By Benoit Leclerc, Jacqueline Drew, Thomas J Holt, Jesse Cale and Sara Singh

The development of online technologies in recent decades has facilitated the distribution and consumption of child sexual abuse material (CSAM) over the internet, which also led to the emergence of CSAM on the darknet—the segment of the internet hidden from the general public. Using data obtained from interviews with online investigators, this study uses crime script analysis to reconstruct step-by-step how offenders operate on the darknet. The findings highlight the three phases of the script: (1) the crime set-up phase, (2) the crime completion phase, and (3) the crime continuation phase. Scripting is a practical method of developing concrete ways to address this problem. The implications of using crime scripts to fight CSAM are discussed.

Trends & issues in crime and criminal justice no. 627. Canberra: Australian Institute of Criminology. 2021. 14p.

By Hayley Boxall and Siobhan Lawler

A key assumption in the domestic violence literature is that abuse escalates in severity and frequency over time. However, very little is known about how violence and abuse unfolds within intimate relationships and there is no consensus on how escalation should be defined or how prevalent it is. A narrative review of the literature identified two primary definitions of escalation: a pattern of increasingly frequent and/or severe violent incidents, or the occurrence of specific violent acts (ie outcomes). Escalation appears to be limited to serious or prolific offenders rather than characterising all abusive relationships. However, disparities in prevalence estimates between those provided by victim–survivors and recorded incident data highlight the difficulty of measuring this aspect of abusive relationships.

Trends & issues in crime and criminal justice no. 626. Canberra: Australian Institute of Criminology 2021.  17p.

By Isabella Voce, Anthony Morgan and Christopher Dowling

This study examines the criminal histories of outlaw motorcycle gang (OMCG) members during adolescence and early adulthood to determine whether the profile of young members has changed over time. The recorded offence histories of three cohorts of members—those born between 1979 and 1983, 1984 and 1988, and 1989 and 1993—were compared. Seventy-eight percent of OMCG members across all three cohorts had at least one recorded offence between the ages of 12 and 24. The majority of offenders did not desist but continued offending at a steady rate into adulthood. The youngest cohort in the study was more likely than the middle and older cohorts to have a criminal history and follow a high-rate offending trajectory. Members of the youngest cohort were also more likely to have been apprehended for violence and intimidation, weapons and ongoing criminal enterprise offences by their early twenties. These results suggest that OMCGs are recruiting younger members, who are becoming involved in gang-related offending earlier in life, or that individuals with a history of offending are becoming more likely to join or be recruited into OMCGs.

 Trends & issues in crime and criminal justice no. 625. Canberra: Australian Institute of Criminology 2021.  18p.

By Christopher Dowling, Hayley Boxall and Anthony Morgan

This study examines the officially recorded criminal careers of 2,076 domestic violence offenders and 9,925 non-domestic violence offenders in New South Wales in the 10 years following their first police proceeding. Group-based trajectory modelling was used to examine both domestic violence and non-domestic violence offending. Special attention is given to the degree of versatility in offending, and to the interplay of domestic violence and non-domestic violence offending trajectories. Domestic violence offending often formed part of a broader pattern of offending. While trajectories of low‑frequency domestic violence and non-domestic violence offending were most common, domestic violence typically increases as non-domestic violence offences begin to decline. Importantly, there was variability in the offending profiles of domestic violence offenders. This was amplified when non-domestic violence offending was analysed, indicative of a complex array of underlying risk factors.

Trends & issues in crime and criminal justice no. 624. Canberra: Australian Institute of Criminology. 2021. 17p.

By Hayley Boxall and Anthony Morgan

In this study, we analysed data from a survey of Australian women (n=9,284) to identify women at the highest risk of physical and sexual violence and coercive control during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic. Logistic regression modelling identified that specific groups of women were more likely than the general population to have experienced physical and sexual violence in the past three months. These were Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women, women aged 18–24, women with a restrictive health condition, pregnant women and women in financial stress. Similar results were identified for coercive control, and the co-occurrence of both physical/sexual violence and coercive control. These results show that domestic violence during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic was not evenly distributed across the Australian community, but more likely to occur among particular groups.

Trends & issues in crime and criminal justice no. 618. Canberra: Australian Institute of Criminology. 2021. 19p.

By John Scott, Zoe Staines and James Morton

While there has been much research into Indigenous crime and justice, previous research draws largely on Aboriginal peoples, who are culturally distinct from Torres Strait Islanders. The Torres Strait region offers a unique opportunity to observe how justice is practised in remote contexts. Through statistical analysis and qualitative fieldwork, this study documents crime rates, community and customary justice practices and impediments to justice, to identify best practices unique to the Torres Strait region. Crime-report data indicate relatively low rates of crime in the Torres Strait region. While under-reporting and under-policing can partly explain these differences, strong levels of social capital, as well as unique justice practices, also play important roles in preventing crime in the region.

Trends & issues in crime and criminal justice no. 620. Canberra: Australian Institute of Criminology. 2021. 13p.

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: Ecaterina Balica

Objective. The present paper analyses the relation between the number of blows, location of wounds and the length between homicide and suicide in homicide-suicide (HS) cases committed in Romania in the timeframe 2002-2013. At the same time, the study presents the correlation between three types of HS (intimate partner homicide-suicide (IPH-S), filicide- suicides (FS), familicides-suicides (Fam-S) and the above mentioned variables.

Method. The data regarding the number of blows, location of wounds and length between homicide and suicide were extracted from the Homicide-suicides in Romania 2002-2013 database (N=132). The database includes information regarding all HS committed in Romania and the data were collected from the recordings of the Criminal Investigations Services, from criminal files in prosecutors’ custody and from articles published in online newspapers. The data analysis was done by using SPSS 22.0.

Results. More than a half of the suicides occurred immediately after the aggressor committed the homicide (N=71; 53.8%). In approximately two thirds of the cases (N=56; 57.1%), the death of the victim resulted from a great number of blows. Many aggressors preferred to hit their victims in the head area (21.5%) or neck area (22.3%) only. The most common suicide method recorded in HS cases was by hanging (34.8%).

Conclusions. The prevention of the HS seems to be a difficult task after the aggressor initiated the first act of aggression (the homicide). Therefore, prevention and intervention have to be focused on the initial phases of the acts of violence that precede HS.

Rom J Leg Med [26] 308-313 [2018]

By: David B. Johnson and Joshua J. Robinson

We explore the relationship between gun prevalence and homicides in the United States from 2003–2019. Unlike previous research, which typically uses an indirect, state-level measure of gun prevalence, we use a direct measure of guns in a narrow geographic area: gun dealers. We find an increase in gun dealer density is significantly and positively associated with increased homicides in subsequent years. We compare estimates from our preferred measure, the number of dealers per 100 square miles in a local area, to those found using other gun prevalence measures and find our preferred measure to be more consistent in magnitude across three different estimation methods and two different data sources. We additionally show the effect of gun dealer density is limited mostly to counties that have a high percent of Black residents. We propose that the so-called “Ferguson Effect”—a sharp increase in violent crime in urban and Black communities after 2014—might be partially explained by an influx of gun dealers in Black communities, rather than just a change in the propensity of Black residents to call the police or changes in police behavior.

October 1, 2021

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: Kacper Choromański

Bloodstain pattern analysis is inseparably present in forensic genetics, crime scene investigation, the examination of evidence, and paper casework. It times of pandemic related to COVID-19 it is crucial to be aware of obstacles, barriers, and threats that await every expert who deals with forensic biological material. This new situation is an excellent time to go back and point out what are the primary guidelines that reduce the contamination of evidence and increase the protection of practitioners and experts during their work. Some evident principles that exist during crime scene investigation should be used in a more safe environment. The main goal of this article is to show what is the primary indicator that will help to reduce the danger of contamination by Coronavirus Diseases (COVID-19) during the prosecution of work. Bloodstain pattern analysis is a vast discipline. Other experts can use guidelines that will be shown in this article. Numerous forensic fields can benefit from this information. Subjects such as fingerprint, trace evidence, ballistics, forensic genetics, an examination of the evidence on a crime scene or during paper casework, even handwriting during crime scene investigation.

International Journal of Legal Studies No 1(7)2020 ISSN 2543-7097

By: Alexandra Lysova

Homicide statistics are often seen as the most reliable and comparable indicator of violent deaths around the world. However, the analysis of Russian homicide statistics challenges this understanding and suggests that international comparisons of homicide levels can be hazardous. Drawing on an institutionalist perspective on crime statistics, official crime-based homicide statistics in Russia are approached as a social construct, a performance indicator and a tool of governance. The paper discusses several incentives to misrepresent official homicide data in contemporary Russia, including politicization of homicide statistics as a legacy of the Soviet’ era’s falsified crime statistics and the role of policing. Mainly, the paper identifies and describes the exact legal, statistical and country-specific substantive mechanisms that allow homicide statistics to be distorted in Russia. By considering legal mechanisms alone, the more accurate homicide rate may be at least 1.6 times higher than that reported in the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime Global Study on Homicide 2013.

European Journal of Criminology 1 –21

By: Kacper Choromański

Currently, there are over a thousand unsolved homicide cases in Poland. Up to this point, numerous, mostly popular science, research papers have been focusing on the individual units in charge of these difficult cases. This paper, however, is an attempt to represent the current state of investigations that were discontinued due to the fact that the perpetrators could not be found, hereinafter referred to as Cold Case Homicides. This paper depicts both the researcher's perspective and the statistical side of such conduct. Furthermore, it presents the first results of a pilot study conducted among the prosecutors, concerning the problem of Cold Case Homicides from their perspective, the possibility of cooperation with the academics, and their opinion on the idea of complex research, concerning the reconstruction of events in this specific area of crime.

International Journal of Legal Studies No 2(8)2020

By Catherine Bates, Graham Huggan, Milena Marinko, and Jeffrey Orr

In the March 28, 2006 edition of The Guardian, two news items stand out on Canada. One, a short article by Duncan Campbell, concerns the growing number of US army deserters who have crossed recently into Canada and have sought political asylum there, claiming that they had been tricked by the US military into serving in a manifestly unfair war in Iraq (Campbell 2006, 17). "It’s really great here”, says one successful escapee: “Generally people have been very hospitable and understanding, although there have been a few who have been for the war” (Campbell 2006, 17). The other items, a protest letter signed by, among others, the Conservative MP Ann Widdecombe, decries the annual mass cull of seal pups off the shores of northwest Canada, “shot and skinned alive by hunters … [in] one of the largest and most brutal slaughters of marine mammals on the planet” (Banks et al 2006, 31). In response, Widdecombe et al call for a UK trade ban on Canadian products as a way of sending “Canada a signal that enough is enough - we can halt the vicious slaughter on the ice” (Banks et el 2006, 31). The Guardian offers no particular comment here, but a double-page spread in the same edition unambiguously features a black-clad hunter out on the ice in front of his vessel, cudgel poised above an inert seal, with the punning caption “Fate sealed” and the mock-dispassionate reading: “Sealers watch from the deck of their boat as a seal is clubbed off the coast of Newfoundland, on the second day of the annual seal hunt” (Cook 2006, 18-19).

The Central European Association for Canadian Studies, 1st edition, 2007

By: Steven Kohm and Michael Weinrath

This volume of essays was drawn from the conference “Practicing Justice: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Crime, Law and Justice” held over three days in May 2010. “Practicing Justice” was the second annual justice-themed event hosted by the Centre for Interdisciplinary Justice Studies (CIJS) at the University of Winnipeg Criminal Justice department. Our hope was to provide a forum for open and intellectual discus sion about justice in all its forms. To this end, we assembled a diverse group of participants including practitioners from the various justice agencies, Honours students from our own program, graduate students from a number of universities across Canada, local researchers, and academics from a variety of disciplinary backgrounds in Canada and the United States. What united all these participants was an interest in the elusive concept of ‘justice.’

The objective of the conference was to examine justice from a variety of standpoints. The practice of justice is all too often characterized by rigid dichotomies and entrenched rivalries: practitioners versus academics; applied researchers versus theoretical scholars; and community versus university. “Practicing Justice” was envisioned as an inclusive forum that might close the gap that separates often divergent perspectives on justice. We firmly believe that in order to understand justice and move toward the practice of justice – however defined – we must first be able to hear and understand others who bring different perspectives to the table.

We must acknowledge the hard work of Professor Richard Jochelson and Kelly Gorkof who a year earlier initiated a bold dialogue across the disciplines which culminated in our inaugural justice-themed conference “Theorizing Justice: Interdisciplining the Divide”. their goal was to “bridge the gap between disciplines, community agents, and institutional forces ... to identify the division between disciplines and to build an inclusive approach. hey cited the words of our keynote speaker Professor John P. Crank – who writes: “one must gather together liberals and conservatives, professionals and academicians, federal and local justice organizations, judges, defence counsel, prosecutors, sworn officers, managers... they all bring something to the table... they all bring a commitment to justice” (Crank, 2003).

The present volume of essays showcases a diversity of perspectives on justice. We are pleased to present submissions from practitioners of justice, Honours and graduate students, and academics of divergent disciplinary backgrounds. The essays that follow both critique conventional understandings of justice and suggest ways to better practice justice, however defined. Some works are highly theoretical and abstract, while others are more hands-on and applied. What unites all these submissions, however, is their commitment to and passion for justice.

Centre for Interdisciplinary Justice Studies (CIJS), Volume 1, Fall 2010

By Charles Fain Lehman

Crime remains a pressing concern for Americans, even as rates of violence have receded from 2022 peaks. What explains these persistent concerns? This report investigates this question in the context of a small but rapidly growing American city: Chattanooga, Tennessee. A Manhattan Institute poll from earlier this year found that Chattanooga residents are worried about safety in their communities; this report investigates why. A review of Chattanooga data, it finds that the city experienced the same increases in certain kinds of crime that other American cities did over the past four years, but that, through the application of evidence-based practices, the city’s police and municipal government have brought the problem under control. But even as violent crime has largely receded, multiple indicators are suggesting that another problem persists: disorder. Data indicate that homelessness, trash, and certain kinds of petty crime remain elevated above pre-2020 levels. A reduction in city resources—especially police resources—appears to have caused a concentration on serious crime, at the expense of more minor but still significant issues. Disorder, this report argues, matters, especially for a growing city like Chattanooga. Consequently, this report concludes by outlining several principles for addressing this problem, while capitalizing on the gains that the city has already made in getting major crime under control.

New York: The Manhattan Institute, 2024. 26p.

By Robert Zeithammer, James Macinko, Diana Silver

Introduction

Ignition interlock devices installed after conviction for driving under the influence of alcohol (DUI) have been shown to reduce subsequent DUI arrests (specific deterrence). However, there is little evidence on how interlock-device penalties might affect general deterrence, that is, deterring people from driving after consuming alcohol before a DUI conviction.

Methods

A discrete choice experiment was conducted and data were analyzed in 2023 with 583 U.S.-based adults who consumed alcohol at least once in the past week to assess the deterrent effects of five different penalties (fine, jail time, interlock device, license suspension, alcohol treatment) for alcohol-impaired driving under randomized sequential scenarios of high (20% chance of being caught) and low (1%) police enforcement. Participants resided in 46 states.

Results

Deterrent effects of an interlock penalty, operationalized as having to install an interlock device for 1 year, are large and on par with a 20-fold increase in police enforcement activity (from 1% chance of being caught to 20%), or a $2,000 increase in the DUI fine under the status quo enforcement regime. On average, a 1-year interlock penalty had the same deterrent effect as a 10-day increase in jail time.

Conclusions

Wider use of interlock devices as a DUI penalty could have large deterrent effects, independent of their ability to physically prevent the motor vehicle of an intoxicated driver from starting. The deterrent effect documented here adds to evidence of interlock devices’ overall effectiveness as well as their potential to shift DUI penalties away from criminalization (jail time) and toward immobilization and rehabilitation.

American Journal of Preventive Medicine; 2024 Articles in Press

By Leke de Vries, Toby Davies

The role of street networks in shaping the spatial distribution of crime has become a foundational component within environmental criminology. Most studies, however, have focused on opportunistic crime types, such as property offenses. In this study, we instead research a theoretically distinct phenomenon by examining the placement of venues that host criminal activity. In particular, we study the relationship between network structure and the placement of illicit massage businesses, which operate at the intersections of illicit and legitimate activity by hosting illicit commercial sex under the guise of legitimate massage. We model their placement as a function of two network metrics: betweenness, which measures a street's usage potential, and a variant called “local betweenness,” which measures the potential of nearby streets. Multilevel models are used to examine the importance of these street-level metrics while accounting for tract-level covariates. Our findings demonstrate that, unlike property crimes, illicit massage businesses tend to be located on streets that are quiet but that are close to areas of high activity. Such locations seem to combine accessibility and discretion, and therefore, represent ideal conditions for such businesses to thrive. Our findings can inform problem-oriented approaches to prevent the harms associated with illegitimately operating businesses.

 Criminology Volume 62, Issue 3 Aug 2024 Pages 377-618