By Per-Olof H. Wikström, and Clemens Kroneberg

Criminology is a smorgasbord of disparate theory and poorly integrated research findings. Theories tend to focus either on people's crime propensity or the criminogenic inducements of environments; rarely are these two main approaches effectively combined in the analysis of crime and its causes. Criminological research often either avoids questions of causation and explanation (e.g., risk factor approach) or is based on research designs that yield highly partial accounts (e.g., place-oriented experimental work). To advance knowledge about crime and its causes and prevention, we argue that there is a need for an analytic criminology that allows key theoretical insights and central empirical findings about people's crime propensities and environments’ criminogenic inducements and their combination to be integrated based on an adequate action theory. In this review, we outline this approach and its main methodological implications and discuss

Annu. Rev. Criminol. 2022. 5:179–203  

By Alice M. Ellysona , Emma Gauseb, Vivian H. Lyonsd, Julia P. Schleimerb, Kimberly Dalveb, Margaret R. Kuklinskid, Sabrina Oesterlef , Elizabeth H. Weybrightg, Ali RowhaniRahbara 

Abstract Objectives.—This study builds on prior research showing a strong relationship between handgun carrying and delinquent behaviors among urban youth by examining the association between handgun carrying trajectories and various types of violence in a rural sample. Methods: This study uses data from a longitudinal cohort study of 2,002 public school students in the United States from 12 rural communities across 7 states from ages 12–26 (2005–2019). We used logistic regressions to assess associations of various bullying and physical violence behaviors with latent trajectories of handgun carrying from adolescence through young adulthood. Results.—Compared to youth with very low probabilities of carrying a handgun in adolescence and young adulthood, trajectories with high probabilities of handgun carrying during adolescence or young adulthood were associated with greater odds of using bullying (odds ratios (ORs) ranging from 1.9–11.2) and higher odds of using physical violence during adolescence (ORs ranging from 1.5–15.9) and young adulthood (ORs ranging from 1.9–4.7). These trajectories with higher probabilities of handgun carrying were also associated with greater odds of experiencing physical violence like parental physical abuse and intimate partner violence, but not bullying. Conclusion and implication.—Experiencing and using bullying and physical violence were associated with specific patterns of handgun carrying among youth growing up in rural areas. Handgun carrying could be an important focus of violence prevention programs among those youth 

Prev Med. 2023 February ; 167: 107416. doi:10.1016/j.ypmed.2022.107416. 

By Christopher R. Harper, Jingjing Li ; Kameron Sheats 

Community violence, including homicides involving firearms, is a significant public health concern. From 2019 to 2020, firearmrelated homicides increased by 39% for youths and young adults aged 10–24 years, and rates of suicide by firearm increased by approximately 15% among the same age group. Findings from the nationally representative 2021 Youth Risk Behavior Survey were used to analyze disparities and correlates of witnessing community violence and gun carrying among a nationally representative sample of high school students. Chi-square tests and logistic regression accounting for the complex sampling of the survey were used to assess demographic differences by student sex, race and ethnicity, age, and sexual identity in ever witnessing community violence, gun carrying in the past 12 months, and their associations with substance use and suicide risk. Measures of substance use included current binge drinking and marijuana use and lifetime prescription opioid misuse and illicit drug use. Suicide risk included seriously considered attempting suicide and attempted suicide in the past 12 months. Overall, approximately 20% of students witnessed community violence and 3.5% of students carried a gun. American Indian or Alaska Native, Black, and Hispanic students were more likely to witness community violence and to report carrying a gun than their White peers. Males were more likely to witness community violence and carry a gun than females. Lesbian, gay, or bisexual students were more likely to witness community violence than their heterosexual peers. Also, witnessing community violence consistently was associated with increased odds of gun carrying, substance use, and suicide risk for both males and females and when comparing Black, White, and Hispanic students. These findings highlight the importance of comprehensive violence prevention strategies that incorporate health equity to mitigate the effects of violence exposure on substance use and suicide risk among youths. 

  MMWR / April 28, 2023 / Vol. 72 / No. 1  

By Birzhan Batkeyev David R. DeRemer

We find that air pollution increases crime in a city that ranks in the worst two percentiles worldwide for dirty winter air. Our identification strategy employs distinct geographic features of Almaty, Kazakhstan: cleaner mountain winds and frequent temperature inversions. Using these variables to instrument for PM2.5 air pollution, we estimate a PM2.5 elasticity of the expected crime rate more than four times as large as similar estimates from cleaner cities. Among crime types, we estimate statistically significant effects of air pollution on property crime, and we find no evidence of an effect on violent crime. These results are consistent with theory that air pollution induces higher discounting rather than aggression. We extend this theory and find that whether air pollution has distinct effects on crimes of varying severity depends on whether the population is more heterogenous in the outside option or in the discount factor. Using microdata on crime severity, we find statistically significant increases in both major and minor crime rates from air pollution, and we fail to reject common PM2.5 elasticities of minor and major crime rates. The greater scale of major crimes implies that they contribute more to the total crime rate increase from air pollution. 

Accepted manuscript for the Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization 2023.  

By Bradley Read

This article suggests that the parole dossier may be working to damage prisoners' sense of their identity. Through the creation of a carceral script which describes a person whom they do not recognise as themselves and which leads to an increased narrative labour. Prisoners' struggle therefore to form a post offence identity with which to navigate a complex process. As identity and its repair, appear instrumental to desistance, elements of the process, such as the dossier, could be putting hopes of rehabilitation at risk. Using the analysis of fifteen prisoner interviews, this article explores a parole process described as undermining agency. A process where risk assessment is perceived poorly and where ultimately the experience can lead to negative impacts on an already fragile self-identity. In conclusion, this article attempts to offer some solutions, to mitigate the negative effects, to maximise the potential impact of the dossier process on future desistance, through the more meaningful involvement of the prisoner at its centre.

Criminology & Criminal Justice, 2024. Online First.

By Elmarije K. van Straalena, Christianne J. de Poota, Marijke Malschd , Henk Elffers

Forensic reports use various types of conclusions, such as a categorical (CAT) conclusion or a likelihood ratio (LR). In order to correctly assess the evidence, users of forensic reports need to understand the conclusion and its evidential strength. The aim of this paper is to study the interpretation of the evidential strength of forensic conclusions by criminal justice professionals. In an online questionnaire 269 professionals assessed 768 reports on fingerprint examination and answered questions that measured self-proclaimed and actual understanding of the reports and conclusions. The reports entailed CAT, verbal LR and numerical LR conclusions with low or high evidential strength and were assessed by crime scene investigators, police detectives, public prosecutors, criminal lawyers, and judges. The results show that about a quarter of all questions measuring actual understanding of the reports were answered incorrectly. The CAT conclusion was best understood for the weak conclusions, the three strong conclusions were all assessed similarly. The weak CATconclusion correctly emphasizes the uncertainty of any conclusion type used. However, most participants underestimated the strength of this weak CAT conclusion compared to the other weak conclusion types. Looking at the self-proclaimed understanding of all professionals, they in general overestimated their actual understanding of all conclusion types.

Forensic Science International, Volume 313, August 2020, 110331

By Jacqueline Allen, Ross Homel, Daniela Vasco, Kate Freiberg

  In this report, we investigate the effects of the Pathways to Prevention Project on the onset of youth offending. We find persuasive evidence for the impact of an enriched preschool program, the communication program, in reducing by more than 50 percent the number of young people becoming involved in court-adjudicated youth crime by age 17. We find equally strong evidence that comprehensive family support increased the efficacy and sense of empowerment of parents receiving family support. No children offended in the communication program if their parents also received family support, but family support on its own did not reduce youth crime. The rate of youth offending between 2008 and 2016 in the Pathways region was at least 20 percent lower than in other Queensland regions at the same low socio‑economic level, consistent with (but not proving) the hypothesis that the Pathways Project reduced youth crime at the aggregate community level.

 Report to the Criminology Research Advisory Council Canberra:  Australian Institute of Criminology 2024 , 86p.

By Julia H. Littell, Therese D. Pigott, Karianne H. Nilsen, Stacy J. Green, Olga L. K. Montgomery

Background

Lack of access to and use of water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) cause 1.6 million deaths every year, of which 1.2 million are due to gastrointestinal illnesses like diarrhoea and acute respiratory infections like pneumonia. Poor WASH access and use also diminish nutrition and educational attainment, and cause danger and stress for vulnerable populations, especially for women and girls. The hardest hit regions are sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 6 calls for the end of open defecation, and universal access to safely managed water and sanitation facilities, and basic hand hygiene, by 2030. WASH access and use also underpin progress in other areas such as SDG1 poverty targets, SDG3 health and SDG4 education targets. Meeting the SDG equity agenda to “leave none behind” will require WASH providers prioritise the hardest to reach including those living remotely and people who are disadvantaged.

Objectives

Decision makers need access to high-quality evidence on what works in WASH promotion in different contexts, and for different groups of people, to reach the most disadvantaged populations and thereby achieve universal targets. The WASH evidence map is envisioned as a tool for commissioners and researchers to identify existing studies to fill synthesis gaps, as well as helping to prioritise new studies where there are gaps in knowledge. It also supports policymakers and practitioners to navigate the evidence base, including presenting critically appraised findings from existing systematic reviews.

Methods

This evidence map presents impact evaluations and systematic reviews from the WASH sector, organised according to the types of intervention mechanisms, WASH technologies promoted, and outcomes measured. It is based on a framework of intervention mechanisms (e.g., behaviour change triggering or microloans) and outcomes along the causal pathway, specifically behavioural outcomes (e.g., handwashing and food hygiene practices), ill-health outcomes (e.g., diarrhoeal morbidity and mortality), nutrition and socioeconomic outcomes (e.g., school absenteeism and household income). The map also provides filters to examine the evidence for a particular WASH technology (e.g., latrines), place of use (e.g., home, school or health facility), location (e.g., global region, country, rural and urban) and group (e.g., people living with disability). Systematic searches for published and unpublished literature and trial registries were conducted of studies in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Searches were conducted in March 2018, and searches for completed trials were done in May 2020. Coding of information for the map was done by two authors working independently. Impact evaluations were critically appraised according to methods of conduct and reporting. Systematic reviews were critically appraised using a new approach to assess theory-based, mixed-methods evidence synthesis.

Results

There has been an enormous growth in impact evaluations and systematic reviews of WASH interventions since the International Year of Sanitation, 2008. There are now at least 367 completed or ongoing rigorous impact evaluations in LMICs, nearly three-quarters of which have been conducted since 2008, plus 43 systematic reviews. Studies have been done in 83 LMICs, with a high concentration in Bangladesh, India, and Kenya. WASH sector programming has increasingly shifted in focus from what technology to supply (e.g., a handwashing station or child's potty), to the best way in which to do so to promote demand. Research also covers a broader set of intervention mechanisms. For example, there has been increased interest in behaviour change communication using psychosocial “triggering”, such as social marketing and community-led total sanitation. These studies report primarily on behavioural outcomes. With the advent of large-scale funding, in particular by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, there has been a substantial increase in the number of studies on sanitation technologies, particularly latrines. Sustaining behaviour is fundamental for sustaining health and other quality of life improvements. However, few studies have been done of intervention mechanisms for, or measuring outcomes on sustained adoption of latrines to stop open defaecation. There has also been some increase in the number of studies looking at outcomes and interventions that disproportionately affect women and girls, who quite literally carry most of the burden of poor water and sanitation access. However, most studies do not report sex disaggregated outcomes, let alone integrate gender analysis into their framework. Other vulnerable populations are even less addressed; no studies eligible for inclusion in the map were done of interventions targeting, or reporting on outcomes for, people living with disabilities. We were only able to find a single controlled evaluation of WASH interventions in a health care facility, in spite of the importance of WASH in health facilities in global policy debates. The quality of impact evaluations has improved, such as the use of controlled designs as standard, attention to addressing reporting biases, and adequate cluster sample size. However, there remain important concerns about quality of reporting. The quality and usefulness of systematic reviews for policy is also improving, which draw clearer distinctions between intervention mechanisms and synthesise the evidence on outcomes along the causal pathway. Adopting mixed-methods approaches also provides information for programmes on barriers and enablers affecting implementation.

Conclusion

Ensuring everyone has access to appropriate water, sanitation, and hygiene facilities is one of the most fundamental of challenges for poverty elimination. Researchers and funders need to consider carefully where there is the need for new primary evidence, and new syntheses of that evidence. This study suggests the following priority areas:

Impact evaluations incorporating understudied outcomes, such as sustainability and slippage, of WASH provision in understudied places of use, such as health care facilities, and of interventions targeting, or presenting disaggregated data for, vulnerable populations, particularly over the life-course and for people living with a disability;

Improved reporting in impact evaluations, including presentation of participant flow diagrams; and

Synthesis studies and updates in areas with sufficient existing and planned impact evaluations, such as for diarrhoea mortality, ARIs, WASH in schools and decentralisation. These studies will preferably be conducted as mixed-methods systematic reviews that are able to answer questions about programme targeting, implementation, effectiveness and cost-effectiveness, and compare alternative intervention mechanisms to achieve and sustain outcomes in particular contexts, preferably using network meta-analysis.

Campbell Systematic Reviews, 17(4) 2021.

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 Charles C. Lanfear, Ross L. Matsueda, and Lindsey R. Beach

An important criminological controversy concerns the proper causal relationships between disorder, informal social control, and crime. The broken windows thesis posits that neighborhood disorder increases crime directly and indirectly by undermining neighborhood informal social control. Theories of collective efficacy argue that the association between neighborhood disorder and crime is spurious because of the confounding variable informal social control. We review the recent empirical research on this question, which uses disparate methods, including field experiments and different models for observational data. To evaluate the causal claims made in these studies, we use a potential outcomes framework of causality. We conclude that, although there is some evidence for both broken windows and informal control theories, there is little consensus in the present research literature. Furthermore, at present, most studies do not establish causality in a strong way.

Annual Review of Criminology, Vol. 3 (2020), pp. 97–120

By Callie H. Burt

Over the past several decades, Gottfredson & Hirschi's self-control theory (SCT) has dominated research on self-control and crime. In this review, I assess the current state of self-control knowledge and encourage the field to move beyond SCT, as its peculiar conceptualization of self-control and the causal model present challenges for integrative scholarship. Drawing heavily on scholarship outside criminology, I clarify the definition of self-control; describe the malleable nature of trait self-control; highlight its situational variability as state self-control; and consider the multiplicity of contextual, situational, and individual factors that affect its operation in relation to crime. This specification of contingencies and the interplay between impulse strength and control efforts in the process of self-control is intended as a springboard for research moving beyond SCT and its key premise that self-control (ability) is sufficient to explain individual variation in crime (i.e., is tantamount to criminality). Finally, I address what I see as important areas for further study in light of current knowledge.

Annual Review of Criminology, Vol. 3:43-73, 2020

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 Michael T. Light , Julia T. Thomas

Unauthorized immigration, already a divisive and controversial subject in American society, was reframed as a grave national security threat after the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. Yet, despite substantial public, political and policy attention to the issue of undocumented immigration and terrorism, there has been relatively little empirical assessment of the relationship between unauthorized immigration flows and terrorist activity. We attempt to fill this gap by combining newly developed estimates of the unauthorized population, a novel use of sentencing and prosecutorial data to measure terrorism-related activity, and multiple data sources on the criminological, socioeconomic, and demographic context from all 50 states from 1990 to 2014. We then leverage this unique dataset to examine the longitudinal, macro-level relationship between undocumented immigration and various measures of terrorism. Results from fixed effects negative binomial models suggest that increased undocumented immigration over this period is not associated with terrorist attacks, radicalization, or terrorism prosecutions.

Soc Sci Res. 2021 February ; 94: 102512. doi:10.1016/j.ssresearch.2020.102512. 

By Michael T. Light and Isabel Anadon

The dramatic increase in both lawful and unauthorized immigration in recent decades produced a groundswell of research on two questions: (1) Does immigration increase violent crime? and (2) What policy responses are most effective at addressing unauthorized immigration (e.g., sanctuary policies, deportations, etc.)? For the most part, these bodies of work have developed independently, and thus we know little as to whether the insights from one inform the other. This Article fills this gap by first reviewing both areas of research and then triangulating shared findings between them. In doing so, we focus on three contemporary immigration policies: (1) increased deportation; (2) “sanctuary” policies, and (3) “amnesty” laws. Our review provides little evidence to suggest that immigration increases the prevalence of violence. For this reason, policies aimed to enhance public safety by reducing immigration are unlikely to deliver on their crime reduction promises.

103 Marq. L. Rev. 939 (2020).

By Graham C. Ousey and Charis E. Kubrin

Are immigration and crime related? This review addresses this question in order to build a deeper understanding of the immigration-crime relationship. We synthesize the recent generation (1994 to 2014) of immigration-crime research focused on macrosocial (i.e., geospatial) units using a two-pronged approach that combines the qualitative method of narrative review with the quantitative strategy of systematic meta-analysis. After briefly reviewing contradictory theoretical arguments that scholars have invoked in efforts to explain the immigration-crime relationship, we present findings from our analysis, which (a) determined the average effect of immigration on crime rates across the body of literature and (b) assessed how variations in key aspects of research design have impacted results obtained in prior studies. Findings indicate that, overall, the immigration-crime association is negative—but very weak. At the same time, there is significant variation in findings across studies. Study design features, including measurement of the dependent variable, units of analysis, temporal design, and locational context, impact the immigration-crime association in varied ways. We conclude the review with a discussion of promising new directions and remaining challenges in research on the immigration-crime nexus.

Annu. Rev. Criminol. 2018. 1:63–84

By Jon Heidt

This report reviews the key research literature on the impact of decriminalization, depenalization, diversion, and harm reduction programs from countries in Europe, North America, South America Oceania, and several U.S. states including California, Maine, Oregon, and Washington state. From this review, key indicators emerged in two domains: crime and criminal justice and mental and public health. Crime and criminal justice indicators include crime rates, levels of organized crime, rates of imprisonment, levels of public disorder (e.g., open air drug use and dealing), drug use trends and patterns, drug availability and price, rates of treatment uptake, addiction and overdose, police clearance rates, costs of enforcement, and functioning. Mental and public health indicators include drug use rates and patterns, rates of drug treatment participation, and rates of drug related mortality. These indicators were used to evaluate the impact that different approaches to drug policy have on society.

Vancouver, BC:  International Centre for Criminal Law Reform, 2021. 80p.

By  Almudena Arcelus, Carlos Chiapa, Pierre Cremieux, Maria Garibotti, Owen Hearey, Yeseul Hyun, Lu Jinks, Jee-Yeon Lehmann, Yao Lu, Kritika Narula, Lolo Palacios, Haimin Zhang 

Immigrants are an integral part of the U.S. economy. According to 2022 data from the U.S. Census Bureau, there are approximately 46 million immigrants in the United States, representing close to 14 percent of the total U.S. population. Immigrants participate in the civilian labor force at higher rates than native-born U.S. workers, and they are an important source for U.S. labor force growth that will help offset the large-scale retirement of baby boomers. A significant part of the growth in the foreign-born labor force in the United States over the past decade is associated with the arrival of immigrants who hold a bachelor’s degree or higher. Immigrants in the United States participate in a wide variety of occupations, ranging from high-skilled, high-wage jobs such as physicians and engineers to low-wage jobs such as agriculture work and food manufacturing. During the COVID-19 pandemic and associated lockdowns in the United States, immigrants played critical roles in key sectors of the economy, including healthcare, scientific research and development, agriculture, and food supply. Analysis by the Immigration Research Initiative, a nonpartisan think tank, estimates that in 2021, immigrants contributed $3.3 trillion to the U.S. gross domestic product (GDP), which represents 17 percent of total U.S. GDP. In addition to the civilian workforce, immigrants also serve in the U.S. military. As of 2022, nearly 731,000 veterans of the U.S. armed forces were born outside the United States, representing approximately 4.5 percent of the U.S. veteran population, with Mexican and Filipino immigrants comprising the largest groups of foreign-born veterans. 

Boston: The Analysis Group, 2024. 166p.

By Ariel G. Ruiz Soto

Immigrants in the United States commit crimes at lower rates than the U.S.-born population, notwithstanding the assertion by critics that immigration is linked to higher rates of criminal activity. This reality of reduced criminality, which holds across immigrant groups including unauthorized immigrants, has been demonstrated through research as well as findings for the one state in the United States—Texas—that tracks criminal arrests and convictions by immigration status. A growing volume of research demonstrates that not only do immigrants commit fewer crimes, but they also do not raise crime rates in the U.S. communities where they settle. In fact, some studies indicate that immigration can lower criminal activity, especially violent crime, in places with inclusive policies and social environments where immigrant populations are well established. 

Washington, DC: Migration Policy Institute, 2024. 7p.

By Armita Adily, George Karystianis and Tony Butler

Police attend numerous family and domestic violence (FDV) related events each year and record details of these events as both structured data and unstructured free-text narratives. These descriptive narratives include information about the types of abuse (eg physical, emotional, financial) and the injuries sustained by victims. However, this information is not used in research. In this paper we demonstrate the application of an automated text mining method to identify abuse types and victim injuries in a large corpus of NSW Police Force FDV event narratives (492,393) recorded between January 2005 and December 2016. Specific types of abuse and victim injuries were identified in 71.3 percent and 35.9 percent of FDV event narratives respectively. The most commonly identified abuse types mentioned in the narratives were non-physical (55.4%). Our study supports the application of text mining for use in FDV research and monitoring.

Trends & issues in crime and criminal justice no. 630. Canberra: Australian Institute of Criminology. 2021. 12p.

By Armita Adily, George Karystianis and Tony Butler

In this paper, we describe the feasibility of using a text-mining method to generate new insights relating to family and domestic violence (FDV) from free-text police event narratives. Despite the rich descriptive content of the event narratives regarding the context and individuals involved in FDV events, the police narratives are untapped as a source of data to generate research evidence. We used text mining to automatically identify mentions of mental disorders for both persons of interest (POIs) and victims of FDV in 492,393 police event narratives created between January 2005 and December 2016. Mentions of mental disorders for both POIs and victims were identified in nearly 15.8 percent (77,995) of all FDV events. Of all events with mentions of mental disorder, 76.9 percent (60,032) and 16.4 percent (12,852) were related to either POIs or victims, respectively. The next step will be to use actual diagnoses from NSW Health records to determine concordance between the two data sources. We will also use text mining to extract information about the context of FDV events among key at-risk groups.

Trends & issues in crime and criminal justice no. 629. Canberra: Australian Institute of Criminology. 2021. 16p.