tag:theconversation.com,2011:/global/topics/homicide-6103/articlesHomicide – The Conversation2024-03-07T15:00:05Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2226652024-03-07T15:00:05Z2024-03-07T15:00:05ZFemicide in Italy: A modern phenomenon deeply rooted in country’s cultural past<p>“Femicide is not a crime of passion, it is a crime of power,” wrote Elena Cecchettin <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/nov/25/anger-across-italy-as-killing-of-student-highlights-countrys-femicide-rate">after her sister</a> was killed in November 2023.</p>
<p>Italian student Giulia Cecchettin, 22, was killed allegedly by her controlling ex-boyfriend, Filippo Turetta, a fellow student at a university in Padua. Not being able to handle the breakup, Turetta <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-67530529">lured Giulia into one last shopping trip together</a> before killing her, prosecutors claim. Her body, <a href="https://www.ilmessaggero.it/en/life_behind_bars_filippo_turetta_s_new_routine-7910899.html">with more than 20 stab wounds</a>, was found at the bottom of a ditch. Turetta fled to Germany, was caught <a href="https://www.ilmessaggero.it/en/life_behind_bars_filippo_turetta_s_new_routine-7910899.html">and is now behind bars awaiting trial in Italy</a>, according to the latest reports from Italy. </p>
<p>Cecchettin’s case has grabbed headlines in Italy <a href="https://nypost.com/2024/01/06/opinion/stop-ignoring-violence-against-women-in-italy/">and worldwide</a>. But it is not unique. Femicide – <a href="https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/us/definition/english/femicide#:%7E:text=%2F%CB%88fem%C9%AAsa%C9%AAd%2F-,%2F%CB%88fem%C9%AAsa%C9%AAd%2F,girl%20because%20she%20is%20female">the act of killing women on account of their gender</a> – is worryingly common in Italy. At least <a href="https://www.ansa.it/english/news/2023/12/11/109-women-murdered-in-italy-so-far-in-2023-study_b1b82904-4d40-47e6-8758-ed3450567548.html#:%7E:text=As%20of%20December%203%2C%20109,criminal%20police%20presented%20on%20Monday">109 women were killed in Italy in 2023</a>; more than half were murdered by a partner or an ex-partner.</p>
<p>International <a href="https://www.europeandatajournalism.eu/cp_data_news/in-italy-femicides-are-not-decreasing-like-homicides/">comparisons on femicide rates can be difficult</a>, but those who do track such numbers suggest that Italy’s femicide problem has been persistent. So much so that cultural organization <a href="https://inarea.com/en/case-study/treccani/">the Institute of the Italian Encyclopedia Treccani</a> chose “femicide” as <a href="https://www.unionesarda.it/en/the-word-of-the-year-for-2023-treccani-chooses-quot-femicidequot-ozm95r5j">2023’s word of the year</a>.</p>
<p>In an attempt to address the high rates of femicide, on Dec. 12, 2023, a new law went into effect in Italy titled <a href="https://www.loc.gov/item/global-legal-monitor/2023-12-27/italy-new-law-to-combat-violence-against-women-and-domestic-violence-enters-into-effect">Provisions for Combating Violence Against Women and Domestic Violence</a>. Although the law strengthens protection for women by broadening the definition of unlawful conduct related to domestic violence and by increasing penalties for offenders, the legislation has its limits.</p>
<p>One of the ministers who proposed that law, Eugenia Maria Roccella, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/22/world/europe/italy-giulia-cecchettin-violence-against-women.html">emphasized how laws had failed to protect Giulia Cecchettin</a>, or “any other women who did not suspect the violence brooding in the heart of the man who claimed to love them.” </p>
<p>Indeed, Elena Cecchettin pointed at a cultural factor in the killing of her sister and other women in Italy: a patriarchal society in which male violence and control has long been accepted. “<a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-67514334">Monsters are healthy sons of the patriarchy and rape culture</a>,” she said.</p>
<h2>The Roman rule</h2>
<p>Femicide is a cultural phenomenon with deep roots that go back millennia.</p>
<p>Many premodern societies were patriarchal and violent, but Italy is in many ways unique. The legacies of the Roman Empire, Italian Fascism and Roman Catholicism still loom large. Each, I would argue, has contributed to a modern Italy in which male violence has been normalized. </p>
<p>The history of Rome is <a href="https://www.thefrenchhistorypodcast.com/metoo-and-roman-rape-culture-with-darah-vann-orr/">inseparable from misogyny and rape</a>; it is present in the city-state’s origin story. When Romulus found his newly born city bereft of women, he trapped unmarried girls and women from the neighboring Sabine tribe and kept them as Roman concubines. By the time the Sabines sought revenge, many of the tribe’s daughters and sisters were either carrying or had given birth to Romans. <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Sabine">The women</a>, so the story goes, ran onto the battlefield as live shields to <a href="https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/359809">secure peace between their fathers and Roman captors</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A painting depicts women being abducted by Romen men." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/580308/original/file-20240306-18-2g9zim.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/580308/original/file-20240306-18-2g9zim.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580308/original/file-20240306-18-2g9zim.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580308/original/file-20240306-18-2g9zim.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580308/original/file-20240306-18-2g9zim.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580308/original/file-20240306-18-2g9zim.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580308/original/file-20240306-18-2g9zim.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Pietro da Cortona’s painting ‘Rape of the Sabine Women.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d8/Cortona_Rape_of_the_Sabine_Women_01.jpg">Wikmedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Roman women were treated as second-class citizens. During <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Colosseum">gladiator fights</a>, women were allowed to <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/please-find-your-seats-evidence-seating-plan-discovered-colosseum-180954023/">sit only in the worst seats</a>, next to the slaves. Women’s disobedience resulted in severe physical punishment, with instances of Roman women being <a href="https://blogs.unimelb.edu.au/shaps-research/2022/06/01/domestic-violence-and-the-law-in-ancient-rome/">kicked to death, drowned and thrown from windows</a>. </p>
<p>Higher social status did not protect women. Emperor <a href="https://blogs.unimelb.edu.au/shaps-research/2022/06/01/domestic-violence-and-the-law-in-ancient-rome/">Nero’s first wife and his mother were murdered on his orders</a>; Nero’s second wife was kicked to death while pregnant. Even <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Vestal-Virgins">Vestal Virgins</a>, holy Roman priestesses, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Vestal-Virgins">were buried alive</a> if they violated their vow of chastity or let the eternal flame die. </p>
<p>While prostitutes and actresses <a href="https://www.focus.it/cultura/curiosita/che-cose-la-suburra">were traded</a>, <a href="https://www.focus.it/cultura/storia/diritto-di-bacio-antica-roma">raped and killed</a>, noble women were subject to “<a href="https://historicaleve.com/right-to-kiss-in-ancient-rome/">the right to kiss</a>.” Through that law, male relatives were allowed to “test” women to make sure they had not drunk wine. Violating that “right to kiss” and the no-alcohol policy <a href="https://www.focus.it/cultura/storia/diritto-di-bacio-antica-roma">was punishable by death</a>.</p>
<p>Misogyny was so endemic that Roman law <a href="https://theconversation.com/ancient-rome-didnt-have-specific-domestic-violence-legislation-but-the-laws-they-had-give-us-a-window-into-a-world-of-abuse-179460">focused on preserving a woman’s chastity</a> rather than on punishing the perpetrator in the case of rape. Roman centurion <a href="https://artuk.org/discover/artworks/libertatis-virginia-killed-by-her-father-to-protect-her-from-appius-claudius-221779">Lucius Verginius killed his daughter</a> to protect her chastity from an abuser, Appius Claudius. </p>
<p>This misogynist culture has been celebrated through art, education and cinematography. For example, works by Giambolognia, Rubens, Poussin and Picasso all depict the rape of Sabines, with pieces <a href="https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/359809">on display in New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art</a> and in <a href="https://www.theflorentine.net/2022/06/14/new-summer-opening-hours-at-the-accademia-gallery/">Florence’s Accademia Gallery</a>. </p>
<p>Roman patriarchal legacy is prevalent in pop culture, too. From “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0043949/">Quo Vadis</a>” to “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0052618/">Ben-Hur</a>” and “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0172495/">Gladiator</a>,” movies have glorified a violent time in which strong men were venerated. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, many contemporary men are – as it has been recently claimed – <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/15/style/roman-empire-men-tiktok-instagram.html">obsessed with the Roman Empire</a>. </p>
<p>So too are cultural industries. Cinecittà film studios’ gladiator series “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2023/jul/14/hollywood-on-the-tiber-cinecitta-stars-return-to-rome-studios-heston-fellini">Those About to Die</a>” has become <a href="https://variety.com/2023/film/global/roland-emmerich-those-about-to-die-prime-video-1235684470/">an international hit</a>.</p>
<p>For a certain type of modern man, Rome represents an escape from <a href="https://www.genderspecialist.com/blog/whymenareobsessedwithrome">egalitarian norms</a>, allowing them to reclaim a perceived loss of male power. </p>
<h2>The Fascist touch</h2>
<p>Italian society also continues to be influenced by fascism, an ideology <a href="https://phillipian.net/2023/12/15/hypermasculinity-and-the-rise-of-fascism/">steeped in male violence</a>.</p>
<p>Fascism, introduced to Italy by Benito Mussolini in the 1930s, held <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/1394751">procreation as the main woman’s duty</a>. Women were defined in terms of their full subordination to men and in regards to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/026569149302300103">their role in the family and in motherhood</a>. </p>
<p>Nearly 100 years later, the legacy of fascism is alive in Italy. Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni praised Mussolini in her youth, and her own right-wing political party, Fratelli d’Italia, is a <a href="https://theconversation.com/giorgia-meloni-the-political-provocateur-set-to-become-italys-first-far-right-leader-since-mussolini-190116">descendant of the Italian Social Movement party</a> that was <a href="https://www.politico.eu/article/italy-mussolini-denies-rehabbing-fascism-after-army-calendar-outcry/">founded by former fascists</a>. </p>
<p>And as a new TV show about Mussolini’s rise, “<a href="https://www.lemonde.fr/en/m-le-mag/article/2023/12/21/in-rome-cinecitta-studios-embraces-new-golden-age_6365899_117.html">M: Son of the Century</a>,” shows, the fascist leader remains in the national consciousness. So too does the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/may/04/what-do-incels-fascists-and-terrorists-have-in-common-violent-misogyny">toxic “masculinism</a>” that became associated with fascism, finding a new audience among incels as a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/08912432221128545">rationale to legitimize anti-woman violence</a>. </p>
<h2>The Catholic grip</h2>
<p>Catholicism has also, I believe, helped <a href="https://www.scirp.org/journal/paperinformation?paperid=71987">normalize patriarchy and misogyny</a> in Italy. </p>
<p>Catholicism is at the core of the so-called “<a href="https://www.modernintimacy.com/the-psychology-of-the-madonna-whore-complex/">Madonna-whore complex</a>,” in which women are seen as being either chaste and virtuous or promiscuous and immoral. Theorists have long explored how that dichotomy is <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/aps.1831">steeped in misogyny</a>. Stereotypes based on <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/07491409.2013.832088">that dichotomy</a> have been used to justify perpetrators’ violence against women.</p>
<p>Take the example of Roman baroque painter Artemisia Gentileschi, who <a href="https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/exhibitions/past/artemisia/artemisias-rape-trial">was raped by her painter-mentor</a>, Agostino Tassi, in 1611 at the age of 17. She gave testimony in court, was physically tortured during the trial and treated as a promiscuous seductress. </p>
<p>Tassi was protected by the pope and set free; Gentileschi, despite being <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2016/oct/05/artemisia-gentileshi-painter-beyond-caravaggio">a brilliant artist</a>, was shamed and erased from public memory for centuries.</p>
<p>The influence of Catholicism has also contributed to customs and a legal system that can make women more vulnerable. Italy’s abortion laws allow Catholic doctors to “<a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8106580/#:%7E:text=Data%20from%20the%20Italian%20Ministry,increased%20over%20the%20last%20decade.">conscientiously object</a>” to performing a termination, forcing women seeking the procedure to <a href="https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2022/09/23/the-difficulties-of-getting-an-abortion-in-italy">travel across the country or abroad</a>.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, Catholic <a href="https://www.ncronline.org/opinion/grace-margins/church-must-face-its-own-role-violence-against-women">doctrine on contraception and abortion</a> has forced women – even those made pregnant through rape or facing high-risk pregnancies – to give birth.</p>
<p>Research also suggests the Catholic Church’s teachings on divorce may <a href="https://doi.org//10.4236/psych.2016.713155">cut off a route of escape</a> for women trapped in violent relationships. </p>
<h2>The deadly passion</h2>
<p>Meanwhile, Italy’s patriarchal traditions have bled into law and society in other ways.</p>
<p>The mandating of extreme leniency to those implicated in <a href="https://www.politico.eu/article/italy-giulia-cecchettin-confronts-its-toxic-culture-of-violence-against-women/">the killing of “spouses, daughters and sisters caught in illicit sex</a>” was written into the country’s penal code until 1981. And even today, public figures refer to “<a href="https://www.politico.eu/article/italy-giulia-cecchettin-confronts-its-toxic-culture-of-violence-against-women/">crimes of passion</a>” and “<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/how-italy-has-changed-its-view-on-murdering-women/2016/11/02/8f22d42a-930b-11e6-bc00-1a9756d4111b_story.html">honor killings</a>” in reference to the killing of women involved in “illicit” sexual relations. </p>
<p>Femicides do not occur in a vacuum; they are the outcome of a society that legitimizes violence against women. And while I believe changes to the law to better protect Italy’s women are welcome, looking at the country’s culture – both past and present – may also be a necessary step. Until then, Italy’s daughters will not be safe, or fully free.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/222665/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Julia Khrebtan-Hörhager does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A spate of recent high-profile murders has put focus on the role of patriarchy and misogyny in persistent rates of anti-woman violence in Italy.Julia Khrebtan-Hörhager, Associate Professor of Critical Cultural & International Studies, Colorado State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2175522023-11-19T18:59:43Z2023-11-19T18:59:43Z49 women have been killed in Australia so far in 2023 as a result of violence. Are we actually making any progress?<p>As of November 17, 49 women have been killed in Australia this year as a result of violence; 28 were allegedly killed at the hands of a male intimate or ex-intimate partner. That’s according to the activist project <a href="https://www.facebook.com/p/Counting-Dead-Women-Australia-100063733051461/">Counting Dead Women Australia</a>, which collects these figures based on media-reported crimes. </p>
<p>The Commonwealth government’s recent <a href="https://www.dss.gov.au/sites/default/files/documents/08_2023/np-outcomes-framework.pdf">Outcomes Framework</a> identifies key targets that need to be met if we are to end violence against women in “one generation”, as set out in the <a href="https://www.dss.gov.au/ending-violence">National Plan to End Violence Against Women and Children 2022–2032</a>. </p>
<p>The targets include:</p>
<ul>
<li>25% annual reductions in women being killed by intimate partners</li>
<li>improved understanding of violence against women and support for gender equality in the community</li>
<li>halving the rate of all forms of domestic/family violence and abuse against Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women and children by 2031, as progress towards zero. </li>
</ul>
<p>Yet, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/oct/05/rate-of-first-nations-women-eight-times-higher-than-for-non-indigenous-counterparts">Indigenous women in Australia are eight times</a> more likely than non-Indigenous women to be murdered. Overall, one woman is killed by an intimate partner every two weeks in Australia. </p>
<p>There is no doubt violence against women has gained critical public and policy attention. But sometimes it can feel as though the problem is growing and that nothing we are doing is working to stop it.</p>
<p>So how much progress are we actually making?</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/emotionally-hes-destroyed-me-why-intimate-partner-sexual-violence-needs-to-be-taken-as-seriously-as-stranger-rape-214581">'Emotionally, he's destroyed me': why intimate partner sexual violence needs to be taken as seriously as stranger rape</a>
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<h2>What the data show: the good news</h2>
<p>Any preventable death is one too many, and zero homicides of any person should be our ultimate goal. Yet data from the <a href="https://www.aic.gov.au/taxonomy/term/239">National Homicide Monitoring Program</a> show a reduction in intimate partner homicide in particular. </p>
<p>For example, in <a href="https://www.aic.gov.au/sites/default/files/2023-03/sr42_homicide_in_australia_2020-21.pdf">the most recent report</a>, 25 females were killed by an intimate partner (2020-21). That’s a 31% reduction in one year from 2019-20, when 36 females were killed by an intimate partner. In 2016-17, 40 females were killed by an intimate partner, so the reduction over five years to 2020-21 is about 38%. </p>
<p>While the rates vary year-to-year, the good news is that the overall trend over the past decade shows intimate partner homicide is in steady decline.</p>
<p>Another critical measure of violence against women is the <a href="https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/people/crime-and-justice/personal-safety-australia/latest-release">Personal Safety Survey (PSS)</a>. This is the most accurate measure of self-reported experiences of all forms of personal violence in Australia. </p>
<p>Conducted by the Australian Bureau of Statistics since 2005, the fourth wave was released earlier this year. While we often hear the lifetime prevalence rates of violence against women, it is changes in rates of violence experienced during the past 12 months that are most sensitive to current policies and programs. This means they are most useful for monitoring a decrease over time. </p>
<p>The survey shows rates of total partner violence, including both physical and sexual violence, have reduced. Overall, the 12-month partner violence rate decreased significantly, from 2.3% in the 12 months prior to the last survey (in 2016) to 1.5% during 2021-2022. The rate of cohabiting partner violence over the past two years has either decreased or not changed in all states of Australia (NT and ACT not reported).</p>
<p>Rates of sexual harassment in the most recent survey (2021-22) were also the lowest they’ve ever been in every state and territory. And there was a significant reduction in the national 12-month rate of sexual harassment to 12.6% in 2021-22 compared to 17.3% in 2016.</p>
<p>As a community, we are also hearing more about the truth of violence against women. This does seem to be improving our knowledge and attitudes. The Australian National Research Organisation for Women’s Safety (ANROWS) survey of <a href="https://www.ncas.au/">Australian community attitudes towards violence against women (NCAS)</a> identified that understanding and rejection of violence against women has been increasing over the past 12 years.</p>
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<h2>Where do we have the most work to do?</h2>
<p>As mentioned, Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander women experience violence at higher rates than non-Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander women. <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Senate/Legal_and_Constitutional_Affairs/FirstNationswomenchildren/Additional_Documents?docType=Answer%20to%20Question%20on%20Notice">Available national data</a> tell us that, despite comprising less than 3% of the population, Indigenous women have consistently experienced higher rates of homicide than non-Indigenous women since 2005–2006. The average rate is eight times higher than for non-Indigenous women. </p>
<p>Professor Kyllie Cripps’ <a href="https://theconversation.com/new-research-reveals-harrowing-stories-of-murdered-indigenous-women-and-the-failure-of-police-to-act-205655">coronial records investigation into 151 Indigenous women killed</a> over the past two decades due to intimate partner violence by Indigenous and non-Indigenous men further found that almost all had sought help from the police but did not receive the support that could have saved their lives.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/new-research-reveals-harrowing-stories-of-murdered-indigenous-women-and-the-failure-of-police-to-act-205655">New research reveals harrowing stories of murdered Indigenous women and the failure of police to act</a>
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<p>Alarmingly, national data on <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-12-09/linda-burney-wants-senate-inquiry-into-missing-indigenous-women/11773992">unsolved missing persons cases</a> highlight that Indigenous women represent up to 10% of cases. This is significant, as many are presumed dead.</p>
<p>When these data are coupled with statistics highlighting the disproportionate rate at which Indigenous women are hospitalised for assault-related injuries (<a href="https://www.aihw.gov.au/reports/domestic-violence/family-domestic-sexual-violence-in-australia-2018/summary">32 times higher</a> than for non-Indigenous women), there is clearly much work to be done in this area. </p>
<p>Our national datasets do not routinely report on the specific experiences of Indigenous women. This makes it difficult to know if there have been reductions in intimate partner and family violence in recent years.</p>
<p>But statistics alone do not articulate the complexity of these women’s stories and the systemic challenges they have encountered. This requires more in-depth research and engagement with Indigenous communities to appreciate risk, and how that translates into intervention and prevention strategies. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Senate/Legal_and_Constitutional_Affairs/FirstNationswomenchildren">Senate Inquiry into Missing and Murdered First Nations Women and Children</a> and the dedicated <a href="https://www.dss.gov.au/the-national-plan-to-end-violence-against-women-and-children/aboriginal-and-torres-strait-islander-action-plan-2023-2025">Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Action Plan</a> are investments in building evidence to better understand the systemic issues and ultimately end the pervasive family, domestic and sexual violence in communities across the nation. </p>
<p>A further issue raised by the available data is the persistent rate of sexual assault in the Australian community. The 12-month prevalence rate from the last Personal Safety Survey showed no significant change in sexual assault or threatened sexual assault, a trend that has remained steady since 2005. </p>
<p>Further, the most recent national survey of Australian community attitudes towards violence against women (NCAS) identified that overall, <a href="https://www.anrows.org.au/publication/chuck-her-on-a-lie-detector-investigating-australians-mistrust-in-womens-reports-of-sexual-assault/">four in ten Australians mistrust women’s reports of sexual violence</a>. This suggests we still have a way to go to better educate and inform people about the reality of sexual assault and to support women in reporting it.</p>
<p>There has been a welcome increase in policy and funding to address violence against women across Australia in recent years as well as investments in research.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/a-new-national-plan-aims-to-end-violence-against-women-and-children-in-one-generation-can-it-succeed-192497">A new national plan aims to end violence against women and children 'in one generation'. Can it succeed?</a>
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</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>And while it is difficult to directly attribute reductions in violence against women to specific policy actions, the data to date show there is cause for optimism that our efforts are beginning to have a meaningful impact. </p>
<p>It’s not yet clear if these reductions will continue – we need to analyse the trend over time to make a clear assessment. And we need further investigation on how our prevention and response efforts affect different groups within the Australian population to ensure that <em>all</em> women are safer. </p>
<p>But it is clear that to end violence against women “in one generation” – between 20 and 30 years – we must not lose our focus. It will continue to take a coordinated and evidence-based set of actions across our whole community to address, and ultimately prevent, violence against women in Australia. </p>
<p><em>If this article has raised issues for you, or if you’re concerned about someone you know, call 1800RESPECT on 1800 737 732. In immediate danger, call 000.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/217552/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Anastasia Powell receives funding from the Australian Research Council, Criminology Research Council, Australia's National Research Organisation for Women's Safety (ANROWS), and Family Safety Victoria. Anastasia is also a director of Our Watch (Australia's national organisation for the prevention of violence against women), and a member of the National Women's Safety Alliance (NWSA).</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jacqui True receives funding from the Australian Research Council under the Discovery and Centre of Excellence programs.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kristin Diemer receives funding from the Victorian Government Department of Justice and Community Safety and Family Safety Victoria, as well as Australia's National Research Organisation for Women's Safety (ANROWS). She is part of the Technical Advisory Committees for the Australian Personal Safety Survey and the National Community Attitudes Survey towards Violence against Women. She is Chair of the Board for Lucy's Project supporting animals in the context of domestic and family violence.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kyllie Cripps receives funding from the Australian Research Council, the Australian Government and State Governments to conduct research and evaluations. Details related to this are on her public profiles.</span></em></p>While it can feel like little progress is being made to stop women being killed by their partners or ex-partners, the data show a steady decline in recent years.Anastasia Powell, Professor, Family & Sexual Violence, RMIT UniversityJacqui True, FASSA FAIIA Director, ARC Centre of Excellence for the Elimination of Violence against Women (CEVAW), Monash UniversityKristin Diemer, Associate Professor of Sociology, The University of MelbourneKyllie Cripps, Director Monash Indigenous Studies Centre, CI ARC Centre of Excellence for the Elimination of Violence against Women (CEVAW), School of Philosophical, Historical & International Studies (SOPHIS), School of Social Sciences (SOSS), Faculty of Arts, Monash UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2110872023-08-13T13:36:45Z2023-08-13T13:36:45ZTo reduce rising crime rates, Canada needs to invest more in social services<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/541565/original/file-20230807-27499-r8df14.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=40%2C53%2C8946%2C4877&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Crime Severity Index is calculated like a crime rate, but different crimes are given a different weight, or importance, based on their severity.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><iframe style="width: 100%; height: 100px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" allow="clipboard-read; clipboard-write" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/to-reduce-rising-crime-rates-canada-needs-to-invest-more-in-social-services" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>Every summer, Statistics Canada releases crime rate and crime severity data for the previous year. This year, <a href="https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/230727/dq230727b-eng.htm?">Canada’s Crime Severity Index (CSI)</a> increased by 4.3 per cent, the violent CSI increased by 4.6 per cent, and the non-violent CSI increased by 4.1 per cent. Moreover, aside from a drop during the COVID-19 pandemic, these indices have been on the rise since 2014.</p>
<p>An April 2023 poll found that <a href="https://leger360.com/surveys/legers-north-american-tracker-april-13-2023/">65 per cent of Canadians</a> felt crime has gotten worse compared to before the pandemic. Conservative Party leader <a href="https://edmonton.ctvnews.ca/poilievre-blames-rising-violence-in-alberta-canada-on-his-political-opponents-1.6354594">Pierre Poilievre has criticized the Liberal government</a> for the rising crime figures in recent months. </p>
<p>Canada’s new justice minister, Arif Virani, said it was <a href="https://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/canada-s-new-justice-minister-to-tackle-perceived-lack-of-safety-from-crime-1.6501641">empirically unlikely</a> that Canadians are less safe, but that the government would act to address feelings of growing insecurity.</p>
<p>But what is the CSI and what do changes in crime stats mean for Canadians?</p>
<h2>What is the Crime Severity Index?</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://www.publicsafety.gc.ca/lbrr/archives/cnmcs-plcng/cn5373-eng.pdf">CSI was introduced in 2009</a> and represented the first major change in measuring crime in Canada since the 1960s. Its purpose was to identify changes in the seriousness or severity of crime reported to the police. </p>
<p>The CSI is calculated like a crime rate, <a href="https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/85-004-x/2009001/part-partie1-eng.htm">but different crimes are given a different weight, or importance, based on their severity</a>. Without this kind of system, a community that has 10 low-level assaults will have the same violent crime rate as another that has 10 homicides because each incident would be given the same weight. </p>
<p>The CSI accounts for this by using different weights for different crime types: approximately 80 for <a href="https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/85-224-x/2008000/dd-eng.htm">assault level 1</a>, 7,000 for homicide and one for gambling. These weights are based on sentencing decisions in the court system.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/541310/original/file-20230804-17921-t4cr8w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A graph showing Canada's crime severity index between 1998 and 2022. The graph shows a decrease until 2014 followed by a slight increase in subsequent years." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/541310/original/file-20230804-17921-t4cr8w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/541310/original/file-20230804-17921-t4cr8w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=353&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/541310/original/file-20230804-17921-t4cr8w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=353&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/541310/original/file-20230804-17921-t4cr8w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=353&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/541310/original/file-20230804-17921-t4cr8w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=443&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/541310/original/file-20230804-17921-t4cr8w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=443&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/541310/original/file-20230804-17921-t4cr8w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=443&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Police-reported crime severity indexes in Canada from 1998 to 2022.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/230727/cg-b001-eng.htm">(Statistics Canada)</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Understanding the data</h2>
<p>At first glance, the CSI is great because it allows us to determine which areas experience more violence. However, there are at least three issues when considering what changes in the CSI mean for most Canadians.</p>
<p>First, the CSI must be considered over longer periods of time than year-to-year fluctuations. We now have the CSI for 1998-2022, <a href="https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/62-001-x/2018001/info-eng.htm">25 years of data</a>. Yes, the CSI has been increasing since 2014, but it is still much lower than it was 25 years ago. </p>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1186/s40163-017-0076-y">Crime has been falling around the world</a>, including Canada, since about 1990. It may be the case that 2014, for Canada, was just the low point for crime. Because of this, relatively small changes in incidents will have large percentage changes.</p>
<p>Second, because the CSI is calculated in a similar fashion to crime rates, places with lower populations will be “punished” by the CSI. For example, in a city of one million people, one homicide will lead to a homicide rate of 0.1 per 100,000 people. However, in a city of 15,000 people, one homicide will lead to a rate of 6.67 per 100,000 people. </p>
<p>Now if you add in the weights used in the CSI, this disparity becomes magnified. To be clear, the math is not wrong — it is just that the statistic has its limitations. The CSI is fine for Canada, its provinces and larger metropolitan centres. But, for the rest of the country, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/cag.12703">the CSI should be interpreted with caution</a>.</p>
<p>Third, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s10940-016-9295-8">crime is usually concentrated in specific areas</a>. Across the world, including Canada, one-half of crime reported to the police occurs in approximately five per cent of the city. These places are, generally speaking, areas that experience more poverty, mental health and addiction problems, and other social challenges. </p>
<p>In short, those who are already suffering most, especially post-pandemic, are being victimized more with these increases in crime in Canada; this has been shown in <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s11292-021-09495-6">Vancouver</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcrimjus.2022.101881">Saskatoon</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/541564/original/file-20230807-35364-68n6bz.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A sign that reads Statistics Canada in front of a tall grey building." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/541564/original/file-20230807-35364-68n6bz.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/541564/original/file-20230807-35364-68n6bz.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=367&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/541564/original/file-20230807-35364-68n6bz.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=367&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/541564/original/file-20230807-35364-68n6bz.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=367&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/541564/original/file-20230807-35364-68n6bz.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=461&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/541564/original/file-20230807-35364-68n6bz.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=461&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/541564/original/file-20230807-35364-68n6bz.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=461&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The CSI is calculated in a similar fashion to crime rates, which means rates in areas with lower populations can appear higher in the data.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Reducing crime</h2>
<p>What should our takeaway be here? We need to be careful of how we interpret the CSI. Crime has been increasing the past eight years: homicide, sexual assault, assault (particularly with a weapon) and vehicle theft are all increasing more than average. So, despite my caveats, crime has been increasing of late, particularly violent crimes. </p>
<p>The notable common thread in all of the media coverage of these violent attacks is the presence of mental health issues, addiction, homelessness and poverty. How did we get here? Over the past 40 years, <a href="https://doi.org/10.3138/cpp.2020-007">conservative governments</a> have defunded <a href="https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/welfare-state">social programs and social services</a>.</p>
<p>A result of these changes has been a decrease in social welfare and increases in social ills. Where we are today is the result of a 40-year process that we cannot expect to reverse in short order. We need to reinvest in social programs and services, knowing it will take time to see an impact. </p>
<p>Putting government funding back into social services is a large component of the <a href="https://defundthepolice.org/">Defund the Police</a> movement. Rather than continuing to spend on <a href="https://theconversation.com/data-shows-that-police-involved-deaths-in-canada-are-on-the-rise-201443">reactive models</a> such as policing that do little more than criminalize poverty and disadvantage, we need to reinvest in preventive strategies that actually work.</p>
<p>To prevent crime, governments need to invest more in existing social welfare programs and reestablish social services such as basic income.</p>
<p>This spending on social welfare services and basic income should be viewed positively across the political spectrum as well. The provision of basic income and social services would both <a href="https://lorimer.ca/adults/product/basic-income-for-canadians-2/">support vulnerable populations and be cost-effective</a>. </p>
<p>If we are concerned about crime and its severity, we should support reinvesting public funds into preventative strategies such as housing, mental health care, basic income and addiction services.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/211087/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Martin Andresen does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Recent data from Statistics Canada shows crime rates in Canada rising. Crime has become a hot-button political issue in Canadian cities. But what does the data actually mean?Martin Andresen, Professor of Criminology, Simon Fraser UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2002032023-04-20T16:33:35Z2023-04-20T16:33:35ZStephen Lawrence: how family liaison officers became an integral part of policing in the wake of his murder<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/521580/original/file-20230418-22-11rksw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C4860%2C3237&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Family liaison officers are a vital part of murder investigations in the UK. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/two-police-officers-hivisibility-jacket-patrolling-333009221">CLICKMANIS/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Stephen Lawrence was murdered on April 22 1993 in an unprovoked racist knife attack in south London. He was just eighteen at the time. He had been waiting for a bus with his friend, Duwayne Brooks. A group of five to six white youths surrounded him and at least one of them stabbed him to death. Almost 20 years later in 2012, two men were convicted of Stephen’s murder. </p>
<p>The murder and its aftermath set off a series of changes in police investigations, most notably regarding family liaison. The public inquiry that followed culminated in the <a href="https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/277111/4262.pdf">Macpherson report of 1999</a>. This uncovered major failings in the police investigation and the way Stephen’s family and his friend were treated. </p>
<p>Racism and the police response to racially-motivated crime featured high in the Stephen Lawrence inquiry. There were also new recommendations about how police deal with the family of murder victims.</p>
<p>The words “family liaison” were mentioned 136 times in the Macpherson Report. And the failure of family liaison was described as “one of the saddest and most deplorable aspects of the case”. Stephen’s parents, Doreen and Neville, were treated with insensitivity, patronised and not given information about the investigation to which they were entitled. </p>
<p>Unsurprisingly, the inquiry made many recommendations regarding family liaison. These included ensuring that <a href="https://profdev.college.police.uk/professional-profile/family-liaison-officer-flo/">family liaison officers</a> (FLOs) were available at a local level, who were dedicated to the role and who were not deployed elsewhere. It also recommended that training of FLOs include racism and diversity awareness. </p>
<p>Another recommendation stated that it was the “positive duty” of the police to provide “all possible information to the family about the crime and its investigation”. For its time, this was an enormous shift in police investigative culture. Detectives had been used to deciding what the family needed to know. Now they had to accommodate the needs and choices of the family. </p>
<p>The implementation of FLO recommendations was immediate and the Metropolitan Police almost instantly moved into an era where training courses took place every week at Hendon Police College.</p>
<p>The role of the FLO is now integral to <a href="https://uk.sagepub.com/en-gb/eur/understanding-homicide/book262945">murder investigations</a> and is one of the first roles to be filled when an investigation begins. Its <a href="https://www.policechiefmagazine.org/wp-content/uploads/PoliceChief_September2015_web.pdf">function</a> is twofold. </p>
<p>First, FLOs are trained investigators who gather, and help to assess the relevance of, any information that relatives can provide to an investigation. Second, the FLO is a conduit between the family and the investigation. They ensure the family understand the process and are provided with as much detail as can be shared regarding the progress of the investigation.</p>
<p>The FLO helps to prepare the family for what is inevitably a traumatic experience, supporting them through important moments such as press conferences, appeals and the trial. The role requires significant expertise and sensitivity and, undertaken properly, can help to identify killers while improving trust and confidence in the police.</p>
<p>Family liaison officers have also become <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Police_Family_Liaison.html?id=D9bItU7Z4jsC&redir_esc=y">invaluable in other incidents</a> at home and abroad. For example, FLOs were deployed following the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/oct/17/ladbroke-grove-paddington-train-crash-inquiry">Ladbroke Grove rail crash</a> in October 1999, the September 11th attacks in New York in 2001 and the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Indian-Ocean-tsunami-of-2004">2004 Boxing Day tsunami</a> in the Indian ocean.</p>
<h2>Training</h2>
<p>Nevertheless, there is more that can and should be done to continually assess whether police forces are making proper and best use of FLOs. The regular training of FLOs is important to maintain and improve this role, while carefully matching FLOs to families is also vital. This ensures that social, demographic and cultural diversity are recognised and that FLOs can engage effectively with the communities they serve. </p>
<p>It is also important to recognise that being a family liaison officer can be an intense and harrowing experience and so it is necessary for the police to look after and recognise those who volunteer to undertake this role. </p>
<p>Families and communities should have the opportunity to assess whether the police are making best use of FLOs. Conducting interviews with families at the end of an investigation would be one way to achieve this. </p>
<p>Sadly, it took the murder of Stephen Lawrence for this style of policing to be recognised as an absolute right of bereaved families. It is now incumbent on the police to ensure that family liaison remains a priority and is properly resourced.</p>
<p><em>You can also read this article <a href="https://theconversation.com/stephen-lawrence-daeth-swyddogion-cyswllt-teulu-yn-rhan-annatod-o-blismona-yn-sgil-ei-lofruddiaeth-204128">in Welsh</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/200203/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Fiona Brookman would like to give special thanks to Duncan McGarry MBE, special advisor, family liaison, for providing invaluable material and advice for this article.</span></em></p>The Stephen Lawrence inquiry and subsequent Macpherson Report led to changes in how police deal with the family of murder victims.Fiona Brookman, Professor of Criminology, University of South WalesLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2041282023-04-20T16:32:17Z2023-04-20T16:32:17ZStephen Lawrence: daeth swyddogion cyswllt teulu yn rhan annatod o blismona yn sgil ei lofruddiaeth<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/522065/original/file-20230420-28-2srbut.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=43%2C7%2C4860%2C3223&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Mae swyddogion cyswllt teulu bellach yn rhan hanfodol o ymchwiliadau llofruddiaeth.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/two-police-officers-hivisibility-jacket-patrolling-333009221">CLICKMANIS/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Cafodd Stephen Lawrence ei lofruddio ar 22 Ebrill 1993 mewn ymosodiad hiliol yn ne Llundain. Dim ond deunaw oed oedd Stephen ar y pryd. Roedd wedi bod yn disgwyl am fws gyda'i ffrind, Duwayne Brooks. Cafodd ei amgylchynu gan grŵp o bump neu chwe pherson ifanc gwyn, a gwnaeth o leiaf un ohonyn nhw ei drywanu â chyllell. Bron i 20 mlynedd yn ddiweddarach yn 2012, cafwyd dau ddyn yn euog o lofruddiaeth Stephen.</p>
<p>Ysgogodd y llofruddiaeth gyfres o newidiadau i ymchwiliadau'r heddlu, yn bennaf o ran cyswllt â theuluoedd. Daeth <a href="https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/277111/4262.pdf">adroddiad Macpherson</a> ar ôl yr ymchwiliad cyhoeddus yn 1999. Datgelodd fethiannau mawr yn ymchwiliad yr heddlu a'r ffordd y cafodd teulu Stephen a'i ffrind eu trin. </p>
<p>Roedd hiliaeth ac ymateb yr heddlu i droseddau â chymhelliant hiliol yn amlwg yn ymchwiliad Stephen Lawrence. Bu hefyd argymhellion newydd am y ffordd mae'r heddlu'n delio â theuluoedd pobl sydd wedi cael eu llofruddio.</p>
<p>Cafodd y geiriau “cyswllt teulu” eu defnyddio 136 o weithiau yn adroddiad Macpherson. A disgrifiwyd methiannau o ran cyswllt teulu fel “un o elfennau mwyaf trist a gresynus yr achos”. Cafodd rhieni Stephen, Doreen a Neville, eu trin yn nawddoglyd ac yn ansensitif, a chafodd gwybodaeth am yr ymchwiliad, yr oedd ganddyn nhw hawl iddi, mo’i rhoi iddyn nhw.</p>
<p>Yn naturiol, felly, bu llawer o argymhellion ynglŷn â chyswllt teulu gan yr ymchwiliad. Roedd y rhain yn cynnwys sicrhau bod <a href="https://profdev.college.police.uk/professional-profile/family-liaison-officer-flo/">swyddogion cyswllt teulu</a> (SCT) ar gael ar lefel leol, ac eu bod yn gweithio ar achos penodol, a heb gael eu defnyddio ar gyfer gwasanaethau eraill ar yr un pryd. Argymhellodd hefyd fod hyfforddiant SCT yn cynnwys ymwybyddiaeth am hiliaeth ac amrywiaeth.</p>
<p>Dywedodd argymhelliad arall ei bod hi'n “ddyletswydd gadarn” ar yr heddlu i roi “pob gwybodaeth bosib i deuluoedd am y drosedd dan sylw a'r ymchwiliad”. Yng nghyd-destun yr oes, roedd hyn yn newid enfawr yn niwylliant ymchwilio’r heddlu. Roedd ditectifs wedi arfer penderfynu ar yr hyn roedd angen i deuluoedd ei wybod. Nawr roedd yn rhaid iddynt feddwl am anghenion a dewisiadau'r teulu.</p>
<p>Bu newidiadau bron yn syth yn sgil yr argymhellion. Symudodd yr Heddlu Metropolitan yn sydyn i gyfnod lle roedd cyrsiau hyfforddi’n cael eu cynnal yn wythnosol yng Ngholeg Heddlu Hendon.</p>
<p>Mae rôl yr SCT bellach yn rhan annatod o <a href="https://uk.sagepub.com/en-gb/eur/understanding-homicide/book262945">ymchwiliadau llofruddiaeth</a>. Mae'n un o'r rolau cyntaf i'w llenwi pan fydd ymchwiliad yn dechrau. Mae iddi <a href="https://www.policechiefmagazine.org/wp-content/uploads/PoliceChief_September2015_web.pdf">ddiben</a> deublyg.</p>
<p>Yn gyntaf, mae SCT yn ymchwilwyr hyfforddedig sy'n casglu, ac yn helpu i asesu, unrhyw wybodaeth y gall perthnasau ei darparu i ymchwiliad. Yn ail, mae'r SCT yn bont rhwng y teulu a'r ymchwiliad. Maen nhw'n sicrhau bod y teulu'n deall y broses ac yn cael cynifer o fanylion ag y gellir eu rhannu am yr ymchwiliad.</p>
<p>Mae'r SCT yn helpu i baratoi'r teulu ar gyfer yr hyn sydd, yn anochel, yn brofiad trawmatig, ac yn eu cefnogi yn ystod adegau pwysig fel cynadleddau i'r wasg, apeliadau, a'r achos llys. Mae'r rôl yn gofyn am arbenigedd a sensitifrwydd mawr. Wedi'i chyflawni’n iawn, gall y rôl helpu i adnabod llofruddion a gwella ymddiriedaeth a ffydd yn yr heddlu.</p>
<p>Mae swyddogion cyswllt teulu hefyd wedi bod yn <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Police_Family_Liaison.html?id=D9bItU7Z4jsC&redir_esc=y">werthfawr mewn digwyddiadau eraill</a> gartref a thramor. Er enghraifft, defnyddiwyd SCT yn dilyn <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/oct/17/ladbroke-grove-paddington-train-crash-inquiry">damwain rheilffordd Ladbroke Grove</a> ym mis Hydref 1999, ymosodiadau 11 Medi yn Efrog Newydd yn 2001, a <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Indian-Ocean-tsunami-of-2004">tswnami Dydd San Steffan 2004</a> yng nghefnfor yr India.</p>
<h2>Hyfforddiant</h2>
<p>Fodd bynnag, mae mwy y gellid ac y dylid ei wneud i asesu'n barhaus a yw heddluoedd yn defnyddio SCT yn briodol ac yn y ffordd orau. Mae hyfforddi SCT yn rheolaidd yn bwysig er mwyn cynnal a gwella'r rôl, ac mae paru SCT yn ofalus â theuluoedd hefyd yn hanfodol. Mae hyn yn sicrhau bod amrywiaethau cymdeithasol, demograffig a diwylliannol yn cael eu cydnabod, sy'n galluogi i'r SCT ymgysylltu'n effeithiol â'r cymunedau maen nhw’n eu gwasanaethu.</p>
<p>Mae'n bwysig cydnabod hefyd y gall bod yn swyddog cyswllt teulu fod yn brofiad dwys a dirdynnol. Felly, mae'n angenrheidiol bod yr heddlu’n gofalu am y rhai sy'n gwirfoddoli i ymgymryd â'r rôl, a’u bod yn cael eu cydnabod am y gwaith.</p>
<p>Dylai teuluoedd a chymunedau gael y cyfle i benderfynu os ydy'r heddlu'n defnyddio SCT yn y ffordd orau bosibl. Byddai cynnal cyfweliadau gyda theuluoedd ar ddiwedd ymchwiliad yn un ffordd o gyflawni hyn.</p>
<p>Yn drist iawn, dim ond ar ôl llofruddiaeth Stephen Lawrence y daeth y math hwn o blismona i gael ei gydnabod fel hawl ddiymwad i deuluoedd mewn profedigaeth. Mae'n ddyletswydd nawr ar yr heddlu i sicrhau bod cyswllt â theuluoedd yn parhau'n flaenoriaeth ac y bod y wasanaeth yn derbyn yr adnoddau priodol.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/204128/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Hoffai Fiona Brookman ddiolch i Duncan McGarry MBE, cynghorydd arbennig, cyswllt teulu, am ddarparu deunydd a chyngor amhrisiadwy ar gyfer yr erthygl hon.</span></em></p>Arweiniodd ymchwiliad Stephen Lawrence a’r adroddiad Macpherson at newidiadau yn y ffordd y mae'r heddlu'n delio â theuluoedd unigolion sydd wedi eu llofruddio.Fiona Brookman, Professor of Criminology, University of South WalesLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2027302023-04-03T05:12:14Z2023-04-03T05:12:14ZAustralia’s homicide rate is down over 50% from the 1990s, despite a small blip during COVID<p>Australia’s homicide rate has continued its overall downward trajectory in the <a href="https://www.aic.gov.au/publications/sr/sr42">latest crime data</a> released last week.</p>
<p>In fact, in 2020-21, Australia recorded the second-lowest number of homicides since the Australian Institute of Criminology began compiling national statistics in 1989. </p>
<p>How does Australia compare with other nations? And do our perceptions of crime match the reality of Australia becoming a generally safer place to live?</p>
<h2>Homicide in Australia</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://www.aic.gov.au/statistics/homicide">National Homicide Monitoring Program</a> is the only national data collection program for homicide incidents, victims and offenders. </p>
<p>According to the most recent report, there were 210 homicide incidents reported in Australia between July 1, 2020 and June 30, 2021, with 263 identified offenders. There were 221 homicide victims, nearly 70% of whom were men. Only nine incidents involved multiple victims.</p>
<p>This was the second-lowest annual homicide rate (0.82 per 100,000 people) since 1989-90. This period (2020-21) was at the height of the COVID pandemic, when lockdowns and other restrictions were in place in various localities. </p>
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<p>Homicides had ticked upwards the previous year (2019-20), which included the start of the pandemic when lockdowns were similarly in place. There were 261 homicides reported that year, about 1.02 per 100,000 people.</p>
<p>While it’s difficult to firmly establish a direct causal relationship between coronavirus restrictions and crime rates, the 2019-20 homicide data does appear to be an aberration in the longer-term trend in Australia. </p>
<p>Overall, the national homicide rate has dropped steadily from a rate of 1.88 per 100,000 people in 1992-93 to 0.82 in 2020-21 – a decrease of 55% over nearly 30 years. </p>
<p>When it comes to the type of homicides occurring in Australia, domestic killings were the most common in 2020-21, accounting for about 36% of incidents. The rate of women killed in intimate partner homicides was 0.25 per 100,000 people, which is a decrease of 74% since 1989-90. </p>
<p>Men were overwhelmingly responsible for all homicides in 2020-21, accounting for 84% of perpetrators. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/some-crimes-have-seen-drastic-decreases-during-coronavirus-but-not-homicides-in-the-us-142718">Some crimes have seen drastic decreases during coronavirus — but not homicides in the US</a>
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</em>
</p>
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<h2>How do we compare to the rest of the world?</h2>
<p>The 2019 <a href="https://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/data-and-analysis/global-study-on-homicide.html">United Nations Global Study on Homicide</a> indicated that the world average homicide rate was 6.1 per 100,000 people in 2017, a rate inflated by the Americas with 17.2 per 100,000 people.</p>
<p>Data from the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention in the <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/homicide.htm">United States</a> shows the homicide rate in that country was 7.8 per 100,000 in 2021. This rate has been increasing over the last few years.</p>
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<p>In 2022, the homicide rate in <a href="https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeandjustice/articles/homicideinenglandandwales/march2022">England and Wales</a> was 1.2 per 100,000 people. There was a 23% increase in the number of homicide victims compared to March 2020-21, returning to pre-COVID levels.</p>
<p>Some 81% of homicides in the US involved the use of firearms, while in England and Wales, sharp instruments (including knives) were the most common methods of killing at 41%. </p>
<p>The latest Australian data shows knives were used in 38% of incidents and firearms in 11%. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/prisoner-numbers-in-australia-have-decreased-but-were-not-really-sure-why-yet-129696">Prisoner numbers in Australia have decreased, but we're not really sure why yet</a>
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</p>
<hr>
<h2>Is the homicide rate reflective of general crime trends?</h2>
<p>Overall, crime in Australia is also on the decline. According to the <a href="https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/people/crime-and-justice/crime-victimisation-australia/2021-22#personal-crime-summary">Australian Bureau of Statistics Crime Victimisation survey</a>, physical assaults are down 39% from 2008-09, face-to-face threatened assaults are down 44% and robberies are down 50%.</p>
<p>However, sexual assaults have increased by 66% over the same period. And experts say the <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-07-29/sexual-assaults-australia-record-high/101281802">vast majority of people</a> who experience sexual assault don’t report it to police, meaning the true figure is much higher. </p>
<h2>Do our perceptions match reality?</h2>
<p>Criminologists Don Weatherburn and Sara Rahman examined <a href="https://www.mup.com.au/books/the-vanishing-criminal-paperback-softback">the decline of crime in Australia</a> in their recent book. They note that crime statistics overall began to decline in 2001, and by 2018, </p>
<blockquote>
<p>rates of the most common forms of crime had fallen between 40 and 80% and were lower than they’d been in twenty or in some cases thirty years.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>However, perceptions of personal safety may not be aligning with these lower crime statistics.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://oxfordre.com/criminology/display/10.1093/acrefore/9780190264079.001.0001/acrefore-9780190264079-e-10;jsessionid=C212D69F21058488DA5B1E99F3CD36DB#acrefore-9780190264079-e-10-div1-2">fear of crime</a> is an emotional reaction to the expectation of being victimised by criminals. A <a href="https://academic.oup.com/bjc/article-abstract/28/3/340/595335?login=false">person’s fear level</a> can be influenced by a number of things, including their own life experiences, their media exposure, and their social and cultural environments. </p>
<p>The Productivity Commission’s <a href="https://www.pc.gov.au/ongoing/report-on-government-services/2023/justice/police-services">Report on Government Services</a> measures perceptions of safety from the National Survey of Community Satisfaction with policing. In 2021-22, a vast majority of people (89%) declared feeling “safe” or “very safe” in their homes. </p>
<p>However, when asked about public places, the rates decreased significantly. Just over half of respondents (53.8%) said they felt safe walking alone in their neighbourhoods and a third (32.7%) felt safe when travelling on public transport. </p>
<p>The data, however, shows that crime in general, and homicide specifically, is declining. Australia is becoming a safer place to live. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/putting-the-pieces-together-to-create-safe-public-spaces-for-all-89961">Putting the pieces together to create safe public spaces for all</a>
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</em>
</p>
<hr>
<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/202730/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Australia recorded the second-lowest number of homicides since the Australian Institute of Criminology began compiling national statistics in 1989.Terry Goldsworthy, Associate Professor in Criminal Justice and Criminology, Bond UniversityGaelle Brotto, Assistant Professor Criminology and Criminal JusticeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1998282023-03-17T13:15:31Z2023-03-17T13:15:31ZThe camera never lies? Our research found CCTV isn’t always dependable when it comes to murder investigations<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/514486/original/file-20230309-1177-u0roc3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C3840%2C2149&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">"The camera never lies," goes the old adage. But how true is that?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/elevated-security-camera-surveillance-footage-crowd-2198446515">Gorodenkoff/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>As a victim or suspect of a crime, or witness to an offence, you may find your actions, behaviour and character scrutinised by the police or a barrister using CCTV footage. You may assume all the relevant footage has been gathered and viewed. You may sit on a jury and be expected to evaluate CCTV footage to help determine whether you find a defendant guilty or innocent. </p>
<p>You may believe you will see all the key images. You may trust the camera never lies. </p>
<p>However, the evidence we gathered during our <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/epdf/10.1080/10439463.2021.1879075?needAccess=true&role=button">study</a> of British murder investigations and trials reveals how, like other forms of evidence such as DNA and fingerprints, CCTV footage requires careful interpretation and evaluation and can be misleading. </p>
<p>Instead of providing an absolute “truth”, different meanings can be obtained from the same footage. But understanding the challenges and risks associated with CCTV footage is vital in a fair and transparent system to prevent possible <a href="https://www.lexisnexis.co.uk/legal/glossary/miscarriage-of-justice">miscarriages of justice</a>.</p>
<h2>Evidence</h2>
<p>The justice system often relies upon digital <a href="https://www.npcc.police.uk/SysSiteAssets/media/downloads/publications/publications-log/2020/national-digital-forensic-science-strategy.pdf">evidence</a> to support investigations and prosecutions and CCTV is one of the most relied upon forms. Recent <a href="https://clarionuk.com/resources/how-many-cctv-cameras-are-in-london/">estimates</a> suggest there are more than 7.3 million cameras in the UK, which can capture a person up to 70 times per day. </p>
<p>The public may be filmed on council-owned CCTV, by cameras in commercial premises, or at residential premises (home cameras or <a href="https://www.which.co.uk/reviews/smart-video-doorbells/article/genuinely-useful-things-you-can-do-with-a-smart-doorbell-a0JXE2q1niZk">smart doorbells</a>, as well as on public transport and by dash cams.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A man sits at a desk in front of a bank of screens, each showing footage from CCTV cameras." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/514644/original/file-20230310-18-zjd7oi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/514644/original/file-20230310-18-zjd7oi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/514644/original/file-20230310-18-zjd7oi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/514644/original/file-20230310-18-zjd7oi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/514644/original/file-20230310-18-zjd7oi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/514644/original/file-20230310-18-zjd7oi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/514644/original/file-20230310-18-zjd7oi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">CCTV is one of the most popular forms of digital forensic evidence.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/industry-40-modern-factory-security-operator-1936528570">Gorodenkoff/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In our study of 44 British murder investigations, we showed how CCTV provides many benefits to investigators. It can help identify suspects and witnesses, and implicate or eliminate suspects. It can also help to corroborate or refute accounts provided by suspects and witnesses. However, our findings also indicate how CCTV can be unreliable and problematic.</p>
<h2>Shortcomings</h2>
<p>CCTV is sometimes inaccessible or lost because the detective who is sent to retrieve the footage lacks the skills, training or equipment to recover it in a timely manner. This is especially important since CCTV is often <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13347-016-0218-2">deleted</a> within three weeks of being recorded. We found that it was often over-written within 7 to 10 days. </p>
<p>At other times, owners are unable to access systems or cannot manage the volume of CCTV requested, for instance, when taking buses out of service for footage to be downloaded. And even when footage is successfully seized, there may not be officers available to view it all. </p>
<p>There is also the risk that important footage which could exonerate a suspect is not <a href="https://www.cps.gov.uk/about-cps/disclosure#:%7E:text=Disclosure%20is%20providing%20the%20defence,is%20done%20properly%2C%20and%20promptly">disclosed</a> to the defence, which could mean innocent people are <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1752928X18301859?via%3Dihub">imprisoned</a>.</p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/lQRfM4Nt6dI?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">A 2022 Channel 4 News investigation looked at whether CCTV is helping to put innocent people behind bars.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Detectives must frequently make sense of poor-quality images that are blurry or grainy. This is not easy. In some of the investigations we observed, the police tried to enhance poor-quality images, though this was not always successful. </p>
<p>Investigators must also decide whether to draw on <a href="https://www.cps.gov.uk/legal-guidance/expert-evidence">experts</a> to interpret footage and present evidence at court. However, the police have no clear guidance to help determine whether and when to draw on such expertise. We observed cases where officers decided against expert input because they were confident of their own interpretations.</p>
<p>Our study also revealed how some detectives or CCTV officers are used repeatedly to view or interpret footage because they are regarded by others (or assign themselves) as <a href="https://theconversation.com/facial-recognition-research-reveals-new-abilities-of-super-recognisers-128414">“super-recognisers”</a>. These are people who may be better at recognising faces than others. However, there is no <a href="https://theconversation.com/from-super-recognisers-to-the-face-blind-how-tests-reveal-the-underlying-cognitive-processes-176589">robust measure</a> for determining whether someone is a super-recogniser. Furthermore, if super-recognisers are incorrectly viewed as expert witnesses, their evidence could be overvalued during a police investigation or at court.</p>
<p>By the time CCTV footage is shown to a jury, it has been choreographed carefully by the police and prosecution barrister. They are often adept at selecting, organising and editing footage into slick packages. </p>
<p>These techniques are also used by the defence who deliberate over whether to use moving footage or still images, at what speed to show the clips and at what point to add commentary. This is to demonstrate an <a href="https://ejournals.bc.edu/index.php/elements/article/view/9453">“alternative truth”</a> and provide a contested interpretation of the same footage. It might be difficult for juries to determine how the footage has been edited.</p>
<h2>Gold standard?</h2>
<p>Murder investigations are generally regarded to be the <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10439463.2013.771538">gold standard</a> of criminal investigation, due to the investment of time, resources and expertise. Nevertheless, we uncovered many challenges, errors and risks involved in the use of CCTV. These are likely to be even greater in other kinds of criminal investigation, where staffing and knowledge of <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1355030621001295">digital evidence</a> may be more limited.</p>
<p>The complexities of CCTV evidence need to be understood by everyone involved in handling, interpreting and presenting footage, as well as by those of us whose actions and accounts may be scrutinised on the basis of CCTV footage. </p>
<p>The challenges and risks identified here are likely to intensify as digital technologies advance - demonstrated by recent concerns with <a href="https://www.bsia.co.uk/zappfiles/bsia-front/public-guides/form_347_automated_facial%20recognition_a_guide_to_ethical_and_legal_use-compressed.pdf">automated facial recognition technologies</a> and the risk of <a href="https://theconversation.com/3-2-billion-images-and-720-000-hours-of-video-are-shared-online-daily-can-you-sort-real-from-fake-148630">deepfake videos</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/199828/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>This research was funded by The Leverhulme Trust. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>This research was funded by The Leverhulme Trust.</span></em></p>CCTV is a popular form of digital evidence but it can be unreliable and problematic.Helen Jones, Research Fellow, University of South WalesFiona Brookman, Professor of Criminology, University of South WalesLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1946182023-03-10T13:40:54Z2023-03-10T13:40:54ZBiggest racial gap in prison is among violent offenders – focusing on intervention instead of incarceration could change the numbers<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/514323/original/file-20230308-1134-uk6k7t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=4%2C184%2C3230%2C2187&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Black men disproportionately make up the US prison population.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/CriminalJusticeRacialDivide/8233901987644f12a3b849a880a5a4a4/photo?Query=Black%20prison%20U.S.&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=758&currentItemNo=259">AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Racial disparities in state imprisonment rates dropped significantly during the first two decades of the 21st century. </p>
<p>That’s one of the main findings <a href="https://counciloncj.foleon.com/reports/racial-disparities/national-trends">from a report</a> published by one of us in late 2022, along with Georgia State University colleague <a href="https://aysps.gsu.edu/profile/william-sabol/">William Sabol</a>, for the Council on Criminal Justice, nonpartisan think tank.</p>
<p>But that headline decline tells only half the story. The narrowing is significant – down some 40% in the 20 years to 2020 – but Black adults were still being imprisoned at 4.9 times the rate of white adults in 2020, compared with 8.2 times at the turn of the century.</p>
<p>Of equal concern to us, as Black Americans and <a href="https://aysps.gsu.edu/profile/thaddeus-johnson/">scholars of</a> <a href="https://aysps.gsu.edu/profile/natasha-johnson/">criminal justice</a>, is where the largest gaps exist in imprisonment rates once you break down the data. With a steep decline in the drug imprisonment gap between Black and white Americans – <a href="https://counciloncj.foleon.com/reports/racial-disparities/national-trends">from 15 to 1 in 2000 to just under 4 to 1 in 2019</a> – the biggest racial disparity now exists among people incarcerated for violent felony offenses. These violent offenses cover a range of criminal behavior from rape to robbery to murder.</p>
<p><iframe id="gP3WH" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/gP3WH/3/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>The <a href="https://counciloncj.foleon.com/reports/racial-disparities/national-trends">Council on Criminal Justice report</a> shows that states incarcerated Black adults for violent offenses at a rate over six times that of white adults by 2019, the most recent year for which offense-specific data is available.</p>
<h2>Both victims and offenders</h2>
<p>It has long been accepted that the racial disparity in incarceration rates for drug offenses is the <a href="https://doi.org//10.1177/0022042616678614">result of bias in the system</a>. Black people <a href="https://www.vox.com/2015/3/17/8227569/war-on-drugs-racism">do not use</a> or <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/0735648X.2009.9721270">traffic</a> drugs more than their white counterparts. Rather, Black communities have borne the brunt of drug imprisonment because of discriminatory enforcement. </p>
<p>But this does not seem to be the case when it comes to felony violence. There is evidence to suggest that the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s10940-017-9357-6">relatively higher Black incarceration rates</a> for violent crimes, especially homicides, are due to an <a href="https://counciloncj.foleon.com/reports/racial-disparities/national-trends">overrepresentation of violent offenders and victims</a> in Black communities.</p>
<p>The homicide rate for Black Americans (29.3 per 100,000) was about <a href="https://wonder.cdc.gov/">seven and a half times higher</a> than the white homicide rate (3.9 per 100,000) in 2020. Black Americans were also about <a href="https://ncvs.bjs.ojp.gov/multi-year-trends/crimeType">twice as likely</a> to report receiving medical treatment for physical injuries sustained from an assault. </p>
<p>Most acts of violence involve a victim and offender of the <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2020/09/29/fact-check-meme-shows-incorrect-homicide-stats-race/5739522002/">same race</a>. According to the most recent data available, despite accounting for roughly <a href="https://wonder.cdc.gov/Bridged-Race-v2020.HTML">14% of the U.S. population</a>, Black Americans comprise over half of the known <a href="https://www.ojjdp.gov/ojstatbb/ezashr/asp/off_selection.asp">homicide offenders</a> and more than a <a href="https://bjs.ojp.gov/content/pub/pdf/revcoa18.pdf">third of rape, robbery and aggravated assault offenders</a> identified by victims.</p>
<h2>Structural racism and violent crime</h2>
<p>The evidence suggests that Black Americans both commit and suffer the bulk of serious violent crimes. </p>
<p>Of course, this should not be misconstrued as suggesting Black people are inherently more violent. Rather, it demonstrates the structural and economic barriers that Black Americans continue to face.</p>
<p>Striking racial gaps, rooted in a legacy of structural racism, have left generations of Black people with disproportionately <a href="https://graphics.reuters.com/GLOBAL-RACE/USA/nmopajawjva/#0">less wealth and education, lower access to health care</a>, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007%2Fs41996-022-00109-5">less stable housing</a> and differential <a href="https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.abf4491">exposure</a> to environmental harms like <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/bjc/azab059">air pollution</a>. Such factors <a href="https://doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2021.699049">contribute</a> to concentrated poverty, racially segregated neighborhoods and other <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lana.2021.100052">community conditions tied to violent offending</a>.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://crim.sas.upenn.edu/fact-check/violent-crime-increasing">recent rise in violent crime</a> has affected all demographics, but especially Black Americans. Data from the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 saw an <a href="https://wonder.cdc.gov/ucd-icd10.html">average of 10</a> more Black lives lost each day to homicide than the year before. During this same period, the average number of white homicide victims increased by nearly three per day.</p>
<p>This increase was not evenly distributed across Black communities. Most Black homicide victims were young males. The <a href="https://wonder.cdc.gov/">U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates</a> that Black men ages 15 to 34 represented nearly a third of all U.S. homicide deaths in 2021 and over a quarter since 2000.</p>
<h2>‘Throwing away the key’ hasn’t worked</h2>
<p>Mass incarceration and the tough-on-crime policies of the past have been unable to fix the problem. </p>
<p>Those who victimize others should undoubtedly be held accountable, but violent offenders already serve substantial prison terms in the U.S. A <a href="https://bjs.ojp.gov/library/publications/recidivism-prisoners-released-24-states-2008-10-year-follow-period-2008-2018">Bureau of Justice Statistics study</a> of 24 state prison systems reported that convicted murderers released in 2008 had spent an average of almost 18 years in prison. Nearly all violent offenders (96%) served 10 to 20 years of their full sentences. In comparison with other countries, the U.S. tends to <a href="https://counciloncj.foleon.com/tfls/long-sentences-by-the-numbers/an-international-perspective">lock up offenders for more extended periods</a>.</p>
<p>We believe simply incarcerating more people for longer periods is not a sustainable or efficient public safety strategy. Lengthy prison sentences temporarily stop criminals from victimizing communities while they are under confinement. However, <a href="https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/2007/2007.10268.pdf">no clear-cut evidence</a> exists that locking up convicted offenders and “throwing away the key” provides lasting public safety benefits.</p>
<p>Indeed, research suggests harsher sentences offer diminishing public safety returns for two main reasons. First, people tend to “age out” of crime, in that most criminals <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/22/sunday-review/too-old-to-commit-crime.html">stop lawbreaking activities by middle age</a>. Secondly, a relatively <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007%2Fs00127-013-0783-y">small share of individuals</a> commit a disproportionate amount of crime in their communities.</p>
<p>The effects of stiffer sentences are also weakened by the “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s12103-020-09555-z">replacement effect</a>” common in criminal activities, by which incarcerating offenders leads to other offenders <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1559-1816.2003.tb02076.x">taking their place on the streets</a> – this is true especially when it comes to violent crime involving gangs and drug dealers.</p>
<h2>Incarceration leads to community harm</h2>
<p>Moreover, a reliance on mass incarceration as a solution to crime has perpetuated the historical disadvantages faced by Black Americans. </p>
<p>Studies have consistently revealed a <a href="https://issues.org/effects-mass-incarceration-communities-color/">host of collateral damages</a> linked to incarceration that disproportionately affects Black families. The imprisonment of a family member can cause households significant <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/jomf.12699">emotional and psychological distress</a>, <a href="https://www.americanprogress.org/article/americas-broken-criminal-legal-system-contributes-to-wealth-inequality/">financial hardship</a> from the loss of income and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s10940-022-09550-z">residential instability</a>. </p>
<p>High levels of imprisonment in the community also <a href="https://nap.nationalacademies.org/read/18613/chapter/12">undermine</a> employment and community relationships necessary to reduce the likelihood of criminal activity. Reflecting both the causes and consequences of disproportionate incarceration, neighborhoods with the highest rates of incarcerated residents tend to be characterized by <a href="https://doi.org/10.17226/18613">high rates</a> of poverty and racial segregation.</p>
<p>As such, by simply implementing stricter laws and practices, legislative leadership risks further contributing to crime and social inequities.</p>
<h2>A new, targeted approach?</h2>
<p>So if lengthy incarceration isn’t the answer, what is? All indications suggest that improving public safety requires intervening in the lives of, in particular, young Black men. Research shows that most young Black men involved in violent crime are traumatized from being victimized or <a href="https://doi.org/10.2105%2FAJPH.2004.044560">afraid of being victimized themselves</a>. They turn to violence or carry weapons for survival, largely because of a <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/23311886.2016.1227293">lack of faith in the justice system</a>.</p>
<p>This all points to the need for a targeted and holistic approach to reducing violent crime, which combines policing strategies focused on the offenders and places most susceptible to serious violence, with initiatives addressing the root causes of both individual and community violence.</p>
<p>Solving core problems through improved access to adequate education, health care, housing, services targeting at-risk youth and habitual offenders, and job training and placement is challenging but, we believe, necessary to keep Americans safer.</p>
<p>Research shows that interventions targeting risk factors, such as <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/soin.12072">unemployment</a>, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/epirev/mxy004">substance abuse</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177%2F0093854820942285">housing</a> problems, can significantly improve reentry and rehabilitation outcomes, even among <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0306624X16645083">high-risk individuals</a>. </p>
<p>For example, in Oakland, California, community partners have worked with law enforcement to combine focused policing efforts with broad-ranging outreach and social supports to enhance trust in the system. From <a href="https://giffords.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Giffords-Law-Center-A-Case-Study-in-Hope.pdf">2012 to 2018</a>, the city achieved a nearly 50% reduction in shootings and homicides. However, as seen with other interventions across the U.S., much of Oakland’s progress was lost largely because the pandemic lockdowns and social distancing restrictions starting in 2020 <a href="https://secondpress.substack.com/p/giffords-law-center-the-ultimate-264#details">upended</a> the existing network of relationships and services.</p>
<p>Community partnership-oriented interventions able to withstand the toll of the pandemic continued to see reductions in violence and recidivism. The READI violence intervention program in Chicago, for instance, provides those most affected by gun violence with subsidized employment alongside cognitive behavioral therapy and personal development services. <a href="https://urbanlabs.uchicago.edu/attachments/a62ee6577262a53b83e54b14ba4a1995bccbe9be/store/8b89a14e657c8ae9268ef3c72333c7043cca2bbc29c57478f24720b00cb6/READI+01.2023.pdf">Early reports</a> show an encouraging decline in arrests and gun assaults among READI Chicago participants.</p>
<p>In our view, these efforts suggest that while there will, of course, remain a need for consequences for violent offending, the focus needs to be more on intervention rather than incarceration.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/194618/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Thaddeus L. Johnson is affiliated with the Council on Criminal Justice. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Natasha N. Johnson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The US has one of the highest incarceration rates in the world. When it comes to violent offenders and the Black community, the system isn’t working, argue criminologists.Thaddeus L. Johnson, Assistant Professor of Criminal Justice and Criminology, Georgia State UniversityNatasha N. Johnson, Clinical Instructor of Criminal Justice and Criminology, Georgia State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1996212023-02-17T16:45:04Z2023-02-17T16:45:04ZExpert Q&A: why do people commit murder-suicides?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/510355/original/file-20230215-3929-ej40s2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=57%2C16%2C5406%2C3506&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/girl-holds-lighted-candle-her-hands-1174053094">EvGavrilov/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>The deaths of Epsom College Head Emma Pattison and her daughter Lettie are a possible example of the rare and tragic phenomenon of murder-suicide. Pattison’s husband is <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-surrey-64544884">believed to have shot</a> his wife and child before taking his own life. We asked Sandra Flynn, an expert in forensic mental health at the University of Manchester, about why people commit this horrific act and what we should understand about it.</em></p>
<h2>What kind of motivation can be behind these acts?</h2>
<p>As with other forms of murder, the motivations for murder-suicide (which academic researchers refer to as homicide-suicide) are extremely diverse. There is no simple explanation – complex psychological mechanisms underpin these acts, which are not fully understood. </p>
<p>Researchers have <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33988927/">examined</a> the motive for past cases, which have included mental health, relationship problems, alcohol and substance use, physical health problems, criminal and legal issues, job or financial difficulties and domestic violence. More recently, a <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1359178920301944">review of cases</a> found negative childhood experiences to be risk factors, as are characteristics like gender, age and financial situation.</p>
<p>It is important to note that these characteristics and experiences are common to many people in the general population, but incidence of murder-suicide is extremely rare. For the most part, our understanding of these cases comes from descriptive accounts. </p>
<p>This is limited further by the fact that the people that could explain what happened are often dead. Psychological autopsies can piece together information from surviving family members and friends and death notes, which can help us to better understand motives. </p>
<p>For what we do know about characteristics and motivation, there is a great deal of consistency internationally. Jealousy, revenge, mental illness, financial problems and a history of domestic abuse have all been reported as factors in murder-suicide cases around the world.</p>
<h2>What makes family murder-suicide different from other cases?</h2>
<p>Filicide-suicides – where a parent takes the life of their child or children as well as their own – are commonly motivated by altruistic motives. This is often <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16394226/">driven by a desire</a> to ease a child’s suffering, based on actual medical conditions or delusional beliefs that the child is in danger.</p>
<p>When a parent is experiencing suicidal thoughts, they often consider their child an extension of themselves. They may have a desire to not <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1524838018821955">abandon the child</a>, or leave them behind to face the world alone without a parent. </p>
<p>Other filicides are motivated by romantic jealousy, revenge and domestic violence, triggered by separation. For example, jealousy caused by knowing or suspecting a partner is attracted to someone else, or after separation, jealousy over the new family an ex-partner has formed. </p>
<p>These are factors often seen in filicide and familicide <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/car.2327">perpetrated by men</a>. Mental illness is a more prominent factor in <a href="https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0058981#:%7E:text=In%20the%20majority%20of%20cases,health%20and%20other%20support%20services.">maternal filicide</a>, but it is common in both.</p>
<h2>What are the connections between gender and murder-suicide?</h2>
<p>These acts are predominantly <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24314498/">committed by men</a> (usually white and middle class) and victims are more likely to be women and children.</p>
<p>One <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35523087/">recent study</a> examining differences between male and female perpetrators of filicide-suicide found that relationship problems and mental illness featured for both, but appear differently for men and women.</p>
<p>With male perpetrators, there is often a history of violence and domestic abuse with subsequent legal consequences. For women, relationship conflict and mental illness, combined with concerns around a child’s health, contribute to the incidents. Men more commonly commit familicide (spouse and child) and have several victims, including adults.</p>
<p>The relationship to the victim also tends to differ by gender. For example, women are less likely to kill their spouse and <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31769068/">take their own life</a>. They are also less likely than men to kill outside of the family, such as a mass shooting or through suicide-terrorism.</p>
<h2>What are common misconceptions or myths that influence how people understand these cases?</h2>
<p>There is a perception that murder-suicides are common, when in fact they are rare events. The National Confidential Inquiry into Suicide and Safety in Mental Health reported that there are <a href="https://sites.manchester.ac.uk/ncish/reports/annual-report-2022/">approximately 16 cases per year</a> in England and Wales, a fraction compared to thousands of suicides. </p>
<p>The portrayal of murder-suicide in the media can also influence how we perceive the perpetrator. When it comes to incidents involving parents who have killed their children, mothers tend to receive more <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4706221/">sympathetic press coverage</a> than fathers.</p>
<p>These incidents are rare and there is no simple explanation for why people commit murder-suicide. Because there is limited data, we do need to be cautious about how we interpret the research and cases reported in the media. Most of all, we must always be mindful that behind the research are grieving families and communities who have experienced a devastating loss.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>If you’re struggling with suicidal thoughts, the following services can provide you with support:</em></p>
<p><em>In the UK and Ireland – call Samaritans UK at 116 123.</em></p>
<p><em>In the US – call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255) or IMAlive at 1-800-784-2433.</em></p>
<p><em>In Australia – call Lifeline Australia at 13 11 14.</em></p>
<p><em>In other countries – visit IASP or Suicide.org to find a helpline in your country.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/199621/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sandra Flynn does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>There are many different reasons why men and women commit these acts, but the small number of cases makes it difficult to track.Sandra Flynn, Lecturer in Psychology and Mental Health, University of ManchesterLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1929002022-10-24T12:26:40Z2022-10-24T12:26:40ZRepublicans say crime is on the rise – what is the crime rate and what does it mean?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/490961/original/file-20221020-15-cwe7bn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C2100%2C1401&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Republican candidate for U.S. Senate Mehmet Oz has talked a lot about the crime rate during his campaign in Pennsylvania.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/Election2022PennsylvaniaSenate/d1c89933cd874bdea6c6c3ca8a861edf/photo">AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In the lead-up to the 2022 midterm elections, Republican candidates across the nation are <a href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/republicans-ride-crime-wave-worries-in-midterms-home-stretch/ar-AA12Zj7W">blaming Democrats for an increase in crime</a>. </p>
<p>But as a scholar of criminology and criminal justice, I believe it’s important to note that, despite the <a href="https://host2.adimpact.com/admo/viewer/4f9ccad6-acdb-4498-a405-910fc13b3ae8">apparently confident assertions of politicians</a>, it’s not so easy to make sense of fluctuations in the crime rate. And whether it’s going up or down depends on a few key questions:</p>
<ul>
<li>What you mean by “crime,”</li>
<li>What the “up” or “down” comparisons are in reference to, and</li>
<li>The location or area being examined.</li>
</ul>
<p>Here’s an explanation of those elements – and why there is no one answer to whether crime has increased in the past year, or over the past decade.</p>
<h2>What is ‘crime,’ anyway?</h2>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/490969/original/file-20221020-22-3h2uwx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="An email message reads: Three fires in residential neighborhoods in ONE WEEK! Three homeless encampment evictions in that same week! Multiple vehicles broken into in just one neighborhood! A homecoming game interrupted by youth with unmarked guns!" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/490969/original/file-20221020-22-3h2uwx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/490969/original/file-20221020-22-3h2uwx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=755&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/490969/original/file-20221020-22-3h2uwx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=755&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/490969/original/file-20221020-22-3h2uwx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=755&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/490969/original/file-20221020-22-3h2uwx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=949&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/490969/original/file-20221020-22-3h2uwx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=949&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/490969/original/file-20221020-22-3h2uwx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=949&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Republican politicians across the nation, including Cicely Davis in Minnesota, are working to get voters concerned about crime.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Cicely Davis campaign email</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Usually when politicians, public officials and scholars talk about crime statistics, they’re referring to <a href="https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2019/crime-in-the-u.s.-2019/topic-pages/offenses-known-to-law-enforcement">the most serious crimes</a>, which the FBI officially calls “index” or “Part 1” offenses: criminal homicide, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, larceny, motor vehicle theft and arson.</p>
<p>Because these crimes vary a great deal in terms of seriousness, experts break this list up into “violent” and “property” offenses, so as not to confuse a surge in thefts with an increase in killings.</p>
<p>Each month, state and local police departments tally up the crimes they have handled and send the data to the FBI for inclusion in the nation’s annual <a href="https://www.fbi.gov/how-we-can-help-you/need-an-fbi-service-or-more-information/ucr">Uniform Crime Report</a>.</p>
<p>But that system has limitations. According to the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics, <a href="https://bjs.ojp.gov/library/publications/criminal-victimization-2021">fewer than half</a> of all events that could count as crimes actually get reported to police in the first place. And police departments are not required to send information about known crimes to the FBI. So each year what are presented as national crime statistics are derived from whichever of the <a href="https://bjs.ojp.gov/sites/g/files/xyckuh236/files/media/document/csllea18st.pdf">roughly 17,000 police departments</a> across the country decide to send in their data.</p>
<p>In 2021, the optional nature of reporting crime statistics was a particular problem, because the FBI asked for more detailed information than it had in the past. Historically, the bureau received data from police departments covering about 90% of the U.S. population. But <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/05/us/fbi-national-crime-report-2021-data/index.html">fewer agencies supplied</a> the more detailed data requested in 2021. That data covered only 66% of the nation’s population. And the patchwork wasn’t even: In some states, such as Texas, Ohio and South Carolina, nearly all agencies reported. But in other states, such as Florida, California and New York, <a href="https://public.tableau.com/shared/7969TZHT6?:toolbar=n&:display_count=n&:origin=viz_share_link&:embed=y">participation was abysmal</a>.</p>
<p>With those caveats in mind, the 2021 data estimates that <a href="https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2019/crime-in-the-u.s.-2019/topic-pages/murder">criminal homicide</a> rose about 4% nationally from 2020 levels. Robberies were down 9%, and aggravated assaults remained relatively unchanged.</p>
<p>Rapes are notoriously <a href="https://bjs.ojp.gov/content/pub/pdf/vnrp0610.pdf">underreported to police</a>, but the <a href="https://bjs.ojp.gov/library/publications/criminal-victimization-2021">2021 National Crime Victimization Survey</a> suggests there was no significant change from 2020.</p>
<p><iframe id="sS5aA" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/sS5aA/2/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<h2>What’s the benchmark?</h2>
<p>Those comparisons look at the prior year to assess whether certain types of crime are up or down. Such comparisons may seem straightforward, but violent crime, particularly homicide, is statistically rare enough that a rise or fall from one year to the next doesn’t necessarily mean there is reason to panic or celebrate.</p>
<p>Another way to assess trends is to look at as much data as possible. <a href="https://crime-data-explorer.app.cloud.gov/pages/home">Over the past 36 years</a>, clear trends have emerged. The national homicide rate in 2021 wasn’t as high as it was in the early 1990s, but 2021’s figure is the highest in nearly 25 years.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, robberies have been trending steadily downward for the better part of 30 years. And though the aggravated assault rate didn’t change much from 2020 to 2021, it is clearly higher now than at any time during the 2010s.</p>
<p><iframe id="ph5rv" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/ph5rv/2/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<h2>Crime is highly localized</h2>
<p>These figures are imperfect in other ways, too. The data being used in today’s assertions about crime rates is more than 10 months old and presents national figures that mask a substantial amount of local variation. The FBI won’t release 2022 crime data until the fall of 2023. </p>
<p>But there is more current data available: The consulting firm AH Datalytics has a free <a href="https://www.ahdatalytics.com/dashboards/ytd-murder-comparison/">dashboard</a> that compiles more up-to-date murder data from 99 big cities. </p>
<p>As of October 2022, it indicates that murder in big cities is down about 5% in 2022 when compared with the first 10 months of 2021. But this aggregate change masks the fact that murder is up 85% in Colorado Springs, Colo.; 33% in Birmingham, Ala.; 28% in New Orleans; and 27% in Charlotte, N.C. Meanwhile, murder is down 38% in Columbus, Ohio; 29% in Richmond, Va.; and 18% in Chicago.</p>
<p>Even these city-level statistics don’t tell the whole story. It is now <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/1745-9125.12070">well established</a> that crime is <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1745-9125.1989.tb00862.x">not randomly distributed across communities</a>. Instead, it clusters in small areas that criminologists and police departments often refer to as “hot spots.” What this means is that regardless of whether crime is up or down in cities, a handful of neighborhoods in those cities are likely still significantly and disproportionately affected by violence.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/192900/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Justin Nix does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Whether crime is up or down depends on what kind of crime, what the comparison is to, and where you’re counting crimes.Justin Nix, Associate Professor of Criminology and Criminal Justice, University of Nebraska OmahaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1786382022-03-22T12:16:17Z2022-03-22T12:16:17ZAn expert on trends in gun sales and gun violence in pandemic America<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/451418/original/file-20220310-27-1ivkxv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C3922%2C2658&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Most people buy guns for protection.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/gun-shop-employee-wearing-a-protective-face-mask-shows-guns-news-photo/1264376890?adppopup=true">(Mike Pont/Getty Images News via Getty Images)</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Gun sales have risen in recent years, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic. On Feb. 28, 2022, <a href="https://www.sciline.org/">SciLine</a> interviewed <a href="https://health.ucdavis.edu/team/search/241/garen-wintemute---emergency-medicine-sacramento">Garen Wintemute</a> – an emergency medicine physician at the University of California, Davis, Medical Center and director of the California Firearm Violence Research Center – about what’s driving this change and what gun usage and culture looks like in America two years into the pandemic.</em></p>
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<p><em>The Conversation has collaborated with SciLine to bring you highlights from the discussion, which have been edited for brevity and clarity.</em></p>
<p><strong>What does the research tell us about who owns guns in the United States and why?</strong></p>
<p><strong>Garen Wintemute:</strong> The traditional population of gun owners are white, non-Hispanic men. But for several years, the demographic profile of gun owners in the United States has been broadening as <a href="https://doi.org/10.7326/M21-3423">women and members of underrepresented groups started purchasing firearms</a>. People <a href="https://doi.org/10.7758/rsf.2017.3.5.02">buy guns more for protection</a> than for all other reasons put together. The second-biggest reason is use in sport hunting and target shooting and so on.</p>
<p><strong>Can you discuss recent increases in gun sales and factors driving the surge?</strong></p>
<p><strong>Garen Wintemute:</strong> An absolutely <a href="https://doi.org/10.1186/s40621-021-00357-3">unprecedented increase in firearm sales</a> has occurred over the last couple of years.</p>
<p>It started in January 2020 with the news of the emerging COVID-19 pandemic, and it grew through the spring of 2020 as people became concerned about the advent of violence in late spring and summer, continuing right through the fall. There was a federal election in 2020, which always drives gun purchases. And that election was <a href="https://www.factcheck.org/2021/11/how-many-died-as-a-result-of-capitol-riot/">accompanied by violence</a>. Purchases reverted to expected levels only in the last couple of months of 2021 and now in the beginning of 2022. </p>
<p><strong>What is known about the links among gun prevalence, gun purchasing trends and gun violence?</strong></p>
<p><strong>Garen Wintemute:</strong> We’ve known for a long time that the more access there is to firearms in a society, the more firearm violence there is likely to be. It’s been shown in comparisons of societies and U.S. states with different levels of firearm ownership.</p>
<p>During the pandemic, as purchasing picked up across the country, we learned there was – at least early on – a relationship between an increase in gun purchases above expected levels and a later <a href="https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.07.02.20145508">increase in violence</a> above expected levels. As 2020 went on, that signal was lost, except for domestic violence, because many other things were contributing to increases in violence.</p>
<p><strong>Which demographic groups are harmed the most by gun violence?</strong></p>
<p><strong>Garen Wintemute:</strong> A very good and accessible source of information on this is <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/injury/wisqars/index.html">the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s injury mortality data tool, WISQARS</a>. </p>
<p>If we are talking about violence between people, men are at much greater risk than women, and men of color are at much greater risk than are white, non-Hispanic men. In particular, young Black men are at highest risk for homicide. </p>
<p>But if we talk about suicide, risk is higher with older age, not lower. Gender is related. Males are, again, at greater risk, but the group at highest risk is white, non-Hispanic men.</p>
<p><strong>What should people know about “ghost guns” and other recent developments?</strong></p>
<p><strong>Garen Wintemute:</strong> “Ghost guns” is shorthand for privately manufactured firearms. They are firearms that are produced with no serial number so <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-are-ghost-guns-a-target-of-bidens-anti-crime-effort-162327">they’re not traceable</a> if they’re used in a crime. And that’s where the term ghost guns comes from. In major cities in California, law enforcement agencies are reporting that 30%, 40%, 50% of <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/14/us/ghost-guns-homemade-firearms.html">all the guns they recover</a> following use in a crime are these anonymously produced ghost guns.</p>
<p>[<em>Like what you’ve read? Want more?</em> <a href="https://memberservices.theconversation.com/newsletters/?source=inline-likethis">Sign up for The Conversation’s daily newsletter</a>.]</p>
<p>I believe they’re going to be a huge problem nationwide, as they are in California. They can be manufactured by individuals in their homes. There’s a special milling machine that’s about the size of a desktop laser printer. I could have 10 of them in my office, and each one of them would <a href="https://doi.org/10.1186/s40621-021-00306-0">produce the key component for a ghost gun</a> about every 30 minutes. I can buy all the other parts on the open market.</p>
<p><strong>What gun violence trends are you following?</strong></p>
<p><strong>Garen Wintemute:</strong> There has been a rapid growth in the acceptance of the idea that violence is going to be necessary in order to keep America on the proper path. I’ll quantify: 10% of adults, about 25 million people, endorse the statement that <a href="https://doi.org/10.1186/s40621-021-00357-3">violence is justified now to put Donald Trump back in office</a>. Thirty percent of adults endorse the statement that President Biden was not legitimately elected.</p>
<p>People who study terrorism and violent extremism are very concerned that in this federal election year, and in 2024, we may see the advent of large-scale political violence. </p>
<p><em>Watch the <a href="https://www.sciline.org/public-health/gun-violence/">full interview</a> to hear more about the future of firearm research.</em></p>
<p><em><a href="https://www.sciline.org/">SciLine</a> is a free service based at the nonprofit American Association for the Advancement of Science that helps journalists include scientific evidence and experts in their news stories.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/178638/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dr. Wintemute’s research is supported by the UC Davis Violence Prevention Research Program and grants from The California Wellness Foundation and the Heising-Simons Foundation.</span></em></p>Gun sales have risen in recent years. An expert explains who and what is driving this trend and how it’s affecting Americans.Garen Wintemute, Distinguished Professor of Emergency Medicine; Director, Violence Prevention Research Program, University of California, DavisLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1783202022-03-04T02:42:10Z2022-03-04T02:42:10ZHomicide is on the rise in Australia. Should we be concerned?<p>The latest report from the <a href="https://www.aic.gov.au/publications/sr/sr39">Australian Institute of Criminology </a>(AIC) shows the homicide rate is increasing in Australia. </p>
<p>But should we be concerned and how does Australia compare to other similar countries? Is crime in general increasing or is the rise in the homicide rate a standout?</p>
<h2>How much has the homicide rate risen?</h2>
<p>The AIC runs the <a href="https://www.aic.gov.au/taxonomy/term/239">National Homicide Monitoring Program</a>, which is Australia’s only national collection of data on homicide incidents, victims and offenders. The report classifies homicides as being domestic, acquaintance, stranger or unknown. The latest report covers the period 2019-20. </p>
<p>It shows the homicide rate has risen in Australia over this period by 16%. The homicide rate in 2019–20 was 1.02 incidents per 100,000 people, the highest rate since 2012–13. Within these incidents the rate of domestic and stranger homicides increased, while the rate of acquaintance homicide decreased for 2019-20.</p>
<p>In this period there were 261 homicide incidents, up 35 from the previous period. This is the highest number of murders since 2005-06. </p>
<p>The biggest increase was in homicides in which the relationship between the victim and offender was unknown or not stated. These accounted for 51 incidents, up 64% for 2019-20. Stranger homicides, 46 incidents, rose 35%. Domestic homicides, 81 incidents, rose only 5%.</p>
<h2>What do we know about the homicide incidents</h2>
<p>Males accounted for 87% of homicide offenders in 2019-20. The rate of offending for males increased to 2.45 per 100,000. That’s almost seven times the rate of female offending, which increased slightly to 0.36 per 100,000.</p>
<p>There were 278 victims, an increase of 38 over the previous year. Of these victims, 65% were male and 35% were female.</p>
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<p>The most common cause of death for homicide victims was a stab wound: this accounted for 37% of deaths. This was followed by blunt force (19%) and gunshot wounds (13%). Other causes of death included strangulation, shaking, burns and poisoning.</p>
<p>Domestic homicides include intimate partner, child, spouse or sibling, and other family incidents. In 2019-20, the number of intimate partner homicides decreased to 45 incidents, the lowest number since records began in 1989-90. However, killing of a child by parents increased, while other categories remained stable.</p>
<p>Residential settings accounted for 57% of homicide incidents, while 28% occurred in a public setting such as a park or street.</p>
<p>New South Wales had the most murders with 85, followed by Victoria with 66. The Northern Territory had the biggest increase of 60% compared to the previous period, although the number of incidents remained small at just eight. Of the other states, Victoria recorded the next biggest increase compared to 2018-19, with homicide incidents increasing 46%. Western Australia and South Australia both recorded declines. </p>
<h2>How Australia compares</h2>
<p>Provisional data from the <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/10/27/what-we-know-about-the-increase-in-u-s-murders-in-2020/">United States</a> show a dramatic increase in the US murder rate in 2020. It rose from six homicides per 100,000 in 2019 to 7.8 per 100,000. </p>
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<p>In <a href="https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeandjustice/articles/homicideinenglandandwales/yearendingmarch2020">England and Wales</a>, the homicide rate for 2019-20 was 1.1 per 100,000 a rate similar to the previous year. </p>
<p><a href="https://dataunodc.un.org/">United Nations homicide data</a> indicate the global homicide rate in 2018 was estimated to be 5.8 per 100,000. To put this in perspective, generally homicide rates around the world have been in decline: between 1990 and 2015, <a href="https://theconversation.com/homicide-is-declining-around-the-world-but-why-125365">the world homicide rate fell by 20%</a>. Indeed, the current rate of homicide in Australia is almost half of the peak rate of 1.88, which was recorded in 1992-93.</p>
<h2>What about other crime in Australia?</h2>
<p>The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) produces data on both reported crime to police and experiences of victims gathered through the Crime Victimisation Survey. This survey collects details about a range of personal and household crimes, such as assaults, breaking and entering, and theft. The victimisation survey may capture offences that were not reported to police.</p>
<p>For the 2019-20 period, the <a href="https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/people/crime-and-justice/crime-victimisation-australia/2019-20#physical-assault">survey</a> showed that those who experienced physical assaults, break and enters, sexual assaults, motor vehicle thefts and robberies had similar rates when compared to 2019-20.</p>
<p>In terms of reported crime, the period 2019-20 captures the beginning of the COVID pandemic, <a href="https://theconversation.com/some-crimes-have-seen-drastic-decreases-during-coronavirus-but-not-homicides-in-the-us-142718">which had a significant impact on decreasing crime levels</a>. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/people/crime-and-justice/recorded-crime-victims/latest-release#victoria">ABS data for reported crime</a> in 2020 show substantial decreases in break and enters, motor vehicle thefts and robbery. However, there was an increase in sexual assault reported during this period.</p>
<h2>So why did homicide rates rise?</h2>
<p>Some insight can be gained by looking at the motives for the homicides. In 36% of the incidents, there was an argument or personal dispute prior to the homicide. Drugs and money were recorded as a motivation in only 5% of incidents. There was no apparent motive in 10% of incidents, and revenge or jealousy accounted for just 3% of murders.</p>
<p>Alcohol and drugs were often present. Victims had consumed alcohol in 25% of cases and drugs in 28%. Offenders were reported to have consumed alchol in 17% of incidents and drugs in 10%. It should be noted that the results for offenders rely on self-reporting or police observation, whereas toxicology reports are available for victims.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-how-do-police-undertake-major-crime-investigations-172610">Explainer: how do police undertake major crime investigations?</a>
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<h2>Where to from here?</h2>
<p>Data collection needs to be improved to identify why so many homicide incidents are not able to be classified. This would seem to be primarily due to no relationship being stated or known. </p>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-how-do-police-undertake-major-crime-investigations-172610">Having investigated more than 25 homicides</a> as a police officer, it is hard to fathom how a relationship status remains unknown in so many cases where the offender is identified. Such information is crucial is terms of investigative strategies, risk mitigation and crime prevention responses. This knowledge gap needs to be addressed.</p>
<p>The homicide rate increase is out of step with trends for most other crimes in Australia for the 2019-20 period and Australia compares well to international counterparts.</p>
<p>While the number of incidents is low compared to historical levels, we should be concerned this increase does not continue. For obvious reasons, homicides inflict the most harm on society and we must be vigilant about keeping them as low as possible. </p>
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<p><em>Correction: this article originally stated 65% of homicide victims were female and 35% were male. In fact, it is 65% male and 35% female, this has been corrected.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/178320/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Terry Goldsworthy does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Australia has recorded a small rise in the number of murders in 2019-20. We need to know more about these cases to make sure this does not become a trend.Terry Goldsworthy, Associate Professor in Criminology, Bond UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1751852022-02-21T14:14:40Z2022-02-21T14:14:40ZSouth African doctors call for law reform, fearing a harsh penalty if patients die<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/445416/original/file-20220209-17-1rcsuts.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In November 2021 the South African Medico-Legal Association joined other with leading healthcare organisations in South Africa in <a href="https://www.medicalprotection.org/southafrica/casebook-and-resources/news/news-article/2021/11/05/press-release-south-africa-healthcare-leaders-unite-in-call-for-review-of-culpable-homicide-law">urging the government</a> to review the culpable homicide law and its application in healthcare settings.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://medicolegal.org.za/">South African Medico-Legal Association</a> represents medical and legal practitioners, many of whom also belong to the other healthcare bodies involved in this matter. They wrote to the Minister of Justice and Correctional Services, suggesting that the <a href="https://www.justice.gov.za/salrc/about.html">South Africa Law Reform Commission</a> should review this complex area of law. Such a review would benefit healthcare professionals as well as patients.</p>
<p>The current law in South Africa to prove that healthcare practitioners are guilty of culpable homicide is set out in the common law and the <a href="https://www.gov.za/documents/national-health-act">National Health Act No. 61 of 2003</a>. It must be shown that they deviated from their duty of care, leading to the foreseeable death of a patient. In addition, the prosecutor needs to prove <a href="https://www.myacademic.co.za/product/criminal-law/">unlawfulness and negligence</a>. </p>
<p>This is a low threshold for criminal culpability. Even if the healthcare practitioner acts in good faith, or the error of judgement is slight, it can be relatively easy for the prosecution to formulate charges and secure a criminal <a href="https://www.medicalacademic.co.za/ethics/doctors-and-culpable-homicide/">conviction</a>. </p>
<p>Even if the healthcare practitioner is acquitted on the charge, he or she suffers a huge reputational risk. This can have an adverse affect on their practice.</p>
<p>Practitioners fear arrests and being charged with culpable homicide even for minor mistakes, including slips and lapses. This may happen even to the best trained practitioners. And in the <a href="https://journals.co.za/doi/10.10520/EJC-d1f07f9d9">public sector</a>, inadequate infrastructure, including obsolete medical equipment, and understaffing may increase the risk of healthcare practitioners making mistakes.</p>
<p>Practitioners are also <a href="https://www.medicalprotection.org/southafrica/casebook-and-resources/news/news-article/2020/01/21/prosecuting-healthcare-professionals-for-culpable-homicide-who-benefits">concerned</a> that a culture of fear, where prosecutions appear to be indiscriminate, may result in an exodus of practitioners – something South Africa cannot afford. </p>
<p>We are seeking support from politicians to bring about law reform in South Africa. </p>
<h2>Recent prosecutions</h2>
<p>Until recently, prosecutions of healthcare practitioners were sparse in South Africa. But law enforcement agencies, including the South African Police Service and the National Prosecuting Authority, now appear to be more eager to proceed with such cases. In 2019 there were two separate cases in which the state showed its intent. </p>
<p>The first case involved Dr Daniel van der Walt, an obstetrician and gynaecologist. He was convicted of culpable homicide and sentenced to five years in prison but <a href="http://www.saflii.org/za/cases/ZACC/2020/19.html">successfully appealed</a> to the Constitutional Court.</p>
<p>The second case was that of Professor Peter Beale, a paediatric surgeon, and Dr Abdullah Munshi, an anaesthetist. They were charged with culpable homicide for the death of a patient. Munshi then died in what was perceived to be an <a href="https://www.news24.com/news24/southafrica/news/killing-of-dr-abdulhay-munshi-is-outrageous-and-deplorable-sama-20200917">assassination</a>. The charge against <a href="https://www.timeslive.co.za/sunday-times-daily/news/2022-02-07-paediatric-surgeon-peter-beale-stripped-of-licence-to-operate/">Beale</a> has since been changed to murder. </p>
<p>These cases have highlighted to doctors the very real <a href="https://www.timeslive.co.za/news/south-africa/2020-09-21-we-cant-practise-in-this-climate-doctors-write-to-cyril-ramaphosa/">prospect</a> of facing criminal charges when they have acted in good faith, in a complex and challenging environment. </p>
<p>As members of the South African Medico-Legal Association, we are very concerned about the present law in assessing the criminal culpability of healthcare practitioners in South Africa. As a coalition, we cannot see who benefits from the current system. Doctors risk losing their careers and liberty. The fear of criminal charges also has a negative knock-on effect on patient care. Practitioners may resort to defensive medicine, referring patients to others for diagnosis (and adding to treatment costs). Surgeons may lose the confidence they need in difficult circumstances. And the health professions, already short of practitioners, may become less attractive as a career.</p>
<h2>Law reform</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://www.medicalprotection.org/southafrica/casebook-and-resources/news/news-article/2021/11/05/press-release-south-africa-healthcare-leaders-unite-in-call-for-review-of-culpable-homicide-law">letter</a> to the minister, Ronald Lamola, was signed by the Medical Protection Society, Association of Surgeons of South Africa, Federation of South African Surgeons, Radiological Society of South Africa, South African Medical Association, South African Medico-Legal Association, South African Private Practitioners Forum, South African Society of Anaesthesiologists and South African Society of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists. </p>
<p>The letter stresses the importance of achieving a long-term solution for healthcare professionals and patients alike.</p>
<p>Our primary goal is to engage the South African Reform Commission. It must investigate the need for introducing legislation to stop the National Prosecuting Authority from instituting prosecutions against healthcare practitioners when complications occur despite best intentions and care. We believe the current measure to establish criminal culpability of healthcare practitioners is inappropriate.</p>
<p>Let us be clear, practitioners whose intentional or reckless conduct causes the death of patients should be punished. But fatalities brought about by errors of judgement in complex healthcare environments should not be viewed as culpable. This can be achieved with a raised threshold that includes either recklessness or gross negligence. A clear intention to cause harm should also be added.</p>
<p>We recommend a higher threshold as found in the <a href="https://www.lawscot.org.uk/members/journal/issues/vol-63-issue-09/medical-death-a-case-to-answer/">Scottish law</a> and in the <a href="https://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1961/0043/latest/whole.html">New Zealand</a> legal system. </p>
<p>South Africa needs a system of greater openness, where practitioners are encouraged to report unintended and unexpected adverse events and apologise to the families of deceased patients. We should move away from a culture of blame and fear to a system of learning from mistakes.</p>
<p>New Zealand has a programme aimed at learning from adverse events, minimising repeat behaviour and ultimately improving patient safety. Prosecutions of healthcare practitioners have become <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6876437/">rare</a> there.</p>
<p>These changes can take place by developing South Africa’s common law or by legislative reform. The influence of the South African Law Reform Commission is vital. The commission researches the law on <a href="https://www.businesslive.co.za/bd/national/2022-01-24-no-need-to-wait-for-legislation-to-tackle-medical-negligence-say-experts/">issues in need of reform</a> to make recommendations to government. It relies heavily on the help of commentators who share their knowledge and experience. </p>
<p>Besides leading to greater consistency and fairer outcomes, reform will replace a measure that is overly punitive.</p>
<p>The South African Medico-Legal Association’s collaboration on this important issue is anchored in its <a href="https://medicolegal.org.za/">mission statement</a>, which encourages the inter-relationship between medicine and law, fostering dialogue between member professions and beyond, to promote justice, ethical practice and constitutional values.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/175185/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ethelwynn Stellenberg received a NRF competitive grant in 2015 to investigate malpractice litigation in nursing practice in South Africa. The grant was not related to the topic of this article.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Henry Lerm does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Doctors and nurses fear arrests and being charged with culpable homicide even for minor mistakes.Henry Lerm, Adjunct Professor in the Department of Criminal and Procedural Law, Nelson Mandela UniversityEthelwynn Stellenberg, Associate Professor in Nursing, Stellenbosch UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1730272021-12-02T13:42:53Z2021-12-02T13:42:53ZSchool shootings are at a record high this year – but they can be prevented<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/435165/original/file-20211201-22-1475z85.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=17%2C8%2C2977%2C1985&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">So far, there have been 222 school shootings in 2021.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/people-bring-flowers-to-a-makeshift-memorial-outside-of-news-photo/1356625412?adppopup=true">Scott Olson/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Whenever a school shooting takes place like the one at <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/11/30/oxford-high-school-shooting/">Oxford High School</a> in suburban Detroit on November 30, 2021, it is typically followed by a familiar chorus of questions.</p>
<p>How could such a thing happen? Why doesn’t the government do more to stop these shootings from occurring?</p>
<p>Those questions are even more urgent in light of the fact that the shooting at Oxford High School was one of 222 school shootings in 2021, an all-time high, according to the Center for Homeland Defense and Security’s <a href="https://www.chds.us/ssdb/">K-12 School Shooting Database</a>. That’s over 100 more school shootings in 2021 than in 2019 or 2018, respectively the <a href="https://www.chds.us/ssdb/view-chart/?chartid=8">second- and third-worst years</a> on record.</p>
<p>In the Oxford High School case, a <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/12/01/us/oxford-high-school-shooting-what-we-know/index.html">15-year-old boy</a> armed with a semiautomatic handgun is accused of killing four students and injuring six others and a teacher.</p>
<p>As shown in our 2021 book, “<a href="https://www.abramsbooks.com/product/violence-project_9781419752957/">The Violence Project: How to Stop a Mass Shooting Epidemic</a>,” school mass shooters tend to be current or former students of the school. They are almost always in crisis of some sort before their attack, as indicated by a noticeable change in behavior from usual. They often are <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-columbine-became-a-blueprint-for-school-shooters-115115">inspired by other school shooters</a>, and they also tend to leak their plans for violence in advance to their peers.</p>
<p>And school shooters usually <a href="https://www.secretservice.gov/sites/default/files/2020-04/Protecting_Americas_Schools.pdf">get their guns</a> from family and friends who failed to store them safely and securely.</p>
<p>News reports suggest <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/01/us/oxford-school-shooting-michigan.html">a lot of this holds true</a> for the Oxford High School shooter. For instance, the suspect’s father allegedly <a href="https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/oakland/2021/11/30/oxford-high-school-shooting-suspect-used-gun-dad-bought/8817406002/">purchased the handgun used in the shooting</a> just four days prior. The shooter reportedly exhibited “<a href="https://www.cnn.com/us/live-news/school-shooting-oxford-michigan-12-01-21/index.html">concerning</a>” behavior at school and posted <a href="https://nypost.com/2021/12/01/oxford-hs-suspect-allegedly-posted-pics-of-gun-before-massacre/">pictures of the gun</a> alongside threats of violence on social media.</p>
<p>The question now is how to translate these findings into policy and practice in order to prevent the next school shooting. </p>
<h2>Trouble from the start</h2>
<p>The data we use to track school shootings is a <a href="https://www.chds.us/ssdb/">comprehensive database</a> that includes information on “each and every instance a gun is brandished, is fired, or a bullet hits school property for any reason, regardless of the number of victims, time of day, or day of week” going back to 1970.</p>
<p>Working with its co-creator, David Riedman, we uncovered <a href="https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2021-11-05/record-school-shooting-threats-guns">a record 151 school shooting threats</a> in the “back-to-school” month of September 2021, up from a three-year average of 29. Actual school shootings also <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/10/08/school-shootings-are-increasing-changing-easily-accessible-guns-are-blame/">more than doubled</a> during September 2021 compared with the same month in previous years. </p>
<p>There were 55 school shootings in September 2021, up from 24 in September 2020 and 14 in September 2019. But the school carnage began well before the 2021 school year got underway for most students, as evidenced in the Aug. 13 fatal shooting of <a href="https://www.krqe.com/news/crime/victim-suspect-named-in-fatal-washington-middle-school-shooting/">13-year-old Bennie Hargrove</a> at Washington Middle School in Albuquerque, New Mexico.</p>
<p>These trends are part of an overall rise in <a href="https://www.gunviolencearchive.org/">shootings</a> and <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/10/27/what-we-know-about-the-increase-in-u-s-murders-in-2020/">murders</a> in 2020 and 2021, tied in part to <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2021/02/10/this-is-how-many-guns-were-sold-in-all-50-states/43371461/">record gun sales</a>. More guns in more hands <a href="https://theconversation.com/most-school-shooters-get-their-guns-from-home-and-during-the-pandemic-the-number-of-firearms-in-households-with-teenagers-went-up-172951">increases the likelihood</a> that a firearm will find its way into a school.</p>
<h2>Local responses</h2>
<p>Schools are struggling to respond to the overwhelming number of shootings and shooting threats. There have been a staggering <a href="https://www.chds.us/ssdb/">30 shootings</a> just at high school football games so far this year. </p>
<p>A “<a href="https://www.9news.com/article/news/local/aurora-community-meeting-state-emergency/73-15c17eb5-21fa-4010-a296-f6e1df9ea049">State of Emergency</a>” meeting was held after nine teens were shot in two separate shootings in Aurora, Colorado, in November 2021. Public schools in the area are prohibiting <a href="https://www.9news.com/article/news/crime/aurora-public-schools-lunch-break-policy/73-03950f8a-afaa-4b95-ab00-842e0d3826e7">students from leaving for lunch</a> in an effort to keep them safe.</p>
<p>One school in Phoenix, Arizona, banned <a href="https://finance.yahoo.com/news/cesar-chavez-high-school-increases-182811090.html">backpacks and food deliveries</a> after a student was shot in the bathroom on Nov. 29. The Newburgh Enlarged City School District in <a href="https://nypost.com/2021/11/23/new-york-school-district-offers-remote-learning-over-shootings/">New York State</a> offered remote learning following two separate shooting incidents near its schools on Nov. 22. Schools across the country are increasing safety measures, <a href="https://www.wxii12.com/article/winston-salem-police-respond-to-reported-shooting-at-mount-tabor-high-school/37455325#%22%22">canceling classes</a>, even using <a href="https://www.actionnewsjax.com/video/archive/raw-police-escort-school-bus-following-shooting/7SHHOVJHSPVUMQUUZQPY2G7PPQ/">police escorts</a> for students coming onto campus.</p>
<p>These localized responses stand in stark contrast to the <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/11/26/world/us-gun-culture-world-comparison-intl-cmd/index.html">national legislative action taken in Finland, Germany and other countries</a> when they experienced deadly school shootings.</p>
<h2>Response in the UK</h2>
<p>Twenty-five years ago, in March 1996, a gunman walked into Scotland’s Dunblane Primary School and opened fire, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Dunblane-school-massacre">killing 16 children and a teacher</a>. A successful campaign for gun regulation followed, laws were changed, <a href="https://www.theweek.co.uk/100333/uk-gun-laws-who-can-own-a-firearm">handguns were banned</a> and the United Kingdom <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/how-1996-dunblane-massacre-pushed-uk-enact-stricter-gun-laws-180977221/">hasn’t had a school shooting since</a>.</p>
<p>Yet in America, <a href="https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2021/03/us/school-shooting-lockdown-drills/">active shooter drills</a> to rehearse for a real shooting incident and <a href="https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2776515">armed guards</a> to respond to them are the best children can hope for. There is a US$3 billion “<a href="https://nyupress.org/9780814748206/homeroom-security/">homeroom security</a>” industry, and some parents send their children to school wearing <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/business/consumer/bulletproof-backpacks-wouldn-t-have-saved-anyone-recent-shootings-n1042801">bulletproof backpacks</a>.</p>
<h2>Searching for solutions</h2>
<p>In a study published in the <a href="https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2785799">Journal of the American Medical Association</a> in November 2021, we searched public records on 170 mass shooters who killed four or more people from 1966 to 2019 for any communication of intent to do harm. That includes posting a threat on social media or telegraphing future violence to a loved one in person. We found that 79 mass shooters – nearly half of them – leaked their plans in advance. Communication was most common among school shooters and younger shooters. The fact it was most strongly associated with suicidal tendencies or attempts, as well as prior mental health counseling, suggests it may best be characterized as a cry for help.</p>
<p>Threats of violence <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/crime/michigan-high-school-shooting-threats-b1967288.html">circulated on campus</a> before the Oxford High School shooting, with some students <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/some-students-stayed-home-ahead-oxford-school-shooting-due-online-threats-1654913">staying home</a> out of an abundance of caution. There will be questions now about whether threats were disclosed to authorities and handled appropriately, in ways consistent with best practices on <a href="https://www.secretservice.gov/sites/default/files/reports/2020-10/USSS_NTAC_Enhancing_School_Safety_Guide.pdf">threat assessment</a> or what we like to call “<a href="https://off-ramp.org/crisis-response-teams/">crisis response</a>” systems. Our research is clear that all threats must be investigated and treated seriously as an opportunity for real intervention.</p>
<p>There are further implications from our research. If school shooters are nearly always students of the school, educators and others who work with them need training to identify a student in crisis and how <a href="https://www.edweek.org/leadership/more-schools-are-using-anonymous-tip-lines-to-thwart-violence-do-they-work/2018/08">to report</a> something they see or hear indicative of violent intent.</p>
<p>Schools also need <a href="https://www.aclu.org/report/cops-and-no-counselors">counselors, social workers</a> and other resources so they can respond appropriately and holistically to students in crisis. This means not unduly punishing students with expulsion or <a href="https://www.newsobserver.com/news/local/education/article217015060.html">criminal charges</a> – things that could escalate the crisis or any grievance with the institution.</p>
<p>And for parents of school-age children, <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/how-moms-are-quietly-passing-gun-safety-policy-through-school-n1132891">safe gun storage at home</a> is paramount. </p>
<p>School shootings are not inevitable. They’re preventable. But practitioners and policymakers must act quickly because each school shooting <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/10/19/thresholds-of-violence">feeds the cycle for the next one</a>, causing <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2018/local/school-shootings-database/">harm</a> far beyond that which is measured in lives lost. We believe the steps outlined above can help address that harm, promoting school security while safeguarding student well-being.</p>
<p>[<em>Over 140,000 readers rely on The Conversation’s newsletters to understand the world.</em> <a href="https://memberservices.theconversation.com/newsletters/?source=inline-140ksignup">Sign up today</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/173027/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>James Densley has received funding from The National Institute of Justice.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jillian Peterson receives funding from The National Institute of Justice. </span></em></p>School shootings are typically preceded by a series of warning signs. Are educators, police and policymakers paying enough attention?James Densley, Professor of Criminal Justice, Metropolitan State University Jillian Peterson, Professor of Criminal Justice, Hamline University Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1688232021-09-27T19:48:37Z2021-09-27T19:48:37ZMore guns, pandemic stress and a police legitimacy crisis created perfect conditions for homicide spike in 2020<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/423422/original/file-20210927-23-c08mfa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=5%2C5%2C3489%2C2321&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">What role did the pandemic play in the hike in murders in 2020?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/man-walks-past-police-tape-near-the-scene-of-a-shooting-news-photo/504027776?adppopup=true">Mark Makela/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Homicides in the U.S. <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/09/27/politics/uniform-crime-report-2020/index.html">spiked by almost 30%</a> in 2020.</p>
<p>That was the main takeaway from <a href="https://www.fbi.gov/news/pressrel/press-releases/fbi-releases-2020-crime-statistics">figures released on Sept. 27, 2021, by the FBI</a> that showed almost uniform increases across America in the murder rate. </p>
<p>The fact that big cities, small cities, suburbs and rural areas – in both blue and red states – experienced similar increases in homicides suggests that nationwide events or trends were behind the rise.</p>
<p>The COVID-19 pandemic would be one obvious explanation given its pervasiveness in 2020. But <a href="https://www.unomaha.edu/college-of-public-affairs-and-community-service/criminology-and-criminal-justice/about-us/justin-nix.php">as a criminologist</a>, <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=_Jr8r8UAAAAJ&hl=en">I know that</a> homicide rates are affected by a number of factors. And what happened in 2020 was a confluence of events that created the perfect conditions for a spike in murders.</p>
<h2>Stress and a lack of support</h2>
<p>COVID-19 likely did have an impact. People were under increased psychological and financial pressure during the pandemic. Criminologists have long pointed to “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1745-9125.2001.tb00915.x">strain theory</a>” to explain criminal behavior. Stressors – such as unemployment, isolation and uncertainty about the future – can lead to increased frustration and anger. People experiencing these negative emotions are more prone to turn to crime when they lack access to more positive coping mechanisms. And previous research has shown how financial stressors and a lack of social support <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1745-9125.2003.tb00999.x">work together to influence the overall homicide rate</a>.</p>
<p>But the pandemic wasn’t the only major event of 2020 that likely contributed to the increased homicide rates. In May of that year, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/article/george-floyd.html">George Floyd was murdered</a> by a police officer in Minneapolis.</p>
<p>Floyd’s murder and the large-scale protests that followed sparked a <a href="https://www.denverpost.com/2021/02/24/denver-crime-rate-homicide-shooting-property-crime-police/">police legitimacy crisis</a>. In short, this means citizens’ trust in police <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/S0003055421000460">was diminished</a>.</p>
<h2>The ‘Ferguson effect’</h2>
<p>When trust in the police <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/08/12/americans-confidence-police-falls-new-low-gallup-poll-shows/3352910001/">falls as dramatically as it did</a> following Floyd’s murder, the general public may become less likely to call 911 to report crimes or otherwise engage with the criminal justice system. Indeed, research by Desmond Ang at Harvard University suggests that after Floyd’s death, <a href="https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/ang/files/abbd_crimereporting.pdf">911 calls dropped significantly</a> in the eight cities he and his colleagues studied. </p>
<p>High-profile cases of police brutality are also associated with what has become known as the “Ferguson effect,” in which police officers <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3715223">make fewer stops</a> that occasionally <a href="https://media4.manhattan-institute.org/sites/default/files/hall-police-enforce-traffic-laws.pdf">result in illegal guns being taken off the streets</a>. </p>
<p>Research shows that <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s00127-013-0783-y">a small number of people are disproportionately involved in violent crime</a>. If this small group felt <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.0011-1348.2005.00014.x">emboldened as a result of the legitimacy crisis</a>, then it might help explain the increase in homicides.</p>
<p>Richard Rosenfeld, a criminologist at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, cited the “Ferguson effect” <a href="https://www.npr.org/2016/06/15/482123552/murder-rate-spike-attributed-to-ferguson-effect-doj-study-says">as a factor</a> in the 17% hike in homicides <a href="https://www.ojp.gov/pdffiles1/nij/249895.pdf">recorded in U.S. cities</a> after Michael Brown was shot by a police officer in the Missouri city in 2014.</p>
<h2>More guns = more gun homicides</h2>
<p>There is also <a href="https://www.vox.com/22529989/2020-murders-guns">evidence that gun carrying increased</a> in 2020.</p>
<p><a href="https://twitter.com/Crimealytics?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor">Crime analyst Jeff Asher</a> and <a href="https://www.robarthurwriter.com/about.html">data scientist Rob Arthur</a> found that in 10 cities, although police made fewer arrests in 2020, the number of gun seizures went up. This suggests more people were illegally carrying guns in 2020. And research has long confirmed that gun ownership is <a href="https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2013.301409">linked to higher rates of firearm homicides</a>.</p>
<p>When there are more guns in the hands of emboldened offenders, then the likely result is more attempted and completed murders. That this all happened during the height of a pandemic means 2020 was a perfect storm of factors that proved capable of producing the largest single-year homicide spike on record. </p>
<p>[<em>Get the best of The Conversation, every weekend.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/weekly-highlights-61?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=weeklybest">Sign up for our weekly newsletter</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/168823/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Justin Nix does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>FBI statistics recorded a 30% rise in homicides in 2020. A criminologist helps break down what was behind the spike.Justin Nix, Associate Professor of Criminology and Criminal Justice, University of Nebraska OmahaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1632602021-07-14T20:12:54Z2021-07-14T20:12:54ZSafe at home? We need a new strategy to protect older adults from violent crime<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/411153/original/file-20210714-17-ja99g9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=51%2C8%2C5760%2C3819&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/night-image-cute-modest-little-renovated-1833072724">Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Compared to younger homicide victims, older homicide victims are more likely to be women who die in their own home at the hands of a stranger.</p>
<p>These are among the findings of our <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/15248380211030250">review study</a>, published this week, examining the prevalence and nature of homicide of older people (aged 65 and over) in the community.</p>
<h2>What we did and what we found</h2>
<p>We pooled results from 17 studies on homicide in older people to gather information on the profile of the victim, perpetrator, motive, means and location.</p>
<p>Across the research we looked at, the homicide rate for adults 65 and older was 2.02 per 100,000 people. This was half the rate for younger adults (3.98 per 100,000). </p>
<p>Compared with younger adult homicide victims, we found older homicide victims were significantly more likely to be female. Some 46% of victims over 65 were women, compared with 26% of victims under 65.</p>
<p>The perpetrator was a stranger in almost one-quarter (24%) of older adult homicides, which is 1.8 times the rate seen for younger adult victims. </p>
<p>In another quarter (25%) of older adult homicides the perpetrator was a member of the victim’s family, which is similar to what we see in younger adult homicides. But in older adult homicides, intra-familial victim-offender relationships (for example, a child killing a parent) are more common, and the perpetrator is <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1088767910362328">less likely to be</a> an intimate partner. </p>
<p>The majority of the other relationship types were either acquaintances, or unknown.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/violent-crime-against-older-people-is-at-record-levels-heres-why-98266">Violent crime against older people is at record levels — here's why</a>
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<p>The motives most frequently reported for older adult homicides were related to an argument between the perpetrator and the victim, and/or crime-related, for example during a robbery. </p>
<p>Compared with younger adult homicide, older adults were almost three times more likely to have died during a crime against them, while an argument was 67% less likely.</p>
<p>In terms of the means, the odds of firearms being used was 62% lower for older victims. Firearms were involved in less than one-quarter of older adult homicides, compared to almost half of younger adult homicides.</p>
<p>While we didn’t analyse other means used, we know <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9544544/">physical assault without a weapon</a> is common in this context. Older people may be <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1088767903262396">more susceptible to assault</a> than younger people because of physical fragility and poorer biological capacity to recover.</p>
<p>As for the location, older adults were most often killed in their home (71%). This is almost a four-fold greater level than for younger adults. This disparity could potentially be explained by the fact <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1088767998002002003">older adults</a> likely spend more time at home compared with younger victims.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="An elderly woman at home." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/411154/original/file-20210714-23-1gptp4m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/411154/original/file-20210714-23-1gptp4m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/411154/original/file-20210714-23-1gptp4m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/411154/original/file-20210714-23-1gptp4m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/411154/original/file-20210714-23-1gptp4m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/411154/original/file-20210714-23-1gptp4m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/411154/original/file-20210714-23-1gptp4m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Almost half of older homicide victims are women, compared to only one-quarter of younger homicide victims.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
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<h2>COVID could make things worse</h2>
<p>While global homicide rates <a href="https://www.unodc.org/documents/data-and-analysis/gsh/Booklet2.pdf">are declining</a>, the rates for older adults either <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1752928X10000892">remain stable</a> or have <a href="https://injepijournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s40621-021-00299-w">slightly increased</a>, depending on the data you look at.</p>
<p>An ageing population could lead to an increase in the homicide rate <a href="https://academic.oup.com/bjsw/article/49/5/1234/5211414?login=true">because of factors</a> like caregiver stress, increasing prevalence of mental illness in the community, and inter-generational familial stressors, such as financial issues.</p>
<p>Contemporary pressures on older adults that may increase vulnerability to violent incidents include lack of appropriate housing, and inadequate mental health, disability and aged-care support.</p>
<p>Our study didn’t address whether the victims lived alone and/or were isolated from others, which would increase their vulnerability at home.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/homicide-is-declining-around-the-world-but-why-125365">Homicide is declining around the world – but why?</a>
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<p>Importantly, COVID lockdowns have compounded these issues, and reduced service availability — especially for already marginalised groups including <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7234937/">older adults</a> and <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7195322/">women</a>.</p>
<p>Indeed, the pandemic has seen an increase <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S106474812100018X">in elder abuse</a> and other forms of <a href="https://www.proquest.com/openview/11255fd2e5ba902a8cb651a20eeb035f/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=2043523">domestic violence</a>.</p>
<p>All of this adds to the complexity of keeping our most vulnerable safe. We need a different and targeted response to prevent homicides in older people. </p>
<h2>Older adult homicide is different from elder abuse</h2>
<p>Elder abuse can incorporate a range of physical, psychological, sexual and financial abuse and neglect of older people. </p>
<p>Some people may assume older adult homicide is simply an extension of physical or other types of elder abuse. But this is not the case; the characteristics we see in homicide cases in older people differ from elder abuse.</p>
<p>For example, an opportunistic robbery that becomes a fatal assault is very different to a familial caregiver restricting an older adult’s access to their finances.</p>
<p>Elder abuse as defined by the <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12384003/">World Health Organization</a> rarely leads to homicide, and homicides are not necessarily the result of <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1088767912438713">ongoing or recent elder abuse</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Yellow police tape in the forefront of a crime scene." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/411158/original/file-20210714-25-isu1h7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/411158/original/file-20210714-25-isu1h7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/411158/original/file-20210714-25-isu1h7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/411158/original/file-20210714-25-isu1h7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/411158/original/file-20210714-25-isu1h7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/411158/original/file-20210714-25-isu1h7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/411158/original/file-20210714-25-isu1h7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">We need evidence-based strategies to protect older people against violent crime.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Promising elder abuse <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5291158/">interventions include</a> caregiver programs, coordinated responses from multidisciplinary teams, <a href="https://www.cochranelibrary.com/cdsr/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD010321.pub2/information">emergency shelters and screening tools</a>.</p>
<p>But the existing strategies we use to reduce elder abuse may not be adequate to prevent older adult homicides.</p>
<p>To ascertain what sort of interventions would be most suitable, and to inform changes in policy and practice, we need better research describing victims, offenders, incident characteristics and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.avb.2019.08.008">risk factors</a> of older adult homicides.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-what-is-elder-abuse-and-why-do-we-need-a-national-inquiry-into-it-55374">Explainer: what is elder abuse and why do we need a national inquiry into it?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Health-care professionals should be aware of the contexts in which an older adult may be more vulnerable to assault or violent death. </p>
<p>Older adults, their friends and family could look to ensure the safety of the home, reach out to improve social networks and ask for help when needed.</p>
<p>Our research shows older and younger adult homicides are not identical phenomena. As such, we need a different and tailored approach to preventing these violent deaths in older people, who are among the most vulnerable in our society.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/163260/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Briohny Kennedy receives a PhD stipend from Research Training Program funding administered by the Australian Government Department of Education, Skills and Employment. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Joseph Ibrahim has received funding from Commonwealth and State Health Departments for research, education and consultancies into residential aged care services and health care services. He also is an independent advocate for age care reform details available at <a href="https://www.profjoe.com.au/">https://www.profjoe.com.au/</a></span></em></p>Older adults’ experience of violent death is different to that of younger adults, our new research finds.Briohny Kennedy, PhD Candidate, Monash UniversityJoseph Ibrahim, Professor, Health Law and Ageing Research Unit, Department of Forensic Medicine, Monash UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1577552021-03-29T12:09:44Z2021-03-29T12:09:44ZAre mass shootings an American epidemic?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/395491/original/file-20210416-17-la3x1q.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=24%2C16%2C5298%2C3488&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Police stand near the scene where multiple people were shot at the FedEx Ground facility on April 16, 2021, in Indianapolis. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/FedExShootingIndianapolis/59930bb89e6c4bc6abf8bdbee0a096b8/photo?Query=fedex%20AND%20shooting&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:asc&dateRange=now-24h&totalCount=9&currentItemNo=0">AP Photo/Michael Conroy</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The U.S. has suffered yet another mass shooting, with a deadly attack <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/04/16/us/indianapolis-fedex-shooting">in a FedEx facility in Indianapolis</a>. This was the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/04/16/indianapolis-fedex-shooting-airport/">fifth mass shooting in five weeks</a>, including a <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/live-updates/boulder-shooting-colorado-2021-03-23/">shooting at a supermarket in Boulder, Colorado</a> that took the lives of 10 people on March 22 and just days earlier, eight people were killed in a series of <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/03/17/us/shooting-atlanta-acworth">shootings at spas in Atlanta, Georgia</a>. Public outcry about gun violence, gun rights and racism and what to do about these issues is high. </p>
<p>As a <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=NeF7wP4AAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">criminal justice researcher</a>, I study gun purchasing and mass shootings, and it’s clear to me that these events are traumatic for victims, families, communities and the nation as a whole. But despite the despair about their slightly growing frequency, they are actually uncommon incidents that account for just <a href="https://health.ucdavis.edu/what-you-can-do/facts.html">0.2% of firearm deaths</a> in the U.S. each year. </p>
<h2>Mass shootings are rare</h2>
<p>Killings are not the only kind of gun violence, and are in fact a relative rarity when compared with other forms of gun violence in the U.S. According to the <a href="https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/cv19.pdf">National Crime Victimization Survey</a>, 470,840 people were victims of crimes that involved a firearm in 2018, and 481,950 in 2019. Each person is counted separately, even if several of them were part of the same incident, and this tally does not require the gun to be fired or anyone to be killed.</p>
<p>When it comes to people killed by firearms, police data reported to the FBI estimates that guns were used in <a href="https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2019/crime-in-the-u.s.-2019/home">10,258 of the 13,927 homicides</a> that occurred in 2019. </p>
<p>That’s much higher than even the uppermost count of mass shootings in 2019, the <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/mass-shootings-2019-more-than-days-365/">417 recorded by the Gun Violence Archive</a>. That group counts all incidents in which at least four people are shot, excluding the shooter, regardless of whether the shooter is killed or injured. It also includes events that involve gang violence or armed robbery, as well as shootings that occurred in public or in private homes, as many domestic violence shootings do. </p>
<p>A Mother Jones magazine database that defines mass shootings more restrictively <a href="https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/12/mass-shootings-mother-jones-full-data/">lists only 10</a> for 2019. </p>
<p>Even the FBI’s own data – which uses <a href="https://www.fbi.gov/file-repository/active-shooter-study-2000-2013-1.pdf/view">yet another set of criteria</a> focused on people who continue to shoot more people over the course of an incident – records just <a href="https://www.fbi.gov/file-repository/active-shooter-incidents-in-the-us-2019-042820.pdf/view">28 active shooter incidents</a> in 2019.</p>
<p><iframe id="CjJqZ" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/CjJqZ/4/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>The most recent research on frequency of mass shootings indicates <a href="https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0204722">they are becoming more common</a>, though the exact number each year can vary widely. </p>
<p>But not all experts agree. Some argue that <a href="https://www.cato.org/blog/are-mass-shootings-becoming-more-frequent">mass shootings have not increased</a> and that reports of an increase are due to differences in research methods, such as determining which events are appropriate to count in the first place.</p>
<p>Speaking about school shootings specifically in a 2018 interview, two gun violence researchers said that <a href="https://www.npr.org/2018/03/15/593831564/the-disconnect-between-perceived-danger-in-u-s-schools-and-reality">those events have not become more common</a> – but rather, people have become more aware of them. </p>
<p>The same may be true of mass shootings more generally. In any case, some researchers have found that <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/1745-9133.12472">mass shootings are becoming more deadly</a>, with more victims in recent attacks.</p>
<p><iframe id="mVxTg" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/mVxTg/2/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<h2>Suicide is the leading form of gun death</h2>
<p>In 2019, the 417 mass shootings tallied by the Gun Violence Archive <a href="https://www.gunviolencearchive.org/reports/mass-shooting?year=2019">resulted in 465 deaths</a>. </p>
<p>By contrast, <a href="http://wonder.cdc.gov/ucd-icd10.html">14,414 people were killed</a> by someone else with a gun in 2019. And <a href="http://wonder.cdc.gov/ucd-icd10.html">23,941 people intentionally killed themselves</a> with a gun in 2019, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.</p>
<p>Every year, homicides – one person killing another – make up <a href="https://health.ucdavis.edu/what-you-can-do/facts.html">about 35% of gun deaths</a>. More than 60% of gun deaths are suicides.</p>
<p>Mass shootings can get more attention than these other, more common, types of firearm deaths both because of human nature and the news media. People are naturally curious about violent events that appear random, with no clear explanation. Those incidents often spark fears about whether similar things could happen to them, and a resulting desire to know more in an effort to understand. </p>
<p>In addition, cases with higher death counts or unusual characteristics, such as a <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-the-next-terror-manifesto-could-be-even-harder-to-track-114048">shooter manifesto</a> or video footage, are <a href="https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2016.303611">more likely to get press attention</a> and extended coverage.</p>
<p>Americans’ opinions are split on whether mass shootings are <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2013/09/17/mass-shootings-rivet-national-attention-but-are-a-small-share-of-gun-violence/">isolated incidents or part of a broader societal problem</a>. </p>
<p>And Americans are divided about how to reduce their frequency. A 2017 poll found that 47% of adults believed that <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2017/06/22/views-of-guns-and-gun-violence/">reducing the number of guns</a> in the U.S. would reduce the number of mass shootings. But a follow-up question revealed that <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2017/06/22/views-of-guns-and-gun-violence/">75% of American adults</a> believe that someone who wants to hurt or kill others will find a way to do it whether they have access to a firearm or not.</p>
<p>With those diverging views, it will be hard to develop solutions that will be effective nationwide. That doesn’t mean <a href="https://theconversation.com/gun-control-fails-quickly-in-congress-after-each-mass-shooting-but-states-often-act-including-to-loosen-gun-laws-157746">nothing will change</a>, but it does mean the political debates will likely continue.</p>
<p><em>This is an updated version of an article originally published on March 29, 2021.</em></p>
<p>[<em>You’re smart and curious about the world. So are The Conversation’s authors and editors.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/weekly-highlights-61?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=weeklysmart">You can get our highlights each weekend</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/157755/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lacey Wallace receives funding from The Pennsylvania State University and the Center for Rural Pennsylvania. </span></em></p>Gun violence as a whole is much more common, and much more deadly, than mass shootings are.Lacey Wallace, Associate Professor of Criminal Justice, Penn StateLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1427182020-07-31T02:29:57Z2020-07-31T02:29:57ZSome crimes have seen drastic decreases during coronavirus — but not homicides in the US<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/350538/original/file-20200731-35-1gt0bka.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The various <a href="https://www.health.gov.au/news/health-alerts/novel-coronavirus-2019-ncov-health-alert/government-response-to-the-covid-19-outbreak">restrictions</a> put in place to combat the spread of coronavirus in recent months have disrupted life for everyone – including criminals.</p>
<p>More than six months into the pandemic, it is clear the pandemic has had a major effect on crime rates. Certain crimes, such as robberies and sexual offences, have declined dramatically, while others, such as online fraud, have been on the rise. </p>
<p>Of course, it is difficult to firmly establish a direct causal relationship between coronavirus restrictions and crime rates, but the statistics reveal some common themes. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/coronavirus-crime-cartels-helping-communities-will-extract-a-high-price-in-years-to-come-138592">Coronavirus: crime cartels helping communities will extract a high price in years to come</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Reductions in burglaries and assaults</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.sbs.com.au/news/coronavirus-lockdown-when-can-you-leave-your-home">Lockdown policies in Australia </a> and many other countries around the world have significantly altered the environment in which criminal activity can take place. </p>
<p>The broad view in the early days of the pandemic was some crimes would naturally decrease – those requiring access to public space, for instance, and human contact. </p>
<p>For example, under the <a href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwiin9SDzc7qAhUZ4zgGHb_4CwYQFjARegQIBBAB&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.crimeprevention.nsw.gov.au%2FDocuments%2Froutine_activity_factsheet_nov2014.pdf&usg=AOvVaw2WONqOJunrsZGPzui_BwtQ">routine activity theory</a> in criminology, which focuses on the criteria that must be present for crimes to occur, the lockdown should have led to a significant decline in burglaries of homes. There were fewer suitable targets for burglaries (unoccupied houses) and an increase in capable guardians who could intervene (families staying at home).</p>
<hr>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/347560/original/file-20200715-17-1g7ljq4.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/347560/original/file-20200715-17-1g7ljq4.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/347560/original/file-20200715-17-1g7ljq4.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=323&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/347560/original/file-20200715-17-1g7ljq4.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=323&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/347560/original/file-20200715-17-1g7ljq4.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=323&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/347560/original/file-20200715-17-1g7ljq4.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=405&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/347560/original/file-20200715-17-1g7ljq4.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=405&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/347560/original/file-20200715-17-1g7ljq4.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=405&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Routine activity theory (or the crime triangle).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">UN Office on Drugs and Crime</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<hr>
<p>The same theory can apply to violent crimes and sexual assaults – if you limit the ability of people to commit these crimes through lockdowns, it’s reasonable to expect crime rates would decrease. </p>
<p>The statistics in Australia suggest these theories may be correct.</p>
<p>The NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research <a href="https://www.bocsar.nsw.gov.au/Pages/bocsar_media_releases/2020/mr-COVID-19-crime-trends-in-NSW.aspx">found</a> that in April, crime across many categories declined sharply compared to the same month for the past five years: robberies (down 42%), non-domestic assault (down 39%), sexual offences (down 32%), break and enter of dwellings (down 29%), break and enter of non-dwellings (down 25%), stealing from motor vehicles (down 34%) and car theft (down 24%).</p>
<p>A similar pattern was <a href="https://mypolice.qld.gov.au/queensland-crime-statistics/">noticeable</a> in Queensland, comparing crime data for April to the same month in 2019 — a 28% decline in unlawful entry of dwellings, 45% reduction in robberies and a 7% drop in sexual offences. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-why-police-will-be-crucial-players-in-the-battle-against-coronavirus-134392">Explainer: why police will be crucial players in the battle against coronavirus</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Increases in crimes committed in private</h2>
<p>Conversely, offences that could be committed in private settings or remotely, such as <a href="https://www.nationalcrimeagency.gov.uk/news/national-crime-agency-warn-that-organised-crime-groups-may-try-to-exploit-the-coronavirus-outbreak-to-target-the-uk">cybercrimes</a>, rose dramatically during the pandemic. </p>
<p>In Queensland, for instance, computer fraud was up 76% in April compared to the year before, while drug offences increased by 13%.</p>
<p>There was also great concern that domestic violence would also increase during lockdown periods. </p>
<p>NSW police <a href="https://www.bocsar.nsw.gov.au/Pages/bocsar_media_releases/2020/mr-DV-COVID-19-update.aspx">did not see</a> an increase in domestic violence reports in April, compared to the previous year, and Queensland <a href="https://mypolice.qld.gov.au/queensland-crime-statistics/">crime data shows</a> breaches of domestic violence orders have remained stable since the start of the pandemic. The NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research, however, said police could not rule out an increase in unreported domestic violence.</p>
<p>In contrast to this, <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-06-22/domestic-violence-increases-in-nt-during-pandemic/12379148">police data for the Northern Territory</a> showed a 25% spike in domestic violence-related assaults in parts of central Australia during the first months of the COVID-19 lockdown. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-do-we-keep-family-violence-perpetrators-in-view-during-the-covid-19-lockdown-135942">How do we keep family violence perpetrators ‘in view’ during the COVID-19 lockdown?</a>
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<p>A study by the <a href="https://www.aic.gov.au/publications/sb/sb28">Australian Institute of Criminology (AIC)</a> surveyed 15,000 Australian women to gauge the prevalence of domestic violence during the lockdown period from February to May. It found 4.6% of women experienced physical or sexual violence from a partner and 11.6% reported experiencing emotionally abusive, harassing or controlling behaviour.</p>
<p>The report <a href="https://www.aic.gov.au/sites/default/files/2020-07/sb28_prevalence_of_domestic_violence_among_women_during_covid-19_pandemic.pdf">noted</a> more research was needed to understand the problem. </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Given the majority of women experiencing violence and abuse within their relationships do not engage with police or government or non-government agencies — particularly while they remain in a relationship with their abuser — this is a significant gap in knowledge.</p>
</blockquote>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1283215017349808128"}"></div></p>
<h2>Crime also down overseas, but homicides on the rise</h2>
<p>Other countries reported similar decreases in crime. In <a href="https://news.npcc.police.uk/releases/police-continue-to-see-falls-in-crime-during-lockdown">England and Wales</a>, crime dropped consistently by an average of 24% per month over a three-month period from April to June compared to the same period for 2019. </p>
<p>These figures, however, did not include <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/home-secretary-outlines-support-for-domestic-abuse-victims">fraud offences</a>, which increased during the pandemic. In March, reported frauds in the UK <a href="https://www.actionfraud.police.uk/alert/coronavirus-related-fraud-reports-increase-by-400-in-march">increased</a> by 400%. </p>
<p>Scotland also saw an <a href="https://www.gov.scot/news/impact-of-covid-19-on-crime/">18% decrease</a> in overall crime in April compared to the same month in 2019. One of the few exceptions to this was a 38% rise in fraud.</p>
<p>In the US, however, the findings have been mixed. <a href="https://crimesciencejournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s40163-020-00117-6">One study</a> that looked at crime in 16 large cities from January to May (when lockdowns were coming into force) found reductions in residential burglaries and car thefts in some cities, but little to no change to non-residential burglaries and serious assaults (including homicides).</p>
<p><a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0047235220301860">Another study looking at the effect of social distancing</a> on crime in two cities, Los Angeles and Indianapolis, found it</p>
<blockquote>
<p>had a statistically significant impact on a few specific crime types. However, the overall effect is notably less than might be expected given the scale of the disruption to social and economic life.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Finally, a major study by the <a href="https://citycrimestats.com/covid/">University of Pennsylvania</a> found overall crime across 25 cities in the US declined by 23% in the first month of the pandemic, compared to the average over five years of data for the same time period. </p>
<p>Notably, the study <a href="https://citycrimestats.com/static/files/COVIDCrimeHighlights072320.pdf">found</a> crime declined even before stay-at-home orders were issued as people changed their normal routines and spent more time at home. Drug crimes saw the biggest decline of any crime category, while home burglaries, assaults and robberies were also down across the 25 cities.</p>
<p>However, the study found little change to homicide rates or shootings in the first month after stay-at-home orders. One possible reason for this, the authors note, is people committing these types of crime are unlikely to be concerned with stay-at-home orders. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/350546/original/file-20200731-25-njwzqf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/350546/original/file-20200731-25-njwzqf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=392&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/350546/original/file-20200731-25-njwzqf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=392&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/350546/original/file-20200731-25-njwzqf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=392&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/350546/original/file-20200731-25-njwzqf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=492&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/350546/original/file-20200731-25-njwzqf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=492&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/350546/original/file-20200731-25-njwzqf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=492&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Chicago police investigating the scene of a mass shooting in July.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Chicago Tribune/TNS/Sipa USA</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/06/upshot/murders-rising-crime-coronavirus.html">separate analysis</a> of crime data conducted by The New York Times, murders were up 21.8% in the 36 US cities it studied through at least May, compared to data for the same time period last year.</p>
<p>Other academics have said it is <a href="https://www.npr.org/2020/07/20/892418244/crime-has-declined-overall-during-the-pandemic-but-shootings-and-killings-are-up">difficult to draw conclusions</a> on homicide rates during the pandemic due to a lack of long-term data.</p>
<p>Further study of the impact of COVID-19 on crime will be required. In the UK, Leeds University has just been <a href="https://www.leeds.ac.uk/news/article/4607/leeds_academics_to_investigate_covid-19_crimes">awarded</a> funding to conduct such a study over the next 18 months. </p>
<h2>Future challenges</h2>
<p>Not only will law enforcement be required to adapt to the effect of COVID-19 responses on criminal behaviour, the role of law enforcement is also being expanded to take on <a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-why-police-will-be-crucial-players-in-the-battle-against-coronavirus-134392">non-traditional roles in the pandemic</a>.</p>
<p>And the full economic impact of the pandemic has yet to be seen. Many economies have been insulated to some degree by <a href="https://treasury.gov.au/coronavirus">government assistance programs</a>, but the extent to which a severe economic downturn could affect crime rates is still not known.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/142718/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Terry Goldsworthy does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Certain crimes, such as robberies and sexual offences, have declined dramatically during the pandemic, while others, such as online fraud, domestic violence and homicides, have not.Terry Goldsworthy, Associate Professor in Criminology, Bond UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1424492020-07-28T12:17:15Z2020-07-28T12:17:15ZFaith-based ‘violence interrupters’ stop gang shootings with promise of redemption for at-risk youth – not threats of jail<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/349433/original/file-20200724-15-19du76r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C4%2C2913%2C2302&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A demonstrator heads to an anti-violence protest in Chicago, which has struggled with gun violence for decades, July 7, 2018.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/demonstrator-carrying-a-cross-heads-to-an-anti-violence-news-photo/993519942?adppopup=true">Jim Young/AFP via Getty Images)</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jul/07/gun-violence-shootings-fourth-of-july-weekend-racism-segregation">July 4 weekend was one of the deadliest in recent U.S. history</a>, with 160 people, including several small children, killed by gun violence in Chicago, New York, Atlanta and beyond. </p>
<p>And the body count <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/06/upshot/murders-rising-crime-coronavirus.html">keeps rising</a>. Columbus, Ohio, where I teach and study <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=BSgvZwEAAAAJ&hl=en">violence prevention</a>, had 13 homicides in the first 26 days of July, <a href="https://communitycrimemap.com/">according to police data</a> – 46% higher than July 2019. Many shooting victims are from the same <a href="https://www.dispatch.com/article/20110529/news/305299795">Black neighborhoods in cities that have borne the burden of American gun violence</a> for decades.</p>
<p>Urban gun violence is an entrenched but not intractable problem, evidence shows. Since the 1990s community anti-violence initiatives – many of them <a href="https://www.catholiceducation.org/en/faith-and-character/faith-and-character/the-man-behind-the-boston-miracle.html">run out of churches</a> – have reduced crime locally, at least temporarily, by “interrupting” potential violence before it happens.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/349431/original/file-20200724-17-13otb3d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Man speaks on megaphone in front of crowd" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/349431/original/file-20200724-17-13otb3d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/349431/original/file-20200724-17-13otb3d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/349431/original/file-20200724-17-13otb3d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/349431/original/file-20200724-17-13otb3d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/349431/original/file-20200724-17-13otb3d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/349431/original/file-20200724-17-13otb3d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/349431/original/file-20200724-17-13otb3d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">New York City public advocate Jumaane Williams with anti-violence activists in Brooklyn, July 14, 2020.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/new-york-city-public-advocate-jumaane-williams-joins-anti-news-photo/1256205267?adppopup=true">Andrew Lichtenstein/Corbis via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Preventable violence</h2>
<p>One such program is Cure Violence, previously called <a href="https://www.who.int/violenceprevention/about/participants/cure_violence/en/">Chicago CeaseFire</a>. Founded in 1999 with Illinois state funding, CeaseFire employed community members with street credibility – that is, status in their community – to identify those at highest risk of being shot or being a shooter, then intervene in feuds that might otherwise end with fatal gunfire. </p>
<p>Working with churches, schools and community groups like the Boys and Girls Club, CeaseFire also helped gang members and at-risk youth move beyond street life by finishing their studies, finding a job or enrolling in drug and alcohol treatment.</p>
<p>A <a href="https://nij.ojp.gov/library/publications/evaluation-ceasefire-chicago">National Institute of Justice evaluation</a> found that between 1991 and 2006, CeaseFire helped shootings decline 16% to 28% in four of the seven Chicago neighborhoods studied.</p>
<p>Variations of the CeaseFire program run by <a href="https://nnscommunities.org/">law enforcement</a>, <a href="https://cvg.org/impact/">public health experts</a> and <a href="http://www.youthalive.org/results/">hospitals</a> have also substantially reduced gun violence in Cincinnati, <a href="https://johnjayrec.nyc/category/work-products-by-project/cure-violence-project-materials/">New York</a>, Boston and beyond. However, many of these successful initiatives, including <a href="https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-ceasefire-funds-frozen-as-chicago-shootings-climb-20151009-story.html">Chicago CeaseFire</a>, were ultimately scaled back or terminated due to a <a href="https://www.baltimoresun.com/maryland/baltimore-city/bs-md-ci-safe-streets-funding-rally-20160804-story.html">lack of sustained funding</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/349428/original/file-20200724-33-k2dwb8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Red bumper sticker on a snow-covered guardrail" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/349428/original/file-20200724-33-k2dwb8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/349428/original/file-20200724-33-k2dwb8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/349428/original/file-20200724-33-k2dwb8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/349428/original/file-20200724-33-k2dwb8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/349428/original/file-20200724-33-k2dwb8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/349428/original/file-20200724-33-k2dwb8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/349428/original/file-20200724-33-k2dwb8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">CeaseFire Chicago worked, while it lasted.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/ceasefire-sticker-is-posted-on-a-guardrail-near-a-homicide-news-photo/456895181?adppopup=true">Scott Olson/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Restorative justice</h2>
<p>That’s what happened to CeaseFire Columbus, an Ohio program <a href="https://www.dispatch.com/article/20110531/news/305319787">modeled after Chicago’s program</a> but with a religious orientation. </p>
<p>CeaseFire Columbus was run by <a href="https://www.facebook.com/M4M43206">Ministries for Movement</a>, an anti-violence community organization founded in the deadly summer of 2009. After <a href="https://www.dispatch.com/article/20090814/NEWS/308149680">20-year-old Dominique Searcy</a> became Columbus’ 52nd murder victim that year, Dominique’s uncle, Cecil Ahad, teamed up with local youth and the former gang leader Dartangnan Hill for a “homicidal pain” <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BPuxtUuY4qU">march through their community</a> of South Side Columbus. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/349688/original/file-20200727-17-1vqwvd1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Young musicians walking" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/349688/original/file-20200727-17-1vqwvd1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/349688/original/file-20200727-17-1vqwvd1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/349688/original/file-20200727-17-1vqwvd1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/349688/original/file-20200727-17-1vqwvd1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/349688/original/file-20200727-17-1vqwvd1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/349688/original/file-20200727-17-1vqwvd1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/349688/original/file-20200727-17-1vqwvd1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Teen drummers lead a march to Columbus’s Family Missionary Baptist Church.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Deanna Wilkinson</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>A local pastor, Frederick LaMarr, offered his Family Missionary Baptist Church to host the group’s anti-violence work, giving rise to Ministries for Movement. In 2010, having studied Columbus’ crime data, I invited the group to implement a local CeaseFire program.</p>
<p>CeaseFire Columbus adopted many of Chicago’s violence interruption tactics, but the guiding philosophy of Pastor LaMarr and <a href="https://stories.usatodaynetwork.com/cbusnext/profile-cecil-ahad/">Brother Ahad</a> was to meet everyone with compassion and openness, whether they were a grieving mother or a gang member. </p>
<p>To convince high-risk young people to stop killing each other, they used positive motivation – not threats of jail time, as <a href="https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/188741.pdf">some CeaseFire programs do</a>. Evidence shows young people <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/jcop.20278">trapped in a cycle of violence</a> are often willing to drop their guns for the chance of a better life: a high school degree, say, or a job offer in a field of interest. </p>
<p>LaMarr and Ahad also encouraged perpetrators of violence to take responsibility for their actions. Sometimes, that meant turning themselves in to authorities. Other times, it meant making amends through community service. </p>
<p>Ministries for Movement has helped several hundred young Columbus residents <a href="https://www.dispatch.com/article/20110530/news/305309864">escape gangs</a>. My evaluation for The Ohio State University found that between 2011 to 2014, CeaseFire Columbus helped to reduce shootings by 76% in our <a href="https://www.dispatch.com/article/20130101/NEWS/301019918">40-block target area</a>. For one 27-month period, no one was murdered.</p>
<p>The first homicide after those two years of peace was <a href="https://medium.com/@jgrabmeier/guns-gangs-and-gardens-c839908ffdfe">heartbreaking</a>. The victim, 24-year-old <a href="https://www.dispatch.com/article/20141017/NEWS/310179781">Rondell Brinkley</a>, had been turning his life around with the help of Ministries for Movement. Days before his murder, Brinkley had inspired attendees at a community event with his personal story of change.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/349703/original/file-20200727-27-tycjli.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Group photo of people holding anti-violence signs" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/349703/original/file-20200727-27-tycjli.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/349703/original/file-20200727-27-tycjli.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/349703/original/file-20200727-27-tycjli.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/349703/original/file-20200727-27-tycjli.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/349703/original/file-20200727-27-tycjli.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/349703/original/file-20200727-27-tycjli.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/349703/original/file-20200727-27-tycjli.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">CeaseFire Columbus in 2012.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Courtesy of the Ohio State University</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Gardening for change</h2>
<p>Violence interruption works, but it takes intensive and sustained effort. That can be difficult with a volunteer staff. </p>
<p>CeaseFire Columbus achieved its best results after getting US$125,000 in grants to expand its street outreach, community mobilizing, public health messaging and conflict mediation. Funding came from <a href="https://engage.osu.edu/past-outreach-and-engagement-grant-recipients">The Ohio State University</a>, the Ohio attorney general’s office and the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Ohio. </p>
<p>Ministries for Movement is still active in South Side Columbus: It leads a <a href="https://www.dispatch.com/article/20130107/news/301079701">healing march</a> on the first Sunday of each month, among other activities. But CeaseFire became a casualty of lost funding and city politics. With gun violence quieter in our area but <a href="https://www.dispatch.com/news/20200204/rsquoalarming-uptickrsquo-in-gun-violence-worries-columbus-police-mayor">spiking in other parts of Columbus</a>, Ministries for Movement is now sharing its approach with community members and faith leaders in those areas. </p>
<p>[<em>You’re too busy to read everything. We get it. That’s why we’ve got a weekly newsletter.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/weekly-highlights-61?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=weeklybusy">Sign up for good Sunday reading.</a> ]</p>
<p>It is also trying something new to stop the violence: gardening. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/349434/original/file-20200724-15-9vmwkw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Boy waters plants" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/349434/original/file-20200724-15-9vmwkw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/349434/original/file-20200724-15-9vmwkw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/349434/original/file-20200724-15-9vmwkw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/349434/original/file-20200724-15-9vmwkw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/349434/original/file-20200724-15-9vmwkw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/349434/original/file-20200724-15-9vmwkw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/349434/original/file-20200724-15-9vmwkw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An Urban Gardening Entrepreneurs Motivating Sustainability participant.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/demonstrator-carrying-a-cross-heads-to-an-anti-violence-news-photo/993519942?adppopup=true">Deanna Wilkinson</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In 2015, with Department of Agriculture funding, I worked with Ohio State to launch the <a href="https://urbangems.ehe.osu.edu/">Urban Gardening Entrepreneurs Motivating Sustainability</a> program and planted a garden at Pastor LaMarr’s church, replacing the overgrown rusty fence line of an abandoned neighboring house. </p>
<p>Urban Gardening Entrepreneurs Motivating Sustainability helps young people build skills, strengthen social connections and improve health in their communities by growing and selling fresh food. Many of the program’s 300 participants have witnessed gun violence and deaths. Many say they find gardening therapeutic. </p>
<p>Surveys I’ve conducted find that Urban Gardening Entrepreneurs Motivating Sustainability improves participants’ eating habits, problem-solving and leadership skills, persistence and workforce readiness. </p>
<p>“Personally, it has taught me a lot of things: How to eat healthier, how to grow produce,” <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WoUMAdEkVa8&feature=youtu.be">said Nasir Groce</a>, who is now 13 years old, back in 2017. “It’s taught me that I can do anything I put my mind to.”</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/142449/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Deanna Wilkinson receives funding from the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, US Department of Agriculture, under award number 2015-41520-23772. She has previously received funding from The Ohio State University, the Ohio Criminal Justice Services which distributed public safety dollars from the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Ohio's office. She is an active partner in Ministries for Movement.</span></em></p>Gun violence has killed hundreds of Americans, including kids, this summer. There are proven ways to bring peace to city streets, says an expert in violence prevention – but someone has to pay for it.Deanna Wilkinson, Associate Professor. Department of Human Sciences, The Ohio State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1299732020-01-29T13:21:00Z2020-01-29T13:21:00ZI track murder cases that use the ‘gay panic defense,’ a controversial practice banned in 9 states<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/311702/original/file-20200123-162204-kjgln2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The ABA has called for states to curtail 'gay panic' and 'trans panic' defenses.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/lady-justice-on-emerald-background-570949807">icedmocha/Shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>On January 21, New Jersey became the ninth state in the nation to ban the <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-out/n-j-bans-gay-transgender-panic-defenses-n1120416">gay panic defense</a>, a strategy that the governor said is “rooted in homophobia.” W. Carsten Andresen, a criminal justice scholar, has been building a database of murder cases that use the gay panic defense. We asked him to tell us more about these cases, and what sets them apart from other murder trials.</em></p>
<p><strong>What is the gay panic defense?</strong></p>
<p>This is when a man kills someone and <a href="https://scholarship.law.gwu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1796&context=faculty_publications">claims that he was protecting himself</a> from a same-sex pass or an attempted sexual assault. The offender uses the gay panic defense as an excuse or justification to try to evade punishment for the crime of murder.</p>
<p><strong>What’s an example of this in practice?</strong></p>
<p><a href="https://www.advocate.com/crime/2018/4/29/why-texas-man-got-probation-murdering-gay-neighbor">One well-known case occurred in 2015</a>, when Daniel Spencer, a guitarist, invited another musician, James Miller, to his Austin apartment to play music together. Later that night, Miller stabbed Spencer four times, killing him. Miller then cleaned Spencer’s apartment, went back to his own home, changed clothes and contacted the police to report killing Spencer. </p>
<p>While there was no physical evidence to suggest an attempted sexual assault, <a href="https://www.kxan.com/news/crime/man-originally-facing-murder-charge-gets-probation-on-lesser-charge/">the defense attorney argued at the trial in 2018 that</a>, since Miller had never been in trouble with the police before, the only thing that could explain his committing murder was that Spencer had tried to sexually assault him.</p>
<p>In this instance, the gay panic defense was successful. The jury convicted Miller of criminally negligent homicide, the lowest grade of felony in Texas. Ultimately, the court punished Miller with only a six-month jail term and a 10-year probation sentence. </p>
<p><strong>How did you first become interested in this subject?</strong></p>
<p>Two events put me on a path to researching the gay panic defense. </p>
<p>First, my wife is a family attorney in Austin who does a lot of work with LGBTQ+ clients. Shortly after the birth of our son, I attended a conference with her to help with our son. </p>
<p>At the conference, my eyes opened to the obstacles that the LGBTQ+ community faces in a state like Texas, where there is <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-court-gaymarriage/top-court-leaves-in-place-texas-ruling-questioning-gay-spousal-benefits-idUSKBN1DY1U7">history of homophobia</a> that continues to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/08/25/opinion/sunday/worst-and-best-places-to-be-gay.html">the present day</a>. I started to think about what it would be like if Texas didn’t recognize my marriage, if Texas didn’t <a href="https://www.americanbar.org/content/dam/aba/images/news/2019mymhodres/113.pdf">respect my right to be a parent</a>. </p>
<p>The second event involved an old friend, a wonderful person, who committed suicide. A few days after his death, I learned for the first time that he was gay, and realized that he had lived an almost completely closeted life. To think that he kept this secret, that he spent his life alone, was a terrible realization. </p>
<p>Both of these things disquieted me and set the stage for my future research on the gay panic defense.</p>
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<p><strong>How common is the gay panic defense?</strong></p>
<p>This is a difficult question to answer, because these cases are not tracked in a systematic way by the government.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.fbi.gov/services/cjis/ucr">While the FBI tracks several details about homicides</a> that occur annually in the U.S., it does not collect information about the sexual orientation or sexual identity of homicide victims. </p>
<p>It is also difficult to get information about murders where offenders use a gay panic defense in court. I could not find any federal source, or any individual states, that tracked how often defendants used this defense during their murder trials.</p>
<p>To investigate the frequency of these defenses, I had to collect these cases myself and enter them into a database. I read legal articles, social science research and advocacy reports; talked with other people, such as lawyers, to see if they could tell me about specific cases; and searched online for <a href="http://www.justia.com">legal appeals</a> and <a href="http://www.newspapers.com">media accounts</a>.</p>
<p>The most recent case I heard about, for example, came to my attention when I was talking with a lawyer about my data. She mentioned a case that she had prosecuted in 1997, which had not shown up in my initial searches. </p>
<p>While I have currently identified 104 cases, I am certain that there are hundreds of cases that I have yet to identify.</p>
<p><strong>Is this defense effective in court?</strong></p>
<p>Based on my <a href="https://www.stedwards.edu/news-center/news-releases/criminal-podcast-features-st-edwards-criminal-justice-expert-panic-defense">early analysis</a>, defense attorneys who enter gay panic defenses can reduce a defendants’ murder charges 32% of the time, even though the majority of these homicides involve incredible violence. The court case resulted in a conviction, but, since the charge was lower, the prison sentence was lower, generally around 18 years. </p>
<p>In the remaining cases, the offender received a more severe sentence, including the death penalty, life in prison and non-life prison sentences that averaged about 31 years. Four cases resulted in acquittals, which suggests that juries might have balked at higher charges. </p>
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<p><strong>What else do your data show?</strong></p>
<p>My data are consistent with data from prior research examining LGBTQ+ homicide victims in several ways. </p>
<p>First, the offenders in these cases killed the victims in particularly violent ways, a level of violence that distinguishes them from the majority of homicides. </p>
<p>In these murders, the offenders used firearms only about 26% of the time. In the majority of homicides, <a href="https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2017/crime-in-the-u.s.-2017/topic-pages/tables/expanded-homicide-data-table-8.xls">firearms are used 46% of the time</a>. This is consistent with <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0886260512462301">a 2012 study that examined 120 anti-LGBTQ+ murders</a>, finding that many offenders used a knife or their hands to kill, instead of a gun. </p>
<p>Additionally, in my data, offenders engaged in what experts might call overkill, stabbing the victim several times. In at least 22 cases, offenders stabbed the victim 10 or more times.</p>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00987134">Victims who live a closeted gay life</a> are especially vulnerable. The offenders in these cases seemed to take advantage of this “secret” after they were arrested to ultimately construct a nefarious portrait of these victims in their gay panic defense in court.</p>
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<p>Finally, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177%2F0093854814541259">consistent with previous research</a> into murders of LGBTQ people, the homicides in my data set fit into one of two patterns. </p>
<p>In 54% of cases, after the murder, the offender purposefully stole cash, credit cards, jewelry, computers, stereo equipment or automobiles. In New Orleans in 1977, for example, <a href="https://law.justia.com/cases/louisiana/supreme-court/1980/383-so-2d-1-1.html">Warren Harris Jr.</a>, who posed as a prostitute, killed at least four men and stole their cash.</p>
<p>In the the remaining 46% of homicides, the offender engaged in expressive homicidal violence to kill and mutilate the victim. In 2009, <a href="https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-2009-07-17-0907160827-story.html">Joseph Biedermann</a> met Terrence Hauser in a bar in Hoffman, Illinois, went home with him, and ultimately stabbed him to death 61 times. In Denton, Texas in 2005, <a href="https://www.dallasnews.com/news/investigations/2007/11/11/da-s-burden-sympathy-for-a-killer/">Joshua Abbott</a> went home with David Morrison and stabbed him to death 38 times.</p>
<p>Based on my research, these killings seem to have no other purpose to them beyond inflicting violence.</p>
<p><strong>Is this sort of defense permitted nationwide?</strong> </p>
<p>In 2013, <a href="https://lgbtbar.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/Gay-and-Trans-Panic-Defenses-Resolution.pdf">the American Bar Association called in a proclamation</a> for states to prohibit the gay and trans panic defenses. Since then, <a href="https://lgbtbar.org/programs/advocacy/gay-trans-panic-defense/">nine states have passed legislation</a> prohibiting the gay panic defense.</p>
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<p>In 2018, Representative Joe Kennedy of the U.S. House and Senator Edward Markey also <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/senate-bill/3188/text">proposed a nationwide ban</a>. </p>
<p>Yet, this legislation does not necessarily signal an end to homophobia in the courtroom. First, defense attorneys, who have argued that legislation is an unconstitutional violation of a client’s due process rights, may <a href="https://www.phillipmurphylawyer.com/will-new-yorks-elimination-of-the-gay-trans-panic-defense-be-challenged-in-court-as-violating-due-process-rights/">ultimately get these laws overturned</a>. </p>
<p>Second, this legislation also does not ban murderers from arguing that they killed in self-defense in response to an attempted sexual assault. <a href="https://www.mercurynews.com/2019/12/06/man-who-killed-popular-south-bay-butcher-takes-manslaughter-plea/">In California</a>, the first state to pass this legislation, Gage McCartney – who strangled a man and claimed self-defense – was recently given a lenient plea deal: manslaughter and a 12-year prison sentence. </p>
<p>Finally, the legal scholar Cynthia Lee has written about how offenders can go around prohibitions issued by judges <a href="https://scholarship.law.gwu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1796&context=faculty_publications">to introduce gay panic defense strategies</a>. In the Matthew Shepard murder trial, the defense attorney introduced two witnesses to testify that the victim was sexually assertive, even though the judge had prohibited them from using a gay panic defense. </p>
<p>[ <em><a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=expertise">Expertise in your inbox. Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter and get a digest of academic takes on today’s news, every day.</a></em> ]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/129973/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>W. Carsten Andresen does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>In a handful of cases, defendants in murder cases have said that they were defending themselves from a same-sex pass or attempted sexual assault.W. Carsten Andresen, Assistant Professor of Criminal Justice, St. Edward's UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1286532020-01-15T14:09:11Z2020-01-15T14:09:11ZWhy South Africa’s children are vulnerable to violence and injuries<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/306563/original/file-20191212-85367-1xzbmsa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">South Africa's deep structural poverty is part of the explanation for injuries to children</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>South African children are vulnerable to injuries, not just those that are accidental but also those inflicted intentionally. This is according to the <a href="http://www.ci.uct.ac.za/sites/default/files/image_tool/images/367/Child_Gauge/South_African_Child_Gauge_2019/ChildGauge_2019_final_print%20%28sm%29.pdf">2019 Child Gauge</a> report, an annual publication that explores how children in South Africa are faring.</p>
<p>The report notes that injuries to children span from burns to drowning and from road traffic injuries to fatal child abuse. More than 8,000 children die every year as a result of injuries. About 5,000 of these are accidental or unintentional. The leading causes of child injury deaths in South Africa are road traffic injuries (36%), homicide (28%), unintentional injuries such as burns and drowning (27%) and suicide (8.5%), which is considered intentional. </p>
<p>In a society like South Africa which has deep structural poverty, the causes of injuries to children are often linked to the circumstances in which people live. For example, poor infrastructure and harsh living conditions expose children to high levels of neglect, harm and injury in the home and community.</p>
<p>Even though most injuries may not be inflicted intentionally, they shouldn’t be considered as accidents. This is because most injuries occur in the context of inadequate care. Most can be prevented by ensuring children’s safety in their homes, schools, recreational spaces, community settings and the transport connections between them. </p>
<h2>Patterns of child injuries</h2>
<p>Child safety interventions should take into account the child’s evolving capacities and stage of development. The risks change as children become more independent and move out of home into schools and the wider community. </p>
<p>Young children are particularly vulnerable to falls, drowning and hot water burns because of their natural curiosity and increasing mobility. School-aged children are at risk of road traffic injuries, especially because 67% of them walk to school. Adolescents tend to overestimate their ability to negotiate often complex and hazardous traffic environments and are primed to engage in risk-taking behaviour. </p>
<p>Efforts to prevent childhood injuries often start by making children and families aware of the dangers. Families should keep poisons, matches, electrical appliances, water containers and hot water away from young children. Children must wear safety belts in vehicles and be supervised closely near open water and other dangers. </p>
<p>Yet individual behaviour change can only go so far. </p>
<p>Many of the drivers of violence and injury are structural in nature. For example, it’s harder to keep children safe when living in a two-room shack and using candles and a paraffin stove. Walking to school in an informal settlement or a busy urban space where there are no pavements is also riskier. It’s more difficult to protect children from violence in communities where poverty, unemployment and substance abuse fuel conflict both within and outside the family. </p>
<p>In fact, violence and injury share many common risk factors. They include poverty, poor infrastructure, harsh living conditions, gender inequality, violent forms of masculinity, and widespread abuse of alcohol and drugs. All these expose children to both violent and unintentional injury. </p>
<p>Yet, evidence from South Africa and elsewhere shows that such epidemics can be prevented. South Africa has many organisations dedicated to preventing injury and promoting resilient children, families and communities. This work needs to be recognised, along with the countless efforts by families to protect their children. </p>
<p>Many of the local evidence-based programmes are showcased in the Child Gauge. For example, several communities have introduced “walking buses” where families and community members accompany children to and from school, helping to protect them from violence and traffic dangers. There are also violence prevention and urban upgrade initiatives to create safe public spaces and neighbourhood resource centres where children can play. </p>
<p>The question is how to take these to scale.</p>
<h2>What needs to be done</h2>
<p>To turn the tide of violence and unintentional injury alike, the country needs greater leadership and collaboration across sectors to address the overlapping risk factors. </p>
<p>Countries that have seen the greatest gains in violence and injury prevention have invested in leadership to push for interventions that are known to work. The World Health Organisation has reported that countries such as Australia, Canada and France have reduced their injury death rates, some by as much as half and within a 10 to 20 year period. Many others, such as South Africa, have also begun investing in research, programmes and capacities for safety interventions. </p>
<p>Violence and injury rates were reduced in these countries because of concerted efforts that were often led by government and community coalitions as part of a national strategy or programme focused on injury and violence prevention. Therefore a massive coordinated shift is necessary to deliver such interventions and services to communities at scale. </p>
<p>It’s time for government to identify child safety as a strategic priority, build partnerships with nongovernmental organisations and develop an intersectoral plan to promote the safety of South Africa’s children. </p>
<p><em>This article is based on a chapter in the Child Gauge report “Violence, injury and child safety: The new challenge for child health”.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/128653/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Shanaaz Mathews receives funding from the ELMA Foundation, Ford Foundation, Constitutionalism Fund and the South African Medical Research Council . </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ashley Van Niekerk receives funding from the South African Medical Research Council. </span></em></p>The causes of injuries to children are often linked to the circumstances in which people live.Shanaaz Mathews, Professor, University of Cape TownAshley Van Niekerk, Deputy Unit Director and Senior Specialist Scientist and Professor Extraordinarius: UNISA Institute for Social and Health Sciences, South African Medical Research CouncilLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1264602019-12-12T12:26:41Z2019-12-12T12:26:41ZMexico: after a year in power, Andrés Manuel López Obrador is failing to contain violence<p>When Mexico’s president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, was sworn into office in December 2018 he promised swift action to stem the bloody crime wave that has ravaged the country <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/27/world/americas/27mexico.html">in recent years</a>. </p>
<p>Faced with record-shattering homicide counts in <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2018/07/31/americas/mexico-homicides-2017-new-numbers/index.html">2017</a> and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jul/23/mexico-crime-homicides-violence-up-report">2018</a>, the new government promised drastic reductions in crime. López Obrador, known as AMLO, launched an <a href="https://theconversation.com/mexicos-new-president-has-plans-to-make-his-country-safer-but-will-they-work-100441">ambitious security plan</a> focused on tackling the “root causes” of crime, ending the war against organised crime and overhauling <a href="https://theconversation.com/mexicos-new-president-creates-yet-another-national-police-force-but-it-will-struggle-to-stem-the-bloody-crimewave-107320">security institutions</a>, such as the federal police.</p>
<p>However, the number of homicides remain at an all time high and the mishandling of repeated crises suggest that López Obrador’s government is overwhelmed by the deteriorating security situation in the country.</p>
<p>Since taking office, the president has repeatedly claimed that homicides <a href="https://www.latimes.com/world/mexico-americas/la-fg-mexico-homicides-amlo-jorge-ramos-20190412-story.html">started to drop since he came to power</a>. But the government’s own data contradicted this. A closer inspection shows that the homicide rate has not decreased over the past year, although it has stopped its vertiginous increase <a href="https://datos.nexos.com.mx/?p=1067">for the first time in almost five years</a>.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/304696/original/file-20191202-67023-8d0xgp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/304696/original/file-20191202-67023-8d0xgp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/304696/original/file-20191202-67023-8d0xgp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=429&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/304696/original/file-20191202-67023-8d0xgp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=429&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/304696/original/file-20191202-67023-8d0xgp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=429&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/304696/original/file-20191202-67023-8d0xgp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=539&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/304696/original/file-20191202-67023-8d0xgp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=539&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/304696/original/file-20191202-67023-8d0xgp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=539&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Homicides in Mexico.</span>
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<p>However, the news is hardly a cause for celebration. The current rate – which hovers between 80 and 100 homicides per day – is the highest the country has experienced since current records began in 1997. Sadly, the current lull is no guarantee that homicides will decrease in the future, and they may well increase again – as happened during the presidency of Enrique Peña Nieto between 2012 and 2018.</p>
<h2>Hugs, not bullets</h2>
<p>Vowing to end the “war against organised crime”, the president opted for a non-confrontational approach to security, aiming to dissuade offenders and organised criminals through social policy, rather than through policing and criminal justice – a strategy the president summarises as “hugs, not bullets”. In early September, he urged criminals to <a href="https://mexiconewsdaily.com/news/behave-and-think-of-your-mothers/">behave and think of their mothers</a>. </p>
<p>The government has sought to scale back the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/27/world/americas/mexican-militarys-high-kill-rate-raises-human-rights-fears.html">lethality of its security forces</a>, but several crises suggest that <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/nov/05/mexicos-security-failure-grisly-cartel-shootout-shows-who-holds-the-power">its light-touch approach is not working</a>.</p>
<p>For example, 13 state police officers were executed in October by 30 cartel gunmen in an <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/oct/15/mexico-police-officers-killed-cartel-ambush-michoacan">ambush in Aguililla, Michoacán</a>, a state in western Mexico. In response, the president offered no short-term strategy and instead blamed “social decomposition” in the region, vowing to continue pushing his economic and social policy – which has <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/09/world/americas/mexico-minster-urzua.html">been criticised</a> for being arbitrary and ill-defined.</p>
<p>The same month, a more damming crisis erupted following the botched capture and subsequent <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/oct/18/el-chapo-son-ovidio-guzman-lopez-release-amlo">release of Ovidio Guzmán</a>, son of notorious drug trafficker, Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, as cartel gunmen laid siege to Culiacán, capital of Sinaloa state, demanding the release of their leader. The president defended yielding to the cartel’s demands, arguing that not doing so would have led to a bloodbath. But critics <a href="https://www.insightcrime.org/news/analysis/culiacan-shambles-security-plan-mexico/">widely panned López Obrador</a> for his government’s mishandling of the Culiacán crisis, noting that it would only embolden other criminal groups.</p>
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<p>Three women and six children of a Mormon family <a href="https://www.insightcrime.org/news/analysis/how-mexico-small-armies-commit-massacre/">were then massacred in northern Mexico by a criminal group</a> in November. As the victims held Mexican and American citizenship, the episode prompted the US president, Donald Trump, to consider designating Mexican criminal groups <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/nov/27/trump-mexico-drug-cartels-terrorists">as foreign terrorist organisations</a>, heightening tensions between the two countries. Trump ultimately <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-50697635">decided against it</a>.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/mormons-in-mexico-a-brief-history-of-polygamy-cartel-violence-and-faith-126493">Mormons in Mexico: A brief history of polygamy, cartel violence and faith</a>
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<h2>A lack of understanding</h2>
<p>At the root of the government’s failing security policies lie fundamental misunderstandings of Mexico’s criminal phenomenon. Specifically, López Obrador <a href="https://politica.expansion.mx/presidencia/2019/08/01/amlo-calderon-violencia-organizaciones-lucha-anticorrupcion">believes</a> that violence is mainly caused by government security policy and economic strife. </p>
<p>There is <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0022002715587053?casa_token=1AJSvveCVkgAAAAA%3AuXN76Lo7Pbvzg-FmFldLgPmv8O_h68wQKX27n3GWBGxKUuTJOm9B497QsjM3NPYJ7HF_6ks6p0KoaRo">evidence</a> that certain security strategies <a href="https://www.insightcrime.org/news/analysis/mexico-president-reprises-controversial-kingpin-strategy/">can escalate cycles of violence</a>. But organised crime violence is a deeply complex phenomenon caused by <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/nathanielparishflannery/2019/11/22/how-can-mexico-defeat-organized-crime/#7e0ae3cac657">a wide range of factors</a> – such as international drug trends, <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/69346c82-338c-11e9-bb0c-42459962a812">competition between and within cartels</a>, and the embeddedness of organised crime groups in local communities.</p>
<p>The way in which the authorities intervene is certainly important, but it is not the only factor causing increases in violence. Furthermore, the absence of violence would not necessarily mean that organised crime groups are defeated, as it could signal a condition known as <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/41391931">“pax mafiosa”</a>, in which criminal groups rule a territory in relative peace.</p>
<p>Assuming that criminal behaviour is caused by economic strife is a common, though too simplistic view of the problem. <a href="https://www.cac.crim.cam.ac.uk/resou/sat">Research suggests</a> that criminal behaviour is far more complicated than that, noting that it emerges in certain places and times and not in others due to a <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-moral-ecology-of-extremism-a-systemic-perspective">complex interaction</a> of personal and contextual attributes. Of course, this does not mean that social policies should be abandoned, as they are important to improving welfare in general. But it’s unlikely that they will be enough to turn the tide of criminal violence currently rocking Mexico.</p>
<p>If the government is to successfully tackle violence related to organised crime in Mexico, it must first take steps to acknowledge the inherent complexity of the problem. Rather than proposing a one-size-fits-all approach, specific policies need to be devised based on a nuanced understanding of the diverse criminal phenomena affecting specific places and their reality.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/126460/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Patricio R. Estévez-Soto has previously received a postgraduate studentship from Mexico's National Science and Technology Council and the Mexican Ministry of Education. He formerly worked as a policy advisor in Mexico’s Ministry of the Interior. </span></em></p>AMLO’s war against organised crime in Mexico isn’t stopping people dying.Patricio R. Estévez-Soto, Teaching Fellow for Latin America and the Caribbean, Jill Dando Institute of Security and Crime Science, UCLLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1281242019-12-05T18:34:55Z2019-12-05T18:34:55ZExplainer: why homicide rates in Australia are declining<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/305104/original/file-20191204-70126-gsi8c3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Latest figures reveal homocides in Australia are at historic lows. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/James Ross</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>According to the <a href="https://www.aic.gov.au/publications/sr/sr17">latest figures</a>, homicides in Australia are at historic lows and compare well against international trends.</p>
<p>So what do the trends tell us and why is the homicide rate in Australia declining?</p>
<h2>Perceptions and realities</h2>
<p>A search of the Factiva media database reveals that over the past five years, there have been about 14,000 media stories each year concerning murder or homicide in Australia. In reality, there were 229 homicide incidents with 235 victims in Australia between July 1 2015 and June 30 2016.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-safe-is-australia-the-numbers-show-public-attacks-are-rare-and-on-the-decline-110276">How safe is Australia? The numbers show public attacks are rare and on the decline</a>
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<p>By comparison, there were <a href="https://www.bitre.gov.au/publications/ongoing/road_deaths_australia_annual_summaries.aspx">1,295 road fatalities</a> in Australia for 2016. This means a person is almost six times more likely to be killed in a traffic accident than be murdered in Australia.</p>
<p>Our fascination with homicide is driven by the difficulty that we have in comprehending acts we see as evil – for example, we <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-do-parents-kill-their-children-the-facts-about-filicide-in-australia-111338">struggle to understand how a parent can kill their own child</a>.</p>
<h2>So what do the data tell us?</h2>
<p>In Australia for 2015-16 the homicide rate was 0.95 per 100,000, the lowest equal rate recorded since 1989–90. The <a href="https://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/data-and-analysis/global-study-on-homicide.html">UN 2019 Global study in homicide report</a> indicated that the global homicide rate has been slowly decreasing for over two decades, from a peak of 7.4 per 100,000 in 1993 to 6.1 per 100,000 in 2017. Finding a simple answer to explain this is difficult due to wide variations in regional, sub-regional and even city-based trends.</p>
<p><a href="https://dataunodc.un.org/GSH_app">Australia compares well to other Western developed nations</a> in terms of its homicide rate overtime. </p>
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<p>Japan and Singapore had the lowest homicide rate for 2017 at 0.2 per 100,000, El Salvador had the worst homicide rate in the world for 2017 with a rate of 61.8 per 100,000.</p>
<h2>Trends in Australia</h2>
<p>In Australia, domestic homicides accounted for 45%, acquaintance homicides for 37% and stranger homicides 9% of the Australian total for 2015-16. </p>
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<p>Of the victims, 65% were male and 35% female, and in 83% of the homicide incidents the victim knew their killer.</p>
<p>The data on perpetrators reveal a more striking gender disparity: 86% were male and 14% female. The youngest homicide offender was 11-years-old, while the oldest was 82.</p>
<p>More surprising may be that 45% of homicide offenders had no previous criminal history. In terms of motivation, arguments were the most common cause followed by jealousy, money, revenge, drugs and desertion in descending order.</p>
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<h2>What factors influence the homicide rate?</h2>
<p>The UN study identified a number of contributors to acts of homicide. Drugs and alcohol are significant – these were present in 37% of homicide perpetrators in the global study.</p>
<p>In the AIC study, perpetrators were shown to having consumed alcohol in 20% of cases and drugs in 16%. This is a decrease from 2014-15, when alcohol was present 30% of homicide incidents and illicit drugs in 15% of incidents. Such lower rates of involvement match data from the <a href="https://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/mf/4307.0.55.001">Australian Bureau of Statistics </a> that show that Australians are drinking less over time. </p>
<p>A key factor in homicides is access to weapons. The UN study indicated that firearms were used in 54% of homicides globally in 2017. In the same year in the <a href="https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2017/crime-in-the-u.s.-2017/tables/expanded-homicide-data-table-8.xls">US, firearms accounted for 73% of all murders</a>. In Australia, firearms accounted for only 19% of homicides in 2015-16.</p>
<p>This lower rate of firearm usage can be attributed to <a href="https://theconversation.com/factcheck-qanda-did-government-gun-buybacks-reduce-the-number-of-gun-deaths-in-australia-85836">Australia’s tough firearm laws</a> in the wake of the <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3562751/Harrowing-photos-Port-Arthur-massacre-unfolded-20-years-ago.html">Port Arthur massacre</a>. Since the implementation of these laws, gun ownership in <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-44105129">Australia has declined</a> by 23% per capita.</p>
<p>In the US, 42% of people indicated they live in a household where a <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/10/22/facts-about-guns-in-united-states/">gun is present</a>. </p>
<p>Other factors contributing to homicide include socioeconomic and environmental conditions. Socioeconomic disadvantage is one reason why Indigenous Australians are over-represented in homicide figures. <a href="https://theconversation.com/census-2016-whats-changed-for-indigenous-australians-79836">Indigenous Australians</a> make up 3% of the general population, but 16% of homicide victims in 2015-16.</p>
<p>The UN Global report identified the lack of good societal governance, stable government and effective rule of law as contributors to homicide. The <a href="http://visionofhumanity.org/indexes/global-peace-index/">Global Peace Index</a> provides a snapshot of those issues. Countries that perform poorly in areas such as homicide, incarceration, political instability, access to weapons, internal conflicts and displaced people are rated as less peaceful.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-have-female-gun-homicides-in-australia-declined-significantly-since-1996-86463">Why have female gun homicides in Australia declined significantly since 1996?</a>
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<p>According to the index, the most peaceful country was Iceland. The least peaceful were Afghanistan, Syria, South Sudan and Yemen. Australia rated 13 out of 163 countries, the US rated at 128. In 2016 Australia was rated at 15 out of 163 countries.</p>
<p>Gender roles were seen as important in terms of contributors such as demographics and cultural stereotypes. An example of responding to such stereotypes is the adoption of national strategies and special legal provisions to reduce domestic violence-related deaths. </p>
<p>Australia has adopted the <a href="https://www.dss.gov.au/women/programs-services/reducing-violence/the-national-plan-to-reduce-violence-against-women-and-their-children-2010-2022">The National Plan to Reduce Violence against Women and their Children</a> to address such issues. While there is still much to be done to fight the scourge of domestic violence, it is heartening to see that the intimate partner homicide rate reduced in 2015–16 to 0.26 per 100,000 population aged 18 years and older. This is the lowest rate recorded since 1989–90.</p>
<h2>The future</h2>
<p>Australia should be confident that it is on the right track with a historically low homicide rate. While understanding homicide is always complex, Australia has engaged in a positive manner to address such issues and reduce the known risks.</p>
<p>However, we must not become complacent. There is always room for improvement when it comes to saving lives.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/128124/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Terry Goldsworthy does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The reasons the homicide rate is declining are complex, but a reduction in alcohol consumption and access to weapons are contributors.Terry Goldsworthy, Associate Professor in Criminology, Bond UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1253652019-11-04T12:13:05Z2019-11-04T12:13:05ZHomicide is declining around the world – but why?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/297595/original/file-20191017-98666-ar63pd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Homicide has gradually declined over three decades.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/crime-violence-conceptpolice-handcuffs-on-fingerprints-1513966670?src=48Gwx4nYgTxmb2Yun1P9vg-1-46">simon jhuan/Shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Americans are currently living in one of the lowest crime periods ever – and so are many people in the rest of the world.</p>
<p>Following decades of increasing crime during the 1960s, ‘70s and '80s, U.S. homicide rates declined by almost 40% throughout the 1990s, and have remained low since.</p>
<p>Most explanations of this extraordinary decline in violence put forth by politicians and early academic research focus on events and domestic policies exclusive to the United States. However, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/07418825.2012.742127">emerging studies</a> are providing evidence that this crime decline is not unique to the U.S., but rather occurring across most of the world.</p>
<p>A global decline in violence suggests that criminal justice policies of individual countries may have less impact on the decline in homicide than worldwide events or trends.</p>
<p>In our new study, published on Oct. 9, we make the case for another possible explanation: <a href="https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0222996">The population of countries around the world is getting older</a>.</p>
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<h2>A global homicide decline</h2>
<p>Most of the world has experienced a parallel reduction in homicide over the previous three decades. </p>
<p>In fact, the homicide patterns observed across countries spread throughout the world are strikingly similar over time. Despite having unique cultures, criminal justice policies and systems of governance, countries in North America, Europe, Asia and Oceania have seen homicide reduce by similar magnitudes over similar time periods. </p>
<p>Between 1990 and 2015, in both North America and Western Europe, the number of homicide victims per 100,000 people declined by 46%, while Asia saw a reduction of 38% and Oceania of 22%. </p>
<p>The steepest reductions typically occurred in the safest regions of the world. For example, homicide rates fell further in Asia and Western Europe, which already had the lowest levels of homicide.</p>
<p>There are two major exceptions to the trend: Africa, where quality data are lacking, and Latin America, a region marked by historically higher levels. In fact, since 1990, Latin America has experienced a 9% increase in homicide rates.</p>
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<h2>Possible causes</h2>
<p>Social scientists are not certain of the causes of this overall decline.</p>
<p>Policymakers, scientists and law enforcement officials have proposed several explanations for the dramatic reductions in crime during this period, including <a href="https://doi.org/10.1257/089533004773563485">increased incarceration</a>, <a href="https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/full/10.1146/annurev.publhealth.21.1.505">receding drug markets</a>, <a href="https://heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage?handle=hein.journals/jclc88&div=48&id=&page=">innovations in policing</a>, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1745-9125.2007.00096.x">improvements in the economy</a>, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/11/opinion/open-doors-dont-invite-criminals.html">increased immigration</a> and the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1162/00335530151144050">legalization of abortion</a>.</p>
<p>Most of these explanations link the violence reduction to domestic policies of individual countries. </p>
<p>Of course, this type of research is challenging, as many countries do not collect reliable data on key variables. For example, long-term data on gun ownership, drug use, the influence of organized crime and the efficacy of courts and policing institutions are not available for most countries. </p>
<h2>Age and the homicide decline</h2>
<p>We have a global explanation.</p>
<p>Between 1950 and 2019, the world median age has <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/06/17/worlds-population-is-projected-to-nearly-stop-growing-by-the-end-of-the-century/">increased from 24 to 31 years</a>. This <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/29/world/americas/29iht-letter29.html">graying population</a> will pose many new challenges and possibly drag down <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/03/gray-nation-the-very-real-economic-dangers-of-an-aging-america/254937/">economic growth</a>. </p>
<p>Could an aging population be the driving force behind decreasing crime? This has been <a href="https://heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage?handle=hein.journals/crim11&div=7&id=&page=">one of the</a> <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2566965">hypothesized causes</a> since the very early research about the homicide decline.</p>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1086/227905">Research shows that crime participation</a> peaks during adolescence and early adulthood, then declines as individuals progress through adulthood. It follows then that countries should have more violent crime when a greater proportion of their population are teenagers and young adults. Research also shows that <a href="https://doi.org/10.1162/isec_a_00335">older societies tend to be more orderly and more peaceful</a>.</p>
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<h2>Our study</h2>
<p>We looked at homicide data from the World Health Organization and United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, as well as the United Nations data on the age composition of countries. </p>
<p>Accounting for features of countries such as percentage of males, economic inequality, economic development and how urban or rural a country is, we found that the percentage of a country’s population that is young – between 15 and 29 years old – has been a key predictor of homicide trends since 1960. </p>
<p>For the safest countries, a one percentage point increase in the percent of people aged 15 to 29 corresponds to an increase of 4.6% in the homicide rate. </p>
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<p>In the United States, rising homicide rates during the 1960s and 1970s paralleled a spike in the young population following the baby boom. An early homicide decline occurred in the 1980s, which follows a trend of a decreasing youth population as baby boomers aged into late adulthood. This early crime decline was interrupted in 1985 by the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1989/02/20/nyregion/after-3-years-crack-plague-in-new-york-only-gets-worse.html">crack epidemic</a>, and the <a href="https://scholarlycommons.law.northwestern.edu/jclc/vol86/iss1/2/">corresponding escalation of violence</a>. However, in 1992, as the crack epidemic waned, homicide trends resumed their decline alongside an aging population. </p>
<p>Aside from the United States, several other countries around the world <a href="https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0222996">also experienced steep homicide declines</a> since the 1990s in parallel with an aging of their populations, such as Canada, Austria, Japan and Italy.</p>
<p>These countries share few commonalities in terms of their national cultures, domestic policies and approach to criminal justice. Japan, for example, has seen a steep aging of their population and a homicide decline, but with far less forceful criminal justice policies than those in the U.S. </p>
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<p>Our models suggest to us that age plays a large role in this pattern. Age was the only factor we looked at that consistently predicted homicide increases and declines over an extended period of time.</p>
<p>[ <em>You’re smart and curious about the world. So are The Conversation’s authors and editors.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=youresmart">You can read us daily by subscribing to our newsletter</a>. ]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/125365/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mateus Renno Santos consults to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alexander Testa receives funding from the Bureau of Justice Assistance.</span></em></p>Since 1990, the homicide rate has declined by 20%. Researchers are still figuring out what’s behind the trend: increased incarceration, improvements in the economy or even aging populations.Mateus Renno Santos, Assistant Professor of Criminology, University of South FloridaAlexander Testa, Assistant Professor of Criminology & Criminal Justice, The University of Texas at San AntonioLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1229892019-09-07T07:03:28Z2019-09-07T07:03:28ZThe Conversation: special preview screening of The Real Prime Suspect with homicide and forensics Q&A<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/291259/original/file-20190906-175686-svlrvv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=98%2C65%2C5365%2C3571&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Jackie Malton – back on the job. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">CBS Reality. </span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Readers of The Conversation are invited to a special screening of an episode of The Real Prime Suspect – a new true crime series from CBS Reality. Presented by former Scotland Yard detective Jackie Malton, one of the first female members of the Flying Squad, and the inspiration for the character of DCI Jane Tennison, played by Helen Mirren in the multi-award winning drama Prime Suspect. The screening is at 18:30 on Wednesday September 18th at the Courthouse Hotel in central London, with a drinks reception from 18:00.</p>
<p>Using her exceptional list of contacts, Malton revisits the notorious case of the Saturday Night Strangler – Wales’ first documented serial killer. Joined by police, detectives and scientists who experienced the investigation first hand, Malton reveals how the cold case was finally solved, 30 years after two young women were murdered. </p>
<p>The screening will include a drinks reception and Q&A hosted by The Conversation’s cities editor, Emily Lindsay Brown. Malton will be joined on the panel by leading criminologist Fiona Brookman and forensic scientist Martin Evison, to discuss the themes and issues raised by the episode. </p>
<p>The event is free and the screening is an opportunity for you to see the episode before it airs on television – and to put your questions about homicide, police investigations and forensic science to our panel of experts.</p>
<p><em>To secure your place, <a href="https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/special-preview-screening-of-the-real-prime-suspect-with-homicide-and-forensics-qa-tickets-72068632219">sign up via Eventbrite</a>. Since not everyone who asks for tickets uses them, we send out more tickets than there are places. This means that admission is on a first come first served basis, and is not guaranteed.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/122989/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
Readers are invited to a special screening and Q&A with former detective Jackie Malton, criminologist Fiona Brookman and forensic scientist Martin Evison.Emily Lindsay Brown, Editor for Cities and Young People, UK editionLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.