By Hai Thank Luong

As one of the earliest countries in the Southeast Asia region, Vietnam joined the CITES in 1994. However, they have faced several challenges and practical barriers to preventing and combating illegal wildlife trade (IWT) after 35 years. This first study systematically reviews 29 English journal articles between 1994 and 2020 to examine and assess the main trends and patterns of the IWT’s concerns in Vietnam. Findings show (1) slow progress of empirical studies, (2) unbalanced authorship between Vietnamese and non-Vietnamese conducting their projects, (3) weighting of wildlife demand consumptions in Vietnamese communities rather than investigating supply networks with high-profile traffickers, (4) lacking research in green and conservation criminology to assess the inside of the IWT, and (5) need to focus on potential harms of zoonotic transmission between a wild animal and human beings. The article also provides current limitations before proposing further research to fill these future gaps.

Laws 11: 64. https://doi.org/10.3390/laws 11040064 

By Education for Nature

Vietnam's Revised d Penal Code came into effect in January 2018. The revised law is much tougher on wildlife crime and, in general, is sufficiently effective in deterring crime if applied universally. By some accounts, the revised Criminal Code is the “ideal law” as it closes loopholes, increases punishment for serious offenses, and incorporates a foundation on which the criminal justice system can effectively deter wildlife crime. According to the new Penal Code, activities including hunting, catching, killing, rearing, caging, transporting, and/or trading of endangered, precious, and rare species or their parts and derivatives shall be deemed criminal offenses, depending on the number of animals involved. The revised Penal Code has also added “possession” as a criminal offense, closing a critical loophole that previously allowed criminals to escape with mere fines for keeping frozen tigers, rhino horn, and other endangered species and their products.   

  Species fully protected under the new Penal Code include endangered species listed under Decree 160 [2013] and its subsequently updated list of protected species under Decree 64 [2019], species listed under Group I of Decree 06, and species listed under Appendix I of CITES. The Penal Code also affords greater protection to species that are not listed on the aforementioned Decree 64, Decree 06, or Appendix I of CITES, permitting authorities to criminally charge offenders if they are engaged in illegal activities involving large quantities of animals. This new aspect of the Penal Code strengthens the hand of law enforcement dealing with criminal networks that smuggle large quantities of animals such as snakes or freshwater turtles that may not be specifically protected under endangered species laws.  

Hanoi: Education for Nature, 2021. 12p.

  By Antônio Sampaio

This report concludes a research project conducted by the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime (GI-TOC), with support of Germany’s GIZ, that examines the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and the economic challenges accompanying it on criminal governance in cities. The project aims to study how gangs and other non-state armed groups operating in illicit economies have altered their activities in light of the new circumstances in areas of criminal governance, and how governments and civil society have responded. We define criminal governance as instances in which armed criminal groups set and enforce rules, provide security and other basic services – such as water, electricity or internet access – in an urban area, which may be a part or the whole of an informal settlement or a neighbourhood. The project uses a comparative methodology, drawing from semi-structured interviews feeding into five separate case studies. The data is then synthesized in a final report that analyzes and summarizes the main trends. A fuller description of the methodology can be found in the final report.  The case studies in this project are Tumaco (Colombia), Rio de Janeiro (Brazil), San Salvador (El Salvador), Nairobi (Kenya) and Cape Town (South Africa)  

Geneva, SWIT: Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime. 2021. 39p.

By Lisa B. Puglisi, Lauren Brinkley-Rubinstein, and Emily A. Wang

As with past pandemics of influenza, COVID-19 tore through US prisons and jails; however, the COVID-19 pandemic, uniquely, has led to more health research on carceral systems than has been seen to date. Herein, we review the data on its impact on incarcerated people, correctional officers, health systems, and surrounding communities. We searched medical, sociological, and criminology databases from March 2020 through February 2022 for studies examining the intersection of COVID-19, prisons and jails, and health outcomes, including COVID-19 incidence, prevalence, hospitalizations, and vaccination. Our scoping review identified 77 studies—the bulk of which focus on disease epidemiology in carceral systems, with a small minority that focuses on the efficacy or effectiveness of prevention and mitigation efforts, including testing, vaccination, and efforts to depopulate correctional facilities. We highlight areas for future research, including the experiences of incarcerated people and correctional staff, unanticipated health effects of prolonged quarantine, excess deaths due to delays in healthcare, and experimental studies on vaccine uptake and testing in correctional staff. These studies will enable a fuller understanding of COVID-19 and help stem future pandemics.

Annual Review of Criminology 

By Stuart Strome and Read Hayes

Organized Retail Crime (ORC) is large-scale theft or fraud of consumer products by groups of professional criminals. ORC includes more than just in-store theft, encompassing a variety of retail crimes, including shoplifting, gift card fraud, receipt and return fraud, ticket switching, cargo theft, as well as associated crimes such as forgery, money laundering, transportation of stolen goods across state lines, and racketeering. Due in part to the ability to easily resell certain items, ORC groups often target high-demand products (Clarke 1999; Smith 2018). ORC is a perennial problem for retailers, costing them billions of dollars in lost sales. According to one report, ORC is responsible for a loss of $700,000 per every one billion dollars in sales (NRF 2017, ). Furthermore, ORC affects almost every category of retail, as 94% of retailers reported being victims. Therefore, understanding this costly problem, and its relationship to other types of crime is key to understanding how to better combat ORC. The rise of ORC as an endemic phenomenon coincides with the increase in illicit use and sale of opioids in the United States. Deaths from opioid overdose exceeded 42,000 in 2017, and deaths from powerful synthetic opioids, such as fentanyl, have doubled between 2015 and 2017 (Morgan and Jones 2018), . A recent publication places the costs of the opioid crisis at $500 billion, although estimates range as high as $1 trillion (Ryan 2018). Indeed, this epidemic has coincided with a rise in arrests for opioid possession, and there is some speculation that the opioid crisis is related to recent rises in the homicide rate (Rosenfeld 2018, ; Kennedy and Abt 2016). However, while a recent article by CNBC sheds light on the potential relationship between the opioid crisis and ORC, there is little systematic study on that relationship (Brewer and Zamost 2017). More importantly, understanding the relationship between ORC and the opioid crisis necessitates better understanding what drives opioid offenders, and how their patterns of crime, and motivations, differ from other offenders.  

Gainesville, FL: Loss Prevention Research Council, 2019? 12p.

By Chesa Boudin   

As San Francisco District Attorney, I was elected in late 2019 on an ambitious platform focused on ending mass incarceration and decreasing  racial disparities in the criminal justice system. Little did I imagine that my first year in office would bring an acute national focus to the exact issues on which I had campaigned. Two phenomena have, thus far, largely defined the year 2020. First, the COVID-19 pandemic, which continues to have a grossly disparate impact on communities of color2 and on those living and working in prisons and jails. Second, a national Black Lives Matter movement grew in response to the murder of George Floyd—potentially the largest national movement in U.S. history—demanding police accountability and criminal justice reform with a focus on racial equity. The nation’s collective response to these developments—how the country navigates an unprecedented national health crisis and an unprecedented protest movement—will have lasting implications for myriad aspects of American life, including the criminal justice system. COVID-19 and the growth of the Black Lives Matter movement created a tremendous impetus for wide-ranging criminal justice reform, including decarceration and police accountability. Although some criminal justice jurisdictions have actively resisted change, and others have simply been unprepared for it, San Francisco was ready. After all, San Francisco voters had just elected me on explicit promises to deliver many of the reforms now in the national spotlight, and we were changemaking   

110 J. Crim. L. & Criminology Online 23 (2020).   

By Thea Johnson   

In the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, activists and advocates have rightly focused their attention on the immediate need to decrease the number of people in jails and prisons.1 Jails and prisons have been ravaged by the  virus and defendants are at real risk of illness or death in those spaces.2 But as the crisis continues and the backlog of criminal cases grows, defendants face additional risks. This essay focuses on one such risk: the heightened risk for coerced and false pleas during the crisis. The vehicle by which the criminal system resolves most criminal cases—the plea bargain —is ripe for abuse and overuse in the best of times. Unfortunately, now is far from the best of times, and as I outline here, there are several reasons why the usual risk factors for coercive plea bargaining are exacerbated during this public health crisis. Furthermore, despite recent efforts to reform the plea system, the pandemic risks entrenching many of the most negative characteristics of plea bargaining even more deeply. Quite simply, the coercive nature of plea bargaining will get worse in a system that is backlogged and unable to hold jury trials for several months. Many states are not counting the delays caused by the coronavirus toward a defendant’s speedy trial clock, which means the cases can remain active for long periods of time and without any risk to the prosecutor that the case will be dismissed for lack of prosecution. For a defendant in this backlogged system, with a case hanging over her head and a speedy trial clock without finality, the plea will be her only option. In such an environment, coercive pleas can and will flourish. This essay proceeds in three parts. Part I of the essay discusses the particular concerns related to coercive plea bargaining during the COVID-19 crisis. Part II offers solutions to these issues and suggests that this moment may provide opportunities for creative problem-solving capable of outlasting the virus. Finally, Part III discusses some silver linings of the crisis for the criminal system at large and the practice of plea bargaining in particular. Like many other recent pieces about the impact of coronavirus on the criminal justice system, this essay addresses the current crisis in the hopes that it will teach us important lessons about the system more broadly. By seeing some of the worst parts of the system exposed through COVID-19, we may be able to better meet future challenges and tackle some of the underlying daily injustices of the modern criminal process.  

110 J. Crim. L. & Criminology Online 1 (2020).

By Ryan T. Cannon   

You have been arrested. You are put in handcuffs and transported to a local jail where you are fingerprinted and photographed. The crime you are charged with is not serious or violent, but you have prior criminal convictions, or perhaps a history of not coming to court when told—making you ineligible for a future release on your own recognizance. Bail was set, but like most others in the cell you occupy, you cannot pay even the smallest bond. You are facing a period of pretrial detention. A week passes without being brought to see a judge for your arraignment. Then another week passes. If you are lucky, you may have spoken to an attorney on the phone, but no one has come to the jail to see you. All around, individuals are beginning to talk about a mysterious new illness. As you continue to sit in pretrial detention, the spread of the novel coronavirus among prisoners rises quickly. By the week of April 22, 2020 the number of confirmed cases in prisons grew three-fold—from 1,643 to  6,664.1 By the middle of September, 2020 the count was up to 132,677, with 1,108 reported deaths. Mass testing reveals that the number of prisoners who have contracted the virus is far greater than expected, partly because of the number of people who carry the virus without exhibiting symptoms. Many facilities cannot conduct mass testing of inmates, and others choose not to test at all. For you and the inmates around you not yet infected, precautionary measures are largely nonexistent. You are locked in a facility where social distancing—the primary method for avoiding transmission—is practically impossible. It is unlikely that you have ready access to hand sanitizer or face masks.  Prisons and jails begin using solitary confinement as a method of quarantining..... 

110 J. Crim. L. & Criminology Online 91 (2020)

  Matthew B. Kugler, Mariana Oliver, Jonathan Chu, Nathan, R. Lee   

  What role did law enforcement play in promoting COVID-19 restrictions in the United States during the spring and summer of 2020? Because most law enforcement in the U.S. occurs at the local level, we surveyed local police departments to examine their responses to the COVID19 pandemic. Our results show that most departments, especially those in smaller jurisdictions, played a minimal role in enforcing COVID-related restrictions and tended only to encourage compliance. Further, it was extremely rare for a department to use sophisticated surveillance technology to monitor COVID compliance. This lack of monitoring stands both in stark contrast to the regimes employed by several comparable industrialized countries and in spite of the broad surveillance powers permissible under the U.S. Constitution.

111 J. Crim. L. & Criminology Online 19 (2021).

By Rachel Love Nuwer

An intrepid investigation of the criminal world of wildlife trafficking--the poachers, the traders, and the customers--and of those fighting against it. Journalist Rachel Nuwer plunges the reader into the underground of global wildlife trafficking, a topic she has been investigating for nearly a decade. Our insatiable demand for animals--for jewelry, pets, medicine, meat, trophies, and fur--is driving a worldwide poaching epidemic, threatening the continued existence of countless species. Illegal wildlife trade now ranks among the largest contraband industries in the world, yet compared to drug, arms, or human trafficking, the wildlife crisis has received scant attention and support, leaving it up to passionate individuals fighting on the ground to try to ensure that elephants, tigers, rhinos, and more are still around for future generations.

New York: Da Capo Press, 2018. 384p.

By Gohar Petrossian

Humans are deeply dependent on fishing―globally, fish comprise 15 percent of the protein intake for approximately 3 billion people, and 8 percent of the global population depends on the fishing industry as their livelihood. The global fishing industry is plagued by illegal fishing, however, and many highly commercial species, such as cod, tuna, orange roughy, and swordfish, are extremely vulnerable.

Through criminological analysis, The Last Fish Swimming emphasizes the importance of looking at specific environmental factors that make illegal fishing possible. It examines such factors as proximity to known ports where illegally caught fish can be landed without inspection (i.e., ports of convenience), fisheries monitoring, control and surveillance efforts, formal surveillance, and resource attractiveness in 53 countries that altogether represent 96 percent of the world's fish catch. The book calls upon the global community to address the illegal depletion of the world's fish stock and other similar threats to the world's food supply and natural environment in order to ensure the sustainability of the planet's fish and continuation of the legal fishing industry for generations to come.

Santa Barbara. Praeger. 2019. 191p.

By Norman O. Brown

Life Against Death: The Psychoanalytical Meaning of History (1959; second edition 1985) is a book by the American classicist Norman O. Brown, in which the author offers a radical analysis and critique of the work of Sigmund Freud, tries to provide a theoretical rationale for a nonrepressive civilization, explores parallels between psychoanalysis and Martin Luther's theology, and draws on revolutionary themes in western religious thought, especially the body mysticism of Jakob Böhme and William Blake. It was the result of an interest in psychoanalysis that began when the philosopher Herbert Marcuse suggested to Brown that he should read Freud.

Connecticut. Wesleyan University Press. 1959. 364p.

By Jacoueline .L Schneider

The illegal trade in endangered species is a worldwide problem that involves not only animals but also plants, and it contributes to troubling factors such as organized crime as well as the further decline of the earth's natural climate. This book explores the extensive endangered species illegal market, spotlighting the worldwide nature and extent of the problem, and presents revealing case studies of terrestrial, marine, plant, and avian species.

Sold into Extinction: The Global Trade in Endangered Species focuses attention on the plight of endangered wild flora and fauna as well as the specific illegal acts committed against them that have long and largely been ignored by criminology. The author provides a fresh look at the topic by presenting it within a crime reduction framework, an approach rarely taken by those with traditional criminological or conservation backgrounds, demonstrating how an innovative strategy to reduce illegal market activities can simultaneously further the conservation of these endangered species. International treaties, national and domestic laws, and international policing efforts pertaining to crimes involving endangered species are also examined.

Santa Barbara. California . ABC-CLIO. LLC. 2012.

By Masayuki Sakamoto

Africaʼ s elephants continue to be poached for their ivory tusks. To combat the poaching crisis, and to support the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES)ʼ s 1990 ban on international commercial ivory trade, nations and jurisdictions around the world have taken steps to close their domestic markets for ivory. By closing the market for ivory, governments send a strong signal that the trade in ivory and killing of elephants is unacceptable, streamline enforcement efforts by eliminating legal cover for illegal ivory, and support ivory demand reduction efforts. Nevertheless, one major consumer market remains open ‒ Japan. With an ivory stockpile of 244 tonnes, Japanʼ s domestic market is the worldʼ s largest and most significant legalized ivory market. Evidence indicates its ivory trade controls are porous, enabling the trade in illegal ivory and illegal ivory exports. At least 76 seizures of ivory from Japan were made between 2018 and 2020, mostly in China by Chinese authorities. To further examine illegal ivory export from Japan to China, the Japan Tiger and Elephant Fund (JTEF) turned to court cases in China, which could include more details than seizure data. JTEF identified court cases on illegal export of ivory from Japan into China, and analyzed them in order to contribute to evidence-based decision-making, constructive dialogue, and decisive outcomes from the Parties at the 19th Conference of the Parties (CoP19) to CITES,. In all, 49 public court decisions on 45 different cases between 2010 and 2019, published by the Government of China, were…..

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  identified and analyzed. Fifteen out of 45 cases occurred in 2018 and 2019, after Chinaʼ s domestic ivory market closure went into effect. In addition to summarizing basic information about each case, any information pertaining to the role of Japanʼ s legal market in illegal ivory export and information regarding the defining characteristics of transnational organized crime was assessed.  

Tokyo: Japan Tiger and Elephant Fund (JTEF) 2022. 88p.

By The Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA)

West and Central Africa continues to raise concerns among Parties to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) as a significant hub for global wildlife trafficking. This briefing highlights the parallel responsibilities and shortcomings of both West and Central Africa and South-East Asia in implementing their commitments under CITES and outlines what needs to happen to tackle transnational wildlife crime more effectively. At SC74, EIA raised these concerns in our briefing document Joint Responsibilities: The Nigeria- Vietnam wildlife trafficking corridor and compliance with CITES, which similarly highlighted the need for urgent action.

London; Washington, DC: EIA, 2022. 12p.

By Environmental Investigation Agency

In 2017, rhino poaching started to increase in Botswana as poachers began killing rhinos in the vast Okavango Delta region in the northwest of the country. EIA’s situational analysis highlights some of the key issues facing Botswana’s conservation sector and contains EIA’s recommendations for actions to be taken by Botswana and CITES CoP19.

London; Washington, DC: Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA), 2022. 11p.

By Forest Trends

On February 1st, 2021, the military launched a coup d'état against the newly re-elected government of Myanmar. Over the past year, the military junta has been accused of massive human rights violations, arresting more than 12,000 people, killing more than 1,500, and instigating a growing humanitarian crisis that has seen more than 400,000 internally displaced people (IDPs) (AAPP Burma 2022, UN News 2022). Compounding the impact of COVID-19, the military’s violence has destroyed Myanmar’s economy. Furthermore, the majority of society has engaged in a predominately non-violent Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM), including a boycott of companies with military links. Deprived of revenue, the junta has increasingly relied on revenue from natural resources to support their operations and their ongoing campaign to retain power, which has included escalation of armed conflict and attacks on civilians. While much international focus has been given to the revenues generated by the oil, gas, and mining sectors, the forest sector has in the past been an important source of revenue for Myanmar’s governments and entities associated with the military. This report reviews the timber sector’s role in the revenue now being generated for the current military regime.  

Washington, DC: Forest Trends, 2022. 42p.

By The Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA).

In February 2021, Myanmar’s democratically elected ruling party, the National League for Democracy, was overthrown by the Myanmar military in a coup d’état. In the months since the coup, the people of Myanmar (formerly Burma) have been subjected to a continued escalation of conflict and brutal human rights atrocities. To maintain its illegal regime and crush dissent, the military is dependent on a continual flow of hard currency. As for the previous regimes, natural resources provide a source of profit for the military, whereby the forests of Myanmar are defined by their monetary value and have been part of the military and economic elites’ profits and, in some cases, survival for decades.

London; Washington, DC: EIA, 2022. 16p.

By Charles Victor Barber, Karen Winfield, and Rachael Petersen 

Nature crime1 occurs when individuals or criminal networks illegally exploit natural ecosystems to extract natural resources. Nature crimes include illegal logging, illegal mining, illegal fishing, illegal wildlife trade,2 and the illegal conversion of forests and wetlands for agriculture or other uses. These crimes are often associated with financial crime of various types, as well as labor and human violations and official corruption. The prevalence of nature crime and associated corruption and criminal behavior constitutes a serious barrier to progress in tackling climate change, slowing biodiversity loss, reducing the risk of future zoonotic pandemics, and achieving sustainable, peaceful, and equitable human development. The scale of the nature crime economy is immense. It is variably estimated to be the third- or fourth-largest illicit economy in the world (after drug trafficking and trade in counterfeit goods) with an annual value of as much as $281 billion, but this figure underestimates its indirect impacts: governments are deprived annually of some $7-12 billion in timber and fisheries revenues, while the indirect costs of undermining ecosystem services may be as high as $1-2 trillion per year (World Bank 2019a).  

San Francisco: Climate and Forests 2030, 2021. 30p.

By Emerson Y. Sy

The illegal wildlife trade is one of the most lucrative transnational crimes in the world. Numerous wildlife are threatened with extinction due to overexploitation for food, medicine, and as pets. Although it is difficult to quantify the illegal wildlife trade due to its mostly clandestine nature, analyzing seizure data can indicate its magnitude. Wildlife seizure records from the DENR, PCSDS, and other sources for the period 2010–2019 were collated and analyzed to identify species threatened by the illegal wildlife trade, hotspots, and trafficking routes. The 10-year seizure dataset involved 511 incidents, 283 taxa, and 44,647 wildlife individuals. Reptiles (n = 16,237 individuals) and birds (n = 6,042) were the top seized live wildlife, while pangolin scales (>2,100 kg) had the most quantity and seizure frequency among derivatives. Intervention policies on the key source, transit, and destination locations were proposed to address illegal wildlife trade in the country.

Manila: USAID Philippines, 2021. 56p.