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"The COVID-19 pandemic led to substantial changes in the daily activities of millions of Americans, with many businesses and schools closed, public events cancelled and states introducing stay-at-home orders. This article used police-recorded open crime data to understand how the frequency of common types of crime changed in 16 large cities across the United States in the early months of 2020."
Your resource for news, research, opinion and comment in the world of Criminology and Criminal Justice, brought to you by the Criminology Library, Centre for Criminology & Sociolegal Studies, University of Toronto
How Women's Police Stations Prevent Gender Violence
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"Women’s Police Stations are unique innovations that emerged in Latin America in the second half of the 20th century to address violence against women. Variations of the model have since spread across other parts of the global south—in Bolivia, Ecuador, Nicaragua, Peru, and Uruguay, and more recently in Sierra Leone, India, Ghana, Kosovo, Liberia, the Philippines, South Africa and Uganda (Jubb et al. 2010). Like traditional policing models they offer a 365-day emergency response service, employ uniformed armed officers, have the authority of the state, and the same powers. Unlike traditional policing models, officers work from a gender perspective and have additional specialist training in responding to gender violence. CMFs look nothing like a police station. Most are brightly painted converted houses with welcoming reception rooms designed to receive victims, not offenders and do not have holding cells. They employ multi-disciplinary teams of police, social workers, lawyers, psychologists and counsellors who work collaboratively with other organisations (such as local boards, local government, religious, educational, and community organisations). While CMFs provide tertiary and secondary interventions in response to discrete incidents of domestic and sexual violence, more uniquely they have a legislated mandate to engage in primary prevention at least once a month within their own communities."
"Women’s Police Stations are unique innovations that emerged in Latin America in the second half of the 20th century to address violence against women. Variations of the model have since spread across other parts of the global south—in Bolivia, Ecuador, Nicaragua, Peru, and Uruguay, and more recently in Sierra Leone, India, Ghana, Kosovo, Liberia, the Philippines, South Africa and Uganda (Jubb et al. 2010). Like traditional policing models they offer a 365-day emergency response service, employ uniformed armed officers, have the authority of the state, and the same powers. Unlike traditional policing models, officers work from a gender perspective and have additional specialist training in responding to gender violence. CMFs look nothing like a police station. Most are brightly painted converted houses with welcoming reception rooms designed to receive victims, not offenders and do not have holding cells. They employ multi-disciplinary teams of police, social workers, lawyers, psychologists and counsellors who work collaboratively with other organisations (such as local boards, local government, religious, educational, and community organisations). While CMFs provide tertiary and secondary interventions in response to discrete incidents of domestic and sexual violence, more uniquely they have a legislated mandate to engage in primary prevention at least once a month within their own communities."
Using Social and Behavioural Science to Support COVID-19 Pandemic Response
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"The COVID-19 pandemic represents a massive global health crisis. Because the crisis requires large-scale behaviour change and places significant psychological burdens on individuals, insights from the social and behavioural sciences can be used to help align human behaviour with the recommendations of epidemiologists and public health experts. Here we discuss evidence from a selection of research topics relevant to pandemics, including work on navigating threats, social and cultural influences on behaviour, science communication, moral decision-making, leadership, and stress and coping. In each section, we note the nature and quality of prior research, including uncertainty and unsettled issues. We identify several insights for effective response to the COVID-19 pandemic and highlight important gaps researchers should move quickly to fill in the coming weeks and months."
"The COVID-19 pandemic represents a massive global health crisis. Because the crisis requires large-scale behaviour change and places significant psychological burdens on individuals, insights from the social and behavioural sciences can be used to help align human behaviour with the recommendations of epidemiologists and public health experts. Here we discuss evidence from a selection of research topics relevant to pandemics, including work on navigating threats, social and cultural influences on behaviour, science communication, moral decision-making, leadership, and stress and coping. In each section, we note the nature and quality of prior research, including uncertainty and unsettled issues. We identify several insights for effective response to the COVID-19 pandemic and highlight important gaps researchers should move quickly to fill in the coming weeks and months."
The Predator in Your Pocket: A Multidisciplinary Assessment of the Stalkerware Application Industry
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"Persons who engage in technology-facilitated violence, abuse, and harassment sometimes install spyware on a targeted person’s mobile phone. Spyware has a wide range of capabilities, including pervasive monitoring of text and chat messages, recording phone logs, tracking social media posts, logging website visits, activating a GPS system, registering keystrokes, and even activating phones’ microphones and cameras, as well as sometimes blocking incoming phone calls. These capabilities can afford dramatic powers and control over an individual’s everyday life. And when this software is used abusively, it can operate as a predator in a person’s pocket, magnifying the pervasive surveillance of the spyware operator."
Understanding Violent Crime Recidivism
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"People convicted of violent crimes constitute a majority of the imprisoned population but are generally ignored by existing policies aimed at reducing mass incarceration. Serious efforts to shrink the large footprint of the prison system will need to recognize this fact. This point is especially pressing at the time of this writing, as states and the federal system consider large-scale prison releases motivated by the COVID-19 pandemic."
"People convicted of violent crimes constitute a majority of the imprisoned population but are generally ignored by existing policies aimed at reducing mass incarceration. Serious efforts to shrink the large footprint of the prison system will need to recognize this fact. This point is especially pressing at the time of this writing, as states and the federal system consider large-scale prison releases motivated by the COVID-19 pandemic."
Policing the Pandemic: Tracking the Policing of Covid-19 Across Canada
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"The Policing the Pandemic Project was launched on 4 April, 2020 to track and visualize the massive and extraordinary expansions of police power in response to the COVID-19 Pandemic and the unequal patterns of enforcement that may arise as a result. The project aims to bring to light COVID-19 related patterns of police intervention to help understand who is being targeted, what justifications are being used by police, and how marginalized people are being impacted.:
"The Policing the Pandemic Project was launched on 4 April, 2020 to track and visualize the massive and extraordinary expansions of police power in response to the COVID-19 Pandemic and the unequal patterns of enforcement that may arise as a result. The project aims to bring to light COVID-19 related patterns of police intervention to help understand who is being targeted, what justifications are being used by police, and how marginalized people are being impacted.:
The Deterrent Effect of Surveillance Cameras on Crime
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"From the US to Colombia to China, millions of public surveillance cameras are at the core of crime prevention strategies. Yet, we know little about the effects of surveillance cameras on criminal behavior, especially in developing economies. We study an installation program in Medellín and find t hat t he q uasi-random allocation of cameras led to a decrease in crimes and arrests. With no increase in the monitoring capacity and no chance to use camera footage in prosecution, these results suggest offenders were deterred rather than incapacitated. We test for spillovers and find no evidence of crime displacement or diffusion of benefits to surrounding locations."
"From the US to Colombia to China, millions of public surveillance cameras are at the core of crime prevention strategies. Yet, we know little about the effects of surveillance cameras on criminal behavior, especially in developing economies. We study an installation program in Medellín and find t hat t he q uasi-random allocation of cameras led to a decrease in crimes and arrests. With no increase in the monitoring capacity and no chance to use camera footage in prosecution, these results suggest offenders were deterred rather than incapacitated. We test for spillovers and find no evidence of crime displacement or diffusion of benefits to surrounding locations."
Length of Incarceration and Recidivism
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"...This study, the seventh in the recidivism series, examines the relationship between length of incarceration and recidivism."
The Science of Gun Policy
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"In this report, part of the RAND Corporation's Gun Policy in America initiative, researchers seek objective information about what the scientific literature reveals about the likely effects of various gun laws. In this second edition of an earlier work, the authors add five gun policies to the 13 examined in the original analysis and expand the study time frame to incorporate a larger body of research. With those adjustments, the authors synthesize the available scientific data on the effects of 18 policies on firearm deaths, violent crime, the gun industry, defensive gun use, and other outcomes. By highlighting where scientific evidence is accumulating, the authors hope to build consensus around a shared set of facts that have been established through a transparent, nonpartisan, and impartial review process. In so doing, they also illuminate areas where more and better information could make important contributions to establishing fair and effective gun policies."
"In this report, part of the RAND Corporation's Gun Policy in America initiative, researchers seek objective information about what the scientific literature reveals about the likely effects of various gun laws. In this second edition of an earlier work, the authors add five gun policies to the 13 examined in the original analysis and expand the study time frame to incorporate a larger body of research. With those adjustments, the authors synthesize the available scientific data on the effects of 18 policies on firearm deaths, violent crime, the gun industry, defensive gun use, and other outcomes. By highlighting where scientific evidence is accumulating, the authors hope to build consensus around a shared set of facts that have been established through a transparent, nonpartisan, and impartial review process. In so doing, they also illuminate areas where more and better information could make important contributions to establishing fair and effective gun policies."
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