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Research summary: Crackdowns are law enforcement strategies based on the principles of deterrence theory, which stipulates that offenders are rational actors who will refrain from crime if perceived risks are higher than perceived benefits. Studies have shown that the effects of police street drug crackdowns are mostly short termed and followed by considerable displacement. In the early 2010s, an important part of illicit drug trades moved online to cryptomarkets, and law enforcement agencies have responded by engaging in online drug crackdowns. In this study, we focus on the perceptions of dark web users in order to determine, from a qualitative "data‐driven" perspective, whether police online crackdowns may have a cyber‐deterrent effect by analyzing 1796 forum posts. Our results show that these events trigger psychological and practical consequences that participants claim to have a conditional, although minor, deterrent effect. In the majority of cases, dark web users claimed to engage in several forms of spatial and tactical displacement. Policy implications: Our study suggests that police crackdowns on the dark web have limited, short‐term effectiveness in curbing illicit activities. It proposes that innovative policing approaches such as problem‐oriented policing and "pulling levers/focused deterrence" strategies, which involve identifying key actors and engaging with them, be potentially extended to the dark web. While this approach is promising, it emphasizes the need for further research to assess its efficacy in the online realm, as it is a largely uncharted territory for law enforcement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives. To investigate what transpires at opioid overdoses where police administer naloxone and to identify the frequency with which concerns about police-administered naloxone are observed. Methods. We reviewed body-worn camera (BWC) footage of all incidents where a Tempe, Arizona police officer administered naloxone or was present when the Tempe Fire Medical Rescue (TFMR) administered it, from February 3, 2020 to May 7, 2021 (n = 168). We devised a detailed coding instrument and employed univariate and bivariate analysis to examine the frequency of concerns regarding police-administered naloxone. Results. Police arrived on scene before the TFMR in 73.7% of cases. In 88.6% of calls the individual was unconscious when police arrived, but 94.6% survived the overdose. The primary concerns about police-administered naloxone were rarely observed. There were no cases of improper naloxone administration or accidental opioid exposure to an officer. Aggression toward police from an overdose survivor rarely occurred (3.6%), and arrests of survivors (3.6%) and others on scene (1.2%) were infrequent. Conclusions. BWC footage provides a unique window into opioid overdoses. In Tempe, the concerns over police-administered naloxone are overstated. If results are similar elsewhere, those concerns are barriers that must be removed. (Am J Public Health. 2022;112(9):1326–1332. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2022.306918) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2017, San Francisco (SF) implemented Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion (LEAD), a program Beckett described as harm reduction policing. Through a process and outcome evaluation of LEAD SF, this paper demonstrates the positive impacts of harm reduction policing, on those who use drugs and/or engage in sex work. When law enforcement officers used their discretion to divert individuals into LEAD rather than arrest, those individuals had significantly fewer felony and misdemeanor arrests and felony cases, in comparison to a propensity score matched group. The focus group and interview data describe that the collaboration, the warm handoff, and LEAD's harm reduction principles were mechanisms of success. However, obtaining officer buy-in was a key challenge. Despite that obstacle, LEAD SF's harm reduction policing reduces offending, improves the wellbeing of people who use drugs and engage in sex work, and allows the police to carry out their mandate to protect and serve. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2016, San Francisco (SF) implemented the Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion (LEAD) program, a harm reduction–based pre-booking diversion system for people who violate drug laws and/or are engaged in sex work. LEAD is set apart from existing diversion programs, as it uses police as point of entry. Prior LEAD studies indicate some success in reducing recidivism and improving life outcomes. However, less is known about program implementation, including barriers and facilitators. Relying on policy documents, interviews, and focus groups, this study describes the LEAD SF's development, operations, adaptations, and challenges. It also identifies the unique context of LEAD SF that led to implementation barriers and facilitators. Results show that SF experienced success in collaboration, relationship building, and client connections to services but experienced challenges in securing and maintaining police officer buy-in and keeping clear and open lines of communication regarding LEAD goals, objectives, policies, and procedures. This led to the termination of LEAD SF in 2020. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drug and alcohol offences represent a significant portion of police work. Officers commonly rely on subjective indicators of intoxication, and prosecutors depend on officer evidence collection, written reports, and testimony at trial. Police body-worn cameras (BWCs) have diffused widely in policing partly due to their perceived evidentiary value, but the extent to which BWCs affect the adjudication of such offences remains unanswered. The current study explores this question with 7,000 misdemeanour cases from Tempe (Arizona), filed from 2014 to 2017. The Tempe Police Department deployed BWCs from November 2015 to May 2016. Results indicate that BWCs had no impact on guilty outcomes, but cameras were associated with significantly shorter time to adjudication. We discuss the important policy implications of these thought-provoking findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The research on police body-worn cameras (BWCs) has rapidly expanded to evaluate the technology's impact on a range of police outcomes. Far fewer studies have addressed the various effects on downstream criminal justice actors, and those that do have focused almost entirely on prosecutors. Thus, public defenders have remained on the periphery of the police BWC discussion, despite playing an important role as an end-user of the technology. This study draws on qualitative data from focus groups with public defenders in the Commonwealth of Virginia to discuss the perception of BWCs as neutral observers in a police–citizen encounter. We then provide implications and recommend avenues for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study assessed the early deployment of the Anaheim Police Department's body-worn camera (BWC) program in 2015 by examining camera activations across officers, trends in activations over time, and how different police–community contacts predict BWC activations. These were assessed with correlational analyses among 40 BWC-equipped officers in the first 6 months of their use. Activation of the BWCs among officers varied widely, with 6-month average activations ranging from 0% to 72%. Average activation rates increased over time from 3% to 54%. Officers disproportionately activated their cameras for events related to crimes; for example, activation rates for other categories were significantly lower compared to violent crimes, with odds ratios ranging from 0.148 to 0.663. The article concludes with a discussion on how the failure to activate a BWC limits the potential benefits of the technology. While officers have considerable discretion on when to activate their BWCs, law enforcement agencies must not only train and deploy BWCs among their officers but also audit and supervise individual use to ensure successful BWC programs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Globally, tobacco is responsible for the death of approximately 6 million individuals per year. In reaction, governments have enacted tobacco control policies that cope with the harmful effects of the drug. However, these policies have also created geographic price disparities and increased the effort needed to purchase legal tobacco products. The result was the creation of a new illicit tobacco market. While tobacco smuggling continues through conventional avenues, a new generation of traffickers have turned to a different source for the illicit distribution of tobacco -- the internet, specifically the darkweb. The purpose of this paper is to describe the size and scope of illicit trafficking of tobacco on cryptomarkets, and the diverse types of tobacco-related products available on the cryptomarkets. Our analysis will provide guidance for policymakers, researchers, and all interested in the illicit trade of tobacco. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reports that research on police body-worn cameras (BWCs) has dramatically increased in the last 5 years and notes increased funding for research, role played by politics and money, and skepticism surrounding technology.

This paper examines a pre-planned fraud which ran undetected for more than five years and deceived 2285 investors for $240 million. We seek to uncover the effects of trust in social ties and conducting due diligence on 1) an investor’s initial amount of investment and 2) their overall loss of capital. Using data from a survey of 559 victims, we conduct two linear regression models to test for effects on investors’ amount of initial investments and their total net loss. By using two dependent variables, we examine effects of social ties and performing due diligence at the beginning stage and end stage of a Ponzi scheme. Performing due diligence and relying on information provided by industry professionals increased initial investments, while having performed due diligence also increased investors’ loss of capital at the end of the fraud, suggesting both social ties and due diligence contributed to fraud victimization. The findings are interpreted within the context of a particularly sophisticated fraud where document falsification was almost impossible to detect, contributing to a false sense of security among victims. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: This study looks at whether social opportunity structures are associated with transitions into more serious drug market offending. Our focus is on the speed at which transitions occurred, and whether variations in criminal embeddedness play a role in explaining this. Methods: A survey of 520 North American cannabis cultivators allowed us to assess one dimension of the criminal career—escalation—looking at the speed of transitions from cannabis user to grower. Our main predictor, criminal embeddedness, was measured through the presence of a cultivation mentor involved in cannabis cultivation. Results: Cox proportional hazard regression analysis demonstrated late cannabis use onset and an indicator of the number of drugs used beyond cannabis were found to accelerate transitions. In addition, within-person changes in mentorship were found to influence the timing of escalation, with meeting a mentor associated with quicker transitions into cannabis cultivation. Conclusions: Findings emphasize the role of mentors as gateways into new milieus. Results support increased attention to the immediate social networks and broader social opportunity structures in which offenders and would-be offenders are embedded as major factors driving the timing of onset into more serious criminal pathways. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This introduction to the JCCJ special issue on illicit networks seeks to accomplish three objectives. First, we offer a brief explanation of the network paradigm and its importance to criminology; our purpose is to convince readers of the utility of social network analysis (SNA). Second, we summarize the benefits of working groups with the aim of providing readers with the context from which they can understand why these informal collectives are critical to the advancement of science. And finally, the remainder of the article introduces the research assembled for this special issue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Illicit markets capitalize on the vulnerabilities of trade systems. When these weaknesses involve mechanisms common to several aspects of transnational commerce, the effect of illicit behavior, and conversely of anti-crime policy, can be magnified. This study introduces a script-network method to estimate the impact of targeting illicit behavior within the context of an entire market system. Using the high-value art and antiquities market as a case study, we anticipate the effects of two anti-crime policy directives--movement control and monitoring financial transactions. In addition to advancing a new method, two original metrics are presented--one measures the complexity of sectors in a trade system (complexity) and the other anticipates the incentive to work around crime control efforts (transformity). In consideration of these system characteristics, our results suggest that maximum decoupling of illicit\legal trade is more likely with the introduction of safeguards targeting central trade functions that are associated with valuing and gifting objects. Network-oriented research could help the prevailing market reduction approach (MRA) to be more effective in reducing transnational illicit trade because network analytics are specially crafted for dealing with the statistical challenges that are inherent to studying transnational illicit market systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Facilities that draw youth from different communities are prone to become offender convergence settings and intercity crime generators. Applying network analysis to self-nominated hangouts of 5,082 delinquent youth residing in Southern California revealed specific facilities acting as regional convergence settings. A small number of magnetic locations (measured by popularity and breadth of appeal) enable the congregation and interaction of youth that would otherwise not be exposed to each other. As predicted, the sociocirculatory structure of place networks remains relatively constant over time. In-degree and betweenness centrality statistics offer a viable analytic strategy to identify facilities operating as stable regional convergence locations. Crime prevention programs invoking effective place management through ordinances may offer a way to publicly govern these private facilities. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

If as suspected, criminal enterprise feeds off legal trade, then anti-crime policy must target the points at which legal and illicit markets intersect. This study offers a strategy to pinpoint and calibrate the degree of fusion across an entire trade system. Legal and illicit processes and mechanisms essential to all sectors of an industry – development, financing, handling, possession and regulation – were dissected using a script methodology. Eigenvector centrality scores identified interlocking tools and actors. The results highlight the role played by supporting industries (e.g. insurers, auction houses, storage specialists, foundations and high net-worth buyers) and the need to target temporary markets, shipping activity and financial transactions with regulatory policing efforts. Vaccinating global economies from illicit activity is best achieved through a soft law approach aimed at identifiable mechanisms (faulty props) used by groups playing pivotal trade roles (bad actors). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Transnational illicit markets are deeply embedded within legal trade systems and thus should be affected by shifting market conditions. Applying a stochastic actor-oriented model (SAOM), this study tests whether variation in illicit market opportunity could account for changing relations within the small arms trade (2003–2008). Measures of market accessibility – changes in export activity, reporting transparency and the percent of the labour force that is armed – outperformed measures of weapon availability with the exception of involvement in armed conflict. Significant structural change in outdegree density and transitivity suggest the development of trade factions, and decreasing balance hints that leaders are emerging. With the pending de-escalation of US-led conflict in the Middle East, a flood of second-hand weaponry is about to enter the market. Continued research is required to further uncover how the legitimate trade infrastructure facilitates the illicit flow of goods. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Uncovering the resiliency of ties between individuals involved in criminal enterprise will contribute to our understanding of how illicit markets function. To examine activities along the entire drug market commodity chain, this study extracted information about individuals involved or associated with trafficking (1,998 people) from police intelligence reports generated from 2004 to 2006. Significant differences were found for centrality and cohesion across market niches. Results show that the highest fragmentation potential lies with individuals who are involved with smuggling, supply, and financing, particularly when these individuals are also involved in other niches. Variability in small-world and scale-free properties suggest that interdiction strategies must be tailored to niche characteristics. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Rather than examining networks of individuals as prior research has done, this study systematically examines the structure and composition of co-offending among types of criminal enterprise groups. Using social network analysis, the authors show that different types of crime groups tend to have unique co-offending patterns as measured by network composition and structure. The results also support the countercurrent of criminologists who suggest that ethnically derived categories may be misleading when trying to classify criminal enterprise groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Structural analysis of illicit markets suggests that criminal enterprise is to some degree linked with legitimate enterprise, and that, networks generally comprise groups and clusters of individuals with varying subgroup structural characteristics. Rather than investigating networks formed exclusively through formal organizational ties, this study compares the structure of criminal networks formed by different types of ties (co-offending, kinship, formal organization membership and legitimate business or other non-criminal connections) using p*(exponential random graph) models. The results indicate that kinship and formal organization networks are highly cohesive and have low fragmentation probabilities. Therefore, the results show that blood, both through kinship ties or the metaphoric blood that ties formal criminal organizations is thicker than the ties that bind co-offending groups. Policy implications for policing techniques are also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research examines the relationship between demographic, social network, and criminal history variables, and the distance between the home and locations of individuals (associates) involved in an illicit drug production network. The authors integrate principals from environmental criminology and routine activities theories, journey to crime research, and social network analysis in order to explore the geographic and social space of criminal associates. The results show that the distance between individuals in the drug production criminal network and their associates vary systematically with network characteristics (centrality measures) but not with demographics or criminal history variables.Security Journal (2008) 21, 77–94. doi:10.1057/palgrave.sj.8350069 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is common practice in survey questionnaires to include a general open and non-directive feedback question at the end, but the analysis of this type of data is rarely discussed in the methodological literature. While these open-ended comments can be useful, most researchers fail to report on this issue. The aim of this article is to illustrate and reflect upon the benefits and challenges of analyzing responses to open-ended feedback questions. The article describes the experiences of coding and analyzing data generated through a feedback question at the end of an international online survey with small-scale cannabis cultivators carried out by the Global Cannabis Cultivation Research Consortium. After describing the design and dataset of the web survey, the analytical approach and coding frame are presented. The analytical strategies chosen in this study illustrate the diversity and complexity of feedback comments which pose methodological challenges to researchers wishing to use them for data analyses. In this article, three types of feedback comments (political/policy comments, general comments of positive and negative appreciation, and methodological comments) are used to illustrate the difficulties and advantages of analyzing this type of data. The advantages of analyzing feedback comments are well known, but they seem to be rarely exploited. General feedback questions at the end of surveys are typically non-directive. If researchers want to use these data for research and analyses, they need a clear strategy. They ought to give enough thought to why they are including this type of question, and develop an analytical strategy at the design stage of the study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]