Crime SciencePub Date : 2024-04-15DOI: 10.1186/s40163-024-00207-9
Rylan Simpson, Laceé N. Pappas
{"title":"Public perceptions of courts and cooperation with police","authors":"Rylan Simpson, Laceé N. Pappas","doi":"10.1186/s40163-024-00207-9","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1186/s40163-024-00207-9","url":null,"abstract":"<p>The police depend upon public cooperation to effectively control crime. Understanding factors that impact people’s willingness to cooperate with the police is thus an important area of empirical research. Drawing upon survey data from a sample of adults <i>(N</i> = 364), we employ a series of regression models to explore the relationship between participants’ perceptions of courts and their willingness to cooperate with the police. Our analyses reveal that participants’ perceptions of courts are associated with their willingness to report crime to the police, particularly minor crime, but not their willingness to assist the police if asked. We discuss our results with respect to discretionary crime reporting, the measurement of cooperation with police, and the nature of interventions aimed at enhancing criminal justice perceptions.</p>","PeriodicalId":37844,"journal":{"name":"Crime Science","volume":"6 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":6.1,"publicationDate":"2024-04-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140590271","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Crime script analysis of the illegal sales of spiny-tailed lizards on YouTube","authors":"Ulhas Gondhali, Antonia Merzon, Thanaphon Nunphong, Tzu-Ying Lo, Yu-Hsuan Liu, Gohar A. Petrossian","doi":"10.1186/s40163-024-00206-w","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1186/s40163-024-00206-w","url":null,"abstract":"<p>The oil derived from the spiny-tailed lizards (STLs) is illegally sold as an alternative medicinal aphrodisiac that is claimed to cure male sexual dysfunction in addition to other bodily ailments. The high demand generated from this illegal trade is rapidly depleting the species from its natural habitat. The goal of this research is to uncover the process of cyber-enabled illegal trade in STLs. To achieve this goal, this research uses data from a total of 127 videos and 4608 comments associated with these videos and the crime script analysis technique to outline and detail the steps taken to poach, prepare, and sell oil derived from spiny-tailed lizards (STL) and other protected wild animals on YouTube. The results indicate that sellers, operating primarily from Pakistan, employ a variety of techniques to attract buyers, such as preparing the oil by dissecting alive STL while being captured in the video to show the authenticity of the product. In addition to YouTube, sellers use other social media platforms, including WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter/X, to communicate with potential buyers and to advertise their products. These products are shipped around the world using international courier services, such as DHL and TCS, with primary markets in South Asia and the Middle East. The sellers accept money transactions from Western Union, MoneyGram, and PayPal. They also seem to operate without any major restrictions from local authorities or host social media platforms. Based on these findings, this research proposed various recommendations for policy and practice.</p>","PeriodicalId":37844,"journal":{"name":"Crime Science","volume":"47 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":6.1,"publicationDate":"2024-04-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140590242","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Crime SciencePub Date : 2024-03-04DOI: 10.1186/s40163-024-00201-1
Hulya Seyidoglu, Graham Farrell, Anthony Dixon, Jose Pina-Sánchez, Nick Malleson
{"title":"Post-pandemic crime trends in England and Wales","authors":"Hulya Seyidoglu, Graham Farrell, Anthony Dixon, Jose Pina-Sánchez, Nick Malleson","doi":"10.1186/s40163-024-00201-1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1186/s40163-024-00201-1","url":null,"abstract":"This study of recorded crime trends in England & Wales spans three and a half years, that is, two covid pandemic years from March 2020 and 18 ‘post-pandemic’ months following cessation of covid restrictions. Observed crime rates were compared to expected (based on 5-year ARIMA models) and the ambient population (using Community Mobility Reports). It finds that, In Year 1, observed rates diverged dramatically from expected, waxing and waning generally in line with the movement restrictions of three national lockdowns. In Year 2, movement restrictions loosened and observed crime rates moved towards but mostly remained far from expected. In post-pandemic Year 3, people’s movement increased and observed crime rates continued towards expected. By mid-Year 4 many rates remained below expected levels, their mean monthly differences including: theft from person (− 22%); burglary (− 20%); vehicle crime (− 29%); violence & sexual offences (− 27%); robbery (− 16%) and; public order offences (− 21%). An exceptional increase in shoplifting achieved 20% above expected rates by August 2023. Methodological limitations and further research on shoplifting and other issues are discussed. The main conclusion is that crime trends generally followed ambient population movement and that enduring lifestyle changes in the post-pandemic period, notably increased work-from-home, account for continuing below-expected rates of many crime types.","PeriodicalId":37844,"journal":{"name":"Crime Science","volume":"63 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":6.1,"publicationDate":"2024-03-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140038017","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Crime SciencePub Date : 2024-02-26DOI: 10.1186/s40163-024-00203-z
Isabelle van der Vegt
{"title":"Gender differences in online abuse: the case of Dutch politicians","authors":"Isabelle van der Vegt","doi":"10.1186/s40163-024-00203-z","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1186/s40163-024-00203-z","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Online abuse and threats towards politicians have become a significant concern in the Netherlands, like in many other countries across the world. This paper analyses gender differences in abuse received by Dutch politicians on X (formerly Twitter), while taking into account the possible additional impact of ethnic minority status. All tweets directed at party leaders throughout the entire year of 2022 were collected. The effect of gender and ethnic minority status were estimated for six different linguistic measures of abuse, namely, toxicity, severe toxicity, identity attacks, profanity, insults, and threats. Contrary to expectations, tweets directed at male politicians scored higher on all forms of abuse. Significant interaction effects between gender and ethnic minority status were found for a number of abuse measures. Tweets directed at ethnic minority female politicians scored higher on severe toxicity, identity attacks, and profanity, compared to those directed at ethnic majority female politicians. Importantly, female ethnic minority politicians received the highest levels of threats compared to all groups. Given that online abuse and threats are reported to have a negative effect on political participation and retention, these results are particularly worrying.</p>","PeriodicalId":37844,"journal":{"name":"Crime Science","volume":"52 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":6.1,"publicationDate":"2024-02-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139980396","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Crime SciencePub Date : 2024-02-10DOI: 10.1186/s40163-024-00204-y
Arne Dreißigacker, Philipp Müller, Anna Isenhardt, Jonas Schemmel
{"title":"Online hate speech victimization: consequences for victims’ feelings of insecurity","authors":"Arne Dreißigacker, Philipp Müller, Anna Isenhardt, Jonas Schemmel","doi":"10.1186/s40163-024-00204-y","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1186/s40163-024-00204-y","url":null,"abstract":"<p>This paper addresses the question whether and to what extent the experience of online hate speech affects victims’ sense of security. Studies on hate crime in general show that such crimes are associated with a significantly higher feeling of insecurity, but there is little evidence concerning feeling of insecurity due to online hate speech. Based on a secondary data analysis of a representative population survey in Lower Saxony, Germany, on the topic of cybercrime in 2020 (N = 4,102), we tested three hypotheses regarding the effect of offline and online hate speech on feelings of insecurity. As a result, compared to non-victims, victims of online hate speech exhibit a more pronounced feeling of insecurity outside the Internet, while victims of other forms of cybercrime do not differ in this regard from non-victims. We found no effect for offline hate speech when relevant control variables were included in the statistical model. Possible reasons for this finding are assumed to lie in the characteristics of the phenomenon of online hate speech, for example, because the hateful content spreads uncontrollably on the Internet and reaches its victims even in protected private spheres.</p>","PeriodicalId":37844,"journal":{"name":"Crime Science","volume":"2 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":6.1,"publicationDate":"2024-02-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139762308","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Crime SciencePub Date : 2024-02-10DOI: 10.1186/s40163-024-00202-0
Yasemin Irvin-Erickson
{"title":"Identity fraud victimization: a critical review of the literature of the past two decades","authors":"Yasemin Irvin-Erickson","doi":"10.1186/s40163-024-00202-0","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1186/s40163-024-00202-0","url":null,"abstract":"<p>This study aims to provide an understanding of the nature, extent, and quality of the research evidence on identity fraud victimization in the US. Specifically, this article reviews, summarizes, and comments on the state of empirical research of identity fraud victimization in the US based on a narrative review of 52 published empirical studies. Studies included in this review suggest that the prevalence of identity fraud in the US has increased over the years and existing account frauds is the most prevalent type of identity fraud. There is a pressing need for more research on the prevalence of identity fraud victimization among minors, institutionalized individuals, and individuals from minority groups; long-term prevalence of identity fraud victimization; and emerging forms of identity fraud such as synthetic identity fraud victimization. Studies included in this review further suggest that identity fraud risk factors vary based on the fraud type considered. Identity fraud victims can experience a variety of harms. Longitudinal studies following identity fraud victims are essential for reliably estimating the risk factors for identity fraud victimization and the impact of identity fraud victimization on individual victims. The research on services for identity fraud victims is limited and suggests the positive impact of trauma-informed services for serious identity fraud victims. The overwhelming lack of research on the impact of programs and services for identity fraud victims necessitates more attention from scholars to study the impact of programs, interventions, and services for identity fraud victims on reporting of victimization, prevention of victimization, experiences of victims, and victim-centered cost benefit analysis of services. Policy and practice implications of these findings are discussed.</p>","PeriodicalId":37844,"journal":{"name":"Crime Science","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":6.1,"publicationDate":"2024-02-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139762294","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Crime SciencePub Date : 2024-02-04DOI: 10.1186/s40163-024-00200-2
George Karystianis, Nabila Chowdhury, Lorraine Sheridan, Sharon Reutens, Sunny Wade, Stephen Allnutt, Min-Taec Kim, Suzanne Poynton, Tony Butler
{"title":"Text mining domestic violence police narratives to identify behaviours linked to coercive control","authors":"George Karystianis, Nabila Chowdhury, Lorraine Sheridan, Sharon Reutens, Sunny Wade, Stephen Allnutt, Min-Taec Kim, Suzanne Poynton, Tony Butler","doi":"10.1186/s40163-024-00200-2","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1186/s40163-024-00200-2","url":null,"abstract":"<h3>Abstract</h3> <span> <h3>Background and setting</h3> <p>Domestic and family violence (DFV) is a significant societal problem that predominantly affects women and children. One behaviour that has been linked to DFV perpetration is coercive control. While various definitions have been proposed, it involves “acts of assault, threats, humiliation and intimidation or other abuse that is used to harm, punish, or frighten a victim” ranging from emotional to social and financial abuse. One potentially rich source of information on coercive control are police reports. In this paper we determine whether it is possible to automatically identify behaviours linked to coercive control from DFV police reports and present the prevalence of such behaviours by age and sex.</p> </span> <span> <h3>Methods</h3> <p>We modified an existing rule-based text mining method to identify 48 coercive control related behaviours from 406,196 DFV reports involving a single person of interest (POI) (i.e., an individual suspected or charged with a DFV offence) against a single victim from NSW Police Force records between 2009 and 2020.</p> </span> <span> <h3>Results</h3> <p>223,778 (54.6%) DFV events had at least one identifiable coercive control behaviour with the most common behaviour being verbal abuse (38.9%) followed by property damage (30.0%). Financial (3.2%) and social abuse (0.4%) were the least common behaviours linked to coercive control. No major differences were found in the proportion of DFV events between male and female POIs or victims. The oldest POI group (≥ 65 years) had the largest proportion for behaviours related to verbal abuse (38.0%) while the youngest POI group reported the highest proportion of DFV involving property damage (45.5%). The youngest victim group (< 18 years old) had the highest proportion of DFV events involving verbal abuse (37.3%) while victims between 18 and 24 years old reported the most harassment through phone calls and text messages (3.1% and 2.4% respectively); double that of those in the oldest (≥ 65 years) victim group (1.4% and 0.7% respectively).</p> </span> <span> <h3>Conclusions</h3> <p>Police data capture a wide variety of behaviours linked to coercive control, offering insights across the age spectrum and sex. Text mining can be used to retrieve such information. However, social and financial abuse were not commonly recorded emphasising the need to improve police training to encourage inquiring about such behaviours when attending DFV events.</p> </span>","PeriodicalId":37844,"journal":{"name":"Crime Science","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":6.1,"publicationDate":"2024-02-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139678927","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Crime SciencePub Date : 2024-01-17DOI: 10.1186/s40163-023-00199-y
Samuel Langton, Stijn Ruiter, Linda Schoonmade
{"title":"The spatial patterning of emergency demand for police services: a scoping review","authors":"Samuel Langton, Stijn Ruiter, Linda Schoonmade","doi":"10.1186/s40163-023-00199-y","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1186/s40163-023-00199-y","url":null,"abstract":"<h3>Abstract</h3> <p>This preregistered scoping review provides an account of studies which have examined the spatial patterning of emergency reactive police demand (ERPD) as measured by calls for service data. To date, the field has generated a wealth of information about the geographic concentration of calls for service, but the information remains unsynthesised and inaccessible to researchers and practitioners. We code our literature sample (N = 79) according to the types of demand studied, the spatial scales used, the theories adopted, the methods deployed and the findings reported. We find that most studies focus on crime-related call types using meso-level (e.g., neighborhood) spatial scales. Descriptive methods demonstrate the non-random distribution of calls, irrespective of their type, while correlational findings are mixed, providing minimal support for theories such as social disorganization theory. We conclude with suggestions for future research, focusing on how the field can better exploit open data sources to ‘scale-up’ analyses.</p>","PeriodicalId":37844,"journal":{"name":"Crime Science","volume":"36 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":6.1,"publicationDate":"2024-01-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139496737","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Crime SciencePub Date : 2024-01-01Epub Date: 2024-08-24DOI: 10.1186/s40163-024-00221-x
Robin Khalfa, Thom Snaphaan, Wim Hardyns
{"title":"An algorithmic strategy for measuring police presence with GPS data.","authors":"Robin Khalfa, Thom Snaphaan, Wim Hardyns","doi":"10.1186/s40163-024-00221-x","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1186/s40163-024-00221-x","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>This study introduces an algorithmic strategy for measuring dimensions of police presence at microgeographic units using GPS data from police patrol units. The proposed strategy builds upon the integrated theory of hot spots patrol strategy from Sherman et al. (Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice 30:95-122, 2014), focusing on three key dimensions: the frequency, duration, and intermittency of police presence. This study provides pseudocodes for the algorithm, facilitating the pre-processing of GPS-derived data sequences to generate measures of these three central concepts. The measures presented in this article offer a framework for investigating the impact of police presence on crime and other relevant crime-related outcomes at microgeographic units, using GPS data. This algorithmic strategy may further contribute to the development of evidence-based strategies in place-based policing initiatives.</p>","PeriodicalId":37844,"journal":{"name":"Crime Science","volume":"13 1","pages":"23"},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2024-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11344707/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142074080","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Crime SciencePub Date : 2024-01-01Epub Date: 2024-10-30DOI: 10.1186/s40163-024-00235-5
Jane Law, Abu Yousuf Md Abdullah
{"title":"A bayesian shared component spatial modeling approach for identifying the geographic pattern of local associations: a case study of young offenders and violent crimes in Greater Toronto Area.","authors":"Jane Law, Abu Yousuf Md Abdullah","doi":"10.1186/s40163-024-00235-5","DOIUrl":"10.1186/s40163-024-00235-5","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Background setting: </strong>Traditional spatial or non-spatial regression techniques require individual variables to be defined as dependent and independent variables, often assuming a unidirectional and (global) linear relationship between the variables under study. This research studies the Bayesian shared component spatial (BSCS) modeling as an alternative approach to identifying local associations between two or more variables and their spatial patterns.</p><p><strong>Methods: </strong>The variables to be studied, young offenders (YO) and violent crimes (VC), are treated as (multiple) outcomes in the BSCS model. Separate non-BSCS models that treat YO as the outcome variable and VC as the independent variable have also been developed. Results are compared in terms of model fit, risk estimates, and identification of hotspot areas.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>Compared to the traditional non-BSCS models, the BSCS models fitted the data better and identified a strong spatial association between YO and VC. Using the BSCS technique allowed both the YO and VC to be modeled as outcome variables, assuming common data-generating processes that are influenced by a set of socioeconomic covariates. The BSCS technique offered smooth and easy mapping of the identified association, with the maps displaying the common (shared) and separate (individual) hotspots of YO and VC.</p><p><strong>Conclusions: </strong>The proposed method can transform existing association analyses from methods requiring inputs as dependent and independent variables to outcome variables only and shift the reliance on regression coefficients to probability risk maps for characterizing (local) associations between the outcomes.</p><p><strong>Supplementary information: </strong>The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s40163-024-00235-5.</p>","PeriodicalId":37844,"journal":{"name":"Crime Science","volume":"13 1","pages":"37"},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2024-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11525323/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142569774","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}