By Milo Comerford, Jakob Guhl and Carl Miller

Two years ago on March 15th 2019 the Christchurch attack highlighted the profound impact of online extremism in New Zealand. The subsequent Royal Commission of Inquiry on the attack painted a clear picture of a terrorist embedded within an international online extremist ecosystem, inspired and instructed by YouTube videos, and using extreme right-wing discussion boards, including 4chan and 8chan (now 8kun). New Zealand’s ‘Christchurch Call’ initiative would go on to provide an international plan of action for curbing violent extremist use of the Internet – and help put far-right terrorism on the global agenda. But the Royal Commission set out the urgent need for an improved domestic picture of the challenge New Zealand faces from online extremism, how it has developed, as well as emerging trends.

Beirut; Berlin; London; Paris; and Washington DC: Institute for Strategic Dialogue, 2021. 20p.

By The Council of State Governments (CSG) Justice Center

This issue-brief presents key findings from a 2015 survey of all 50 States that solicited information from State juvenile correctional agencies on the following issues: the educational and vocational services provided to incarcerated youth; what student outcome data are collected, analyzed, and reported; and what is done to ensure that youth receive educational and vocational services after release from incarceration.

The brief also provides recommendations for local and State policymakers and advocates that are intended to improve college and career readiness for youth in the juvenile justice system. In addition, there are examples of how select States have implemented these recommendations in policy and practice. The analysis of the survey findings yielded three key findings. First, most incarcerated youth do not have access to the same educational and vocational services as their peers in the community; and they do not attend schools that have the same rigorous curriculum and student performance standards as traditional public schools. Second, most States do not collect, track, and report student outcome data for incarcerated youth in all facility schools. Third, policies and practices in most States do not facilitate an effective transition to community-based education or vocational settings for youth after release from incarceration. Recommendations target each of these findings; and following each set of recommendations, an example is provided of how a particular State has implemented some of the recommendations. Overall, State policymakers, along with juvenile justice and educational/vocational administrators, must cooperate in overseeing and delivering high-quality educational and vocational services to incarcerated youth in their States and provide an effective transition to community-based educational and vocational programs after their release.

Lexington, KY: The Council of State Governments (CSG) Justice Center 2015. 16p.

By The National Policing Institute and Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS)

Law enforcement agencies play a critical role in preserving the people’s fundamental right to peaceably assemble and in facilitating demonstrators’ safety and security as they exercise their First Amendment rights. At the same time, they must also identify when law enforcement interventions are necessary in order to maintain safety and public order. Officials must protect the rights of citizens to protest, while simultaneously safeguarding property and preserving officer and community safety.

This project aims to address these challenges and provide recommendations for state, local, tribal, and territorial law enforcement agencies responding to mass demonstrations. The U.S. Department of Justice’s (DOJ) Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS Office) partnered with the National Policing Institute (NPI) and Police Executive Research Forum (PERF) to conduct this project. The areas examined for this project include community relationship building before, during, and after mass demonstrations; officer safety and wellness; mass demonstration response strategies; communication; planning, preparation, and training; and community perspectives on mass demonstrations.

Washington, DC: Office of Community Oriented Policing Services, 2022. 62p.

This guide begins by describing the problem and reviewing the factors that increase the risks of school traffic congestion. It then identifies a series of questions to help you analyze your local problem. Finally, it reviews responses to the problem, and what is known about them from evaluative research and local practice. For the purposes of this guide, school-related traffic congestion is defined as the overcrowding and blocking of streets on or near school property that is typically associated with car transportation of children to and from school.

This guide addresses school vandalism and break-ins, describing the problem and reviewing the risk factors. It also discusses the associated problems of school burglaries and arson. The guide then identifies a series of questions to help you analyze your local problem. Finally, it reviews responses to the problem, and what is known about them from evaluative research and police practice. The term school vandalism refers to willful or malicious damage to school grounds and buildings or furnishings and equipment.

There is new concern about school violence, and police have assumed greater responsibility for helping school officials ensure students’ safety. As pressure increases to place officers in schools, police agencies must decide how best to contribute to student safety. Will police presence on campuses most enhance safety? If police cannot or should not be on every campus, can they make other contributions to student safety? What are good approaches and practices?

The guide begins by describing the problem and reviewing factors that increase the risk of bomb threats in schools. The guide then identifies a series of questions that might assist you in analyzing the local problem of bomb threats in schools. Finally, the guide reviews responses to the problem and what is known about these from evaluative research and police practice.

By Nigel Copsey and Samuel Merrill

Anti-fascist militancy has existed for as long as fascism has, but militant anti-fascism is still largely neglected across both academic and policy-practitioner communities. A far more robust, evidence-based understanding is now needed, especially in a context where militant anti-fascist protest in the United States has been conflated with ‘domestic terrorism’.

The militant anti-fascist movement, or Antifa, is a de-centralised, non-hierarchical social movement. It is loosely structured on dispersed networks of local groups. It has a distinctly anti-authoritarian orientation, consisting, for the most part, of anarchists; anarcho-communists; left-libertarians; and radical socialists. The movement is transnational, but it responds in local conditions.

This report presents evidence from six local case studies: three from the United States: Portland, New York City, Philadelphia; and three from Britain: Brighton, Liverpool, London. It adopts a multi-method approach, combining interviews with anti-fascist activists drawn from these six localities as well as analysis of digital platforms used by local militant anti-fascist groups (Rose City Antifa; NYC Antifa; Philly Antifa; Brighton Antifascists; Merseyside Anti-Fascist Network; and London Antifascists).

Lancaster, UK: Centre for Research and Evidence on Security Threats (CREST), 2021. 90p.

By Alexander Meleagrou-Hitchens, Bennett Clifford and Lorenzo Vidino

Antisemitism is pervasive throughout several categories of American extremist movements, both violent and non-violent. American extremists incorporate antisemitic tropes and narratives in every level of their worldviews, using them to help construct “us/them” dichotomies and wide-sweeping conspiracies that are essential to their movements. • During the past several decades, the American extremist movements that have been among the most violent—specifically, far-right and jihadist groups—have used antisemitism to target Jewish people, Jewish houses of worship, Jewish community institutions, and Americans supporting the Jewish state of Israel. …. • Several case studies of violent American extremists, representing far-right and jihadist movements respectively, demonstrate that antisemitism can be an integral part of American extremists’ progression through the radicalization process and in justifying terrorist attacks. • Based on this report’s finding that antisemitism is foundational to multiple violent extremist movements in the United States, counter-extremism practitioners and scholars may consider incorporating antisemitism as a diagnostic factor for extremist radicalization.

Washington, DC: George Washington University, Program on Extremism, 2020. 27p.

By The Program on Extremism, The George Washington University

This report aims to provide a preliminary assessment of the siege participants. While the authors are cognizant that more individuals are likely to be charged in the future, and not one individual has yet been convicted in a court of law, the documents released thus far yield significant insight into the nexus between the siege participants and a wide array of domestic violent extremist (DVE) ideologies, actors, and movements. As such, this is a preliminary report. However, as ongoing conversations about how best to respond to January 6th have the potential to shape policy, taking stock of the allegations against participants can help inform more nuanced discourse and effective policymaking.

Washington, DC: Program on Extremism, George Washington University, 2021. 52p.

By Samantha Kutner

Little scholarly research exists on participants in crypto-fascist extremist organizations. In this research paper, Samantha Kutner, MA, communication studies, explores the scripts and narratives that attract a certain demographic of men to join the Proud Boys. She discusses how the broader themes of self-categorization, precarity, and deliberate provocation manifest themselves. These themes are embedded in a fascist agenda and are expressed through the group’s recruitment, communication, and in-group identification.

The Hague: International Centre for Counter-Terrorism, 2020. 33p.

By Bulent Kenes

The Proud Boys is a far-right, anti-immigrant, all-male group who have been known to use violence against left-wing opponents. The group describes themselves as “Western chauvinists,” by which they mean “men who refuse to apologise for creating the modern world”. The group, which is the new face of far-right extremism, one that recruits through shared precarity and male grievances promotes and engages in political violence.

Brussels: European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS), 2021. 31p.

By Sarah Kingston

This book aims to examine current literature on the impacts of prostitution in residential areas and considers how different policy approaches employed by the police and local authorities have mediated and shaped the nature of sex work in different communities. It explores what communities think about prostitution and those involved, as well as studies the techniques and strategies communities have utilized to take action against prostitution in their neighbourhoods. This book will also demonstrate the diversity of public attitudes, action and reaction to prostitution in the community.

London: Routledge, 2013. 214p.

By Roger Matthews, Helen Easton, Lisa Young and Julie Bindel

How people move from deviant to conventional lifestyles is an issue that has attracted considerable interest over the past few years. However, much of this work has focused on men desisting from crime. This book provides one of the first examinations of desistance which is centred on women and, more specifically, how they exit prostitution.

Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire, UK, Palgrave Macmillan: 2014. 171p.

By Robyn Lloyd

The book deals with a subject that is taboo in america, and a society that demonizes the boys and men who participate in older man boy sexual relations. In a way, it discusses pedophilia, since the boys are young, and the men who pay them are older, but it puts a face on the boys, and the men who pay them

New York: Ballantine Books, 1976. 236p.

By Melissa Hope Ditmore

A fascinating overview of prostitution and sex work in the United States, from the Colonial era to today, examines the issue as it affects men, women, and transgender individuals of all races and classes.

Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2006. 848p.

By Melissa Hope Ditmore

Prostitution and Sex Work is the first book since 1921 to offer a historic overview of this controversial topic—and what our views on it say about American society. Exploring key people, places, and events, the guide includes descriptions of the myriad variations of the sale of sex and of the venues where prostitution occurs, as well as recurring themes such as panics about sexually transmitted diseases and the ever-present issue of violence in the sex trade.After reviewing the history of prostitution and sex work over the past 400 years, the book offers detailed information about the legal context of prostitution in America during the last century. It focuses particularly on the period since prostitution was criminalized during a panic over "white slavery" in the early 20th century, drawing parallels with current "sex trafficking" topics. An appendix of materials produced by sex workers is especially informative for those wishing to truly understand both sides of the issue.

Santa Barbara, CA: Greenwood, 2011. 201p.

By Joanna Phoenix

This book provides a compelling analysis of the conditions in which women are sustained within prostitution in Britain at the end of the millennium. Based on a major empirical study, it is a unique glimpse into how some women, who live lives completely torn apart by poverty, violence and criminalization, are able to understand their lives in prostitution and make sense of the choices they make (including their involvement in prostitution) in their struggles to survive.

New York: St. Martin's Press, 1999. 211p.

By Leo Markun

Prostitution in the ancient Greek world was widespread, legal, and acceptable as a fact of life and an unavoidable necessity. The state regulated the industry and treated prostitution as any other trade. Almost every prominent man in the ancient world has been truly or falsely associated with some famous hetaira. These women, who sold their affections to the richest and most influential men of their time, have become legends in their own right. They pushed the boundaries of female empowerment in their quest for self-promotion and notoriety, and continue to fascinate us. Prostitution remains a complex phenomenon linked to issues of gender, culture, law, civic ideology, education, social control, and economic forces. This is why its study is of paramount importance for our understanding of the culture, outlook and institutions of the ancient world, and in turn it can shed new light and introduce new perspectives to the challenging debate of our times on prostitution and contemporary sexual morality. The main purpose of this book is to provide the primary historical study of the topic with emphasis upon the separation of facts from the mythology surrounding the countless references to prostitution in Greek literary sources.

Berlin: De Gruyter., 2018. 500p.

By Lorraine Nencel

A feminist study of prostitution in Peru, this book interrogates the ways in which sexuality, gender and illicit behaviour have been constructed (and deconstructed) over the years. Lorraine Nencel deals with issues such as AIDS, machismo and the regulation of the sex trade. She analyses the question of whether sex workers are victims or agents of control.

London: Pluto Press, 2001. 256p.