By Jakob Guhl, Julia Ebner and Jan Rau

On the 8th October 2019, a 28-year old man with self-made guns and body armour attacked a synagogue and a kebab shop in Halle, killing two people. He live-streamed the attack and published a ‘manifesto’ online. His intention was to kill Jews, whom he blamed for feminism and mass migration. He introduced himself as “Anon” (anonymous), a reference to ‘imageboard’ websites such as 4chan and 8chan. Shortly after, users on 4chan cynically joked about whether the attack had lived up to similar attacks in Pittsburgh, San Diego, and El Paso in the US and Christchurch in New Zealand. In each of these attacks, the perpetrators were found to be have been immersed in far-right online sub-cultures. The presence of extremist and terrorist groups on mainstream platforms like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube has been the focus of much attention in recent years, but the attacks cited above have raised concerns about the far-right subcultures that have emerged on alternative platforms like 4chan and Telegram, chat forums like Gab, and gaming applications like Discord. With mainstream social media companies forced to make greater efforts to remove extremists and hate speech from their platforms in Germany with the NetzDG law, these alternative social platforms have become increasingly important to an international far-right community that includes anti-Muslim movements like PEGIDA, ‘Identitarian’ ethnonationalist groups like Generation Identity, and militant Neo-Nazis like the Atomwaffen Division. In addition to being places where far-right terrorists are glorified, they have also become sites for activists to strategise and spread disinformation campaigns, coordinate harassment against female politicians and create meme campaigns to influence elections and political discourse.6 ISD research in the German national, Bavarian and European Parliamentary elections showed how these groups were coordinating in particular to support the right-wing populist party Alternative for Deutchland (AfD).7 Complementing these alternative social media platforms is an ecosystem of online alternative media outlets that masquerade as ‘news’ sources. Presenting themselves as alternatives to mainstream media, many of these outlets amplify far-right, anti-migrant and anti-progressive talking points through sensationalist ‘click-bait’ stories. Taken together, this toxic far-right ecosystem is potentially contributing to a rise in far-right motivated terrorism, which has increased 320% in the past five years, whilst also giving safe spaces and providing contents for those who want to undermine democracy. Policymakers are increasingly asking what can be done, but at present too little is known about these communities. To address these issues, ISD’s Digital Analysis Unit undertook one of the most comprehensive mappings of this alternative ecosystem in Germany to date. While these platforms draw in a global audience, which we are consistently mapping and analysing to understand the international connectivity of the far-right, this report focuses specifically on the German-speaking communities within this ecosystem. The German government has been at the forefront of devising legislation to force the mainstream social media companies to remove illegal hate speech from their platforms. With the NetzDG bill, passed in 2017, social media companies face large fines if they do not remove illegal content within 24 hours. While many have criticised the NetzDG bill as infringing on free speech or being ineffective by focusing on content removal, there is also the risk that it is driving extremist groups into more closed, alternative platforms which are currently not subject to the legislation. These alternative platforms present significant challenges for regulation. They may lack the resources to effectively monitor or remove extremist communities, or they may be ideologically committed to libertarian values and free speech and thus unwilling to moderate these communities.  Drawing together ISD’s digital ethnographic work across dozens of closed forums and chat groups with the latest in machine learning and natural language processing, in this report we provide an initial glimpse into the size and nature of the far-right communities on these platforms. We present data gathered from user-generated surveys on these platforms, revealing the motivations for joining and the ideological views of those drawn to these groups. Using Method 52, a proprietary software tool for the analysis and classification of unstructured text, we trained an algorithm to identify antisemitic narratives.8 We also analyse the role of alternative ‘news’ outlets in disseminating far-right concepts, drawing on ISD’s partnership with the MIT Media Lab to create the ‘Hate Observatory’, based on its Media Cloud software, the world’s largest online database of online media, containing 1,4 billion stories from 60,000 sources, to compare the frequency and types of coverage of far-right themes in mainstream and alternative media. Based on our research findings, we make a series of recommendations for tech companies, government, civil society and researchers about how to prevent these alternative platforms from being used to further radicalise or undermine democracy. Key Findings – We identified 379 far-right and right-wing populist channels across ten alternative platforms investigated for this report. Alternative platforms with notable far-right presence included: the messaging application Telegram (129 channels), the Russian social network website VK (115 groups), video-sharing website Bitchute (79), and social networking sites Gab (38 channels), Reddit (8 groups), Minds (5 communities) and Voat (5 communities). Analysis of the community standards of these platforms shows that they can be divided into two groups. Firstly, those designed for non-political purposes, such as gaming, which have been hijacked by far-right communities. Secondly, those that are based on libertarian ideals and defend the presence of far-right communities on the basis of freedom of speech. While membership numbers in these groups were not always identifiable, our analysis suggests that there are between 15,000 and 50,000 Germanspeaking individuals with far-right beliefs using these platforms, with varying levels of activity. The channel with the most followers had more than 40,000 followers. Although we identified a few platforms that were created by right-wing populist influencers, such as video-sharing sites FreiHoch3 and Prometheus, the number of users was too small to merit inclusion in the analysis. – A spectrum of far-right groups are active on alternative platforms: while there are a greater number of anti-Muslim and neo-Nazi affiliated channels, ‘Identitarian’ groups appear to have the largest reach. Of the 379 groups and channels that we identified, 104 were focused on opposition to Islam and Muslims, immigration and refugees and 92 channels expressed overt support for National Socialism. We identified 35 channels and groups associated with Identitarian and ethnonationalist groups. 117 communities and groups did not fall neatly into any specific category but instead contained a mix of content from the categories described above. It is important to note that a larger number of channels does not necessarily equate to a larger number of people reached. For example, the largest Identitarian channel has more than 35,000 followers, which is significantly greater than the largest anti-Muslim channel (18,000) or the largest neo-Nazi channel (around 10,000). (continued)  

London, Washington DC; Beirut; Toronto:  IDS - Institute for Strategic Dialogue: 2020. 76p.

By Henrice Altink

This book analyzes textual representations of Jamaican slave women in three contexts--motherhood, intimate relationships, and work--in both pro- and antislavery writings. Altink examines how British abolitionists and pro-slavery activists represented the slave women to their audiences and explains not only the purposes that these representations served, but also their effects on slave women’s lives.

London; New York: Routledge, 2005.272p.

By Anne Marie Buzato

The use of private security companies (PSCs) to perform services that are traditionally associated with the state presents a challenge to regulatory and oversight frameworks. Analyzing developments leading to the International Code of Conduct for Security Providers (ICOC) and the ICOC Association, this paper argues that a multistakeholder approach to develop standards adapted for the private sector and which creates governance and oversight mechanisms fills some of the governance gaps found in traditional regulatory approaches.

London: Ubiquity Press, 2015. 51p.

By Maik Fielitz and Reem Ahmed,  Radicalisation Awareness Network

Humour has become a central weapon of extremist movements to subvert open societies and to lower the threshold towards violence. Especially within the context of a recent wave of far-right terrorist attacks, we witness “playful” ways in communicating racist ideologies. As far-right extremists strategically merge with online cultures, their approach changes fundamentally. This trend has been especially facilitated by the so-called alt-right and has spread globally. This predominantly online movement set new standards to rebrand extremist positions in an ironic guise, blurring the lines between mischief and potentially radicalising messaging. The result is a nihilistic form of humour that is directed against ethnic and sexual minorities and deemed to inspire violent fantasies — and eventually action. This paper scrutinises how humour functions as a potential factor in terms of influencing far-right extremist violence. In doing so, we trace the strategic dissemination of far-right narratives and discuss how extremists conceal their misanthropic messages in order to deny ill intention or purposeful harm. These recent developments pose major challenges for practitioners: As a new generation of violent extremists emerges from digital subcultures without a clear organisational centre, prevention strategies need to renew focus and cope with the intangible nature of online cultures.  

Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European Union, 2021. 18p.

By  Jacob Davey, Jakob Guhl, and Carl Miller

As Ofcom prepared for its duties as the UK’s incoming social media regulator, it commissioned ISD to produce two reports to better understand the risk of UK users encountering online terrorists, incitement to violence, and hate content across a range of digital services. This report provides an overview of public English-language messages collected from Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Reddit, and 4chan across the month of August 2022 which we class as ‘plausibly hateful’. This is where at least one of the reasonable interpretations of the message is that it seeks to dehumanize, demonize, express contempt or disgust for, exclude, harass, threaten, or incite violence against an individual or community based on a protected characteristic. Protected characteristics are understood to be race, national origin, disability, religious affiliation, sexual orientation, sex, or gender identity.

Amman | Berlin | London | Paris | Washington DC: Institute for Strategic Dialogue. 2023. 34p.

By Elise Thomas

DLive is a live-streaming platform created in 2017 and acquired by BitTorrent in 2019. From late 2019 onward, the combination of lax content moderation and DLive’s in-built opportunities for monetisation1  using a blockchain-based cryptocurrency reportedly attracted2 significant numbers of extreme right and fringe streamers to the platform. In early 2021, at least nine channels are alleged to have live-streamed the January 6th incursion into the US Capitol on the platform.3 DLive has a policy of tagging channels that contain political or adult content as ‘X tag’ channels. In the wake of the events at the Capitol, DLive took the step of demonetising5  all X tag channels. They also suspended the accounts of users who had streamed the Capitol incursion, announced a content moderation review of all X tag channels with significant viewership, and temporarily suspended all use of their platform for those in the Washington DC area ahead of the Presidential Inauguration.  This briefing details the results of an ethnographic analysis of the role which DLive plays in UK extreme right-wing mobilization online, with specific attention played to the overlap between extremist use of the platform and the targeting of gamers for radicalisation. In total, we watched 13.5 hours of live-streamed content and analyzed the activity of 100 extreme right accounts. The time which ISD analysts spent scoping the platform overlapped with the removal of several high-profile extreme right-wing users of the platform. Importantly this analysis helps document how extremists are using a multi-platform strategy to avoid the negative impacts that content moderation efforts can have on their communications strategies. Key Findings • A relatively wide range of extremist influencers including British white nationalists use DLive as part of a broader strategy to broadcast extreme right ideology to their audiences. The monetization provided by DLive means that as well as providing a means to stream shows to audiences the platform offers the opportunity of netting them funds. • Extremists have an ambivalent relationship with DLive, treating it as part of a multi-platform strategy designed to circumnavigate content moderation. We found that extremists used DLive opportunistically due to the relative freedom it afforded them to broadcast content that would not be allowed on other platforms. However, this was not out of any particular affection for the platform, with extremists often streaming across multiple platforms in a bid to avoid moderation efforts. • Efforts by DLive to implement more robust terms of service appear to be having an impact on extremist activity. Several of the accounts we monitored were removed by DLive over the course of our analysis. Additionally, the users we monitored often discussed using alternative platforms like Trovo and Odysee to broadcast, which they felt provided more permissive environments for extremist activity. • We found limited evidence to suggest that the live streaming of gaming is used as a strategy by extremists to radicalize new users on DLive. Out of the 100 extremist accounts analyzed, only seven used DLive to stream gaming. Of these seven only three appeared to use gaming to advance extreme right ideology and movements. Analysing the gaming content produced by these users it appears that gaming primarily functions as a means for extreme right wing influencers to reach established audiences and strengthen existing extremist communities, rather than to radicalise and recruit new members.  

Beirut; Berlin; London; Paris; Washington DC Institute for Strategic Dialogue, 2021. 11p.

By Anne Craanen, Charley Gleeson and Anna Meier

This report investigates the rise of online anti-trans activism following two prominent attacks involving LGBTQ+ communities, namely the October 2022 attack on a gay bar in Bratislava, Slovakia, and the March 2023 shooting at a school in Nashville, Tennessee perpetrated by a trans man.

We use a postcolonial approach, through which we find that the transphobia espoused online following the attacks was predominantly transmisogynistic, a consequence of the colonial logics around gender which assign the monopoly of violence to white cisgender men. The main themes identified were the erasure of trans identities, particularly transmasculinity, the overlap between transmisogyny and other forms of discrimination, and the demonization of trans people. 

The most important conclusion from our research is for everyone – technology companies, policymakers and other stakeholders – to take transphobia and transmisogyny seriously. Too often transmisogyny is seen as a side problem, or as a complement to another set of more radical ideas, including but not limited to white nationalism or anti-government sentiment. It can often be the case that transphobia, alongside misogyny, hate speech, or other forms of discrimination, is seen as “harmful but lawful” or described as “borderline content”, thereby not in need of online moderation. While simply removing such material from platforms may be neither appropriate nor advisable in all cases, there are other forms of content moderation that platforms can consider, depending on how online transphobia manifests itself. 

In the conclusion of our work, we provide practical recommendations to technology companies of all sizes for tackling transphobia more effectively. Key among these are the importance of knowledge-sharing between platforms and subject matter experts, defining transphobia and transmisogyny in platforms’ terms of service, and employing content moderation practices such as disinformation tags and algorithmic deprioritization. 

Recommendations for technology companies:

1. Increase online monitoring following attacks that are directly relevant to the LGBTQ+  community as transphobic content is likely to increase, including material that violates terms of service, incites violence or is otherwise illegal. 

2. Collaborate with experts to comprehend and classify transphobic rhetoric, and produce a taxonomy alongside subject-matter specialists, technology representatives, civil society, and government partners.

3. Consider diverse moderation methods, removing illegal content and also using alternatives to removal such as fact-checking and algorithmic adjustments to mitigate exposure to transphobic channels and content.

4. Define transphobia in terms of service to guide users as to what is allowed on platforms and enable user reporting. 

5. Design clear reporting and appeal mechanisms for moderated content, including online transphobia, to protect digital and human rights.

” London: Global Network on Extremism and Technology (GNET), May 2024.2024. 26p.

By Pierre Vaux, Aoife Gallagher, Jacob Davey

Steam is a video game supply service, described as the “single largest distribution site for PC games”. At the start of February 2021, the platform set a new record as 26.4 million users signed into the platform simultaneously, breaking its previous record of 25.4 million set only the month before. In addition to its online store and game launcher, the Steam community feature allows users to find friends and join groups and discussion forums, while also offering in-game voice and text chat. These groups serve as a means to enable connectivity around a certain subject or game, forming hubs where users with shared interests can collaborate. Often, Steam groups facilitate interaction between groups of players known as ‘clans’ who play together in one or more multiplayer games. However, several groups have been created to allow networking between people supportive of right-wing extremism. In this chapter, we provide an analysis of 45 interconnected Steam community groups associated with the extreme right. This cohort is a sample of a larger network of potentially extremist groups on the platform, and as such should be seen as a snapshot indicating broader trends on the platform, rather than a comprehensive overview of extreme right activity. Key Findings • The extreme right uses Steam as a hub for individual extremists to connect and socialize. The Steam groups examined by ISD, which often have members in common, span the extreme right ideological spectrum. This network connects supporters of far-right political parties, such as the British National Party (BNP), with groups promoting neo-Nazi organizations, like the Misanthropic Division. • Steam seems to have an entrenched and long-lasting extreme right community. Many of the groups analyzed date back to 2016 or even earlier. Steam’s permissive attitude to this harmful activity means that these communities have a haven to promote and discuss extremist ideology and content. • In addition to connecting individuals who support the extreme right, some groups also provide off-ramps to ideological content and other social media platforms, suggesting that Steam is being used to recruit to specific movements. This includes links to far-right blogs, podcasts and articles, as well as invitations to join Telegram groups and vetted Discord servers. • Some groups provide platforms for groups of individuals to engage in trolling and harassment ‘raids’ against communities deemed to be political enemies. Users were seen naming target sites and asking fellow group members to join them in raiding or spamming them, with the result that these communities are making Steam a more toxic space for other users. • Our analysis suggests that gaming seems to be largely used as a means of community building rather than as a deliberate strategy for radicalization or recruitment. Individuals who are already engaged with the extreme right appear to use Steam as a platform to connect with like-minded individuals over a shared hobby. However, we also found examples of political games, such as ‘Feminazi 3000’ being used as a means of advertising political identity, as well as historical strategy games being used as a means of living out extremist fantasies, such as winning World War II for Germany.  

  Beirut; Berlin; London; Paris; Washington DC Institute for Strategic Dialogue (2021).  14p.

By Emily Thompson and Galen Lamphere-Englund

Violent extremist, terrorist, and targeted hate actors have been actively exploiting video games to propagandize, recruit, and fundraise for more than 30 years. This report presents an analysis of that history using a unique dataset, the Extremist and Terrorist Games Database (ETGD), developed by the authors. It contains 155 reviewed entries of standalone games, modifications for existing games (mods), and browser‑based games dating from 1982 to 2024. The titles analyzed appear across the ideological spectrum: far right (101 titles), jihadist (24), far left (1), and other forms of extremism and targeted hate (29), including school‑massacre ideation (12). They span platforms ranging from simple standalone games for Atari in the 1980s to sophisticated mods for some of today’s most popular games. The number of titles has increased year on year – in line with global conflict and extremist ideological trends, and revealing a continued push by malicious actors to exploit gaming. Meanwhile, the means of distribution have shifted from violent extremist organizations and marketplaces – such as white supremacist, neo‑Nazi, and jihadist organizations – to distributed repositories of extremist games hosted on internet archives, Ethereum‑hosted file‑sharing, Telegram and with subtly coded titles on mainstream platforms like Steam. While most of the titles in the ETGD are available for free, several that have been sold (often at symbolic prices like $14.88 or $17.76) appear to have generated revenue for groups ranging from Hezbollah to the National Alliance, an American neo‑Nazi group. Through new analysis of Steam data, we also show that a small number of extremist and targeted hate titles have generated almost an estimated $600,000 in revenue for small publishers on the platform. Far from being a comprehensive analysis of the ETGD, we intend this preliminary launch report to form a basis for future research of the dataset and a framework for continued contributions to the ETGD from Extremism and Gaming Research Network (EGRN) members. Above all, we seek to contribute to sensible policymaking to prevent violent extremism that situates games as part of a wider contested and exploited information space, which deserves far more attention from those working towards peaceful ends. Complete recommendations are provided in the conclusion section of this report but include the following: 1. Prohibit and prevent violent extremist exploitation: Gaming platforms should explicitly prohibit violent extremist and terrorist behaviors and content. Leadership exists here from Twitch, Discord, Microsoft/Xbox, and the affiliated Activision‑Blizzard.  a. Audio and video platforms, such as Spotify, Apple Music, and YouTube should seek to identify extremist gaming content currently available under misleading titles and tags. b. Flag and remove extremist titles across platforms: Hashing and preventing outlinking to ETGD games and links should be a priority across platforms. 2. Improve reporting mechanisms: Platforms must improve reporting mechanisms to make it easier for players to report violative content found in games and in‑game conduct. 3. Understand and take down distributed repositories: Larger repositories of extremist gaming content readily available on the surface web accelerate user exposure. 4. Collaborate across sectors: Addressing the spread of extremist games requires a collaborative effort between tech companies, government agencies, and civil society organizations. 5. Educate across sectors: Programmes supporting educators and frontline community moderators should be developed. 6. Support research and innovation: Including cross‑sector initiatives like the Global Network on Extremism and Technology (GNET) and EGRN, which produced this database. 7. Enhance regulatory frameworks: Governments should update regulatory frameworks applying to digital platforms, recognizing the nuances of gaming platforms and complying with human rights. 8. Encourage positive community engagement: Thoughtful, well-designed community guidelines, moderation policies, and reporting mechanisms can support community‑building.  

London: The Global Network on Extremism and Technology (GNET) , 2024. 40p.'

By Jane Pirkis, Jason Bantjes, Rakhi Dandona, Duleeka Knipe, Alexandra Pitman, Jo Robinson, Morton Silverman, Keith Hawton 

 A public health approach to suicide prevention recognizes the powerful influence of social determinants. In this paper—the fifth in a Series on a public health approach to suicide prevention—we consider four major risk factors for suicide (alcohol use, gambling, domestic violence and abuse, and suicide bereavement) and examine how their influence on suicide is socially determined. Cultural factors and societal responses have an important role in all four risk factors. In the case of alcohol use and gambling, commercial entities are culpable. This Series paper describes a range of universal, selective, and indicated interventions that might address these risk factors and focuses particularly on key universal interventions that are likely to yield substantial population-level benefits

The Lancet Public Health Available online 10 September 2024 In Press, Corrected Proof

 By Keith Hawton, Duleeka Knipe, Jane Pirkis 

 One of the most effective public health measures to prevent suicide is the restriction of access to means used in suicidal acts. This approach can be especially effective if a method is common and readily accessible. Suicide methods vary widely, and there have been several examples where means restriction has been applied, often with considerable success. Factors contributing to the availability of suicide methods can include access to physical means as well as cognitive awareness of methods. In this paper, which is the second in a Series on a public health approach to suicide prevention, we focus primarily on examples of restricting access to physical means of suicide, such as pesticides, firearms, and medication. We also discuss restricting the cognitive availability of means through attention to media and other representations of suicide methods. There are challenges associated with restricting access to means, including resistance to measures required to change the availability of some methods (which might, in part, be commercially determined) and method substitution, whereby one suicide method is replaced by another. Nevertheless, this means restriction must be an integral part of all national and local suicide prevention strategies

The Lancet, The Lancet Public Health, Volume 0, Issue 0, Online first, Sept. 2024.

By Cynthia Fraga Rizo and Tonya Van Deinse

Intimate partner violence (IPV)—the intentional physical or nonphysical violence between current or former intimate partners—and sexual violence (SV)—non-consensual sexual activities—are pervasive, serious criminal legal system and public health problems in the United States (Centers for Disease Control [CDC], 2017; CDC, 2019; Smith et al., 2018). Survivors of IPV and SV bear the burden of numerous deleterious short- and long-term consequences. To address their myriad service needs, survivors must navigate multiple systems, organizations, and professionals. The complexity of navigating multiple service sectors means IPV/SV survivors often do not receive the help they need at the time when services are most needed. Recognizing this barrier, IPV/SV service providers, including advocates, criminal legal system professionals, and healthcare providers, have been increasingly interested in using cross-sectoral approaches (CSA) to coordinate service delivery to IPV/SV survivors (Gwinn et al., 2007). Family Justice Centers (FJC) and Multi-Agency Model Centers (MAMC) are two commonly implemented CSA models (Alliance for Hope International, 2024; Rizo et al., 2022; Shorey et al., 2014; Simmons et al., 2016). A key underlying assumption of FJCs and MAMCs is that colocation, collaboration, and coordination of services across multiple providers and disciplines will increase survivors’ access to services and ultimately lead to better outcomes. However, limited research exists regarding the implementation and effectiveness of these co-located models. To address these gaps, the research team conducted an evaluability assessment and formative evaluation of IPV/SV CSAs, with a focus on the similarities and differences across colocated models. The project was comprised of two phases: • Phase 1: Evaluability assessment of IPV/SV co-located CSAs. • Phase 2: Formative evaluation of IPV/SV co-located CSAs. The project was conducted in North Carolina, with eight co-located centers participating in the evaluability assessment and six participating in the formative evaluation.

Approach The evaluability assessment was guided by the Exploration, Preparation, Implementation, and Sustainment (EPIS) framework (Aarons et al., 2011) and followed the four steps outlined by Trevisan and Walser’s (2014) evaluability assessment model: (1) focus the assessment, (2) develop the program theory and logic, (3) gather feedback, and (4) apply the assessment findings. Prior to developing the proposal and launching the project, our team worked with a group of statewide leaders to determine the focus of the assessment (e.g., goals, objectives, research questions). The research team then engaged in three primary data collection activities— document review, affiliate interviews, and client-survivor interviews—to document the program theory and logic model of co-located service models and to identify promising strategies for evaluating co-located IPV/SV service models. In total, the team reviewed 199 documents and conducted interviews with 58 affiliates and 30 client-survivors. Following these activities, the research team sought feedback from our Expert Advisory Group (EAG) and partnering sites and used the evaluability assessment findings to develop practice and research materials. The formative evaluation comprised three components—a process evaluation focused on implementation, a client outcome evaluation, and an assessment of the evaluation’s overall feasibility. The implementation evaluation research activities consisted of gathering four different types of data: (1) aggregate annual programmatic data from six partnering sites; (2) client-level service need data (n = 764 completed service navigation logs); (3) staff collaboration survey data (n = 126); and (4) adaptive fidelity self-assessment data (n = 11). The outcome evaluation research activity involved collecting survey data from clients at three-time points (i.e., intake/baseline: n = 41; 3-month follow-up: n = 28; 6-month follow-up: n = 24). The feasibility assessment was based on focus group data with leaders and key contacts at partnering centers (n = 12) to explore their perspectives on the overall evaluation and specific research activities.       

Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, 2024.146p.

By Reed T. DeAngelis

This research note provides new evidence consistent with systemic anti-Black racism in police killings across the United States. Data come from the Mapping Police Violence Database (2013–2021). I calculate race-specific odds and probabilities that victims of police killings exhibited mental illness, were armed with a weapon, or attempted to flee the scene at the time of their killing. Multilevel, multivariable logistic regression techniques are applied to further account for the victim's age, gender, year of killing, and geographical clustering. I find that White victims are underrepresented, and Black victims overrepresented in the database. Relative to White victims, Black victims also have 60% lower odds of exhibiting signs of mental illness, 23% lower odds of being armed, and 28% higher odds of fleeing. Hispanic victims exhibit 45% lower odds of being armed relative to their White peers but are otherwise comparable. These patterns persist regardless of the victim's age, gender, year of killing, or geographical location (state, zip code, and neighborhood type). Thus, the threshold for being perceived as dangerous, and thereby falling victim to lethal police force, appears to be higher for White civilians relative to their Black or Hispanic peers. Current findings provide empirical support for political initiatives to curb lethal police force, as such efforts could help to reduce racial disparities in deaths by police nationwide.

Race and Justice Volume 14, Issue 3, July 2024, Pages 413-422

By Danielle Blunt and Ariel Wolf

This short article presents, in brief, the findings of a community-based, sex worker-led survey that asked sex workers about their experiences since the closure of Backpage and the adoption of FOSTA. It shows that the financial situation of the vast majority of research participants has deteriorated, as has their ability to access the community and screen clients. It concludes that FOSTA is just the latest example of the US government using anti-trafficking policy and restrictions on technology to police already marginalized people.

Anti-Trafficking Review, (14), 117–121

By Brian Blackwell, Colin Capara, Janey Rounteer, Robert Santillino, Dana Vanderford, Claire Battis

Homelessness continues to be a major problem in California, and new approaches to addressing it are urgently needed. This report brings to light an innovative predictive model for homelessness prevention that is showing promising results. The data reveals that this approach — being used for the first time in California and the United States — reaches individuals who are outside of the usual preventive safety net at critical junctures in their lives. Timing is everything — and the Homelessness Prevention Unit connects at-risk people to crucial services and support that could help them avoid homelessness. Consider the scope of the problem: more than 75,000 people experience homelessness in Los Angeles County on any given night in 2024. This represents a 9% increase since 2022 and a 43% increase since 2018. Long-term solutions to homelessness require not just housing people experiencing homelessness but also preventing homelessness before it occurs. A statewide survey in California revealed that most people experiencing homelessness believe that a one-time payment of $5,000 to $10,000 would have resolved their rapidly escalating financial crises and prevented them from experiencing homelessness. Existing homelessness prevention programs typically include one-time cash assistance ranging on average between $1,000 to $5,000 and short-term direct services such as legal assistance. Several studies have found this approach to be effective at reducing homelessness. Yet research also highlights how difficult it is to ensure that scarce prevention resources primarily reach people who will experience homelessness if they do not receive this help. In partnership with Los Angeles County, the California Policy Lab (CPL) is researching strategies to address this challenge, including developing a data-driven predictive model that can proactively identify people at highest risk of experiencing homelessness.  In many prevention programs, participants self-identify as being at risk of homelessness and are then screened into programs based on eligibility criteria or surveys that ask questions about risk factors. CPL’s predictive model, however, analyzes de-identified data to proactively identify people at high risk of homelessness. Our research finds that people identified by the predictive model are not connected to typical prevention programs, indicating that both approaches are valuable and reach different people. To test whether this model could be used to better target prevention resources, in 2020, Los Angeles County created the Homelessness Prevention Unit (HPU) operating out of the Housing for Health division of the Department of Health Services (DHS) in close collaboration with the Chief Information Office (CIO) and Department of Mental Health (DMH). A County seed funding investment in the HPU made it possible to pilot an innovative approach to homelessness prevention that offers flexible cash assistance and tailored case management to individuals and families predicted by CPL’s model to be at the highest risk of experiencing homelessness. Because the HPU is located within the Los Angeles County health system, CPL’s model is focused on people who recently received DHS or DMH services and who are observed as stably housed in County administrative data. This group includes nearly 100,000 people over the course of a year (the “eligible population”). CPL uses the model to produce lists multiple times a year of people with the highest risk of homelessness. The lists are anonymized and rank-ordered from highest to lowest risk of homelessness. CPL sends the high-risk lists to the CIO, where County staff match each person’s anonymized record to a County medical record ID. The CIO then transfers the lists to the HPU so that they can identify names, addresses, and contact info of the patients listed. HPU staff then screen out some people on the risk lists that other data sources indicate are currently experiencing homelessness and are therefore ineligible. For eligible individuals, HPU staff attempt to contact them, and, if they are willing, enroll them in the intervention. The HPU serves between 400 to 600 people per year. The intervention includes rapidly delivered, flexible cash assistance, tailored case management, and referrals to other services, such as mental health care, workforce development, and legal services. This policy report provides an overview of: (1) CPL’s predictive model, including data sources and engineering; (2) the equity of the predictive model; (3) outreach and enrollment in the HPU; (4) the HPU’s design and service model; and (5) how CPL will evaluate the impact of the HPU program in a randomized control trial   

Los Angeles: The California Policy Lab, 2024. 50p.

By Robert L. Hayman, Jr.

What exactly is intelligence? Is it social achievement? Professional success? Is it common sense? Or the number on an IQ test? Interweaving engaging narratives with dramatic case studies, Robert L. Hayman, Jr., has written a history of intelligence that will forever change the way we think about who is smart and who is not. To give weight to his assertion that intelligence is not simply an inherent characteristic but rather one which reflects the interests and predispositions of those doing the measuring, Hayman traces numerous campaigns to classify human intelligence. His tour takes us through the early craniometric movement, eugenics, the development of the IQ, Spearman's "general" intelligence, and more recent works claiming a genetic basis for intelligence differences. What Hayman uncovers is the maddening irony of intelligence: that "scientific" efforts to reduce intelligence to a single, ordinal quantity have persisted--and at times captured our cultural imagination--not because of their scientific legitimacy, but because of their longstanding political appeal. The belief in a natural intellectual order was pervasive in "scientific" and "political" thought both at the founding of the Republic and throughout its nineteenth-century Reconstruction. And while we are today formally committed to the notion of equality under the law, our culture retains its central belief in the natural inequality of its members. Consequently, Hayman argues, the promise of a genuine equality can be realized only when the mythology of "intelligence" is debunked--only, that is, when we recognize the decisive role of culture in defining intelligence and creating intelligence differences. Only culture can give meaning to the statement that one person-- or one group--is smarter than another. And only culture can provide our motivation for saying it. With a keen wit and a sharp eye, Hayman highlights the inescapable contradictions that arise in a society committed both to liberty and to equality and traces how the resulting tensions manifest themselves in the ways we conceive of identity, community, and merit.

New York: NYU Press, 1997.

By Mark Pittenger

Since the Gilded Age, social scientists, middle-class reformers, and writers have left the comforts of their offices to "pass" as steel workers, coal miners, assembly-line laborers, waitresses, hoboes, and other working and poor people in an attempt to gain a fuller and more authentic understanding of the lives of the working class and the poor. In this first, sweeping study of undercover investigations of work and poverty in America, award-winning historian Mark Pittenger examines how intellectuals were shaped by their experiences with the poor, and how despite their sympathy toward working-class people, they unintentionally helped to develop the contemporary concept of a degraded and "other" American underclass. While contributing to our understanding of the history of American social thought, Class Unknown offers a new perspective on contemporary debates over how we understand and represent our own society and its class divisions.

New York: NYU Press, 2012. 

By April M. Zeoli, Amy Molocznik, Jennifer Paruk, Elise Omaki, Shannon Frattaroli, Marian E. Betz, Annette Christy, Reena Kapoor, Christopher Knoepke, Wenjuan Ma, Michael A. Norko, Veronica A. Pear, Ali Rowhani-Rahbar, Julia P. Schleimer, Jeffrey W. Swanson & Garen J. Wintemute

Background

Extreme Risk Protection Orders (ERPOs) are civil court orders that prohibit firearm purchase and possession when someone is behaving dangerously and is at risk of harming themselves and/or others. As of June 2024, ERPOs are available in 21 states and the District of Columbia to prevent firearm violence. This paper describes the design and protocol of a six-state study of ERPO use.

Methods

The six states included are California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Maryland, and Washington. During the 3-year project period (2020–2023), ERPO case files were obtained through public records requests or through agreements with agencies with access to these data in each state. A team of over four dozen research assistants from seven institutions coded 6628 ERPO cases, abstracting 80 variables per case under domains related to respondent characteristics, events and behaviors leading to ERPO petitions, petitioner types, and court outcomes. Research assistants received didactic training through an online learning management system that included virtual training modules, quizzes, practice coding exercises, and two virtual synchronous sessions. A protocol for gaining strong interrater reliability was used. Research assistants also learned strategies for reducing the risk of experiencing secondary trauma through the coding process, identifying its occurrence, and obtaining help.

Discussion

Addressing firearm violence in the U.S. is a priority. Understanding ERPO use in these six states can inform implementation planning and ERPO uptake, including promising opportunities to enhance safety and prevent firearm-related injuries and deaths. By publishing this protocol, we offer detailed insight into the methods underlying the papers published from these data, and the process of managing data abstraction from ERPO case files across the multi-state and multi-institution teams involved. Such information may also inform future analyses of this data, and future replication efforts.

Injury Epidemiology volume 11, Article number: 49 (2024) 

By Evan K. Rose

This paper uses administrative employment and conviction data to evaluate laws that restrict access to job seekers’ criminal records. Convictions generate decreases in employment and earnings, partly due to shifts toward lower-paying industries less likely to check criminal histories. However, a 2013 Seattle law barring employers from examining job seekers’ records until after an initial screening had negligible impacts on ex-offenders labor market outcomes. The results are consistent with employers deferring background checks until later in the interview process or ex-offenders applying only to jobs where clean records are not required, a pattern supported by survey evidence.

Journal of Labor Economics, 2021

By Suraj Lakhani 

This paper provides an overview of the intersection between (violent) extremism and video gaming, examining the current landscape, trends, and threats. Analysing existing literature and open-source materials, this paper discussesthe types of games, platforms, and services that are vulnerable to this type of infiltration and use; particularly focussing on content, platform features, and overlaps. The paper also examines a number of recurrent themes, including: ‘radicalisation, recruitment, and reinforcing views’; ‘community building and strengthening’; and ‘extremist online ecosystems’. Thereafter, the responses to (violent) extremism from various platforms will be explored, before reflecting on current challenges and future considerations. Video gaming is considered to be one of the most consistent and fastest-growing sectors. It is estimated that there are around 2.8 billion gamers around the world (Gilbert, n.d.). As part of this, online gaming represents one of the biggest industries globally with over 900 million gamers and an estimated annual revenue of USD 18 billion (Clement, 2021). This growth is not only attributed to the development of online games and communities, but also to the game hosting and adjacent communications platformsthat have been specifically designed for gamers and gaming, including Steam, Stadia, Twitch, Discord, and DLive (ADL, 2019). There are numerous (often overlooked) positive economic, health, social, and psychological benefits of gaming (ADL, 2019; Schrier, 2019). During the COVID-19 pandemic, for example, in which people have been isolated from their social groups for lengthy periods of time, online gaming has brought numerous benefits, with players reporting positive experiences such as making friends, feeling as though they are a part of various communities, finding new interests, and discovering new aspects about themselves (ADL, 2020). However, as technology develops, so do the associated harms, with new challenges constantly presented. VIDEO GAMES AND (VIOLENT) EXTREMISM A growing concern within European Union (and for that matter global) policy, security, and counter-terrorism circles is the increasing intersection between video gaming and (violent) extremism (EU, 2020; RAN, 2021). In a recent Radicalisation Awareness Network paper (RAN, 2021), it was suggested that extremists and terrorists, who are often pioneers in the digital space, are afforded new opportunities through gaming and associated platforms. These individuals ‘have introduced innovations faster than we have been able to respond, and as a result, have grown their digital advantage’ (ibid: 3). There are concerns that video games and associated (adjacent) platforms can be used to disseminate digital propaganda (Lakomy, 2019), and for purposes of radicalisation and recruitment (EU, 2020; Europol, 2021). However, as will be discussed in depth in this paper, the relationship between radicalisation, recruitment, and gaming is often complicated, with current literature challenging whether these outcomes are (violent) extremists’ primary intentions, with, instead, reinforcing beliefs, community building and strengthening, and developing more robust online ecosystems appearing to hold more prominence (Davey, 2021). It is critical to mention, however, that there is a distinct lack of (particularly empirical) research and literature in this area of study (Lakomy, 2019), with work at a nascent stage (Robinson and Whittaker, 2021), something that is particularly evident in relation to online gaming, video game hosting, and adjacent communications platforms (Davey, 2021). Although a varied and complex phenomenon (RAN, 2020), and one with numerous considerations, there have been various (often anecdotal) examples of the intersection between video gaming and (violent) extremism by jihadists, far-right violent extremists, and ethno-nationalist groups. Resultantly, ‘the search for any one narrative being used by such a varied group in such a varied array of circumstances would be an exercise in futility’ (ibid: 4). Saying that, most notably in Europe, there has been particular concern over the digital recruitment tactics of far-right (violent) extremists (RAN, 2021), where it is thought that they are ‘firmly anchored in the online gaming community, while the presence of Islamist terrorists can also be observed, albeit to a lesser extent’ (EU, 2020: 4). According to Europol’s (2021: 90) EU Terrorism Situation and Trend Report, ‘it can be noted that the use of video games, gaming platforms and forums, as well as gamer channels for spreading right-wing extremist propaganda has been a growing trend.’ Further, ‘(v)ideo games and video game communication applications were increasingly used in 2020 to share right-wing terrorist and extremist propaganda, in particular among young people’ (ibid: 78). This, of course, coincides with the rapid growth of far-right violent extremism and associated attacks, as documented by initiatives like the Global Terrorism Index. With this in mind, the focus of this paper predominantly lies with far-right (violent) extremism, though jihadist involvement is discussed where relevant, and arguably should not be overlooked nor underestimated.   

Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European Union, 2021 24p.