By Timothy Cubitt, Anthony Morgan and Isabella Voce

Recent protest activity in Australia has related to a range of political and social causes, including climate change, women’s rights, pandemic-related government policies, and a range of ideological movements. While peaceful protests were held in parts of the country, some resulted in arrests, fines and violence (ABC News 2021; Bavas & Nguyen 2021). Over time, fringe and conspiratorial rhetoric increased across social media (De Coninck 2021) and began featuring more prominently in anti-authority ‘freedom’ protests (Khalil & Roose 2023). While the public health measures have ceased, these freedom protests—and related social movements—have persisted. Conspiratorial and far-right actors have become increasingly prominent among anti-government or anti-authority protests

Trends & issues in crime and criminal justice no. 693. Canberra: Australian Institute of Criminology. 2024. 16p.

edited by Kacper Rekawek, Thomas Renard and Bàrbara Molas

Russia’s influence over far-right/ racially or ethnically motivated violent extremist (REMVE) milieus in Europe is multi-faceted and complex. It involves direct activities, such as financing or political support, as well as indirect activities, such as disinformation campaigns. In some cases, Russia was associated, albeit remotely, with some far-right violent incidents in Europe, including the alleged coup attempt by the sovereign movement Reichsburger, in Germany. Recognising the increasingly confrontational policy of Russia vis-à-vis Europe, and the growing threat from far-right extremism in Europe, this book thoroughly and systematically reviews Russia’s relationship with diverse far-right actors in ten European countries over the past decade. The countries covered in this book include Austria, The Czech Republic, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Serbia, Slovakia, and Sweden. The chapters are authored by some of the world’s most authoritative experts on extremism and Russian influence.

Overall, this edited volume is the first such comprehensive attempt at mapping the scope and depth of Russian influence over far-right extremism in Europe, resulting in the identification of key patterns of influence and offering some possible recommendations to counter it. This book is both a leading scholarly work, as well as a wake-up call and guide for action for European policy-makers.

by Jennifer Tilton

How do you tell the difference between a “good kid” and a “potential thug”? In Dangerous or Endangered?, Jennifer Tilton considers the ways in which children are increasingly viewed as dangerous and yet, simultaneously, as endangered and in need of protection by the state.
Tilton draws on three years of ethnographic research in Oakland, California, one of the nation’s most racially diverse cities, to examine how debates over the nature and needs of young people have fundamentally reshaped politics, transforming ideas of citizenship and the state in contemporary America. As parents and neighborhood activists have worked to save and discipline young people, they have often inadvertently reinforced privatized models of childhood and urban space, clearing the streets of children, who are encouraged to stay at home or in supervised after-school programs. Youth activists protest these attempts, demanding a right to the city and expanded rights of citizenship.
Dangerous or Endangered? pays careful attention to the intricate connections between fears of other people’s kids and fears for our own kids in order to explore the complex racial, class, and gender divides in contemporary American cities.

New York; London: NYU Press, 2010; 203p.

By Carl Gutierrez-Jones

The beating of Rodney King, the killing of Amadou Diallo, and the LAPD Rampart Scandal: these events have been interpreted by the courts, the media and the public in dramatically conflicting ways. Critical Race Narratives examines what is at stake in these conflicts and, in so doing, rethinks racial strife in the United States as a highly-charged struggle over different methods of reading and writing. Focusing in particular on the practice and theorization of narrative strategies, Gutiérrez-Jones engages many of the most influential texts in the recent race debates including The Bell Curve, America in Black and White, The Alchemy of Race and Rights, and The Mismeasure of Man. In the process, Critical Race Narratives pursues key questions posed by the texts as they work within, or against, disciplinary expectations: can critical engagements with narrative enable a more democratic dialogue regarding race? what promise does such experimentation hold for working through the traumatic legacy of racism in the United States? Throughout, Critical Race Narratives initiates a timely dialogue between race-focused narrative experiment in scholarly writing and similar work in literary texts and popular culture.

New York; London: NYU Press, 2001.

By Paul Harris

In 1971, Paul Harris pioneered the modern version of the black rage defense when he successfully defended a young black man charged with armed bank robbery. Dubbed one of the most novel criminal defenses in American history by Vanity Fair, the black rage defense is enormously controversial, frequently dismissed as irresponsible, nothing less than a harbinger of anarchy. Consider the firestorm of protest that resulted when the defense for Colin Ferguson, the gunman who murdered numerous passengers on a New York commuter train, claimed it was considering a black rage defense.

In this thought-provoking book, Harris traces the origins of the black rage defense back through American history, recreating numerous dramatic trials along the way. For example, he recounts in vivid detail how Clarence Darrow, defense attorney in the famous Scopes Monkey trial, first introduced the notion of an environmental hardship defense in 1925 while defending a black family who shot into a drunken white mob that had encircled their home.

Emphasizing that the black rage defense must be enlisted responsibly and selectively, Harris skillfully distinguishes between applying an environmental defense and simply blaming society, in the abstract, for individual crimes. If Ferguson had invoked such a defense, in Harris's words, it would have sent a superficial, wrong-headed, blame-everything-on-racism message. Careful not to succumb to easy generalizations, Harris also addresses the possibilities of a white rage defense and the more recent phenomenon of cultural defenses. He illustrates how a person's environment can, and does, affect his or her life and actions, how even the most rational person can become criminally deranged, when bludgeoned into hopelessness by exploitation, racism, and relentless poverty.

New York; London: NYU Press, 1996. 306p.

By John Tehranian

Middle Easterners: Sometimes White, Sometimes Not - an article by John Tehranian
The Middle Eastern question lies at the heart of the most pressing issues of our time: the war in Iraq and on terrorism, the growing tension between preservation of our national security and protection of our civil rights, and the debate over immigration, assimilation, and our national identity. Yet paradoxically, little attention is focused on our domestic Middle Eastern population and its place in American society. Unlike many other racial minorities in our country, Middle Eastern Americans have faced rising, rather than diminishing, degrees of discrimination over time; a fact highlighted by recent targeted immigration policies, racial profiling, a war on terrorism with a decided racialist bent, and growing rates of job discrimination and hate crime. Oddly enough, however, Middle Eastern Americans are not even considered a minority in official government data. Instead, they are deemed white by law.
In Whitewashed, John Tehranian combines his own personal experiences as an Iranian American with an expert’s analysis of current events, legal trends, and critical theory to analyze this bizarre Catch-22 of Middle Eastern racial classification. He explains how American constructions of Middle Eastern racial identity have changed over the last two centuries, paying particular attention to the shift in perceptions of the Middle Easterner from friendly foreigner to enemy alien, a trend accelerated by the tragic events of 9/11. Focusing on the contemporary immigration debate, the war on terrorism, media portrayals of Middle Easterners, and the processes of creating racial stereotypes, Tehranian argues that, despite its many successes, the modern civil rights movement has not done enough to protect the liberties of Middle Eastern Americans.
By following how concepts of whiteness have transformed over time, Whitewashed forces readers to rethink and question some of their most deeply held assumptions about race in American society.

New York; London: NYU Press, 2008. 250p.

By Milo Comerford and Hannah Rose

The UK hate and extremism threat landscape faces a new era of contemporary threats, characterised by an increasingly diverse and amorphous set of threat actors. Since October 7, harmful online content and systems have catalysed real world threats to public safety, social cohesion and democracy across borders. However, policy and legislative responses are often slow to adapt to the rapid pace of change and struggle to respond to the increasingly hybridised contemporary threat environment.

In the first part of this paper, ISD provides a landscape assessment of the extremism, targeted hate and hostile state actors threats currently facing the UK. It evidences the broad ideological spectrum of extremism, analysing the communities impacted by targeted hate and exploring the intersection of these harm areas.

In the second section, the paper explores a roadmap for a holistic policy strategy capable of responding to the interconnectivity of these threats, including practical considerations for the effective implementation of a coordinated cross-government strategy.

London: Institute for Strategic Dialogue. 2024, 28pg

By Mark Treskon, Lily Robin

This report provides a framework for developing an equitable development theory of change for Brownsville, Brooklyn. While Brownsville is a neighborhood with significant social and economic challenges it has a strong history and presence of community activism and action. The report presents an overview of Brownsville’s economic and social context, conducts a typology review of existing studies and planning documents focused on the neighborhood, and lays out a high-level plan for a ten-year equitable development plan for the community. The plan’s framework has four main components: economic opportunity, education and youth development, housing, and the built and social environment. We discuss how this plan fits into already-existing efforts and we present recommendations for local policymakers, advocates, organizations, and the community based around three themes: ongoing research and community assessment, identification and tracking of initiatives over time, and building community and stakeholder support.

Washington, DC: Urban Institute. 2024, 45pg

By Karen Otis, Alejandra Garcia, Taylor DeClerck, Preeti Menon, Zephi Francis, and Matthew Collinson

The criminal legal system has a well-documented history of racial disparities and mistreatment of minoritized racial and ethnic groups. Treatment courts are a part of this same system and unfortunately, have not been exempt from racial and ethnic disparities in its programs. American University and the Center for Justice Innovation collaborated to assist treatment courts in several states in tackling racial and ethnic disparities. This report outlines results and policy recommendations derived from American University’s and the Center for Justice Innovation’s racial and ethnic disparities statewide training and technical assistance collaboration.

New York: Center for Justice Innovation. 2024, 16pg

By Monica Deza, Thanh Lu, Johanna Catherine Maclean, and Alberto Ortega

  We study the impact of losing health insurance on criminal activity by leveraging one of the most substantial Medicaid disenrollments in U.S. history, which occurred in Tennessee in 2005 and lead to 190,000 non–elderly and non–disabled adults without dependents unexpectedly losing coverage. Using police agency–level data and a difference–in–differences approach, we find that this mass insurance loss increased total crime rates with particularly strong effects for non violent crime. We test for several potential mechanisms and find that our results may be explained by economic stability and access to healthcare. 

Cambridge, MA: National Bureau of Economic Research. 2024, 56pg

By Nadia Hardman, et al.

Saudi border guards have killed at least hundreds of Ethiopian migrants and asylum seekers who tried to cross the Yemen-Saudi border between March 2022 and June 2023, and the killings continue to this day. Saudi border guards have used explosive weapons indiscriminately and shot people at close range, including women and children, in a pattern that is widespread and systematic. “They Fired on Us Like Rain” is based on 42 interviews with Ethiopian migrants and asylum seekers who tried to cross into Saudi Arabia from Yemen, or the friends or relatives of deceased migrants. It is corroborated by an open-source investigation that has analyzed over 350 videos and photographs taken by witnesses as well as dozens of satellite images. This report shows how the pattern of abuses has changed from an apparent practice of occasional shootings and mass detentions to widespread and systematic killings. Widespread and systematic killings are crimes against humanity if they are part of a state policy of deliberate murder of a civilian population. Human Rights Watch calls on the Saudi government to immediately and urgently revoke any policy, whether explicit or de facto, targeting migrants with weapons and close-range attacks on civilian migrants on the border with Yemen. The Saudi government should investigate and appropriately discipline or prosecute security personnel responsible for unlawfully firing explosive weapons, or shooting at close range, at migrants at the Yemen border.  

New York: Human Rights Watch, 2023. 82p.  

By Anna Livia Arida

 On July 28, 2023, São Paulo military police launched one of the deadliest police operations in the state in 30 years in response to the killing of an officer. Police killed 28 people may also have committed acts of torture and other serious violations. Investigations into the killings were deeply flawed: for instance, police failed to request forensic analysis of many shooting sites and gunshot residue tests on some of the victims who allegedly shot at the police. Brazil has long had a serious problem with police abuse and excessive use of force. Police killed more than 6,400 people in 2022, 83 percent of them Black. São Paulo authorities should act urgently to prevent revenge operations by police. Throughout Brazil, independent prosecutors, rather than police themselves, should lead investigations into killings by police.  

New York:Human Rights Watch, 2023. 24p.

By Human Rights Watch

Many women imprisoned under Japan’s criminal justice system suffer serious violations of their human rights. The system overly depends on imprisonment and does not provide sufficient alternatives, such as community service. Mothers of young children are particularly affected. “They Don’t Treat Us Like Human Beings” documents the abusive conditions and policies of women’s prisons in Japan that contravene rules set out in the United Nations Standard Minimum Rules of the Treatment of Prisoners, known as the Nelson Mandela Rules. These include the use of restraints on imprisoned pregnant women, arbitrary use of solitary confinement, inadequate access to health and mental health care, criminalization of simple drug-related violations without effective treatment, and a lack of effective and independent oversight of prisons. Based on interviews with nearly 70 people, including several dozen formerly imprisoned women, the report demonstrates not only the poor human rights situation of women’s prisons in Japan, but also the few opportunities for alternatives to imprisonment. Japan’s government should urgently reform its justice system to ensure that the rights of all imprisoned people are fully respected in line with international human rights standards.  

New York:Human Rights Watch, 2023. 102p.

By Human Rights Watch

 Violence against women and girls with disabilities by those who are often closest to them, such as partners or family members, is a serious concern in Kyrgyzstan. Women and girls with disabilities experience domestic violence, including rape, beatings, neglect, and humiliation, in some cases on a daily basis. They are often left without the means to communicate or receive basic support, are socially isolated, and financially controlled. Abused by Relatives, Ignored by the State—based on interviews with survivors of domestic violence, social workers, and experts in three provinces of Kyrgyzstan—documents the violence and state response. It shows how such violence typically goes unreported and unaddressed due to widespread discrimination against people with disabilities in Kyrgyzstan, especially women and girls, whose families often perceive their existence as shameful and hide them from society. It also shows that state agencies are failing to ensure appropriate accommodations in schools and delivery of social services, and law enforcement and justice authorities are doing too little to combat the normalization of such discrimination and violence. Human Rights Watch calls on the Kyrgyz government to shift from a medical to a human rights model in its approach to disability, to provide reasonable accommodations in schools and social protection structures, and to ensure access to justice for survivors of violence.  

New York: Human Rights Watch, 2023. 83p.

By Martina Rapido Ragozzino and Juan Pappier

 In 2023, over half a million people crossed the Darién Gap, a swampy jungle between Colombia and Panama, most with the intention of heading to the United States. During their journey through this difficult terrain, many people from the Americas, including Venezuelans, Haitians, and Ecuadorians as well as people from Asia and Africa experienced serious abuses, including sexual violence. Dozens, if not hundreds, have lost their lives or gone missing trying to cross. Neglected in the Jungle: Inadequate Protection and Assistance for Migrants and Asylum Seekers Crossing the Darién Gap, the second in a series of Human Rights Watch reports on migration via the Darién Gap, focuses on Colombia’s and Panama’s responses to migration across their joint border. It identifies specific failures by both governments to effectively protect and assist these people—including those at higher risk, such as unaccompanied children—as well as to investigate abuses against them. Whatever the reason for their trip, migrants and asylum seekers crossing the Darién Gap are entitled to respect for their human rights during their journey. Colombia and Panama can and should do more to ensure their rights, including by taking appropriate steps to ensure access to food, water and basic health services and strengthening efforts to prevent and investigate abuses. 

New York:Human Rights Watch, 2024. 116p. 

By Shayna Bauchner

The Malaysian government is currently detaining about 12,000 refugees and migrants, including over 1,400 children, in dozens of immigration detention centers across Malaysia in conditions that put them at serious risk of physical abuse and psychological harm. Malaysian law makes all irregular entry and stay in the country a criminal offense, while placing no legal limit on the length of immigration detention, leaving migrants at risk of being detained indefinitely. “We Can’t See the Sun” documents Malaysia’s use of prolonged, judicially unsupervised immigration detention in violation of international human rights law. Based on interviews with former detainees as well as family members, humanitarian aid staff, and former immigration officials, the report details the authorities’ punitive and abusive treatment of undocumented migrants and asylum seekers. Immigration detainees may spend months or years in overcrowded, unhygienic conditions, subject to degrading treatment and abuse by guards, without domestic or international monitoring. Both ill-treatment and inadequate medical care have led to hundreds of deaths in immigration detention facilities in recent years. Human Rights Watch calls on the Malaysian government to reduce its reliance on immigration detention and move toward abolishing it entirely. Authorities should urgently stop detaining refugees, children, trafficking victims, and other vulnerable migrants for immigration related reasons. Malaysia should pursue community-based alternatives to detention that would not only counteract abusive and unnecessary immigration detention, but also make the immigration system more cost-effective, efficient, and humane.

New York: Human Rights Watch, 2024. 66p    

By Norma Herrera. et al

In March 2021, the US state of Texas established a far-reaching and abusive border militarization program called Operation Lone Star, which remains in effect. One part of this initiative incentivizes Texas state troopers and other law enforcement personnel to engage in dangerous and deadly high speed vehicle pursuits, seeking to apprehend drivers suspected of transporting unauthorized migrants, as well as the migrant passengers themselves. “So Much Blood on the Ground” finds that at least 74 people were killed and 189 injured due to vehicle pursuits in the 60 Texas counties that participated in Operation Lone Star between March 2021 and July 2023. During those 28 months, 7 bystanders were killed, including a seven-year-old girl. The pursuits can be reckless: One-third of the pursuits involved speeds over 100 miles per-hour. In interviews for this report, current and former Texas law enforcement personnel explained that there are ways to apprehend suspects without chasing them in vehicles. In this report and elsewhere, Human Rights Watch has extensively documented the impact of Operation Lone Star, finding the program has increased racial profiling of border residents and consistently violated other rights of migrants and asylum seekers as well as US citizens. Texas should dismantle Operation Lone Star and end deadly vehicle pursuits. Until that happens, the US federal government should cease funding agencies implementing Operation Lone Star and send civil rights officials to investigate violations of civil and human rights under the program, including the most fundamental human right of all: the right to life  

New York: Human Rights Watch,  2023. 78p.

 By Khalid Mahmood , John Jenkins and Martyn Frampton 

Policy Exchange this week shone a light on how the term ‘Islamophobia’ is being regularly misused to silence open debate about contemporary issues, with a series of egregious examples since the 7/10 attacks on Israel by Hamas catalogued in this new report.

The authors - including senior Labour MP Khalid Mahmood, Sir John Jenkins, former UK Ambassador to Saudi Arabia and author of the official 2014 UK Review of the Muslim Brotherhood and senior academic Martin Frampton - conclude that the use of the term ‘Islamophobia’ has become wider, less coherent and at times inflated to a remarkable degree. They argue that the threat to freedom of speech could not be more clearly signposted. In the absence of any single definition, the authorities should maintain their efforts to tackle anti-Muslim – as indeed any - prejudice, bigotry, and hatred in all its forms.

London: Policy Exchange, 2024. 22p.

By Eugenio Weigend Vargas, H. Hsieh, +1 author Jason E. Goldstick

Firearm homicides are increasing in the United States, and firearm homicides are a critical driver of racial health disparities. One such disparity that has received limited attention is excess firearm homicides among Hispanics, relative to White Non- Hispanics; comprehensively characterising this disparity is the purpose of this brief report. Using data from CDC WONDER, we examined temporal trends (2012–2021) in firearm homicide rate disparities between Hispanics and White Non- Hispanics in the U.S. Focusing on recently elevated rates (2018–2021), we estimated this disparity across demographics (gender, age, urbanicity, and race), and across U.S. states. These data clearly show nearly universal excess firearm homicide among Hispanics, relative to White Non- Hispanics, with larger differences among men, younger age groups, and in metropolitan areas. Similarly, nearly all states show higher rates of firearm homicide among Hispanics, relative to White Non- Hispanics, though the magnitude of the difference varies substantially 

Injury Prevention, August 2023. 

By Emily Mooney and Casey Witte

  Over 50 years ago, President Richard Nixon kindled a fire of fear by claiming drug addiction was a rampant problem among white, well-to-do teens. During a 1969 speech to governors across the nation, President Nixon remarked:

There has been sort of a general thought that so far as drugs were concerned, we find them in the ghettos, among the deprived, those who are depressed and turn to drugs as a last resort. That may have once been the case. It is not the case today. The primary use, as far as drugs are concerned, has moved to the upper middle class…

No longer seen as a problem simply relegated to the inner city, Republican and Democrat policymakers enacted policies which attempted to save youth from the perils of marijuana and narcotics by further criminalizing drug use and sales. Yet, while both urban Black leaders and suburban whites supported these changes, the former group did not benefit from investments in efforts to address the root causes of addiction—poverty, trauma and poor educational opportunities, among them—for which they advocated.

Much of the War on Drugs was based on misinformation and fear. Drug users and sellers in America’s urban centers were seen as sources of corruption—their incarceration necessary to prevent more addiction and crime. However, research suggests increased criminal penalties and other policy efforts to fight illicit drug use have had little effectiveness. Indeed, many American youth continue to use illicit drugs at high rates. And while some research suggests marijuana use may bring some harmful side effects, its role as a “gateway” drug to more addictive substances like heroin and cocaine was largely over-stated. For instance, at least one recent study suggests that the legalization of marijuana has not been marked with an increase in the use of harder substances.

Currently, opportunities for and examples of misinformation and fear-mongering within the criminal justice system are bountiful. The United States is facing a global health crisis and struggling to productively address long-standing issues of racial injustice. In the first half of 2020, our nation continued to see property crime and most forms of violent crime decrease, while murder and nonnegligent manslaughter rates (although historically still low) rose by nearly 15 percent when compared to the first half of 2019, while aggravated assaults rose by about 5 percent.8 Although still one of the most crime-free times in our nation’s history, many have been quick to blame this increase on policy changes, such early prison releases due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and civil unrest. Yet, as experts have pointed out, the intersecting forces of a global pandemic, economic recession, racial unrest and nationwide protests mean it will take more time, data and intentional analysis to decipher the causal mechanisms of any current crime trends.

In both the past and present, it has been easy for criminal justice policy to be driven by fear and emotional policymaking rather than a sober assessment of the facts. This occurs for somewhat natural reasons, as the consequences of criminal justice policy failures can appear more immediate and visceral: the potential for the death of a loved one, lost property or abuse are far more tangible concepts than cybersecurity threats or green energy. This is likely, at least in part, due to human memory—research shows experiences and events tied to strong emotions are more memorable than less dramatic or weighted incidents. Further, policy success is often measured by recidivism—a zero-sum measure of an individual’s return to crime—rather than other metrics which show incremental progress. On top of this, the media, more often than not, focuses on policy failures rather than policy successes.

Yet, fear-based and emotionally-driven policy debates and policymaking are a disservice to the American public. Policymakers and the public may incorrectly deduce or be blind to the collateral consequences of their policies and are prone to letting biases impact their decision-making. As a result, the same problems remain, which cost life, property and liberty in the process.

This paper seeks to address this trend by first examining the relationships between fear, misinformation and policy and then providing illustrative examples of modern criminal justice myths alongside the evidence stacked against them. It will then conclude with a short list of policy solutions to combat misinformation and fear-mongering in criminal justice policy.

R STREET POLICY STUDY NO. 213

Washington, DC: R Street, 2020. 14p.