By Peer Schouten and James Barnett

Contemporary banditry in northwest Nigeria is a multifaceted phenomenon that encompasses a wide spectrum of violence waged by heavily militarised yet loosely organised rural gangs. These groups engage in everything from cattle rustling to kidnapping for ransom and extortion of peasant communities, with bandits becoming important de facto authorities in swathes of rural northwest Nigeria. 

Underpinning the contemporary bandit conflict, we argue, is an ongoing ‘battle for the bush’ — a struggle over land, governance and rural livelihoods. Historically, the bush functioned as a shared space for farmers and pastoralists. However, land use data shows that the expansion of cropland farming has gradually overtaken grazing lands, reducing pastoral mobility and generating increasing conflicts. The state’s failure to mediate these tensions or provide equitable land policies, coupled with the breakdown of traditional conflict resolution mechanisms, has allowed grievances to fester. In response, bandits have violently reclaimed and reshaped the governance of the bush, not only as a refuge but as a domain of coercive rule, imposing levies on farming and controlling access to land and cattle.

We examine the historical drivers of this transformation and analyse how opportunistic criminals and social bandits have evolved into de facto rural rulers. Along the way, the trend of cropland expansion is being reversed. Yet instead of reestablishing a pastoral idyll, banditry is reproducing the very conditions that gave rise to it, further undermining rural livelihoods in the northwest. This has compounded rural poverty and food insecurity while depriving pastoralist youths’ access to government services and education that could provide for a better future. Our analysis implies that the crisis cannot be solved through military interventions alone but requires a rethinking of rural governance.

Schouten, P., & Barnett, J. (2025). Battle for the bush: banditry and violent agrarian change in northwest Nigeria. 

Danish Institute for International Studies (DIIS). DIIS Working Paper Vol. 2025 No. 12

2025. 34p.

By Richard Ashby Wilson

In the years that followed the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests, the US federal government, cities, and states enacted sweeping reforms of the police and criminal justice system. To counter the narrative of racialized police violence and promote community policing, these included new hate crime statutes and dedicated bias-crime task forces. This article reviews the literature on the enforcement of hate crime, evaluates post-2020 antibias initiatives, and advises realistic expectations about the long-term impact of reform efforts. For starters, hate crimes are massively underreported. Even when reported, police often fail to accurately identify and charge a hate crime. Police officers exercise wide discretion, often accord hate crimes low priority, struggle to prove the bias motive of the offender, and come under political pressure to drop bias-motivated charges. Even when charged, few defendants are convicted of a hate crime because prosecutors frequently dismiss the hate crime charge. Prosecutors are expected to resolve cases quickly and may use a hate crime charge as leverage in plea bargaining. Media coverage, political pressure, and the involvement of victims and civil rights groups predict prosecutorial pursuit of a hate crime conviction. Hate crime policing and prosecutions may be enhanced by specialized hate crime units in police departments and prosecutors’ offices; clear policies that define terms and investigatory procedures; and enhanced communication between police, prosecutors, and target communities.

Annu. Rev. Law Soc. Sci. 2025. 21:449–67

By Oliver Rollins, Julien Larregue, and Hannah Pullen-Blasnik

Technologies play a central role in decision-making processes within criminal legal systems, creating what we call technologies of criminalization. These tools are based on the idea of calculated truths about future riskiness, but they often reinforce structural biases that underlie the concept of criminality. Their development and use demonstrate efforts to define the abstract criminal: a notion that embodies the presumed natural realities and discoverable aspects of criminality believed to be objectively discoverable and statistically predictable. This perspective neglects the socially constructed nature of criminality and the impact of human biases in the design and implementation of these technologies. Three interlinked processes drive their adoption: quantification, prediction, and pathologization. By examining neuroscientific, genomic, and algorithmic technologies, we critically assess their social impacts and the risks of exacerbating social inequalities under the facade of technical neutrality. Finally, we emphasize the increasing involvement of private industries in criminalization processes.

Annu. Rev. Law Soc. Sci. 2025. 21:469–87

By Ailie Rennie In partnership with the Building Futures programme

This report forms part of the Prison Reform Trust’s Building Futures programme, funded by the National Lottery Community Fund, that since 2020 has been exploring the experiences of people serving longterm prison sentences. The programme has defined its long-term cohort to include men who spend 10 or more years in prison and women who spent eight years or more. This report is based on in-depth interviews with 20 people who have been released from prison and returned to the community after serving long-term prison sentences. This report aims to: • Understand more about the experience of release, re-entry, and resettlement for those who serve the longest periods in custody, including the challenges they face and their experiences of being on licence or under supervision. • Explore the availability of pre- and post-release support and assistance offered to people released from long prison sentences, highlighting both evidence of good practice and identifying areas for improvement. • Develop insights and ideas that will inform policy and practice through-the-gate in line with the Prison Reform Trust’s vision of a just, humane, and effective penal system. The report and its context Despite the common understanding that most prisoners – even those who are serving long-term and indeterminate periods of imprisonment – will eventually be released back into the community, there is currently very little known about the experiences of release for such individuals. We know strikingly little about the process of release itself as it exists in England and Wales, the challenges it presents, and the ways in which people begin to create a life for themselves after having spent many years separated from the outside world. Similarly, we know very little about what support might be available to assist people on their re-entry journeys or how the challenges they face might change over time. Given the increasing number of people subject to long-term sentences, the likely subsequent rise in people being released from them, and the staggeringly high current rate of recall, this is problematic as we may be failing to understand the unique re-entry needs of this population and providing insufficient support, setting them up to fail. The need to understand individuals’ experiences of release from long sentences is also particularly relevant given policy changes that have occurred in recent years wherein release and progression to open conditions have been severely curtailed. In 2022, for example, the then justice secretary Dominic Raab introduced controversial changes that limited the transfer of indeterminate prisoners from closed to open conditions and introduced new ministerial powers to refuse the release of the ‘highestrisk prisoners’. In effect, these procedural changes sought to keep a greater number of individuals imprisoned for longer by making it harder for specific types of prisoners to be released. Despite the reversal of Dominic Raab’s policy changes by Alex Chalk in 2023, many long-term and indeterminately sentenced prisoners are still denied the opportunity to access open prisons and progress towards release. For example, in 2024, more than 100 indeterminate prisoners were blocked from moving to open conditions by justice secretary Shabana Mahmood, despite their transfers being approved by the Parole Board.1 Without the opportunity to access the benefits of open conditions, including release on temporary licence, and to demonstrate how they have lowered their risk, more people serving long-term and indeterminate sentences are likely to stay in prison for longer beyond the expiry of their tariff, further increasing pressures on the prison population. The importance of these changes, for the purposes of this report, is to highlight the achievements of those who were granted release within this context, including participants in this study. Whilst most of the participants were released before these policy changes came into effect, just under half were released – or rereleased – in accordance with these frameworks. Those who were released prior to this, however, also experienced a series of policy changes both prior to and post-release which impacted their progress, including the declining use of release on temporary licence, Transforming Rehabilitation, and the increased length of supervision from four to 10 years. As the entire Building Futures programme has sought to demonstrate, being sentenced to and progressing through long-term imprisonment is a tumultuous process of navigating complex – and often contradictory – policy changes without knowing when they could change again. The intention of this report is to detail how the ‘rollercoaster’ of policy changes also impact the release and resettlement processes, continuing long after an individual exits the prison gates

London: Prison Reform Trust, 2025. 84p.

By Angeli Romero and Oliver Fisher

This report provides a Blueprint for how to build better visa structures and migration systems. This approach was developed by drawing on the struggles and needs of migrant workers themselves, to build a framework that can work concretely in a variety of contexts.

Vulnerability is not intrinsic to migration; vulnerability is constructed. This can be through factors such as governmental agenda, bureaucratic processes, legislation or reform.

Immigration policies and systems create risks and vulnerabilities to exploitation through complex processes, ineffective safeguards, and restrictive visa conditions imposed on migrant workers. We need to deconstruct the policies that create these risks, and redesign them to enable migrant workers to access rights and enjoy decent standards of work and living conditions.

Policy-makers, employers, sponsors, unions and others can take this framework and apply it, to help bring about a safer, fairer visa structure and migration system into practice.

  London: Focus on Labour Exploitation (FLEX). 2025. 32p.

By Cole Anderson and Caitlin McKennie

Relative to 2015, statewide net migration (i.e., in-migration subtracted by out-migration) has declined by 52.5% as of 2025. This reflects 36,146 fewer individuals arriving in Colorado in 2025 – roughly four times the capacity of Red Rocks Amphitheatre.i Low net migration presents a growing challenge to Colorado’s economic stability and labor force sustainability. Historically, net migration – particularly among working-age individuals – has been a critical driver of the state’s labor force growth and overall economic vitality. A sustained decline in net migration reduces the inflow of skilled workers, limiting the ability of businesses to recruit talent and expand operations. This dynamic places upward pressure on wages, contributes to labor shortages, and constrains economic productivity across key sectors. Declining migration trends compound the challenges posed by Colorado’s rapidly growing 65+ population. By 2030, Colorado expects roughly 40,000 retirees per year.ii As outlined in a CSI report released in July, while this demographic is expanding, its participation in the labor force is not expected to increase meaningfully in the coming decades. Without a stronger inflow of working-age residents, Colorado’s labor market may face a growing talent shortfall, making it increasingly difficult to meet future workforce demands.  According to a recent study by the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA), Colorado ranks 14th (not including the District of Columbia) in terms of regional price parities relative to all other states (a measurement that evaluates the differences in price levels across states for a given year).iii If these issues remain unaddressed, they could have long-term consequences for the state’s economic competitiveness and growth prospects. Evidence suggests this scenario is already emerging: Colorado’s economic growth is slowing, with job growth projected to increase by only 1.2% in 2025. During the first quarter of 2025, Colorado’s job growth ranked 26th in the nation. This deceleration is suggested to be linked to decreased net migration and an aging population, both of which pose risks to the state’s labor force capacity and overall economic dynamism.

Greenwood Village, CO: Common Sense Institute, 2025. 10p.   

By Barna Konkolÿ Thege, Chaz Robitaille, Lujayn Mahmoud, Eden A. Kinzel, Rameen Qamar, Jamie Hartmann-Boyce, Olivia Choy

Aggressive/antisocial behaviors in children and youth may result in impairments in family, social, or academic functioning and lead to long‐term negative consequences for both the individual and society as a whole. The potential of healthy diet and nutritional supplements to reduce aggression and antisocial behavior is an active area of study in nutritional mental health sciences. The goal of this systematic review is to (1) investigate the effectiveness/efficacy of nutritional interventions(dietary manipulation, fortification or supplementation) in reducing excessive aggression, antisocial behaviors, and criminal offending in children/youth (systematic review and meta‐analysis); and (2) provide an overview of implementation barriers and facilitators regarding nutritional interventions in children/youth (qualitative/narrative synthesis). After consulting theCampbell Collaboration's methodological guidelines, a comprehensive search for published and unpublished papers on controlled intervention studies was performed (up to February 26, 2024) using both electronic databases (MEDLINE,Embase, Cochrane Library, APA PsycInfo, Scopus, and the Allied and Complementary Medicine Database) and other resources (e.g., Google Scholar, reference list of included studies and other reviews, websites of public health agencies). This study focuses on children and youth (up to the age of 24) presenting with an above‐average level of aggression/antisocial behavior. In terms of the intervention, we considered both dietary manipulation and nutritional supplementation with aduration long enough (minimum of 1 week) that a significant change in the individual's nutritional status could be expected.We included studies with a controlled design if, for outcomes, they reported on (1) behavioral‐level violence/aggression toward others in real‐life (non‐simulated) settings, (2) antisocial behaviors, or (3) criminal offending. Initial screening,checking for eligibility criteria, data extraction from, and risk of bias assessment for each eligible study were conducted independently by two reviewers. To perform the meta‐analysis, data from each original report were standardized(transformed into Hedges' g) so that results across studies could be meaningfully combined and interpreted. Data con-versions, computation of pooled effect sizes, and estimation of publication bias were conducted using the ComprehensiveMeta‐analysis software (Version 4). Altogether, 51 reports (describing 50 individual studies) met our inclusion criteria, and72 effect sizes were extracted from these reports. Nutritional interventions with a broad target (e.g., broad‐spectrummicronutrient supplementation or general improvement in diet quality) had the most consistent and largest intervention

Campbell Systematic ReviewsVolume 21, Issue 3Sep 2025

By Eric L. Piza, Brandon C. Welsh, Savannah A. Reid, David N. Hatten

A long-standing critique of place-based crime prevention interventions has been that any reductions in crime are often short-lived. If researchers do not carry out longer-duration follow-ups, we cannot know for sure if the effects of these interventions will persist, decay, or even strengthen. Using a rigorous micro synthetic control design, we evaluated the long-term impacts of a large-scale, public-area closed-circuit television (CCTV) surveillance project in Newark, New Jersey. Results show that the CCTV project was associated with a statistically significant reduction of auto theft in the intermediate term (3–4 years). The reduction of auto theft approached statistical significance (p = 0.08) during the short term (1–2 years). The analysis also observed potential displacement effects, with displacement of robbery (p = 0.09) in the short term (1–2 years) and theft from auto (p = 0.06) in the long term (9–11 years) approaching statistical significance.

Policy implications

The results of this study may suggest the potential for a slightly modified view of deterrence decay. The CCTV project's effect on auto theft grew from approaching significant to statistically significant between the short-term and intermediate-term periods. Such “sleeper effects” suggest that an extended period was necessary for CCTV to generate deterrence. The deterrence decay during the long-term period did not occur until after these sleeper effects emerged, which may be understood as deterrence attenuation. Although only approaching statistical significance—and not as pronounced as the reduction of auto theft—the potential displacement of robbery and theft from auto indicates that static CCTV target areas may facilitate offenders taking advantage of nearby crime opportunities while appearing inconspicuous within CCTV viewsheds. In sum, policymakers should be mindful that research evidence limited to short-term impacts may fail to detect nuanced effects relevant for policy and public guidance.

Criminology & Public Policy, Volume 24, Issue 3, Aug 2025, Pages307-497

By Josh Rovner

  Incarceration disparities between Black and white youth have remained stubbornly high over the past decade. As of 2023, the most recent data, Black youth were 5.6 times as likely to be placed (i.e., detained or committed) in juvenile facilities as their white peers. The disparity is now at an all-time high, based on data that starts in 1997. Juvenile facilities held 29,314 youth as of October 2023. This includes placement in one of our nation’s 1,277 detention centers, residential treatment centers, group homes, and youth prisons. These numbers do not include the 437 people under age 18 in adult prisons at year-end 2022 or the estimated 2,000 people under 18 in adult jails at midyear 2023. • Nationally, the youth placement rate was 87 per 100,000 youth. • Black youth were placed at a rate of 293 per 100,000, compared to the white youth rate of 52 per 100,000. • 46% of youth in placement were Black, even though Black youth comprised only 15% of all youth across the United States. In all states with a population of at least 5,000 Black youth between ages 10 and 17, a cutoff that allows for meaningful comparisons, Black youth were at least 2.5 as likely to be in custody than white youth. 

Washington, DC: The Sentencing Project, 2025. 3p.

By Ryan Bowman

While previous research has explored the relationship between sporting events and crime in larger geographic spaces, research has not comprehensively examined how characteristics of sporting events influence arrests made inside stadiums themselves. Using a dataset of police records encompassing several seasons of the National Football League (NFL), this study explores how individual game characteristics influence the number of arrests made by police within the confines of the stadiums and stadium parking lots. Grounded in the routine activities theory, multilevel regression models suggest that certain game characteristics can influence the number of arrests made at a game.

DEVIANT BEHAVIOR 2025

By Marisa Ross, Susan Burtner, and Andrew Papachristos

Community violence intervention street outreach (CVI-SO) is gaining in popularity as a way to prevent gun violence. There is a growing need to better understand these interventions, which starts with documenting their full scope. Analyzing CVI outreach in Chicago from 2017–2023, the researchers find that organizations specialized in long-term mentoring and adjusted services based on participants’ risk levels, providing higher-risk individuals with more frequent and extended support.

Introduction: Community violence intervention street outreach (CVI-SO) strategies are growing in popularity as non-punitive approaches to solving the public health problem of community gun violence. Evidence on the effectiveness of CVI-SO on rates of violence is mixed and faces challenges due to concerns with documentation and data privacy, intentional selection bias in program design, and variation in participant risk and needs. Effective evaluation requires methods that accurately capture the scope and delivery of services, starting with a greater understanding of the services CVI participants receive and how they vary based on individual characteristics.Methods: This study explores the services that participants received from a coalition of Chicago CVI organizations from 2017–2023. Considering administrative and programmatic data from over 4,000 participants’ nearly 200,000 interactions with providers, the researchers examine patterns in demographics, network-based risk factors, and service provision and dosage. They then use descriptive and latent profile analyses to characterize the “typical” participant in Chicago.Results: Results show that CVI work relies heavily on long-term mentoring relationships. Service patterns show that latent groups exist with varying dosage: higher dosage participants with higher risk for gun violence receive more frequent contacts over longer periods, demonstrating how organizations adjust their approach based on participant needs. Profiles that primarily receive behavioral or social supports-related services also emerge.Conclusions: Findings underscore the need for evaluation frameworks that capture both the strategic variation in service delivery and the multiple pathways through which CVI programs influence participant outcomes.Evanston, IL: Northwestern University, Institute for Policy Research, 2025. 36p.

By Luc Leboeuf

The article addresses the consequences of the externalisation of EU border policies on the legal and institutional dynamics that govern those policies. Drawing on the analysis of legal and policy documents and interviews, which were conducted with expert public servants among EU institutions and in one EU member state (Belgium), the article argues that EU border policies are increasingly governed by ‘regimes of invisibility’—which mainly involve expert public servants who cooperate with their counterparts in informal settings and through informal agreements. The article shows how the emergence of those ‘regimes of invisibility’ is deeply connected with the mainstreaming of migration through all components of the EU foreign policy. This leads to broader use of the tools from the foreign policy toolbox, which often rely on informal forms of cooperation, as well as to greater involvement of institutional actors beyond officials within interior ministries, such as diplomats. The article further makes an initial attempt to unpack these ‘regimes of invisibility’ by showing their underlying institutional tensions and dynamics. Therefore, it discusses how public servants, with different institutional background and knowledge, conflict and cooperate in shaping EU relations with third countries in the field.

International Migration, Volume 63, Issue 5Sep 2025

By Neil Brodie,Morag M. Kersel,Simon Mackenzie,Isber Sabrine,Emiline Smith &Donna Yates

Fifty years after the adoption of the 1970 UNESCO Convention, the illicit trade in cultural objects endures, with harmful consequences to local communities, knowledge acquisition, and archaeological landscapes and objects. In this article, we present a gap analysis to assess under-performing policy and practice. We argue that a poor understanding of how the trade is organized and operates and of how it might be regulated hinders effective policy formulation. Funding structures which encourage short-term ad hoc research and inhibit information sharing are in part responsible for some of the gaps. We conclude by suggesting how sustained theoretically informed, evidence-led collaborative analyses might help reduce or mitigate these problems, preventing another 50 years of illicit trade.

Journal of Field Archaeology 

Volume 47, 2022 - Issue 2

By Kundai Manamere

In Zimbabwe, sex work has long been associated with immorality. This became a primary justification for the criminalisation of young women’s presence in urban areas since the colonial period. However, the legislation failed to keep women out of towns. Instead, they slowly carved a niche in urban development, especially as sex workers. Literature on sex work has consistently reflected the need for change in public attitudes towards sex work, revealing long-standing irreconcilable feminist perspectives between those who view sex workers as either victims or agents in society.This article moves away from these single-thread narratives of sex work and potray sex workers as political agents who negotiate various social, political, legal and economic circumstances to challenge the various processes that have largely relegated their voices to the margins.This article also updates debates on public attitudes to sex work. Few studies have focused on public attitudes towards sex work and factors that shape, maintain, or transform this over time. I argue for the incorporation of voices from communities where sex workers work and live, where possible. This approach moves the focus from state-centric legislative sites and debates to quotidian micro-practices in communities shedding more light on public attitudes to sex work.

Third World Quarterly, 2025.