By Neil Donnelly

To examine 10-year trends in offending by females in New South Wales (NSW) between 2014 and 2023. METHOD Data were extracted from the NSW Police Force’s Computerised Operational Policing System (COPS) for all people proceeded against by the NSW Police Force between 2014 and 2023. The number and proportion of offences committed by female and male offenders are presented. Offending trends are examined across 32 specific offence categories using the average annual percentage change in offences and the Kendall’s rank order correlation test to determine statistical significance. This analysis is conducted for the entire population of female and male offenders regardless of age, then repeated for the subset of young offenders. RESULTS Between 2014 and 2023 the number of females proceeded against by NSW police increased by 40%, compared to just 17% for males. The proportion of female offenders grew by around 15%, from 19% of all offenders in 2014 to 22% of all offenders in 2023. Female offenders were most commonly proceeded against for steal from retail store (12%), possess/use drugs (12%), domestic violence (DV) assault (11%), non-DV assault (7%) and breach bail conditions (7%). Much of the overall growth in female offending can be explained by increases in a small number of high-volume offence categories. These include: breach of Apprehended Violence Orders (12% increase in female offences from 2014 to 2023 versus a 7% increase in male offenders); breach bail conditions (12% vs. 8%); DV assault (8% vs. 2%); and non-DV assault (4% vs. 1%). The average annual number of female offenders (compared to males) also increased across several lower volume offences, although these contributed less to the growth in female offending overall. Most predominantly: sexual touching, sexual act and other sexual offences (13% vs. 2.5%); motor vehicle theft (12% vs. 9%); prohibited weapons offences (8% vs. 4%); break and enter non-dwelling (7% vs. stable); and trespass (6% vs. 3%). Trends and offending patterns were similar for young female offenders aged 10-17 years. One difference was the number of young female offenders grew by just 20% between 2014 and 2023 (compared to relatively stable trends for young male offenders). CONCLUSION While there has been a long-term increase in the number of female offenders proceeded against by the NSW Police Force, they continue to represent a small proportion of all offenders. Further analysis utilising representative surveys may provide insight int

Sydney: NSW BUREAU OF CRIME STATISTICS AND RESEARCH - 2024. 14p.

By Nicholas Chan and Alana Cook

It is well recognised that both domestic and non-domestic violence vary over the course of the year often rising in summer and spiking during holiday periods and with other key events. This paper shows the daily number of domestic violence (DV) and non-DV assaults recorded by the NSW Police Force on each date of the year to observe the extent to which violence increases on public holidays and other significant dates1 . Figure 1 shows the median daily number of criminal incidents of assault recorded by police from the years 2010 to 2023. To minimise the impact of abnormal crime patterns during the COVID pandemic, the chart excludes the years 2020 and 2021. The chart shows that across the year, there are clear peaks on several dates. The largest spike for both DV assault and non-DV assault occurs on New Year’s Day (1 January). Obvious spikes in assault also occur on Australia Day (January 26), ANZAC Day (April 25), New Year’s Eve (31 December), Christmas Day (December 25) and Boxing Day (December 26).

Sydney: NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research. 2024. 4p.

By Charles C. Lanfear, David S. Kirk , Robert J. Sampson

Most homicides in the United States are committed using a handgun, but little research examines gun carrying over critical stages of the life course and changing contexts of violence. Notably, although most of the handgun homicides are committed by adults, most research on concealed gun carrying focuses on adolescents in single cohort studies. Using more than 25 years of longitudinal multi-cohort data from Chicago, 1994–2021, we show that pathways of concealed gun carrying are distinct between adolescence and adulthood. Adolescent carrying is often age-limited and responsive to direct exposure to gun violence (witnessing and victimization), while adult carrying is a persistent behavior that is less tied to direct exposure. The onset of concealed carry is also a strong predictor of later gun use (shooting or brandishing), and we find distinct patterns of gun use between individuals who first carry in adolescence versus adulthood. We discuss the implications of these dual pathways for research and policies on firearm use.

Sci. Adv. 10, 2024, 12p.

By Rohit Acharya and Rhett Morris

In 2020, the average U.S. city experienced a surge in its homicide rate of almost 30%—the fastest spike ever recorded in the country. Across the nation, more than 24,000 people were killed compared to around 19,000 the year before.

Homicides remained high in 2021 and 2022, but in 2023 they began to fall rapidly. Projections suggest the national homicide rate in 2024 is on track to return to levels close to those recorded in 2019, prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. Yet that spike in murders continues to deliver major costs in terms of the lives lost, the people incarcerated, and the perception of decreased safety across the country.

Some commentators have suggested the increase in homicides during 2020 was a response to the murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer in May of that year. Others hypothesized that it was caused by a police “pull back,” in which officers chose to do less work in reaction to the protests that followed Floyd’s death.

As more information has become available, these theories appear to be less supported by evidence than some initially thought.1 The evidence indicates that the national homicide rate was already on track to reach a peak far above the previous year even before Floyd was killed.As Figure 1 demonstrates, murders began to rise rapidly in mid-April of 2020. Cell phone data show this is when residents started leaving home more often as lockdown policies eased and the weather grew warmer. During the 6-week period from April 12 to May 23 (weeks 16 to 21 in Figure 1), homicides went up by an average of 17 murders each week.

After Floyd was killed on May 25, the national homicide rate continued to follow this trend, with additional increases during the 2 weeks around Memorial Day and the 2-week period around July 4. But even the highest point of these additional increases was less than 40 murders above the pre-existing trend. While it’s true that homicides did temporarily rise more than they were already on track to following Floyd’s death, these additional increases are unlikely to explain the 5,000 additional murders seen during the year.

This leaves us with a question: What happened that could have caused homicides to spike in 2020, remain high for 2 years, and then start to decline rapidly in 2023?

New data offers a potential explanation. In this report, we analyze thousands of police records and compare them to changes that occurred in U.S. cities just before homicides started to surge. This showed that the spike in murders during 2020 was directly connected to local unemployment and school closures in low-income areas. Cities with larger numbers of young men forced out of work and teen boys pushed out of school in low-income neighborhoods during March and early April, had greater increases in homicide from May to December that year, on average. The persistence of these changes can also explain why murders remained high in 2021 and 2022 and then fell in late 2023 and 2024.

These analyses point to new answers and offer focused solutions that civic leaders can use to prevent future spikes in murder and reduce current levels of violence. We present these findings in detail below in three main sections:

First, we review evidence from existing research that reveals a formula for how violence develops in cities.

Second, we analyze detailed administrative data from a single city with multiple spikes in murder prior to the COVID-19 pandemic to illustrate how this formula applies to local communities.

Finally, we use lessons from this analysis to offer a new explanation for the national spike in homicides in 2020 and make recommendations on how to avoid future increases in murder.

Brookings, 2024. 20p.

By Maurice Vanstone and Anne Worrall

There has not been a specific history of supervising women in the community. This article, therefore,describes the early neglect of work with women and the period of change from the 1970s when women became more visible and the criminal justice system’ sresponse to them began to face scrutiny. It posits the story against the background of increased awareness of gender discrimination and efforts to reduce the use of imprisonment by addressing women’s criminogenic and social needs through community-based supervision.It juxtaposes innovative work initiated by practitioners and managers to years of unfulfilled policy promises.An essential part of the story is the attempt to integrate feminist perspectives into policy and practice at a time of organisational and political turbulence. It con-cludes that our increased understanding of criminalised women presents the opportunity of breaking the frustrating cycle of governmental ‘enthusiasm-disillusion-indifference’ and making a genuine contribution to equality and social justice.

Howard J. Crim. Justice. 2024;1–15.

By Esteban Morales, Jaigris Hodson, Yimin Chen, Chandell Gosse, Kaitlynn Mendes, George Veletsianos

Gender-based technology-facilitated violence and abuse (GBTFVA) is a common experience for those engaging with digital technologies in their everyday lives. To better understand why GBTFVA persists, it is necessary to understand the false beliefs and cultural narratives that enable and sustain them. Drawing on the literature on rape myths, this paper explores the prevalence of seven gender-based online violence myths among Canadian men. To achieve this, we adapted the Illinois Rape Myth Acceptance (IRMA) (Payne et al., in J Research in Personality 33:27–68, 1999) to assess GBTFVA, and surveyed 1,297 Canadian men between 18 and 30 years old on their GBTFVA beliefs. Our results show that GBTFVA myths and cultural narratives are prevalent across participants, though endorsement levels vary. Four myths were more strongly endorsed: It Wasn’t Really Gender-Based Online Abuse, He Didn’t Mean To, Gender-Based Online Abuse Is a Deviant Event, and She Lied. Overall, these findings help to name and thus begin to address the narratives that sustain and perpetuate gender-based online violence.

Sex Roles (2024) 90:1521–1533 https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-024-01514-w

By: Jason Manning

This article focuses on intimate partner killings to address the question of why some killers subsequently commit suicide whereas others do not. Utilizing Blackian theories of conflict management and Manning’s theory of suicide, it advances hypotheses about when intimate partner conflict will result in homicide-suicide rather than homicide alone. These hypotheses propose that differing amounts of status superiority and relational distance predict and explain different patterns of lethal violence. The hypotheses are illustrated and supported with data taken from a study of intimate partner homicides in the state of West Virginia. The article concludes by arguing for a micro-structural model that addresses suicide, homicide, and homicide-suicide.

Homicide Studies 1 –20

By: Ethan Trinh

This autohistoria, or “a personal essay that theorizes,” is a special piece to me. It is spiritual, poetic, political, and dialogic. This essay thus delves deeper into the mourning, the fear, the tears, the pain, the loneliness, the strength of a Vietnamese queer immigrant in a state of Nepantla in order to relate with other queers of color in the dark (i.e., in suicidal process). “Living in Nepantla, the overlapping space between different perceptions and belief systems, you are aware of the changeability of racial, gender, sexual, and other categories rendering the conventional label-ling obsolete.” In this space, I attempt to use the concept of Nepantla to describe and understand stages of pre- and post-suicide attempt that I experienced. Then, I will conclude with a call for policy change to ask for attention to those who live in the life-death margins and in between and among worlds as mine.

LGBTQ Policy Journal

By: D J Williams, Michael Arntfield, Kaleigh Schaal, Jolene Vincent

Over the past several years, an online community of self‐described “incels,” referring to involuntary celibates, has emerged and gained increased public attention. Central to the guiding incel ideology and master narrative are violent misogynistic beliefs and an attitude of entitlement, based on male gender and social positioning, with respect to obtaining desired and often illusory sexual experiences. While violence and hate speech within the incel community are both common, there exists a notable subset of incels who have been willing to act on those violent beliefs through the commission of acts of multiple murder. This study explores the demographic, cognitive, and other characteristics of seven self‐identified incels who have attempted and/or successfully completed homicide. The findings suggest that although self‐perceptions tend to reflect either grandiosity or self‐deprecation, homicidal incels share similar demographic characteristics and dense common clusters of neutralization techniques, cognitive distortions, and criminal thinking errors.

Behav Sci Law. 2021;1–16.

By: Paolo Roma, Antonella Spacca, Maurizio Pompili , David Lester, Roberto Tatarelli, Paolo Girardi, Stefano Ferracuti

Homicide–suicide is an event in which the murderer commits suicide after the homicide. There are at least 14 epidemiological studies on the topic, and all have found that homicide–suicide is more common among family members. The murderers are most often males and the victims females. There is no recent research on this phenomenon in Italy. The purpose of the study was to evaluate the incidence of homicide–suicide in Italy over a period of 24 yrs and to compare Italian data with published international data. We used information gathered by press agencies and from the four major Italian newspapers. Between 1985 and 2008, 662 cases of homicide–suicide were identified, with 1776 deaths. The murderer was male in 84.6% of the cases, typically using a firearm. The most common motivation was romantic jealousy, followed by socio-economic stress. The rate of homicide–suicide was 0.04%. Comparison with international studies is not always possible due to the lack of information for certain categories. The common factors identified may be helpful for prevention.

Volume 214, Issues 1–3, 10 January 2012, Pages e1-e5

By Sally M. Evans, Bethany A. Jones, Daragh T. McDermott

Literature regarding trans and gender diverse (TGD) prisoners’ experiences of prison custody is limited. Reviewing international literature enables a better understanding of these experiences and how effectively TGD policies are implemented. This systematic review employed PRISMA and ENTREQ guidelines to enhance transparency in reporting the synthesis of qualitative and mixed-methods research. Seventeen papers were included and through meta-ethnographic synthesis three overarching themes emerged: structural, interpersonal and intrapersonal. Recommendations include reducing reliance on survival strategies by TGD prisoners through implementation of policies which meet TGD prisoners’ needs and to enabling better informed decision making regarding housing. Further research into lived experiences would allow for a better understanding of what currently works, how services could be improved, and identify potential training needs

Howard Journal of Crime and Justice, Volume63, Issue3, September 2024, Pages 321-349

By Simon A. Cole Maurice Possley Ken Otterbourg Jessica Weinstock Paredes , Barbara O’Brien, Meghan Cousino, & Samuel R. Gross,

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

A. THE CASES

• This report analyzes 151 cases in which defendants were exonerated between 1989 and 2023 in the United States and medicolegal death investigation (“death investigation” for short) contributed to the false conviction.

• The 151 exonerees lost a total of 1,837 years in prison, an average of 12.2 years per exoneree. That is less than the average of 14.6 years for exonerees convicted of comparable crimes but for whom death investigation did not contribute to the false conviction.

B. CASE CHARACTERISTICS

• Not surprisingly, 140 (93%) of the 151 cases in which death investigation contributed to the false conviction were homicides. However, death investigators did contribute to eleven non-homicide cases, all involving abuse of vulnerable people: children or dependent adults. Eight of these eleven were cases involving the Shaken Baby Syndrome (SBS) diagnosis, in which the top charge was child abuse.

• In more than one-third of the cases, the death investigation evidence consisted of a claim that the medical evidence was consistent with the prosecution’s theory of the crime, e.g., that the victim’s wounds were consistent with a weapon linked to the defendant.

• In another third of the cases the death investigation evidence concerned the cause of death.

• Manner of death and time of death evidence contributed to fewer cases.

C. DEMOGRAPHICS

• Women were overrepresented among the defendants for whom the death investigation contributed to their false conviction. Thirty-nine (26%) of the defendants in the 151 cases were female, more than three times the 8% of all exonerees who were female. Only around 5% of exonerees convicted of comparable crimes were female.-

• Relatedly, cases involving child victims were particularly vulnerable to contributions by death investigation. Nearly half (47%) of the 151 cases involved child victims. That compares to only 19% of all non-death-investigation exonerations and 34% of non-death-investigation exonerations for comparable crimes.

• Although concerns have been raised about racial bias in death investigation, the exonerees in death investigation exoneration cases were whiter than exonerees in general. One third of death investigation exonerees were Black compared to 53% of all exonerees. Similarly, 8% of death investigation exonerees were Hispanic, compared to 12% of all exonerees. The higher representation of whites diminishes somewhat if women are removed from the analysis.

D. DEATH INVESTIGATION SYSTEMS

• The United States has a patchwork death investigation system with variations among and within states. The two primary types are medical examiner and coroner systems. Most, but not all, experts perceive medical examiner systems to be superior and call for them to replace coroner systems. We did not find that more false convictions occurred under coroner systems. Instead, false convictions generally occurred in proportion to where more people live: their occurrence correlated with those counties’ and states’ proportions of the US population.

• Nor did we find that more false convictions occurred in systems with elected (rather than appointed) coroners and death investigators.

• In 22% of cases, the death investigation office that contributed to the false conviction was accredited by the National Association of Medical Examiners (NAME). Only 17% of US death investigation facilities are accredited.

E. QUALIFICATIONS OF DEATH INVESTIGATORS

• The highest qualification for death investigators in the US is generally considered to be board certification in the subspecialty of forensic pathology by the American Board of Pathology. However, for decades there have not been enough board-certified pathologists in the US to meet the need for death investigation services and autopsies. Therefore, many death investigations and autopsies are performed by less qualified personnel, such as pathologists without board certification, physicians with specialties other than pathology, and even, in some cases, non-physicians such as funeral directors. We did not find that most false convictions occurred in cases with underqualified death investigators. In fact, board-certified forensic pathologists contributed to 61% (92) of the 151 cases in this study.

National Registry of Exonerations (2024), 90p

By John P. Sullivan, Nathan P. Jones 

This chapter covers the early history of bandits including the role of bandits in revolution (e.g., Pancho Villa), the rise of urban guerrillas (e.g., Che Guevara and the Cuban Revolution, Carlos Marighella (the Minimanual of the Urban Guerrilla)) in Brazil and the Tupamaros in Uruguay, and the transition from ideological revolt to the criminal insurgency. The later transition will focus on the transition to crime by the FARC and ELN in Colombia succeeded by Bacrim in Colombia, mega-gangs in Venezuela, and Brazilian gangs (i.e., The Commando Vermelho and Primeiro Comando da Capital), followed by the rise of a criminal insurgency waged by territorial (third-generation) gangs (including maras such as MS-13 and Barrio 18 in Central America) and criminal cartels. The nexus between prison gangs and criminal gangs and the emergence of criminal enclaves (such as the Triple Frontier and Ciudad del Este) will be explored. A common thread will be a discussion of crime and social banditry (Hobsbawm) as mechanisms of revolt. Urban crime and instability and the emergence of crime wars and criminal insurgency will be discussed in context of state transition, globalization, and the rise of transnational organized crime.

London; New York: Routledge, 2021, 28p.

By Rachel Burgin and Jacqui Tassone

This report presents the findings of a a study that aimed to understand the reasons for the high rate of attrition of reported sexual offences in the Australian Capital Territory. Through analysis of 389 police case reports, interviews with 33 victim-survivors and a review of Australian Federal Police and ACT Policing policy and procedural documents, the review found that not only are sexual offences rarely charged in the ACT, sexual offences are rarely investigated.

Failure to investigate sexual offences was driven by two key factors:

• impact of rape myths on police decision-making

• lack of understanding of the laws relating to sexual offences and the test to charge.

The report makes 17 recommendations to improve responses to sexual offences in the ACT and improve the experiences of victim-survivors in reporting to police. The findings provide insight for police forces across Australia to move towards a trauma-informed approach to policing sexual offences.

Hawthorn, VIC: Swinburne University of Technology, 2024. 129p.

By Laura Hidderley, Marni Manning, Elena Marchetti, Anne Edwards

Public opinion about sentencing is notoriously difficult to assess. In 2017, the Queensland Sentencing Advisory Council was asked to do just that in relation to sentencing for child homicide offences. Building on the existing literature on public attitudes to the criminal justice system, this study aimed to explore community views on this issue using a focus group methodology. A group of 103 participants was recruited by a market research company from a mix of urban and rural locations in Queensland. After completing a series of questionnaires, participants were assigned a ‘punitiveness score’ and assessed the seriousness of three separate child homicide vignettes. The study found that participants viewed the sentences as inadequate and not sufficiently reflective of the vulnerability and defencelessness of the child. These findings contributed to the Council’s recommendations to the Attorney-General and have since led to legislative change.

Research Report no. 21.

Canberra: Australian Institute of Criminology, 2021. 58p.

Edited by Diana Maltz

In 1896, author Arthur Morrison gained notoriety for his bleak and violent ‘A Child of the Jago’, a slum novel that captured the desperate struggle to survive among London’s poorest. When a reviewer accused Morrison of exaggerating the depravity of the neighborhood on which the Jago was based, he incited the era’s most contentious public debate about the purpose of realism and the responsibilities of the novelist. In his self-defense and his wider body of work, Morrison demonstrated not only his investments as a formal artist but also his awareness of social questions. As the first critical essay collection on Arthur Morrison and the East End, this book assesses Morrison’s contributions to late-Victorian culture, especially discourses around English working-class life. Chapters evaluate Morrison in the context of Victorian criminality, child welfare, disability, housing, professionalism, and slum photography. Morrison’s works are also reexamined in the light of writings by Sir Walter Besant, Clementina Black, Charles Booth, Charles Dickens, George Gissing, and Margaret Harkness. This volume features an introduction and 11 chapters by preeminent and emerging scholars of the East End. They employ a variety of critical methodologies, drawing on their respective expertise in literature, history, art history, sociology, and geography. Critical Essays on Arthur Morrison and the East End throws fresh new light on this innovative novelist of poverty and urban life.

Abingdon, Oxon, UK: New York: Routledge, 2022.

By Eunsik Chang, Sandra Orozco-Aleman, María Padilla-Romo:

This paper studies the effects of mothers' long-term pre-conception exposure to local violence on birth outcomes. Using administrative data from Mexico and two different empirical strategies, our results indicate that mothers' long-term exposure to local violence prior to conception has detrimental effects on infant health at birth. The results suggest that loss of women's human capital and deterioration of mental health are potential underlying mechanisms behind the adverse effects, highlighting intergenerational consequences of exposure to local violence. Our findings shed light on the welfare implications of local violence that are not captured in in-utero exposure to violence.

Bonn: Institute of Labor Economics, 2024. 

By Krstić, Igor

From Jacob Riis’ How The Other Half Lives (1890) to Danny Boyle’s Slumdog Millionaire (2008), Igor Krstić outlines a transnational history of films that either document or fictionalise the favelas, shantytowns, barrios poulares or chawls of our ‘planet of slums’.

Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2016.

By Gisli Vogler

How should those profiting from injustice and violence respond to their complicity? And how can they remain responsive when faced with the many ways in which they are entangled in an unjust world? We are at a deciding moment in affluent (Western) societies when it comes to addressing these kinds of questions. On the one hand, there is cause for optimism: the last decade has seen a significant shift towards open discussion of patriarchal society, institutional racism, capitalist exploitation, and the destruction of the environment, amongst many other contemporary political problems. Social movements such as #MeToo, Black Lives Matter, Fridays for Future, and Occupy Wall Street have helped turn assuming responsibility for violence and injustice into a dominant political issue. As a consequence, unjust practices, as diverse as Amazon’s working conditions and the Oxfam sexual exploitation scandal, are met with global condemnation. Debates about how those benefiting from exploitation and expropriation can act more responsibly now pervade many aspects of everyday life, from what to eat and wear, to who has what kind of opportunities. On the other hand, societies continue to be characterized by a failure to act upon the omnipresent demands for facing up to one’s involvement in injustice. Racism, sexism and ableism, and the exploitation of minorities, poorer countries and people, and nature all remain integral parts of human existence. The re-emergence of reactionary populist forces and parties in the US and large parts of Europe, together with the consolidation of power by authoritarian leaders across the world, has exacerbated the problem. The enduring failures by complicit actors to address injustice are cause for much despair and frustration. However, they have also served as catalysts for a sustained scholarly reflection on the complexities of complicity and how to address them (Beausoleil, 2019;  Hayward, 2017; Mihai, 2022; Schaap, 2020). It is my intention in this book to contribute to this interrogation and to think further how people can appropriately respond to their complicity in injustice and violence. To this end, I begin with a constructive evaluation of recent scholarship on complicity.  

Edinburgh:  Edinburgh University Press, 2024. 194p.

By Luis J. Rodriguez

Author's Background: Luis J. Rodriguez shares his personal experiencesgrowing up in gang-infested neighborhoods in Los Angeles andChicago, highlighting the challenges and violence he faced.

Gang Life: The book delves into the structure and culture of gangs,including the initiation rituals, the sense of belonging, and the violentconflicts between rival groups.

Family Struggles: Rodriguez discusses the impact of gang life on hisfamily, particularly his efforts to prevent his son from following the samepath.

Redemption and Change: The narrative emphasizes the author'sjourney towards self-improvement and his attempts to break free fromthe cycle of violence through education and activism.

Simon and Schuster, 2005, 260 pages