By: Colin Murphy

3D printing, a technology only a few decades old, has progressed in quality and affordability. It has moved from the realm of industrial prototype, through cutting-edge design and technology, to finally end up in the homes of hobbyists and enthusiasts. This welcome and useful process has delivered new and affordable solutions to a range of subjects and fields, and has changed the shape of manufacturing from large factories to small bespoke businesses. However, this innovation has also developed a darker side and has been adopted by those with criminal intent, including for the manufacture of firearms. While converted or backstreet guns are not a new phenomenon, the advent of 3D printing has extended the range of people able to obtain a firearm to include those with no practical skills or tools or indeed any criminal connections. In the space of little over a decade, the concept of homemade guns using 3D printing techniques has evolved from a simple yet effective one-shot pistol to a semi automatic hybrid rifle. These firearms have made their way into the hands of criminals and extremists with menacing intent. They have also featured in high-profile shootings with fatal consequences. It is important to acknowledge that this nascent method of firearm production is developing at a rapid speed. Authorities and law enforcement agencies are recognising the growing threat that these firearms pose, and are adapting their understanding, approach and expertise. In addition, legislators around the world are beginning to adapt their laws to address this emerging threat. In the EU, possession of a 3D-printed firearm is an offence, but not possession of, publicity for or distribution of digital blueprints or hard copies. IN THIS BRIEFING • Introduction • 3D printing • Craft production of privately-made firearms . • Progression of 3D printed firearms • Users of 3D printed firearms • Addressing the issue

Members' Research Service PE 775.889 – August 2025

By: Mike Nellis, Emeritus Professor of Criminal and Community Justice, University of Strathclyde

Abstract

The 2025 Independent Sentencing Review (the Gauke Report) famously placed great emphasis on the use of technology in what has traditionally been called “community supervision”, to provide a way out of the capacity crisis in England and Wales’ prisons. In favours a significant expansion of electronic monitoring (EM) and markedly more punitive forms of remote regulation – dubbed “prison outside prison” in press releases. It further encourages the use of emerging forms of AI to make monitoring and supervision more efficient. In this, the Review was largely elaborating the Ministry of Justice’s own emerging view of the penal future. Its call for EM to be more integrated with the Probation Service, may have gone further, but the Review’s vision of the future Probation Service is of a punitive-surveillant agency with a rather ambiguous commitment to rehabilitation. Whether this imagined future is realised remains to be seen.

By: Dave Nicholson and Helen Codd

The Independent Sentencing Review highlights the potential of AI for supporting behavioural change in criminal justice involved people and identifies SherlockAI as deserving further exploration and evaluation to realise that potential (p.135). SherlockAI was co-founded by criminal justice involved people in partnership with the authors, and in this article, we explain how SherlockAI offers a distinctive and innovative resource. Both the authors are part of the SherlockAI team and this short article offers insights into why the innovative approach of this particular app resonates with the findings of the review at a time when there are ongoing emergent developments in mobile-based technologies to encourage and support desistance (Bartels, 2023; Knight et al., 2024; McGreevy, 2017; Morris and Graham, 2019) and ongoing interest in Hilary Cottam’s work on radical help and radical care (Cottam, 2018; Cottam, 2021).

By Neal Feigenson and Brian Carney

You are the lawyer in a case in which the crucial incident was captured by dozens of smartphone, surveillance, and other cameras. Imagine your forensic video expert putting all of those videos into a generative artificial intelligence (GenAI)1 model that quickly synchronizes the audio and video streams, links relevant documents, and provides an outline for the strategy of your case—enabling you to understand exactly what happened in minutes instead of weeks and then suggesting ways to prove it at trial. The expert could also employ GenAI to enhance those videos, making relevant facts clearer by rendering blurry images more legible and inaudible conversations more intelligible, or even by creating important camera angles showing views not found in the original images. Or imagine, in a complex commercial dispute, feeding masses of documents and other data into a GenAI model that produces timelines and other visualizations of the relevant events, as well as lists of inherent contradictions in the evidence, which you could then use to prepare your arguments and illustrate your theory of the case in court. All of these tools and more will soon be available. Much has been written in the last half-dozen or so years about the prospect of images, video, and audio created with GenAI being used in court. Most of the concern has focused on deepfakes, andmassive data sources—primarily the Internet—in response to a user’s prompt.