A scalable empathic supervision intervention to mitigate recidivism from probation and parole.

Incarceration is a pervasive issue in the United States that is enormously costly to families, communities, and society at large. The path from prison back to prison may depend on the relationship a person has with their probation or parole officer (PPO). If the relationship lacks appropriate care and trust, violations and recidivism (return to jail or prison) may be more likely to occur. Here, we test whether an "empathic supervision" intervention with PPOs-that aims to reduce collective blame against and promote empathy for the perspectives of adults on probation or parole (APPs)-can reduce rates of violations and recidivism. The intervention highlights the unreasonable expectation that all APPs will reoffend (collective blame) and the benefits of empathy-valuing APPs' perspectives. Using both within-subject (monthly official records for 10 mo) and between-subject (treatment versus control) comparisons in a longitudinal study with PPOs in a large US city (NPPOs = 216; NAPPs =∼20,478), we find that the empathic supervision intervention reduced collective blame against APPs 10 mo postintervention and reduced between-subject violations and recidivism, a 13% reduction that would translate to less taxpayer costs if scaled. Together, these findings illustrate that very low-cost psychological interventions that target empathy in relationships can be cost effective and combat important societal outcomes in a lasting manner.

The Right Time and Place: A New Approach for Prioritizing Alcohol Enforcement and Prevention Efforts by Combining the Prevalence and the Success Rate for Minors Purchasing Alcohol Themselves.

OBJECTIVE: In the Netherlands, enforcement of the alcohol age limit is low and inconsistent because of limited resources. A solution is to optimize the efforts of enforcement officers by prioritizing ways in which they regulate commercial alcohol availability. This could increase compliance by sellers, curbing commercial availability. The objective of this study is to present the development of a commercial alcohol availability estimate (CAAE) for all vendor types selling alcohol and to propose a priority ranking. METHOD: A multi-method design was used, combining data (collected in 2015) from national studies reporting behavior of minors purchasing alcohol themselves and the success rate (noncompliance) of alcohol vendors (interviewing 510 minors by telephone and conducting 1,373 purchase attempts of alcohol by minors, respectively). Descriptive data and the development of the CAAE are presented. RESULTS: Compared with other vendor types (e.g., sports bars or supermarkets), bars/cafes/discos scored highest on the CAAE, indicating that 7.7% of 16- to 17-year-olds in the survey reported successfully purchasing their own alcohol at this vendor type. CONCLUSIONS: To control commercial alcohol availability efficiently for minors in the Netherlands, our estimates suggest that enforcement and prevention efforts should prioritize bars/cafes/discos. However, local authorities should also consider local circumstances and maintain a base amount of attention for all vendor types. Ultimately, the CAAE has the potential to improve enforcer capacity and efficiency in policing commercial alcohol regulation, and prevention workers could align their interventions or campaigns to high-ranked vendor types.

Breath tests in Western Australia: Examining the economic dividends and effectiveness of general deterrence.

In this paper, we examine the relationship between traffic enforcement (in the form of roadside breath testing for alcohol) and traffic outcomes (alcohol-related traffic crashes) to identify an optimal point of traffic enforcement. In Western Australia (WA), Police are authorised to stop any driver and measure their blood alcohol concentration via a sample of their breath. Using a metric employed by Ferris et al. (2013) and a methodology analogous to that utilised by Cameron (2013), we model the relationship between alcohol related traffic crashes and the saturation of breath testing in WA from January 2008 to April 2018. Our analysis suggests that given the saturation of breath testing in 2018 (1.2 tests per licenced driver), a 10 % increase in breath testing would be associated with a decline of 0.34 alcohol related traffic crashes (ARTC) per 100,000 drivers per month, equating to six fewer crashes per month, state-wide. In addition, using 'willingness to pay' and human capital cost metrics to approximate the social costs of ARTC, we employ a cost-benefit analysis to estimate the point at which the social costs of ARTC equal the economic costs of breath tests. Our analysis suggests that an increase in the number of tests to 143 % of all licensed WA drivers (an increase of 450,000 breath tests from the 2017/18 financial year) would be anticipated to save the state AUD$13.3 million annually in the human capital costs of ARTC. Our findings suggest that a further increase in breath tests to 154% of all licensed WA drivers (an increase of 650,000 breath tests from 2017/18) may save the state AUD$31.0 million annually in willingness to pay costs. The analytics below present a novel combination of methods to approximate the relative economic merits of increases in traffic enforcement. Furthermore, the findings outlined here have practical applications for operational policing, while providing an analytical perspective for policy makers faced with making recommendations regarding the volume and saturation of breath tests.

A police-led community response to Child abuse and Youth Sexual Violence and Abuse in Indigenous communities in Far North Queensland: "Speak Up. Be strong. Be Heard."

BACKGROUND: Child abuse and Youth Sexual Violence and Abuse (YSVA) are persistent social issues across the globe. The development and implementation of effective prevention strategies are a common focus for those working at the coalface. The Cairns Child Protection Investigation Unit of the Queensland Police Service (QPS) developed and implemented the "Speak Up. Be Strong. Be Heard." (SUBSBH) initiative. This police-led multi-component child abuse prevention initiative has been implemented in 26 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities across the Far North Queensland Police District since June 2016. OBJECTIVE: The aim of this research was to evaluate the success of the SUBSBH initiative. PARTICIPANTS AND SETTING: Existing data held by QPS were examined. These data include statistics on reporting of YSVA offences, internal program documents and reports, and evaluation feedback forms completed prior to this evaluation study. Information collected via these sources pertained to 26 Indigenous communities within the Far North Queensland Police District. The above-mentioned feedback forms were completed by 307 participants, of whom approximately 90% are Indigenous. METHODS: This study adopted desktop analysis and triangulation through a range of qualitative and quantitative data to ensure robust and rigorous evaluation of the SUBSBH initiative. RESULTS: The study found that the initiative was successful in meeting basic accepted practice for child abuse and YSVA prevention programs, receiving positive participant feedback on the educational program, achieving the initiative's objective to increase reporting of YSVA, and achieving cost-efficiency in meeting outcomes. Importantly, the increase in reporting of YSVA was statistically significant. CONCLUSION: This study contributes to current understanding regarding the implementation of multi-component child abuse prevention initiatives and provides an example of a cost-efficient police-led community response to child abuse and YSVA in Indigenous communities. The findings may guide responses in other communities which grapple with this critical social issue.

The association between neighborhood socioeconomic disadvantage and high-risk injection behavior among people who inject drugs.

BACKGROUND: Although much research has been conducted on the determinants of HIV risk behavior among people who inject drugs (PWID), the influence of the neighborhood context on high-risk injection behavior remains understudied. To address this gap in the literature, we measured associations between neighborhood socioeconomic disadvantage and high-risk injection behavior, and determined whether these associations were modified by drug-related police activity and syringe exchange program (SEP) accessibility. METHODS: Our sample was comprised of 484 pharmacy-recruited PWID in New York City. Measures of neighborhood socioeconomic disadvantage were created using data from the 2006-2010 American Community Survey. Associations with high-risk injection behavior were estimated using multivariable Poisson regression. Effect modification by drug-related police activity and SEP accessibility was assessed by entering cross-product terms into adjusted models of high-risk injection behavior. RESULTS: Neighborhood socioeconomic disadvantage was associated with decreased receptive syringe sharing and unsterile syringe use. In neighborhoods with high drug-related police activity, associations between neighborhood disadvantage and unsterile syringe use were attenuated to the null. In neighborhoods with high SEP accessibility, neighborhood disadvantage was associated with decreased acquisition of syringes from an unsafe source. CONCLUSIONS: PWID in disadvantaged neighborhoods reported safer injection behaviors than their counterparts in neighborhoods that were relatively better off. The contrasting patterns of effect modification by SEP accessibility and drug-related police activity support the use of harm reduction approaches over law enforcement-based strategies for the control of blood borne virus transmission among PWID in disadvantaged urban areas.

Forgotten evidence: A mixed methods study of why sexual assault kits (SAKs) are not submitted for DNA forensic testing.

Throughout the United States, hundreds of thousands of sexual assault kits (SAKs) (also termed "rape kits") have not been submitted by the police for forensic DNA testing. DNA evidence can help sexual assault investigations and prosecutions by identifying offenders, revealing serial offenders through DNA matches across cases, and exonerating those who have been wrongly accused. In this article, we describe a 5-year action research project conducted with 1 city that had large numbers of untested SAKs-Detroit, Michigan-and our examination into why thousands of rape kits in this city were never submitted for forensic DNA testing. This mixed methods study combined ethnographic observations and qualitative interviews to identify stakeholders' perspectives as to why rape kits were not routinely submitted for testing. Then, we quantitatively examined whether these factors may have affected police practices regarding SAK testing, as evidenced by predictable changes in SAK submission rates over time. Chronic resource scarcity only partially explained why the organizations that serve rape victims-the police, crime lab, prosecution, and victim advocacy-could not test all rape kits, investigate all reported sexual assaults, and support all rape survivors. SAK submission rates significantly increased once criminal justice professionals in this city had full access to the FBI DNA forensic database Combined DNA Index System (CODIS), but even then, most SAKs were still not submitted for DNA testing. Building crime laboratories' capacities for DNA testing and training police on the utility of forensic evidence and best practices in sexual assault investigations can help remedy, and possibly prevent, the problem of untested rape kits. (PsycINFO Database Record

Costs of the police service and mental healthcare pathways experienced by individuals with enduring mental health needs.

BACKGROUND: Substantial policy, communication and operational gaps exist between mental health services and the police for individuals with enduring mental health needs. AIMS: To map and cost pathways through mental health and police services, and to model the cost impact of implementing key policy recommendations. METHOD: Within a case-linkage study, we estimated 1-year individual-level healthcare and policing costs. Using decision modelling, we then estimated the potential impact on costs of three recommended service enhancements: street triage, Mental Health Act assessments for all Section 136 detainees and outreach custody link workers. RESULTS: Under current care, average 1-year mental health and police costs were £10 812 and £4552 per individual respectively (n = 55). The cost per police incident was £522. Models suggested that each service enhancement would alter per incident costs by between -8% and +6%. CONCLUSIONS: Recommended enhancements to care pathways only marginally increase individual-level costs.

Costs of Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder in the Canadian Criminal Justice System.

We reviewed literature to estimate the costs of Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) in the Canadian Criminal Justice System (CJS), and to update the total costs of FASD in Canada. The results suggest FASD is costlier than previous estimates. The costs of FASD associated with the CJS are estimated at $3.9 billion a year, with $1.2 billion for police, $0.4 billion for court, $0.5 billion for correctional services, $1.6 billion for victims, and $0.2 billion for third-party. The updated total costs of FASD in Canada are $9.7 billion a year, of which CJS accounts for 40%, healthcare 21%, education 17%, social services 13%, and others 9%.

Voluntary rewards mediate the evolution of pool punishment for maintaining public goods in large populations.

Punishment is a popular tool when governing commons in situations where free riders would otherwise take over. It is well known that sanctioning systems, such as the police and courts, are costly and thus can suffer from those who free ride on other's efforts to maintain the sanctioning systems (second-order free riders). Previous game-theory studies showed that if populations are very large, pool punishment rarely emerges in public good games, even when participation is optional, because of second-order free riders. Here we show that a matching fund for rewarding cooperation leads to the emergence of pool punishment, despite the presence of second-order free riders. We demonstrate that reward funds can pave the way for a transition from a population of free riders to a population of pool punishers. A key factor in promoting the transition is also to reward those who contribute to pool punishment, yet not abstaining from participation. Reward funds eventually vanish in raising pool punishment, which is sustainable by punishing the second-order free riders. This suggests that considering the interdependence of reward and punishment may help to better understand the origins and transitions of social norms and institutions.

Police bribery and access to methadone maintenance therapy within the context of drug policy reform in Tijuana, Mexico.

AIMS: In 2009, Mexico passed legislation to decriminalize drug possession and improve access to addiction treatment. We undertook research to assess the implementation of the reform among a cohort of people who inject drugs (PWID) in Tijuana. This study specifically sought to determine whether discretionary policing practices like extortion impact access to methadone maintenance therapy (MMT) in Tijuana, a city characterized by high levels of drug-related harms. METHODS: Generalized estimating equation analyses were used to construct longitudinal confounding models to determine the association between paying a police bribe and MMT enrolment among PWID in Tijuana enrolled in a prospective cohort study. Outcome of interest was MMT enrolment in the past six months. Data on police interactions and MMT enrolment were also obtained. RESULTS: Between October, 2011 and September, 2013, 637 participants provided 1825 observations, with 143 (7.8%) reports of MMT enrolment during the study period. In a final confounding model, recently reporting being forced to pay a bribe to police was significantly associated with an increased likelihood of accessing MMT (adjusted odds ratio=1.69, 95% confidence interval: 1.02-2.81, p=0.043). However, in 56 (39.2%) cases, MMT enrolment ceased within six months. The majority of participant responses cited the fact that MMT was too expensive (69.1%). DISCUSSION: Levels of MMT access were low. PWID who experienced police extortion were more likely to access MMT at baseline, though this association decreased during the study period. Coupled with the costs of MMT, this may compromise MMT retention among PWID.

Costs and savings associated with implementation of a police crisis intervention team.

OBJECTIVES: Police crisis intervention teams (CIT) have demonstrated their effectiveness in reducing injury to law enforcement personnel and citizens and the criminalization of mental illness; however, their financial effect has not been fully investigated. The objective of the study was to determine the total costs or total savings associated with implementing a CIT program in a medium-size city. METHODS: The costs and savings associated with the implementation of a CIT program were analyzed in a medium-size city, Louisville, Kentucky, 9 years after the program's initiation. Costs associated with officer training, increased emergency psychiatry visits, and hospital admissions resulting from CIT activity were compared with the savings associated with diverted hospitalizations and reduced legal bookings. RESULTS: Based on an average of 2400 CIT calls annually, the overall costs associated with CIT per year were $2,430,128 ($146,079 for officer training, $1,768,536 for hospitalizations of patients brought in by CIT officers, $508,690 for emergency psychiatry evaluations, and $6823 for arrests). The annual savings of the CIT were $3,455,025 ($1,148,400 in deferred hospitalizations, $2,296,800 in reduced inpatient referrals from jail, and $9825 in avoided bookings and jail time). The balance is $1,024,897 in annual cost savings. CONCLUSIONS: The net financial effect of a CIT program is of modest benefit; however, much of this analysis was based on estimates and average length of stay. Furthermore, the costs and savings associated with officer or citizen injuries were not included because there was inadequate information about their prevalence and costs. Finally, this analysis does not take into account the nonmonetary gains of a CIT program.

An economic evaluation of anonymised information sharing in a partnership between health services, police and local government for preventing violence-related injury.

OBJECTIVE: To assess the costs and benefits of a partnership between health services, police and local government shown to reduce violence-related injury. METHODS: Benefit-cost analysis. RESULTS: Anonymised information sharing and use led to a reduction in wounding recorded by the police that reduced the economic and social costs of violence by £6.9 million in 2007 compared with the costs the intervention city, Cardiff UK, would have experienced in the absence of the programme. This includes a gross cost reduction of £1.25 million to the health service and £1.62 million to the criminal justice system in 2007. By contrast, the costs associated with the programme were modest: setup costs of software modifications and prevention strategies were £107 769, while the annual operating costs of the system were estimated as £210 433 (2003 UK pound). The cumulative social benefit-cost ratio of the programme from 2003 to 2007 was £82 in benefits for each pound spent on the programme, including a benefit-cost ratio of 14.80 for the health service and 19.1 for the criminal justice system. Each of these benefit-cost ratios is above 1 across a wide range of sensitivity analyses. CONCLUSIONS: An effective information-sharing partnership between health services, police and local government in Cardiff, UK, led to substantial cost savings for the health service and the criminal justice system compared with 14 other cities in England and Wales designated as similar by the UK government where this intervention was not implemented.

[Occupational risk factors and medical prevention in corrections officers]. / Fattori di Rischio Lavorativo e Prevenzione Medica nella Polizia Penitenziaria.

In Italy, the Law n. 395/1990 defines the tasks and attributions of prison officers. According to the article 25 of the Legislative Decree n. 81/2008, the occupational physician should participate to risk assessment, and carry out the sanitary surveillance. This report analyzes the various tasks of prison staff, identifies the risk factors, and discusses the preventive strategies, including workers formation and education. Biological agents and work-related stress are the main risk factors, as a consequence of prison overcrowding, personnel shortage and work organization complexity. In his preventive action, and particularly in formulating the judgment on work fitness, the occupational physician often clashes with inadequate ministerial funding.

Does increasing community and liquor licensees' awareness, police activity, and feedback reduce alcohol-related violent crime? A benefit-cost analysis.

Approximately half of all alcohol-related crime is violent crime associated with heavy episodic drinking. Multi-component interventions are highly acceptable to communities and may be effective in reducing alcohol-related crime generally, but their impact on alcohol-related violent crime has not been examined. This study evaluated the impact and benefit-cost of a multi-component intervention (increasing community and liquor licensees' awareness, police activity, and feedback) on crimes typically associated with alcohol-related violence. The intervention was tailored to weekends identified as historically problematic in 10 experimental communities in NSW, Australia, relative to 10 control ones. There was no effect on alcohol-related assaults and a small, but statistically significant and cost-beneficial, effect on alcohol-related sexual assaults: a 64% reduction in in the experimental relative to control communities, equivalent to five fewer alcohol-related sexual assaults, with a net social benefit estimated as AUD$3,938,218. The positive benefit-cost ratio was primarily a function of the value that communities placed on reducing alcohol-related harm: the intervention would need to be more than twice as effective for its economic benefits to be comparable to its costs. It is most likely that greater reductions in crimes associated with alcohol-related violence would be achieved by a combination of complementary legislative and community-based interventions.

Cost per incident of alcohol-related crime in New South Wales.

INTRODUCTION AND AIMS: The purpose of this paper is to provide a per incident of crime cost measure for New South Wales that is suitable for the use within cost-effectiveness studies of interventions aimed at reducing the burden of alcohol. This paper seeks to quantify the individual cost of an assault, property damage, sexual offence and disorderly conduct in New South Wales. DESIGN AND METHODS: Costs regarding the criminal act, police involvement, prosecution in criminal courts and incarceration are estimated and then using a four-stage probability analysis, the expected cost per incident is calculated. RESULTS: It is found that expected cost per incident for assault, sexual offence, property damage and disorderly conduct (in 2006 dollar values) is $3982, $5976, $1166 and $501 respectively. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS: A large total cost figure is a powerful policy motivator; however, for the purpose of economic analysis it is often more useful to estimate the per incident cost. This research furthers the existing research on cost of crime estimates and facilitates future cost-effectiveness and other economic analysis of interventions that reduce alcohol-related crime.

"Ready to shoot and do shoot": black working-class self-defense and community politics in Harlem, New York, during the 1920s.

Throughout the first three decades of the twentieth century, black people in New York City encountered white violence, especially police brutality in Manhattan. The black community used various strategies to curtail white mob violence and police brutality, one of which was self-defense. This article examines blacks' response to violence, specifically the debate concerning police brutality and self-defense in Harlem during the 1920s. While historians have examined race riots, blacks' everyday encounters with police violence in the North have received inadequate treatment. By approaching everyday violence and black responses­self-defense, legal redress, and journalists' remonstrations­as a process of political development, this article argues that the systematic violence perpetrated by the police both mobilized and politicized blacks individually and collectively to defend their community, but also contributed to a community consciousness that established police brutality as a legitimate issue for black protest.

Necropolitics, narcopolitics, and femicide: gendered violence on the Mexico-U.S. border.

In 1993, a group of women shocked Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, with the news that dozens of girls and women had been murdered and dumped, like garbage, around the city during the year. As the numbers of murders grew over the years, and as the police forces proved unwilling and unable to find the perpetrators, the protestors became activists. They called the violence and its surrounding impunity "femicide," and they demanded that the Mexican government, at the local, state, and federal levels, stop the violence and capture the perpetrators. Nearly two decades later, the city's infamy as a place of femicide is giving way to another terrible reputation as a place of unprecedented drug violence. Since 2006, more than six thousand people have died in the city, as have more than twenty-eight thousand across the country, in relation to the violence associated with the restructuring of the cartels that control the production and distribution of illegal drugs. In response to the public outcry against the violence, the Mexican government has deployed thousands of troops to Ciudad Juárez as part of a military strategy to secure the state against the cartels. In this essay, I argue that the politics over the meaning of the drug-related murders and femicide must be understood in relation to gendered violence and its use as a tool for securing the state. To that end, I examine the wars over the interpretation of death in northern Mexico through a feminist application of the concept of necropolitics as elaborated by the postcolonial scholar Achille Mbembe. I examine how the wars over the political meaning of death in relation both to femicide and to the events called "drug violence" unfold through a gendering of space, of violence, and of subjectivity. My objective is twofold: first, to demonstrate how the antifemicide movement illustrates the stakes for a democratic Mexican state and its citizens in a context where governing elites argue that the violence devastating Ciudad Juárez is a positive outcome of the government's war against organized crime; and second, to show how a politics of gender is central to this kind of necropolitics.