By Rosemary L Barberet

"Women, Crime and Criminal Justice speaks to the need for a new book that offers a global and diverse approach to the study of women and criminology. Despite an explosion of interest in international women's issues such as femicide and trafficking in women, criminological books in the area have previously focused predominantly on domestic issues. This is the first fully internationalized book to focus on women as offenders, victims and justice professionals. It provides background, as well as specialized information that allows readers to comprehend the global forces that shape women and crime; analyze different types of violence against women (in peacetime and in armed conflict); and grasp the challenges faced by women in justice professions such as the police, the judiciary and international peacekeeping. Provocative, highly topical, engaging and written by an expert in the field, this book examines the role of women in crime and criminal justice internationally. Topics covered include: the role of globalization and development in patterns of female offending and victimization, how a human rights framework can help explain women's crime, victimization and the criminal justice response, global women's activism, international perspectives on violence against women, including femicide, violence in conflict and post conflict settings, sex work and sex trafficking, women's access to justice, as well as the increased role of women in international criminal justice settings.

London; New York: Routledge, 2014. 248p.

By Deborah Azrael, Anthony A. Braga and Mallory O’Brien

This report presents the methodology and findings of an evaluation of the effectiveness of the Milwaukee Homicide Review Commission (MHRC), which was established in May 2004 with the mandate to address the city's persistent lethal violence.

A distinguishing feature of the MHRC is its inclusion of community agencies and leaders outside of the traditional criminal justice system. The evaluation examined MHRC's work from January 2005 through December 2007. Overall, the homicide review process found that homicide in the city's intervention districts were largely clustered in specific locations, such as in and around taverns, as well as in districts with concentrations of active offenders who had been involved in the criminal justice system. Homicides were often the outcome of persistent disputes between individuals and/or groups (usually gangs). Homicides were often committed to gain respect and status among peers who valued fearless displays of power and control over others, as well as to inflict retribution on those showing disrespect and confrontational interactions. Generally, the MHRC decision-making and actions produced a comprehensive set of actionable policy and practice recommendations whose implementation and effects were continuously monitored by the MHRC. MHRC actions were intended to better position criminal justice, social service, and community based organizations in addressing the violence-related factors in high-risk locations and high-risk individuals with a propensity for violence. The impact evaluation found that the implementation of the MHRC interventions was linked with a statistically significant 52-percent decrease in the monthly count of homicides in the treatment districts. In comparison, the control districts had a statistically insignificant 9.2- percent decrease in homicides, after controlling for the other covariates. Apparently, the MHRC's crafting of interventions designed to address underlying risks associated with homicides has had a significant impact in reducing incidents of lethal violence.

Boston, MA: Harvard School of Public Health, 2012. 95p.

By Hikmet Karčić

Half a century after the Holocaust, on European soil, Bosnian Serbs orchestrated a system of concentration camps where they subjected their Bosniak Muslim and Bosnian Croat neighbors to torture, abuse, and killing. Foreign journalists exposed the horrors of the camps in the summer of 1992, sparking worldwide outrage. This exposure, however, did not stop the mass atrocities. Hikmet Karčić shows that the use of camps and detention facilities has been a ubiquitous practice in countless wars and genocides in order to achieve the wartime objectives of perpetrators. Although camps have been used for different strategic purposes, their essential functions are always the same: to inflict torture and lasting trauma on the victims. Torture, Humiliate, Kill develops the author’s collective traumatization theory, which contends that the concentration camps set up by the Bosnian Serb authorities had the primary purpose of inflicting collective trauma on the non-Serb population of Bosnia and Herzegovina. This collective traumatization consisted of excessive use of torture, sexual abuse, humiliation, and killing. The physical and psychological suffering imposed by these methods were seen as a quick and efficient means to establish the Serb “living space.” Karčić argues that this trauma was deliberately intended to deter non-Serbs from ever returning to their pre-war homes. The book centers on multiple examples of experiences at concentration camps in four towns operated by Bosnian Serbs during the war: Prijedor, Bijeljina, Višegrad, and Bileća. Chosen according to their political and geographical position, Karčić demonstrates that these camps were used as tools for the ethno-religious genocidal campaign against non-Serbs. Torture, Humiliate, Kill is a thorough and definitive resource for understanding the function and operation of camps during the Bosnian genocide.

Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 277p.

Edited by Ravi K. Thiara, Stephanie A. Condon, and Monika Schröttle

This book draws together both: theory and practice on minority/migrant women and gendered violence. The interplay of gender, ethnicity, religion, class, generation and sexuality in shaping the lives, experiences and choices of minority/migrant women affected by violence has not always been adequately theorised within much of the existing writing on violence against women. Feminist theory, especially the insights provided by the concept of intersectionality, are central to the editors’ conceptual frameworks.

Leverkusen-Opladen: Verlag Barbara Budrich , 2011. 426p.

By David Wästerfors

This book considers how the concept of violence has been interpreted, used, defined, and explored by social researchers and thinkers. It does not provide a final answer to the question of what violence is or how it should be explained (or prevented), and instead offers a variety of useful ways of thinking about and theorising the phenomenon, mainly from a sociological standpoint. It outlines four ways of understanding violence: • Violence as situation: the tension that exists between category-driven and situational explanations. • Violence as speciality: the study of particularly violent actors, and how they may be understood by reference to childhood histories, technologies, institutions, culture, class, and gender. • Violence as politics: political violence and violent politics. • Violence as storytelling: representations of violence from a narrative perspective. Concluding with reflections on possible convergences between the four approaches and new directions for research, this book offers a unique and experimental approach to discussing and reconstructing the concept of violence.

London; New York: Routledge, 2023. 138p.

By Justin Kurland

Numerous studies have been conducted on football ‘hooliganism’ with the majority of this work ignoring the immediate, environmental conditions that facilitate opportunities for crime in the football match day context. Consequently, the existing theoretical framework for explaining why crime emerges during football matches remains incomplete. This thesis aims to fill this gap for understanding modern football-related crime and disorder. The thesis uses a predominantly environmental criminology framework to explore whether crime opportunity theories can make sense of crime patterns observed around previously unexplored English domestic football stadia. It is crime event-oriented, focussing on how variation in the ecology of the area around stadia on match days and a set of counterfactual days when the stadium is not used facilitates different criminal opportunities. This is achieved primarily through the analysis of police-recorded crime data for three kilometre areas surrounding a sample of five stadia for the period 2005- 2010. The thesis focuses on three components of crime events - where they occur, when they occur, and why a disproportionate amount of it clusters in some neighbourhoods and not others. Despite the contrasting physical environment around the five stadia, the findings suggest very similar spatial and temporal crime patterns in the area surrounding stadia when they are used relative to when they are not and thus lend support to environmental theories of crime in the football context. The findings also help draw attention to where and when crime is elevated on football match days. The implications of the research for reducing the unintended and unwanted side-effect of football that is desired for the positive utilities it brings, in particular the practicality of employing situational crime prevention in the context of English domestic football are discussed.

London: University College London, 2014.

By Thomas Joiner

Of the approximately 38,500 deaths by suicide in the U.S. annually, about two percent--between 750 and 800--are murder-suicides. The horror of murder-suicides looms large in the public consciousness--they are reported in the media with more frequency and far more sensationalism than most suicides, and yet we have little understanding of this grave form of violence.

In The Perversion of Virtue, leading suicide researcher Thomas Joiner explores the nature of murder-suicide and offers a unique new theory to explain this nearly unexplainable act: that murder-suicides always involve the wrongheaded invocation of one of four interpersonal virtues: mercy, justice, duty, and glory. The parent who murders his child and then himself seeks to save his child from a fatherless life of hardship; the wife who murders her husband and then herself seeks to right the wrongs he committed against her, and so on. Murder-suicides involve the gross misperception of when and how these four virtues should be applied.

Drawing from extensive research as well as real examples from the media, Joiner meticulously examines, deconstructs, and finally rebuilds our understanding of murder-suicide in such a way that brings tragic reason to what may seem an unfathomable act of violence. Along the way, he dispels some of the most enduring myths of suicide--for instance, that suicide is usually an impulsive act (it is almost always pre-meditated), or that alcohol or drugs are involved in most suicides (usually they are not).

Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2014. 264p.

By Santiago Montenegro and Álvaro Pedraza

This paper tries to explain why kidnapping has fallen so dramatically in Colombia during the period 2000-2008. The widely held belief is that the falling kidnapping rates can basically be explained as a consequence of the success of President Alvaro Uribe's democratic security policy. Without providing conclusive alternative explanations, some academic papers have expressed doubts about Uribe' security policy being the main cause of this phenomenon. While we consider the democratic security policy as constituting a necessary condition behind Colombia's falling kidnapping rates, we argue in this paper that a complementary condition underlying this phenomenon has been the significant increase during this period in the speed and quality of communications between potential victims and public security forces. In this sense, the expansion of the mobile phone industry in Colombia implies that there has been a substantial reduction in information asymmetries between kidnappers and targeted citizens. This has led to a higher level of deterrence as well as to higher costs for perpetrating this type of crime. This has resulted in a virtuous circle: improved security allows higher investments in telecommunications around the country, which in turn lead to faster communications between citizens and security forces, which consequently leads to greater security. We introduce a Becker-Ehrlich type supply and demand model for kidnappings. Using regional and departmental data on kidnapping, the police and mobile phones, we show that mobile phone network expansion has expanded the effective coverage of public protection; this, in turn, has led to a spectacular reduction in kidnapping rates.

Bogotá, Colombia: Universidad de los Andes–Facultad de Economía–CEDE, 2009. 30p

By Jorge Cuartas, Arturo Harker, and Andrés Moya

During early childhood, children develop cognitive and socioemotional skills that predict success in multiple socioeconomic dimensions. A large part of the development of these skills depends on the child’s context during the first years of life and, in particular, on the quality of parental care. Grounded on recent literature in psychology and behavioral economics, we discuss a theoretical framework for understanding why some children receive adequate care, while others do not. Within this framework, we identify a determinant of the quality of parenting that has not yet been explored in-depth: the availability of parents’ mental resources, which are depleted by the subjective feeling of scarcity and the stress generated by adversities. Using cross-sectional data from a household survey in Colombia and administrative data on crime and violence, we find that a greater subjective feeling of scarcity (β=0.45, IC95%:[0.082, 0.979]) and greater exposure to violence (β =0.09, IC90%:[0.004, 0.182]) are associated with a lower likelihood that parents engage in stimulating activities with their children. At the same time, the results show that receiving information on childrearing is correlated with better parental practices (β =-0.48, IC95%:[-0.822, -0.136]).

Bogotá, Colombia: Universidad de los Andes–Facultad de Economía–CEDE , 2016. 35p.

By Ted Enamorado, Luis-Felipe López-Calva, Carlos Rodríguez-Castelán, and Hernán Winkler

The relationship between income inequality and crime has attracted the interest of many researchers, but little convincing evidence exists on the causal effect of inequality on crime in developing countries. This paper estimates this effect in a unique context: Mexico's Drug War. The analysis takes advantage of a unique data set containing inequality and crime statistics for more than 2,000 Mexican municipalities covering a period of 20 years. Using an instrumental variable for inequality that tackles problems of reverse causality and omitted variable bias, this paper finds that an increment of one point in the Gini coefficient translates into an increase of more than 10 drug-related homicides per 100,000 inhabitants between 2006 and 2010. There are no significant effects before 2005. The fact that the effect was found during Mexico's Drug War and not before is likely because the cost of crime decreased with the proliferation of gangs (facilitating access to knowledge and logistics, lowering the marginal cost of criminal behavior), which, combined with rising inequality, increased the expected net benefit from criminal acts after 2005.

Washington, DC: The World Bank, 2014. 31p.

The International Crisis Group

What’s the issue? After fifteen years of failed security policies, the government of El Salvador is in the middle of an open confrontation. Efforts aimed at fighting gangs’ deep social roots have not produced desired results due to a lack of political commitment and social divisions that gangs use to their advantage. Why does it matter? Born in the wake of U.S. deportation policies in the late 90s, gang violence in El Salvador has developed into a national security problem that accounts for the country’s sky-high murder rate. The combination of mano dura (iron fist) policies and the U.S. administration’s approach to migration could worsen El Salvador’s already critical security situation. What should be done? All political actors should honour the government’s holistic violence prevention strategies by fully implementing them and reframing anti-gang policies. Specific police and justice reforms, as well as a legal framework for rehabilitating

Brussels: International Crisis Group, 2017. 46p,

By International Crisis Group

What’s new? Violence, coca production and drug trafficking have spiked along Colombia’s Pacific coast since the 2016 peace agreement between the government and FARC guerrillas. New and old armed groups battle for control over communities, territory and illegal business, triggering ongoing displacement and low-intensity warfare. Why does it matter? Long one of Colombia’s poorest and most peripheral regions, the Pacific’s struggles highlight huge difficulties in improving security without addressing economic and political roots of armed group recruitment and the co-option of communities by organised crime. What should be done? Instead of depending on a counter-insurgency strategy or a “kill/capture” policy to dismantle armed groups, the Colombian government should prioritise building a stable, trustworthy civilian police and state presence, demobilising combatants, fulfilling its peace accord promises on local development and coca substitution, and furnishing educational opportunities for local people.

Brussels: International Crisis Group, 2019. 51p.

By International Crisis Group

What’s new? The COVID-19 pandemic had an immediate impact on organised crime across Mexico and Central America’s northern countries as lockdowns slowed movement of people and goods. But criminal groups swiftly adapted to the new normal, using it to tighten or expand their control over people and territory. Why does it matter? The region’s criminal groups, many acting in collusion with rogue state actors, are largely responsible for some of the world’s highest murder rates and wield asphyxiating power in an increasing number of communities. With state budgets under huge strain, official responses are set to remain lacklustre. What should be done? Governments should combine policing to contain and deter crime with increased support to the most insecure areas and vulnerable populations. Rather than reverting to heavy-handed tactics, they should invest in programs that reduce impunity and create economic alternatives for at-risk young people, potentially with the help of COVID-19 emergency funds.

Brussels: International Crisis Group, 2020. 37p.

By International Crisis Group

What’s new? Crime and violence have simmered along the lengthy ColombianVenezuelan frontier for decades. But the regional spillover of Venezuela’s political conflict and economic collapse has caused ties between the two states to fray as well, amid border closures, a migrant exodus and rival military exercises. Why does it matter? Numerous armed groups clash with one another and harm citizens along a border marked by abundant coca crops and informal crossings. High bilateral tensions could spur escalating border hostilities while perpetuating the mistreatment of migrants and refugees whose movements have been restricted by COVID-19. What should be done? Colombian and Venezuelan authorities should urgently establish communication channels to resolve violent incidents along the border, possibly with international backing. They should reopen formal border crossings as planned, but also increase humanitarian aid to help ensure that migrants and refugees are healthy and can move safely.

Brussels: International Crisis Group, 2020. 44p.

By International Crisis Group

What’s new? On 6 June, Mexico will stage its largest-ever election day, with 21,000 contests nationwide. Opposition forces accuse President Andrés Manuel López Obrador of planning to deepen authoritarian rule should his allies prevail in the polls. Meanwhile, criminal groups exploit electoral competition in their quest for impunity and power. Why does it matter? The country’s politics are highly polarised, and its parties are weak and opportunistic. Criminal groups can use favours and threats to gain influence over future elected officials. Entanglements between government and organised crime that have long undermined security policies help perpetuate Mexico’s high levels of violence. What should be done? Severing links between criminals and state officials will be challenging, especially given the government’s apparent reticence to act. Still, outside actors should encourage investment in independent election oversight bodies and local institutions, and a shift toward tailored and less militarised policies to curb insecurity in Mexico’s most conflict-ridden areas.

Brussels: International Crisis Group, 2021. 33p.

By Jorge M. Agüero

About half of Peruvian women between the ages of 15 and 49 have experienced some form of violence from their partners. Through a quantitative analysis, this report explores how violence rates against women vary by ethnic group and over time. Based on a nationally representative sample of more than 75,000 women surveyed between 2003 and 2012 and a review of the literature on ethnic classification in Peru, a typology is applied to measure ethnicity, based on women’s linguistic backgrounds, allowing for a consistent ethnic characterization throughout the period of analysis. In this typology, the first group is made up of women who speak an indigenous language at home and do not speak Spanish. A second group, called “historic” Spanish speakers, is composed of women who learned Spanish during childhood and still use it today, while the third group, called “recent” Spanish speakers, includes women who grew up speaking an indigenous language but now speak Spanish. The highest rate of all types of violence is found in this last group, with a much greater difference in sexual and severe physical violence. This is consistent with the predictions of the theoretical model developed in this study in which violence depends on the type of couple. The model finds that women who speak “recent” Spanish—and who have what is termed a lower “outside option” than their “historic” Spanish-speaking male partners—experience greater violence. The study found that the gap in rates of violence against women among these three language groupings has remained constant over time despite an overall reduction in violence. This shows that current policies to provide care for victims and prevent violence against women are insufficient because the policies do not necessarily target groups with a greater risk of violence. This is unlike other areas of public health, where interventions are directly targeted at the most vulnerable populations

Washington, DC: Inter-American Development Bank, 2018. 43p.

By Marc Fabel and Helmut Rainer

This paper quantifies how much of violent crime in society can be attributed to football-related violence. We study the universe of professional football matches played out in Germany’s top three football leagues over the period 2011-2015. To identify causal effects, we leverage time-series and cross-sectional variation in crime register data, comparing the number of violent crimes on days with and without professional football matches while controlling for date heterogeneity, weather, and holidays. Our main finding shows that violent crime increases by 21.5 percent on a match day. In the regions and time period under consideration, professional football matches explain 8 percent of all violent assaults, and generate social costs of roughly 194 million euros. Exploring possible mechanisms, we establish that the match day effect cannot be explained by emotional cues stemming from either unsettling events during a match or unexpected game outcomes, nor is it driven by increases in domestic violence. Instead, we find that the match day effect can be attributed to violence among males in the 18-29 age group, rises to almost 70 percent on days with high-rivalry derby matches, and that a non-negligible share of it stems from violent assaults on police officers. These findings are inconsistent with frustration-aggression theories that can explain sports-related violence in the United States, but can be accommodated by social identity explanations of football hooliganism.

Munich: CESifo, 2021. 40p.

By Lucy Strang, Garrett Baker, Jack Pollard, Joanna Hofman

Football is the world's most popular sport, with millions of fans annually watching professional football on their television or at public viewing places such as fan zones, or attending matches in person. Negative behaviour at football matches is a widely recognised issue that has garnered international media attention for decades. However, violent and antisocial behaviour at football matches remains an issue that needs to be better understood. To this end, RAND Europe was commissioned by Qatar University to provide a series of reports looking into the issues of violence and antisocial behaviour at major sporting events. This first report observes the key antisocial and violent behaviours that may be witnessed in relation to football events, such as verbal abuse, destruction of property, acts of vandalism and assault, while also noting that football environments can foster positive behaviours and social dynamics. In addition, it acknowledges that definitions of antisocial behaviour are to some degree subjective and contextual. It is important to acknowledge, however, that while the identified studies consider specific factors driving fan behaviour, the available evidence supports the notion that no single factor can be found to be responsible for violent or antisocial behaviour by fans at football events. Rather, multiple factors are often in play simultaneously. While the identified studies consider specific factors driving fan behaviour, the available evidence supports the notion that no single factor can be found to be responsible for violent or antisocial behaviour by fans at football events. Rather, multiple factors are often in play simultaneously. The quality of the identified literature varied significantly, and the research team rated only a handful of studies as being very high quality.

Santa Monica, CA: Cambridge, UK: RAND Europe, 2018. 42p.

By Graeme R. Newman.

This vintage text, first published in 1978, on the causes, consequences and distribution of violence is as relevant today as it was over 4 decades ago.. Though limited to research of the 1970s, the explanations, exposition and reviews of data and theories of violence are staggeringly similar to the research of the 21st century. The organization of the material is unequaled, and will help any student of violence, or anyone who seeks answers and understanding, with its well organized exposition and clear, down-to-earth style. The new preface by the author identifies what he would add if he were doing a new edition, and why in the end he chose not to write one.

NY. Harrow and Heston Classic Reprint. 2021.

By Karl Steel.

How to Make a Human: Animals and Violence in the Middle Ages tracks human attempts to cordon humans off from other life through a wide range of medieval texts and practices, including encyclopedias, dietary guides, resurrection doctrine, cannibal narrative, butchery law, boar-hunting, and teratology. Karl Steel argues that the human subjugation of animals played an essential role in the medieval concept of the human. In their works and habits, humans tried to distinguish themselves from other animals by claiming that humans alone among worldly creatures possess language, reason, culture, and, above all, an immortal soul and resurrectable body. Humans convinced themselves of this difference by observing that animals routinely suffer degradation at the hands of humans. Since the categories of human and animal were both a retroactive and relative effect of domination, no human could forgo his human privileges without abandoning himself.Medieval arguments for both human particularity and the unique sanctity of human life have persisted into the modern age despite the insights of Darwin. How to Make a Human joins with other works in critical animal theory to unsettle human pretensions in the hopes of training humans to cease to project, and to defend, their human selves against other animals.

Columbus, OH: Ohio State University Press, 2011. 292p.