due diligence in preventing child and forced labour and apply more comprehensively to the prevention of human rights violations and harmful environment practices. There is also a growing tendency for these laws to impose some specific due diligence or duty of care obligations on the companies they cover. Effective monitoring, investigation and enforcement mechanisms then become necessary to ensure accountability, along with ensuring access to judicial and non-judicial remedies for those whose rights have been violated. The thematic focus of this Guide on forced labour and child labour is intentional and timely given that 2021 is the International Year for the Elimination of Child Labour – 2021.1 The Guide was developed to assist policy makers and legislators, in Canada and elsewhere, in making policy choices and designing  legislation that will achieve an optimum impact on the elimination of child and forced labour. The Guide presents and discusses a range of legislative options and examples that policymakers and legislators may wish to consider in the development of supply chains transparency and due diligence legislation. The goal being to establish a statutory duty of care requiring businesses to take reasonable steps to avoid the use of forced labour, child labour, and human trafficking in their operations abroad, and to report publicly on these due diligence steps and their impact. The Guide fits within the broader international anti-slavery policy developments of the last decade or so, including the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, the global standard for corporate human rights obligations. The development of effective legislation may be more urgent than ever given the fact that the major supply chain disruptions caused by climate change and the COVID-19 pandemic are not only responsible for slowing down the economic recovery, but also weakening the capacity of enterprises to ensure that their supply chains are not buoyed by child or forced labour. As businesses embark on the journey to recovery, supply-chain leaders are resorting to various strategies to make their supply chains far more flexible and agile, including dual sourcing of raw materials and near-shoring, or regionalizing their supply chains. As business leaders are seeking to deeply and quickly transform their supply chains, new risks emerge that must be managed in order to prevent child labour, forced labour and other human rights violations within their supply chains. At this time, many businesses are looking to establish and improve their dedicated supply-chain riskmanagement functions and processes and adopt voluntary standards for environmental, social and governance. They could be persuaded to include due diligence and reporting practices in these processes to manage the risks and potential liability associated with suppliers and partners that are less scrupulous about preventing human rights abuses. Failing to address human rights issues can create significant business risk.2 There is certainly a lot of interest among businesses in how to measure and report their social impacts and many of them have adopted voluntary standards. However, states must act to ensure that businesses do more than “launder their reputation”.3 The Guide is divided into two main parts. A first part establishes a context for the guidance offered, including a cursory review of the Canadian legislative landscape and the international policy framework for responsible business conduct. A second part offers a discussion of the various choices a legislator must consider in designing a supply chains transparency and due diligence statute that can hold business enterprises accountable for their efforts to prevent child labour and forced labour. That second part has six main sections: 1. The purpose, scope, and application of the legislation 2. The designation of the entities to be covered by the legislation 3. Creating disclosure and reporting obligations 4. Creating specific due diligence and accountability obligations 5. Complaints and grievance mechanisms, and potential remedies 6. Responsibility for the administration and enforcement of the law. The specific due diligence obligations imposed by the legislation The reader will also find two tables at the end of the Guide, one summarizing existing international standards and policy guidance instruments and one summarizing the main features of various relevant national legislation. For those readers already familiar with the Canadian context and the applicable international legal standards, they may find it easier to start with Part 2 of the Guide.   

Vancouver, BC:  International Centre for Criminal Law Reform and Criminal Justice Policy , 2022. 83p.  

By Yvon Dandurand Abeni Steegstra Vivienne Chin

This report presents the results of a review of the crime situation and a gap analysis on crime prevention and response interventions in the Caribbean Community and Common Market (CARICOM) countries. The main objective of the review is to inform discussions and decisions on the role that Canada can play to help address, at the national and regional levels, the increasing crime levels in the Caribbean. The report offers recommendations in relation to crime prevention interventions to address the risk factors associated with criminal behaviour as well as interventions to respond to criminal activities and reduce future crime through deterrence and offender rehabilitation and reintegration. The review was conducted between October 15, 2023, and March 30, 2024. It covers all CARICOM countries except Haiti. The review relied on: 1. Existing crime data to identify crime rates and crime trends in the CARICOM countries, including violent crime, youth crime, gender-based crimes, and various threats related to organized transnational crime. 2. Existing national victimization data and public perceptions of crime and public safety data. 3. Available information and data on the effectiveness of law enforcement and criminal justice responses to crime and key crime prevention initiatives in CARICOM countries. 4. Public domain information on existing mechanisms to address security governance and collaboration within the region. 5. Public domain information on the assistance provided by Canada and other donors and international agencies in the areas of public safety, criminal justice reform and capacity building, and crime prevention, and on their development plans. 6. Key informant interviews with 93 stakeholders of the region about ongoing criminal justice and crime prevention initiatives, at the national and regional levels, and perceived priorities and opportunities for further initiatives. 7. Consultations and document review concerning existing programming mechanisms in Canada and Canada’s policy engagement at the various missions. Within the scope of the project, the review team considered several specific questions related to perceived gaps in crime prevention and response interventions in CARICOM. It also considered key crime prevention and response interventions being planned or implemented in CARICOM countries. Increased violence in CARICOM countries has been attributed to several factors, including structurally weak social protection, the effects of the COVID-19 epidemic, gang competition and fragmentation, changes in the illicit drug market, the availability of firearms, and a relatively high level of impunity for violent crimes. The dramatic increase in recent years in homicidal violence in many Caribbean countries is largely due to the intense competition between gangs over drug markets. However, there is great intraregional variance in the prevalence of violent crime. Several factors contribute to the proliferation of gangs and gang violence. The lack of economic opportunities, low social cohesion, and weak community resilience are often cited as key drivers of local gang growth. So is transnational organized crime and access to profitable illicit markets. The analysis identified several gaps in three main areas: (i) measures to strengthen the criminal justice system’s responses to crime and deter or reduce it; (ii) measures to control gang violence, transnational organized crime, and emerging crimes; and (iii) measures to prevent violence and crime, including at the school and community levels and measures to prevent recidivism and reintegrate offenders. 

Vancouver, BC:  International Centre for Criminal Law Reform 2024. 197p.

By Thomas C. O’Brien, Tracey L. Meares, and Tom R. Tyler

When police officers harm civilians, police leadership almost invariably makes a public statement about the incident, and these communications usually address issues of public mistrust in the police. In addressing public mistrust, political pressures may motivate police leadership to avoid acknowledging the role of police in creating that distrust. The study reported in this article examines the consequences of avoiding versus acknowledging responsibility for the role of police in creating mistrust, along with issuing an apology or not issuing an apology, in public statements. How do these various kinds of gestures shape public cooperation with police? This study reports on an experiment designed to answer that question, with our analysis focusing on the impact of these various kinds of statements on the people who are least likely to trust police. The evidence suggests that police leaders should combine acknowledgement of responsibility for the mistrust with an apology if they want to enlist the cooperation of people who are least likely to trust the police.

The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social ScienceVolume 687, Issue 1, January 2020, Pages 202-215

By Kirsteen Grant, Britta Heidl,  Christof Backhaus,  Diane Vincent,

This research compares the ‘work’ and ‘workplace’ expectations of probationers (new recruits) and early career officers (with up to two years of experience) with the lived experiences of established police officers (with three or more years of experience). It examines the extent to which the expectations of early career officers are realistic, understood, and are being fulfilled for established officers. The wellbeing and retention of police officers are of key concern to Police Scotland. Providing an in-depth examination of the reasons behind turnover intention (desire to leave) and, importantly, the retention factors that might encourage officers to remain within Police Scotland is the driving force behind this research. The research is broadly structured around four antecedents, or themes: police culture and work environment; management and leadership; training and career progression; and wellbeing and work-life balance. Drawing on psychological contract theory as an analytical lens, it focuses on the implications and consequences for officers’ job satisfaction, engagement, and turnover intention (i.e., retention factors). All empirical data were collected within Police Scotland. The methodology consisted of a sequential mixed methods approach, with qualitative data firstly generated from 32 interviews (15 probationers and 17 established officers), followed by a quantitative survey of 1,297 police officers. By comparing new and early career officers’ expectations with the lived experiences of established officers, this report shines a light on several areas of dissonance that Police Scotland should be cognisant of. Probationers’ hopes for the job were geared around having a challenging, rewarding, and varied role in which they can ‘make a difference’, where they are treated inclusively and with respect, and where they have opportunities to develop, grow and progress. Yet, on average, established officers reflected that their job has not fully measured up to the job they envisaged, and a substantial share of respondents (45%) indicated that with hindsight they would not choose to become a police officer again. Where the eventual job does not match up to high initial expectations, current probationers and early career officers are at greater risk of voluntary turnover. The report aims to inform future Human Resource policy and practices to shape the work and workplace expectations and lived experiences of police officers. Police Scotland should take account of the changing needs and work and workplace expectations of a new generation of police officers when developing the next iteration of its People Strategy, including its approach to strategic organisational and culture development. The report makes seven specific recommendations to Police Scotland.

Edinburgh: Copyright © 2024 Scottish Institute for Policing Research, 2024. 52p.

.By Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Community Violence Can Be Prevented All people want to be healthy, safe, and connected to other people. We all want to have access to life opportunities, including education and employment, to become valued members of communities and society, and to live our lives free from violence. To support community violence prevention and promote health and safety, the Division of Violence Prevention (DVP) in the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control (NCIPC) at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) developed the Community Violence Prevention Resource for Action (or Prevention Resource, for short). DVP’s vision is to have a violence-free society in which all people and all communities are safe, healthy, and thriving. Violence is preventable using a public health approach. This includes bringing together partners and community members to consider local needs and the best available evidence to implement violence prevention strategies. About this Prevention Resource for Action Community violence happens in public places, such as streets or parks, between people who may or may not know each other. Examples include assaults, fights among groups, homicides, and fatal and nonfatal shootings. This resource is informed by research and conversations with community members, people who have experienced violence, and other partners.a It is an update to the Youth Violence Prevention Resource for Action.  It includes evidence for preventing violence experienced by youth (ages 10-24), which is now under the larger community violence topic. In this update, we expand the evidence to include examples for preventing violence experienced by young adults (ages 25-34). Young adults ages 20-24 have the highest homicide rate. They are closely followed by young adults between the ages of 25-29, 30-34, and then teens ages 15-19.8 Over the past 40 years, we have learned a lot about preventing violence, but there is still more work to do. This resource is intended to help communities and states prevent violence before it starts and lessen the harms of violence that occur by describing the best available evidence for community violence prevention. DVP looks forward to learning from communities and states about how this resource is being used and how it can be improved so that all communities are safe, healthy, and thriving. This Prevention Resource has three components. The first component is the strategy, or the direction or actions needed to prevent community violence. The second component is the approach, or specific ways to advance the strategy through policies, programs, or practices. The third component is the evidence for each approach in preventing community violence or the conditions or behaviors that increase risk for community violence. The examples provided in this resource are not intended to be a comprehensive list of evidence-based programs, policies, or practices for each approach. Rather, they illustrate models that have been shown to prevent community violence or impact conditions or behaviors that increase risk or protect against violence    

Atlanta, GA: National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.  2024. 104p.  

By Williams Downs

An individual’s right to freedom of expression and assembly are protected by Articles 10 and 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights. Together they safeguard the right to peaceful protest. However, these rights are not absolute, and the state can implement laws which restrict the right to protest to maintain public order or protect the rights and freedoms of others. In the UK several pieces of legislation provide a framework for the policing of protests. The Public Order Act 1986 provides the police with powers to restrict protests by placing conditions on them. These powers were strengthened by part 3 of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022. The Public Order Act 2023 established several criminal offences in relation to protest. These include offences of causing serious disruption by locking-on, being equipped to lock-on, causing serious disruption by tunnelling, obstructing major transport works, and interfering with key national infrastructure. There are also several criminal offences which are not specific to protest situations but could apply to conduct committed during a protest, such as wilful obstruction of a highway, public nuisance, and aggravated trespass. Other routes used to restrict peaceful protest There have been several examples of businesses and organisations applying for civil injunctions (court orders) against protesters to stop them from engaging in protest activity that affects their operations. The Public Order Act 2023 also provides for the Home Secretary to have the power to seek injunctions against protesters, though at the time of writing this provision has not been brought into force. Part 2 of the Public Order Act 2023 created Serious Disruption Prevention Orders (SDPOs), which are civil orders that enable courts to attach conditions or restrictions on an individual aged over 18 (such as restrictions on where they can go and when) with the view of preventing them from engaging in protest-related activity that could cause disruption. Breach of an SDPO is a criminal offence.

In some cases, local authorities have used their powers under the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014 to impose Public Space Protection Orders in areas outside of abortion clinics to prohibit protest activity. A provision in the Public Order Act 2023 to prohibit protest activity at all abortion clinics in England and Wales has not yet been brought into force. Legislative reform In recent years, the government initiated two major legislative reforms in response to concerns about peaceful but disruptive protests that have targeted major roads, transport networks, and other infrastructure. These were the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 and the Public Order Act 2023. Both were aimed at increasing the powers of the police to intervene and stop disruptive protests and to strengthen the criminal justice response to those engaging in disruptive protest tactics. The legislation was controversial and attracted strong opposition from campaigners who questioned the compatibility of the reforms with human rights legislation. The Joint Committee on Human Rights said that the combined measures would likely “have a chilling effect on the right to protest in England and Wales” (PDF). The government stated that its legislation aimed to “protect the public and businesses from these unacceptable actions” of “a small minority of protestors”. It said that existing human rights legislation provides appropriate safeguards for the right to protest (PDF) and that the police and prosecutors will continue to be responsible for acting “compatibly with an individual’s Convention rights” when making any decisions about arrests and charges    

London: UK Parliament, House of Commons Library, 2024. 50p,]

By Steve Yeong

Background

The Suspect Target Management Plan (STMP) is a New South Wales Police Force initiative designed to reduce crime among high risk individuals through proactive policing. There are two types of STMP: STMP-II, which was introduced in May 2005 and aims to reduce general offending; and DV-STMP, which was introduced in October 2015 and aims to reduce domestic violence related offending.
The objective of the present study is to determine: (1) whether these programs reduce crime; (2) how these programs reduce crime (i.e., through deterrence or incapacitation); (3) to determine whether (1) and (2) differ for juveniles or Aboriginal people.

Key findings

This study compared the outcomes of individuals in the 12 months before and after placement on STMP-II (n=10,106) and DV-STMP (n=1,028). The investigation of STMP-II focuses on a subset of violent and property crimes to avoid reporting/detection bias. The investigation of DV-STMP focuses on domestic violence related crimes since they are the focus of the program. These crimes are, however, likely to be influenced by reporting bias. Due to methodological constraints, caution is recommended when interpreting the non-causal, associative estimates reported in this bulletin.

The findings can be summarised as follows:

STMP-II is associated with large, practically and statistically significant reductions in property crime.DV-STMP is associated with large, practically and statistically significant reductions in domestic violence related crime.Although STMP-II is associated with an increased risk of imprisonment, the association between STMP-II and crime is likely driven by deterrence, not incapacitation.DV-STMP is not associated with an increased risk of imprisonment.The reduction in crime associated with STMP-II for juveniles is larger than it is for adults.The increase in the risk of a prison sentence associated with STMP-II is smaller for juveniles relative to adults.The reduction in crime associated with STMP-II for Aboriginal people is smaller than it is for non-Aboriginal people.The increase in the risk of a prison sentence associated with STMP-II is larger for Aboriginal people relative to non-Aboriginal people. Although STMP-II is associated with an increased risk of a prison sentence for juveniles and Aboriginal people, the association between STMP-II and crime is likely driven by deterrence.

Conclusion

Both STMP-II and DV-STMP are associated with a reduction in crime. The findings suggest that any crime reduction benefit for both programs is likely due to deterrence rather than incapacitation. These claims are also true for juveniles and Aboriginal Australians.

(Crime and Justice Bulletin No. 233 revised). Sydney: NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research. 2021. 33p.

By Joanna Wang, Don Weatherburn, Wai-Yin Wan

Aim: To examine the long-term effect of two routine police activities on property and violent crime in NSW.

Method: Police move-on directions and person searches as well as property and violent crimes were extracted from the NSW Police Force’s Computerised Operational Policing System. We investigate the relationship between police activity and crime using panel of 17 Local Area Commands (LACs) over the period 2001 to 2013. To estimate the long-run relationship, panel models of Pooled Mean Group and Mean Group were applied to allow for differing effects between LACs.

Results: We estimated a significant and strongly negative long-run relationship between both indices of police activity (move-on directions and person searches) and each of break and enter, motor vehicle theft and robbery. The person search activity is negatively related to assault, but the effect is weak; with a 10 per cent increase in person searches only producing a 0.29 per cent fall in assaults. No significant long-run relationship was found between assault and move-on directions.

Conclusion: Sustained increases in police activity, whether in the form of move-on directions or person searches, do appear to help suppress break and enter, motor vehicle theft and robbery but do not appear to help in reducing assault.

(Crime & Justice Bulletin No. 225). Sydney: NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research.  2019. 12p.