By Thomas Sloan, Molly Pickard, Johanna Lacoe, Mia Bird and Steven Raphael

Since March 2020, Los Angeles County has experienced several distinct shifts in bail policy, shaping how people experience the pretrial process and igniting a dialogue about bail reform, equity, and safety. During the COVID-19 pandemic, LA County implemented an emergency bail schedule for most misdemeanors and low-level felonies (sometimes referred to as “zero bail”). In July 2022, LA County returned to the normal bail schedule, where a person who is arrested could pay the amount specified by the bail schedule and immediately be released from custody before their first court date. In May 2023, a successful court challenge to bail practice caused the Los Angeles Police and Sheriff's Departments to return to the emergency bail schedule. This was followed shortly thereafter by the countywide implementation of a new, more permanent approach to pretrial release decisions — the Pre-Arraignment Release Protocols (PARPs) — in October 2023. Under the PARPs, no monetary bail is set for people arrested for certain lower-level offenses, and for some offenses judges are able to consider additional information when making a release decision, such as criminal history, previous failures to appear for court, and risk assessment recommendations.

KEY FINDINGS We leverage these three distinct policy shifts to estimate the short-run effects of bail policy changes on jail populations, crime reports, and arrests. We find:

• Removing the emergency bail schedule and reverting back to cash bail increased average daily jail populations with no short term effect on citywide crime. The retraction of the emergency bail schedule in July 2022 resulted in a statistically significant increase in the average daily jail population over the following two months, and no change in arrests or crime reports.

• Reinstating the emergency bail schedule did not change the average county daily jail population or total citywide crime in the following two months, but some property crimes increased. The resumption of the emergency bail schedule in May 2023 did not cause the average daily jail population to vary from its pre-period decline, but did cause a decline in pretrial jail population beyond the pre-period trend. At the same time, there was no statistically significant change in total crime reports or arrests, but reports of property crime increased relative to the pre-period trend.

• The PARPs decreased daily overall and pretrial county jail populations in the two months after implementation, with no effect on citywide crime. The daily pretrial jail population decreased by over 200 people (or three percent) on average relative to the pre-period trend following the implementation of the PARPs. Despite the decrease in people held in jail, there was no change in any measure of reported crime during the same period. Arrests for misdemeanor offenses declined, while overall arrest trends did not change. Despite concerns that these bail reforms would lead to increases in crime, we do not observe consistent changes in total crime in the City of Los Angeles for the two months following these bail policy shifts. In addition, a return to the standard bail schedule increased daily jail populations but did not reduce crime. Early evidence from the PARPs suggests that the approach can reduce jail populations while maintaining public safety, particularly during the pretrial period.

Los Angeles: California Policy Lab, Committee on Revision of the Penal Code 2024. 51p.

By Justin Murray

The American prosecutor’s legitimacy faces unprecedented challenges. A new wave of reformist prosecutors has risen to power promising to transform the criminal justice system from within, sparking fierce backlash from defenders of the prosecutorial status quo. Central to this conflict is a debate over the nature of prosecutorial discretion, influenced by a set of claims and assumptions that this Article terms the myth of individualized enforcement. This myth posits that prosecutors base discretionary decisions on case-specific facts and equitable circumstances rather than generalizable criteria or categorical nonenforcement practices, such as the policies some reformist prosecutors have adopted that disfavor prosecuting marijuana possession or abortion offenses or seeking the death penalty.

This Article is the first to identify and critically examine the myth of individualized enforcement. It draws on a review of historical evidence and research on contemporary prosecutorial practices to show that prosecutors have long engaged in categorical nonenforcement in relation to vice laws, property offenses, and even certain areas of violent crime enforcement. By situating reformist prosecutors’ policies within this broader context, the Article exposes how the myth of individualized enforcement has been weaponized to delegitimize reform efforts while shielding conventional prosecutors from scrutiny.

The Article also excavates the deeper distinctions between reformist and conventional approaches to categorical nonenforcement that the myth of individualized enforcement serves to hide from view. Reformist prosecutors tend to adopt centralized, formal, and transparent nonenforcement policies that aim to redistribute the benefits of prosecutorial leniency to historically marginalized groups. Conventional prosecutors, in contrast, have often dispensed categorical leniency in an informal, covert manner and in contexts that tend to reproduce existing hierarchies of race, class, and gender. By surfacing these divergences, the Article aims to reorient academic and political discourse about prosecutorial reform toward the more constructive end of evaluating different visions of discretionary justice and the institutional structures that will best align prosecutorial power with democratic values.

WASH. U. L. REV. — (forthcoming 2025)

By Dubber, Markus Dirk

In The Sense of Justice, distinguished legal author Markus Dirk Dubber undertakes a critical analysis of the “sense of justice”: an overused, yet curiously understudied, concept in modern legal and political discourse. Courts cite it, scholars measure it, presidential candidates prize it, eulogists praise it, criminals lack it, and commentators bemoan its loss in times of war. But what is it? Often, the sense of justice is dismissed as little more than an emotional impulse that is out of place in a criminal justice system based on abstract legal and political norms equally applied to all. Dubber argues against simple categorization of the sense of justice. Drawing on recent work in moral philosophy, political theory, and linguistics, Dubber defines the sense of justice in terms of empathy—the emotional capacity that makes law possible by giving us vicarious access to the experiences of others. From there, he explores the way it is invoked, considered, and used in the American criminal justice system. He argues that this sense is more than an irrational emotional impulse but a valuable legal tool that should be properly used and understood.

New York: NYU Press, 2006.

By Caldwell, Ryan Ashley

Fallgirls provides an analysis of the abuses that took place at Abu Ghraib in terms of social theory, gender, and power, based on first-hand participant observations of the courts-martial of Lynndie England and Sabrina Harman. This book examines the trials themselves, including interactions with soldiers and defense teams, documents pertaining to the courts-martial, US government reports, and photographs from Abu Ghraib, in order to challenge the view that the abuses were carried out at the hands of a few rogue soldiers. With a keen focus on gender and sexuality as prominent aspects of the abuses themselves, as well as the ways in which they were portrayed and tried, Fallgirls engages with modern feminist thought and contemporary social theory in order to analyze the manner in which the abuses were framed, whilst also exploring the various lived realities of Abu Ghraib by both prisoners and soldiers alike.

Burlington, VT: Ashgate,  2012. 

Edited by Waszkiewicz, Paweł 

This book explores the role of social media in the daily practice of Polish criminal justice and how social media is, in turn, reshaping this practice. Based on empirical research, it confronts common beliefs about how police officers, prosecutors, and judges use social media in their work. Readers will find answers to the following questions: Which social media platforms are popular among law enforcement officers in Poland? How do the police use social media to investigate and prosecute crimes? What are the strategies for using social media to communicate with the community? What strategies are most successful? The findings in this book challenge some popular beliefs and theories about social media in criminal justice. As the first book to explore the use of social media in criminal justice outside of English-speaking countries, this collection of academic research will be of interest to academics focusing on criminology, criminal justice, and policing and will be useful to police leaders and officers, police social media administrators, prosecutors, and judges, who may be inspired by the research to implement new successful and more effective practices.

Abingdon, Oxon, UK: New York: Routledge, 2024.

By Lawrence E. Diver

Laurence Diver combines insight from legal theory, philosophy of technology, and programming practice to develop a new theoretical and practical approach to the design of legitimate software. The book critically engages with the rule(s) of code, arguing that, like laws, these should exhibit certain formal characteristics if they are to be acceptable in a democracy. The resulting jurisprudential affordances translate ideas of legitimacy from legal philosophy into the world of code design, to be realized through the ‘constitutional’ role played by programming languages, integrated development environments (IDEs), and agile development practice. The text interweaves theory and practice throughout, including many insights into real-world technologies, as well as case studies on blockchain applications and the Internet of Things (IoT). Whenever you use a smartphone, website, or IoT device, your behavior is determined to a great extent by a designer. Their software code defines from the outset what is possible, with very little scope to interpret the meaning of those ‘rules’ or to contest them. How can this kind of control be acceptable in a democracy? If we expect legislators to respect values of legitimacy when they create the legal rules that govern our lives, shouldn’t we expect the same from the designers whose code has a much more direct rule over us?

Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2021. 

By: Temple, Kathryn D.

A history of legal emotions in William Blackstone’s England and their relationship to justice William Blackstone’s masterpiece, Commentaries on the Laws of England (1765–1769), famously took the “ungodly jumble” of English law and transformed it into an elegant and easily transportable four-volume summary. Soon after publication, the work became an international monument not only to English law, but to universal English concepts of justice and what Blackstone called “the immutable laws of good and evil.” Most legal historians regard the Commentaries as a brilliant application of Enlightenment reasoning to English legal history. Loving Justice contends that Blackstone’s work extends beyond making sense of English law to invoke emotions such as desire, disgust, sadness, embarrassment, terror, tenderness, and happiness. By enlisting an affective aesthetics to represent English law as just, Blackstone created an evocative poetics of justice whose influence persists across the Western world. In doing so, he encouraged readers to feel as much as reason their way to justice. Ultimately, Temple argues that the Commentaries offers a complex map of our affective relationship to juridical culture, one that illuminates both individual and communal understandings of our search for justice, and is crucial for understanding both justice and injustice today.

New York: NYU Press, 2019.

By The Police Executive Research Forum

In 2022, the Department of Justice released updated guidance on Improving Law Enforcement Response to Sexual Assault and Domestic Violence by Identifying and Preventing Gender Bias. This guidance is designed to help law enforcement agencies recognize, mitigate, and prevent gender bias and other biases from compromising the response to, and investigation of, sexual assault, domestic violence, and other forms of gender-based violence. The guidance provides a set of eight basic principles that – if integrated into LEAs’ policies, training, and practices – help ensure that gender bias, either intentionally or unintentionally, does not undermine efforts to keep survivors safe and hold offenders accountable.

Washington, DC: PERF, 2022. 36p.

By The Matrix Consulting Group

The scope of this study included the assessment of current law enforcement operations, response capabilities, staffing, and other resources necessary for the delivery of services to the city. A review of services and the delivery of those services should be performed periodically to ensure needs are being met. This project focused on the emergency services system delivery that included: • Proactivity • Resource allocations • Current and projected staffing • Alternative service delivery • Management of resources • Responsiveness to the public • Facility implications of projections This report represents the culmination of this process, presenting the results of our analysis, including specific recommendations for the department on staffing, deployment, and other relevant issues.

Kyle Texas, 2024 166p. 

By: Thalia Anthony, Tamara Walsh, Luke McNamara & Julia Quilter 

Drawing on interviews with 164 people experiencing homelessness across Australia, this article discusses the concept of hyper-policing to account for excessive police interventions. Hyper-policing is exhibited in the sheer number of police apprehensions of people experiencing homelessness (quantitative aspect) and the extreme use of force (qualitative aspect). By deploying Wacquant’s (Daedalus 139(3):74–90, 2010) notion of hyper-incarceration in “ghettos”, we reveal that policing homelessness in Australia creates a panopticon on the streets and a conveyor belt into the panopticon of prisons. The lived experience of homeless participants demonstrates that hyper-policing is characterized by casual and constant encounters that reinforce homeless peoples’ status as ‘urban outcasts’ (Wacquant Int J Urban Reg Res 17:366–383, 1993). With growing pressures on access to housing and the cost of living across Western capitalist societies, policing is likely to play an increasing role in managing the housing crisis fallout. Homeless participants contend that the antidote to hyper-policing is not better policing but the dilution of policing. A common refrain among participants was for the police to ‘leave us alone’—a strategy that does not seek help from community policing but instead seeks peace on the streets. We articulate how the voices of homeless participants further ‘defund the police’ and abolitionist thinking by drawing attention to the need for housing justice over policing interventions in either benevolent or malevolent forms.

Critical Criminology, August 2024.

By  Liam Michaud , Jenn McDermid b , Aaron Bailey.,  Tyson Singh Kelsall 

The unregulated drug toxicity crisis in British Columbia (BC), Canada, has claimed over 14,000 lives since 2016. The crisis is shaped by prohibitionist policies that have led to the contamination of the unregulated drug supply, resulting in a surge of fatal and non-fatal overdose events. The criminalization of drug users exacerbates this situation, pushing individuals into carceral systems for the possession of and/or social practices related to drug use. This commentary examines the involvement of policing in the development and throughout the first 15 months of its implementation, of BC's decriminalization framework. We highlight concerns regarding police discretion, the expansion of scope, and the interweaving of carceral logic into policies that purport to be public health-oriented.

International Journal of Drug Policy, Volume 129, July 2024, 104478

By Jensen Hughes

 At the request of the Columbus (Ohio) Division of Police (CDP), the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS Office) conducted an independent review of the CDP via the COPS Office Collaborative Reform Initiative – Critical Response Program. This review was focused on the CDP’s use of force (UOF) policies, procedures, operational protocols, training, data collection and reporting processes, and community engagement related to UOF oversight and investigations. The CDP has experienced major changes in senior leadership, with the hiring of an external chief in June 2021 followed by a significant turnover in senior command staff. This influx of new leadership created an opportunity to undertake a critical analysis of the division’s operations with an eye toward improving transparency and improving relationships between the CDP and the community. In addition to the CDP’s leadership change, the division experienced a significant operational change in February 2022 when the Civilian Police Review Board (CPRB) voted—and the mayor confirmed—the appointment of an inspector general to investigate allegations of police misconduct and excessive UOF by members of the CDP. During the Critical Response review process, CDP leadership demonstrated a genuine interest in engaging in this collaborative effort as a means not only to gauge the organization's UOF practices but also to capitalize on this opportunity as a catalyst for cultural change in the organization. The COPS Office tasked Jensen Hughes with assisting the CDP through this review process. The intent of the review is to assist the CDP in determining the extent to which its current use of force policies, procedures, practices, and associated training align with what is considered best or emerging practices in policing consistent with modern policing principles and standards. It should be noted that the scope of this review did not include an in-depth review of officer-involved shootings. This category of UOF was excluded since all officer-involved shootings in the city of Columbus are investigated by the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigations and not handled internally and this inquiry is focused on internal CDP UOF processes. The ultimate goals of this Critical Response assistance the COPS Office and Jensen Hughes are providing to the CDP are to (1) increase public trust and community and officer safety and (2) support effective, contemporary, and innovative policing practices through improvements in training, policy, transparency, professionalism, and accountability related to CDP officers’ UOF. To assist the CDP in realizing these goals, the Jensen Hughes team focused on two objectives: 1. Identifying operational practices the CDP currently employs that ensure any UOF by the agency’s personnel is – – compliant with local, state, and federal law and constitutional protections; appropriately documented; – – – – 2. subject to thorough supervisory review; compliant with current policies and standard operating procedures; consistent with current agency training; as transparent as possible, both internally and externally, to community and agency stakeholders; Identifying areas in which the CDP’s policies, procedures, protocols, and data collection and reporting processes could benefit from potential changes or updates that align with – – – – national standards; best practices; current and emerging research; community expectations.   

Collaborative Reform Initiative Critical Response. Washington, DC: Office of Community Oriented Policing Services.  2024. 58p.

By Everytown for Gun Safety

Racist shooters in Buffalo, Allen, Charleston, El Paso and Jacksonville turn grocery stores, outlet malls, churches, Walmarts, and Dollar General stores into scenes of mass carnage; antisemitic extremists attack synagogues; heavily-armed militia members plot to kidnap the governor of Michigan; far-right groups and individuals openly march with guns to intimidate political opposition.

These incidents underscore the alarming trend of political and hate-motivated gun violence confronting the United States. One sector has accelerated this trend of armed extremism while simultaneously profiting from it: the firearms industry. The industry and its lobbying apparatus have for decades warned target audiences of unhinged existential threats all around them, from supposed criminal hordes threatening their homes to tyrannical bureaucrats threatening their rights. They politically and financially support candidates for office and elected officials who have echoed those conspiracy theories, striking at the foundational pillars of American democracy, while eschewing gun laws that might keep military-grade arms out of the hands of dangerous individuals.

Toxic hate-filled ideas have gained unprecedented purchase in today’s political climate thanks to their embrace by gun lobby-backed political leaders. As a result, a small but alarming number of Americans see violence as a solution to political and cultural problems.1

In the face of these supposed threats, the firearms industry offers a single solution for those who feel at risk: guns, and the deadly violence they can achieve. The rhetoric in their advertising risks drawing the attention of those who see violence as inevitable or justified, including portrayals of their products as weapons used in war. It is clear that violent extremists see guns as important tools: Everytown has identified more than 200 extremists charged with a crime in recent years who allegedly used or possessed guns in the act, threatened or plotted gun violence, or illegally possessed or sold a firearm, an approximate average of one case charged every nine days. The vast majority of these cases involved extremists on the far right, and more than a quarter involved a crime in which a gun was fired or brandished.

New York: Everytown for Gun Safety, 2024. 43p.

By Nina Maxwell and Catrin Wallace

1.0 Summary 1.1 Introduction Child criminal exploitation is a complex social and cultural problem that has arisen due to a combination of economic and social factors. Much of what is known about child criminal exploitation relates to county lines, a model of drug supply where individuals, groups or organised criminal gangs manipulate or coerce children and vulnerable adults into transporting and storing drugs and money. This report was commissioned by Health and Care Research Wales to capture the voices of children with lived experience of exploitation, parents and professionals regarding how children are targeted, groomed and involved in county lines in Wales. Findings from this report will be used to develop a toolkit that underpins an effective community response aimed at improving the outcomes for children and their families. 1.2 Method Data collection was undertaken between October 2020 and May 2021. This period coincided with the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent lockdown measures and as such all data collection was undertaken remotely, either by telephone, Zoom or Microsoft Teams. Data collection was undertaken with three main groups: 1. Practitioner-led and researcher-led interviews and focus groups with 21 children who had lived experience of criminal exploitation. 2. Interviews with 15 parents who had at least one child who had been criminally exploited. This included 13 mothers and two fathers. 3. Interviews and focus groups with 56 professionals comprising representatives from British Transport Police, children’s services, education, health, housing, probation, youth offending services, the third sector and Welsh Government. To preserve and anonymity, this report uses pseudonyms when quoting participants. 1.3 Main findings 1.3.1 How does child exploitation manifest in Wales? Findings from professionals • Driven by ongoing demand to buy a range of substances including cannabis, cocaine, spice and prescription medication, child criminal exploitation manifests in three main ways in Wales: county lines, blurred lines and localised dealing. • The adoption of the term county lines may detract attention from children who are exploited by family members or local individuals or groups even where these groups were adopting a similar model and levels of violence as the county lines groups . • The presence of gendered notions regarding child sexual exploitation and child criminal exploitation poses the risk that sexually exploited boys and criminally exploited girls will not be identified or safeguarded.

• The distinction between child criminal exploitation and child sexual exploitation can serve to obscure the range of perpetrators, criminal activities, and the range of physical and sexual abuse children suffer when they have been exploited. 1.3.2 What makes children vulnerable to exploitation? Children’s views • A consistent theme across findings was the extent to which children were exploited due to the promise of financial gain and the assertion that making money through dealing drugs is easy. This served to minimise their perceptions regarding the risks and dangers inherent in their involvement. • Exploitation occurred across statutory, further, and higher education. Transitions, inclusive practice, school sanctions, and school exclusion were linked to heightened vulnerability to exploitation. • Peer influence was particularly salient for children as they strive to retain friendships and status. This can lead to the imitation of negative behaviours such as involvement in drug dealing activities or other forms of criminality. • Cannabis was used as a hook exploitation. This was either through introducing children to cannabis or reinforcing the child’s existing use. Drug dealers used ‘strapping’ where children were given drugs but then expected to pay for them later. 1.3.3 How are children involved in these activities? Findings from parents • While parents had noticed changes in their child’s attitudes, behaviours and peer groups, a lack of knowledge about exploitation meant that this was often not identified, understood or addressed. • Transition from primary to secondary education and secondary education to further education, and managed school moves emerged as a critical periods where children were groomed as they strived to form new friendships. • Indoctrination emerged as a core grooming tool where children are told that the people who were exploiting them are their new ‘family’. This is reinforced in two main ways. First, exploiters presented themselves as friends, role models, and in some cases father figures. Second, children were coached in techniques to deter their parents from seeking support. • On reflection, parents felt that missing episodes were the biggest indicator of exploitation. However, at the time, parents dismissed their children staying out late or staying overnight with friends as normal reactions to factors such as family arguments, parental separation, negative peer groups or difficulties at school. • Serious violence was closely linked to child criminal exploitation. Children were both victims and perpetrators of violence. Many parents had experienced violence and threatening behaviour from their children and threatening visits from drug dealers to their workplaces or homes. etc....   

Cardiff, Wales: Cardiff University, 2021. 62p.

By Nina Maxwell, Jonathan Ablitt, Verity Bennett, Zoe Bezeczky and Megan Nightingale 

Executive summary The Serious Organised Crime Early Intervention Service (SOCEIS) is an innovative intervention for young people aged 11 to 18 years. It is aimed at identifying young people involved in, or at risk of involvement in serious organised crime, addressing the vulnerabilities that led to their involvement and diverting them towards more positive pathways. Following its success in Glasgow, Action for Children were awarded funding from the National Lottery Community to implement SOCEIS in four new areas: Cardiff, Dundee, Edinburgh and Newcastle. Method To examine the wider feasibility and applicability of SOCEIS, this process evaluation was commissioned by Action for Children in 2020. The evaluation had four objectives: 1. To capture information relating to the key components of SOCEIS. 2. To provide insight into young people’s entry and journey through SOCEIS. 3. To examine the views of young people, caregivers, partners, practitioners and peer mentors of ‘what works’. 4. To explore the feasibility of using police data to assess SOCEIS outcomes. Aligned with the research objectives, data collection consisted of four phases: 1. Documentary analysis. Programme manuals, reports, documentation and interviews with three of the four SOCEIS managers were used to identify the core components of SOCEIS and inform the development of a logic model. This model was refined based on the findings from phases two to four. 2. Case file data analysis and interviews: SOCEIS staff and partner organisations. Anonymised case files from each area were analysed to provide insight into young people’s entry and journey through SOCEIS. This included referral forms, risk assessments, contextual safeguarding forms and intervention plans. Semi-structured interviews were undertaken with eleven SOCEIS practitioners, one peer mentor and ten representatives from partner organisations to capture their views of the core components of SOCEIS and views of the service. 3. Updated case file data analysis and interviews with young people and caregivers. Case file data was updated and supplemented with semi-structured interviews with eleven young people and eighteen caregivers to examine their views and experiences with SOCEIS. 4. Service data and police data analysis, and focus groups: SOCEIS staff and co-ordinators Anonymised data for all young people referred to the service and police data for those who had offending or missing person’s police records were analysed. Additionally, data for a comparison group of young people matched on demographic and offending criteria were requested from each police force. Due to delays in negotiating information-sharing agreements, findings will be presented in a supplemental report due for submission in December 2023. Focus groups were undertaken in each of the four areas to capture outcome information. A focus group with all four SOCEIS managers was conducted to explore strategic-level service developments on outcomes, information-sharing, partnership working and the journey to desistance. 

Cardiff, Wales: CASCADE, Cardiff University, 2023. 62p.

By Police Executive Research Forum

   For the past several years, the policing profession has faced a workforce crisis. Hiring of new police officers has slowed, while resignations and retirements have increased. PERF has documented these trends in annual surveys of our members.4 PERF found that the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and the widespread protests following the murder of George Floyd by police in Minneapolis only accelerated these trends. PERF’s latest survey did have some encouraging news: Police hiring rebounded in 2023, while resignations and retirements eased.5 But the crisis in police staffing has by no means disappeared. Many agencies, especially large police departments and sheriffs’ offices, continue to be far below their authorized levels, sometimes by hundreds of officers. These agencies are sometimes forced to take sometimes drastic measures, such as mandating overtime and canceling days off, just to adequately staff patrol cars and other units. One potential solution to the workforce crisis in policing is civilianization — the process of hiring trained and skilled professionals to assume some of the roles currently performed by sworn law enforcement officers. This allows officers to be reassigned to duties that require their unique training, skills, and law enforcement responsibilities. T his report provides a roadmap for agencies that are serious about implementing civilianization. It contemplates civilianization not simply as a short term solution to the staffing crisis currently facing many agencies. Rather, it presents civilianization as a long-term strategy for effectively staffing any law enforcement agency, improving performance, and, ultimately, advancing public safety. Civilianization begins with police leaders rethinking the qualifications that are needed for many positions in their agencies. They are likely to find that while sworn law enforcement authority — the ability to make arrests, carry a firearm, use force, etc. — is needed for the majority of agency positions, it is not required for every one of them. Leaders are also likely to discover that many of the positions that do not require a badge and a gun are currently held by sworn police officers. These are the positions that are ripe for civilianization.  

Washington, DC: Police Executive Research Forum, 2024. 110p.

By Nina Maxwell  

  Child criminal exploitation is a national priority in the UK. According to Home Office (2024) figures, there were 3,123 referrals to the National Referral Mechanism (NRM) for child criminal exploitation in the year ending December 2023. These figures exclude young people who have not been identified as victims and therefore, the actual number of young people affected by criminal exploitation is likely to be much higher. Safeguarding young people from exploitation falls within the roles and responsibilities of youth justice services, while also recognising that child criminal exploitation is a complex, cross-cutting issue. In practice, many children receive a criminal justice rather than a child protection response. The Jay Review, Shattered Lives. Stolen Futures (2024), highlighted variations across agencies in their responses to criminally exploited young people, adding that this is due to the lack of a universal definition of child criminal exploitation in the UK and that there is a need for improvements to service responses. With no statutory definition, many professionals adopt the UK Government’s definition which states that child criminal exploitation occurs: ‘…where an individual or group takes advantage of an imbalance of power to coerce, control, manipulate or deceive a child or young person under the age of 18 into any criminal activity (a) in exchange for something the victim needs or wants, and/or (b) for the financial or other advantage of the perpetrator or facilitator and/or (c) through violence or the threat of violence. The victim may have been criminally exploited even if the activity appears consensual. Child criminal exploitation does not always involve physical contact; it can also occur through the use of technology’ (HM Government, 2018) However, this definition lacks clarity. For example, The Children’s Society (2019) found that frontline workers focused on tangible forms of ‘exchange’ rather than subtler forms where young people were enticed into relationships through a sense of belonging or protection. Consideration of exchange should be extended to include the prevention of something negative such as threats or actual violence to the young person or their family. In a study of child criminal exploitation in Wales, Maxwell and Wallace (2021) found that inconsistencies in service responses were exacerbated by the challenges in identifying child criminal exploitation; there is rarely a single piece of evidence or concern that signifies that a young person is being exploited. Young people may be found with visible evidence of their criminal behaviour and the way child criminal exploitation manifests varies according to the local context, service responses, and actors (Harding, 2020). In an English study, Harding (2020) described how a London-based group moved from a commuting model, commonly known as county lines (see Academic Insights paper 2021/01 by Pitts), to the implementation of satellite hubs so they could retain control over additional geographical areas. In Wales, Maxwell and Wallace (2021) found three forms of child criminal exploitation: • County Lines exploitation • Blurred Lines exploitation • Intra-familial exploitation.

Their interview findings with 56 professionals across statutory and third sector agencies revealed a tendency to associate child criminal exploitation with County Lines exploitation where young people were trafficked into Wales from England. Professionals seldom associated child criminal exploitation with young people affected by Blurred Lines, where young people were exploited and trafficked across Wales by local groups who mimic strategies adopted by county lines groups, or young people exploited by family members or other adults within the local community. Rather, Blurred Lines and exploitation from family members tended to be perceived as the young person’s ‘lifestyle choice’ and, as such, they were deemed culpable for their actions. Young people cannot consent to being forced into criminality or to be abused or trafficked (Home Office, 2023). Safeguarding them from child criminal exploitation requires both an understanding of how young people are affected and the extent to which community and service level factors protect them from exploitation and re-exploitation. Drawing largely on Maxwell’s studies of child criminal exploitation over the last four years, this paper considers the barriers and facilitators to an effective approach. 

 Academic Insights 2024/04

Manchester, UK: HM Inspectorate of Probation, 2024. 15p.

By Ian T. Adams, Joshua McCrain, Daniel S. Schiff, Kaylyn Jackson Schiff, Scott M. Mourtgos

The accountability of police to the public is imperative for a functioning democracy. The opinions of police executives—pivotal actors for implementing oversight policies—are an understudied, critical component of successful reform efforts.We use a pre-registered survey experiment administered to all U.S. municipal police chiefs and county sheriffs to assess whether police executives’ attitudes towards civilian oversight are responsive to 1) state-level public opinion (drawing on an original n = 16,840 survey) and 2) prior adoption of civilian review boards in large agencies. Results from over 1,300 police executives reveal that law enforcement leaders are responsive to elite peer adoption but much less to public opinion, despite overwhelming public support. Comparedto appointed municipal police chiefs, elected sheriffs are less likely to support any civilian oversight. Our findings hold implications for reformers: we find that existing civilian oversight regimes are largely popular, and that it is possible to move police executive opinion towards support for civilian oversight. There is a legitimacy crisis in law enforcement today, resulting partly from highly-publicized use of force incidents and arguably inadequate institutional responses to them (McLean & Nix, 2021). In Response, attention has turned to identifying reforms and oversight institutions that might shed light on and ultimately ameliorate these issues. Civilian review boards (CRBs) have been highlighted as a promising strategy to improve the responsiveness of law enforcement agencies to public oversight and input. 

 .J Policy Anal Manage. 2024;1–25.

By David Weisburd, David B. Wilson, Charlotte Gill, Kiseong Kuen and Taryn Zastrow

One of the key policing innovations of the last three decades has been community-oriented policing. It is particularly important because it is one of the only proactive policing approaches that consistently improves citizen evaluations of the police. At the same time, a series of reviews have concluded that there is not persuasive evidence that community policing reduces crime. In this paper we argue that these conclusions are likely flawed because of what we term crime reporting sensitivity (CRS) bias. CRS bias occurs because community policing leads to more cooperation with the police and subsequently increased crime reporting. Such increased crime reporting bias adjusts crime prevention outcomes of community policing downward. We illustrate this process by reanalyzing data from the Brooklyn Park ACT Experiment (Weisburd et al., 2021). We begin by showing the specific crime categories that contribute most to CRS bias. We then use a difference-in-differences panel regression approach to assess whether the experimental intervention in Brooklyn Park led to significant CRS bias. Finally, we use bounded estimates from the Brooklyn Park Experiment to adjust meta-analytic results from prior community policing studies to examine whether the conclusion that community policing does not impact on crime would need to be revisited if CRS bias was accounted for. We find that adjusted estimates tell a very different, more positive, story about community policing, suggesting that future studies should recognize and adjust for CRS bias, or identify other measures not influenced by this mechanism.

Journal of Law and Empirical AnalysisVolume 1, Issue 1, June 2024

By Enes Al Weswasi

To estimate how many offenses are averted through the incapacitation of first-time incarcerated offenders with sentences of two years or less. Methods: The counterfactual challenge of estimating criminal acts that would have been committed had the offender not been incarcerated is approached utilizing a matching design. Data comprise all offenders convicted in Sweden in 2018, matched on a vector of time-stable and time-varying covariates drawn from an extensive set of Swedish registers. Each incarcerated offender is matched to a nonincarcerated offender whose offending frequency is used to infer the incapacitation effect. Full sample estimates are provided as well as subgroup estimates for males, females, and various risk groups. Results: The annual incapacitation effect for first-time incarcerated offenders is estimated to be 0.53 when measured as the number of averted convictions and 1.14 when measured as the number of averted offenses that would have resulted in a conviction. For males, the annual number of convictions averted through incapacitation is 0.51, and for females 0.37. For the highest risk group, the annual number of averted convictions is 1.22, and the number of averted offenses resulting in conviction is 2.55. For offenders in the low-to-medium risk groups, the corresponding figures are approximately 0.31 averted convictions and approximately 0.68 averted offenses. Conclusion: For first-time incarcerated offenders, the incapacitation effect is modest and the heterogeneous effects found across different risk groups warrant considering whether the crime-preventive effect is sufficiently large for low-risk inmates and whether noncustodial sanctions might constitute an alternative that would ease overcrowding without producing any considerable risk for costs in terms of recidivism.

European Journal of CriminologyVolume 0: Ahead of Print - July 2024