ABSTRACT This study examines the predictors of variation in militarisation across nation states’ coercive apparatuses from 2011 to 2021. It tests two competing explanations of militarisation: as a functional response to changing crime threats, or as a politically driven strategy emerging from economic, political, and social crises. Drawing on cross-national longitudinal data covering 161 countries, we estimate six linear panel regressions with country fixed effects and robust standard errors clustered by country, using a multiply imputed dataset that ensures the inclusion of developing countries. We employ three distinct measures of militarisation and find that, contrary to prevailing assumptions, none is associated with the level of crime threat. Instead, political stability emerges as the strongest predictor of militarisation levels. These results challenge functionalist, or crime-control, accounts of militarisation. Rather, they suggest that militarisation operates primarily as a political strategy: it provides a veneer of stability, restores public confidence in ruling parties’ ability to maintain control during crises, and reflects a logic of control in which elites expand coercive capacity to deter dissent and project authority. In this light, the militarisation of the coercive apparatus may serve as a mechanism of power projection.

Wildlife crime has developed into a complex and organized form of crime that poses a significant threat to biodiversity conservation in Indonesia. This study aims to analyze the role of Civil Servant Investigators (PPNS) in strengthening law enforcement post-wildlife, particularly following the enactment of Constitution Number 32 of 2024, with a specific focus on the Aceh Natural Resources Conservation Center (BKSDA Aceh). This research adopts a qualitative socio-legal approach, integrating normative analysis with empirical data obtained through in-depth interviews with law enforcement actors and case data analysis from 2023 to 2025. The research findings indicate that wildlife crime in Aceh occurs through structured patterns, including illegal hunting at the upstream level, organized distribution networks, and adaptive modus operandi supported by digital technology. The effectiveness of law enforcement is still constrained by institutional capacity limitations, fragmented coordination, and procedural dependencies between agencies. This study identifies a regulatory paradox, where the legal reforms of 2024, which were intended to strengthen conservation law, have in fact limited the authority of PPNS operations, particularly in coercive actions such as arrests and detentions. These conditions impact the responsiveness of law enforcement and weaken the deterrent effect against organized wildlife crime. This research contributes to the study of environmental law enforcement by emphasizing the importance of harmony between regulatory frameworks, institutional capacity, and operational realities. Additionally, it provides policy implications for strengthening coordination between institutions, improving law enforcement authority, and optimizing resource allocation to enhance the effectiveness of wildlife crime control in Indonesia.

Child sexual abuse perpetration prevention programs have been implemented in several Global North countries. There is limited research on how to best advertise these programs to attract eligible participants while ensuring public support for such programs, as well as participant characteristics that impact receptiveness to this advertising. The present study explored the effect of advertisement message framing and personal characteristics on support for a hypothetical perpetration prevention program. A partially representative sample of Canadian adults (N = 1,487; 50.3% female) completed an online survey and were randomized to one of three mock advertisements that varied in message framing (risk reduction, wellbeing enhancement, or a combination of both). Participants rated how much they supported the program and provided data about demographic characteristics, personality traits, and their attitudes and beliefs. There were high levels of support for the program, though the messaging frame had no effect on this outcome. Several characteristics including personality traits, political orientation, stigmatizing attitudes, and perceptions of crime control effectiveness were associated with program support. The findings suggest that perpetration prevention programs can advertise their services in a way that emphasizes risk reduction and/or wellbeing without risking public support, and there may be opportunity to increase program support by considering key characteristics of target audiences.

Predictive Policing Algorithms: The Promise and Peril of AI-Driven Crime Control

Ensuring effective government policies to prevent crimes that threaten health and personal safety has become increasingly important amid social instability, technological change, and emerging security risks. This study aims to identify the main research trends, collaboration patterns, and thematic transformations in the field of governmental policy for preventing crimes against health and personal safety through a bibliometric and public interest analysis. The analysis is based on scientific publications indexed in Scopus and Web of Science, complemented by public interest data from Google Trends and historical frequency analysis using Google Books Ngram Viewer, and examined using Biblioshiny (R Studio), VOSviewer, and CiteSpace. The results reveal several important patterns in the scientific landscape. First, the Google Books Ngram analysis for 2003–2022 shows a consistent increase in the frequency of the term “crime prevention strategies,” with a noticeable peak around 2016, indicating growing academic attention to preventive governance approaches. Second, the thematic evolution analysis shows a significant expansion of research topics after 2010, particularly between 2014 and 2021, when studies on public safety governance and community-based prevention intensified. Third, the CiteSpace clustering analysis identifies five major thematic clusters, with the largest cluster including 17 publications (silhouette score 0.858) focused on violence prevention and public safety policies. Fourth, the bibliometric network analysis highlights a growing emphasis on technology-driven prevention mechanisms, including artificial intelligence, smart city technologies, and digital monitoring systems, which became particularly visible in the literature after 2022. These findings indicate a gradual shift from reactive crime control approaches toward integrated, data-driven governance strategies aimed at protecting health and personal safety.

This study sought to structurally examine the security issues of Jeju Special Self-Governing Province, which welcomes over 15 million people annually, from the perspective of the relationship between its environmental characteristics as a tourist city and the autonomous police system. Jeju is a representative tourist city with a very high ratio of tourists to resident population, yet its security system still allocates resources and functions based on resident population and administrative districts, this structural limitation persists, failing to adequately reflect the spatiotemporally and spatially varying risk demands of tourists based on their movement patterns and length of stay. Therefore, this study established a “structural mismatch” model as an analytical framework for diagnosing the mismatch between security systems and risk demands in tourist urban environments. While the large influx of tourists can have positive effects, such as revitalizing the local economy, it also brings negative consequences, such as traffic congestion, increased crime and accidents, and increased conflict between local residents and tourists. The persistent reports of various safety issues in Jeju over the past three years—traffic accidents, safety incidents at tourist attractions, illegal immigration cases, drug discovery, and a surge in complaints within the local community—reflect the unique demands for security in a tourist city. Based on this diagnosis, this study suggests the need to shift the paradigm of public safety in tourist cities from a post-incident handling and law enforcement-centered approach to a proactive approach that manages and coordinates risks. Specifically, the study proposes key directions for redesigning the Jeju Autonomous Police to a tourism-oriented model: a flexible allocation system for public safety resources based on risk needs, the establishment of an integrated control tower system to oversee tourism safety, strengthened governance based on public-private cooperation, and a qualitative shift in the performance management system, including measures of perceived safety and order maintenance, this study has academic and policy significance in that it reframes the security issues in tourist cities from the perspective of inadequacy in the design of the security system rather than a failure of crime control, and presents theoretical and practical analytical criteria for redesigning an autonomous police model that reflects the unique characteristics of tourist cities.

(1) Background: The purpose of this paper is to explicate the logic of community engagement in American policing. In the United States, the police are organized for crime control and social order through law enforcement. In fact, the terms police and law enforcement are often used interchangeably. This linguistic trap reifies the law-enforcer identity and disposition, while producing a logic of professional practice that prioritizes enforcement over more effective crime prevention activities. We ask, “Are there better ways to organize the police to make communities safer?” If so, what could the police do and why? To answer these questions, we first explore the structure of American policing and the logic it creates. We then examine latent community dynamics and their impact on public safety. (2) Methods: Using survey data from a statewide probability sample of households, the authors examine the impact of these dynamic processes on crime, informal social control, and support for those returning to the community from prison. (3) Findings: The findings demonstrate, in measurable ways, the essential function of community-engagement in creating safe, strong neighborhoods. (4) Conclusions: The study’s findings suggest a new framework for policing that prioritizes community engagement for relationship building and problem-oriented policing over more aggressive law enforcement campaigns.

This study presents survey data on perceptions of the police collected from a convenience sample of 208 Hispanic college students residing in a predominantly Hispanic community situated near the U.S.-Mexico border. Regression analyses underscore the complexity of the relationship between socioeconomic status and attitudes toward the police among young Hispanic adults. Whereas household income did not significantly impact satisfaction with the police, paternal educational attainment had a positive impact on perceptions of the police, while maternal educational attainment had the opposite effect. Additionally, the students’ genders and preferences for punitive crime control measures were significantly correlated with their confidence in the police, but (contrary to prior research) the students’ political preferences were not. The implications of these findings are discussed.

Since their establishment, public police agencies have been primarily responsible for maintaining law and order, reducing crime, and responding to incidents of crime and social disorder. However, as societies become more complex and dynamic, it is increasingly recognized that the tasks of crime control and violence reduction cannot be addressed by formal police institutions alone. This recognition has led to the growing involvement of a range of nonpolice actors in the broader policing landscape. In Trinidad and Tobago, individuals and community-based networks often work alongside the official police service to address crime and reduce violence. This article examines the experiences and perspectives of 15 Hearts and Minds officers regarding the impact and effectiveness of stakeholder collaboration in reducing violence in high-crime areas near the capital, Port of Spain.

Routine activity theory has critically underappreciated the role of social structure in accounts of the incapacitation of capable guardianship. In response, this article emphasises the unanticipated macro conditions that hinder the capacities of experts to control crimes against wildlife. Routine activity theory is framed here not as a heuristic of crime prevention but as a causal mechanism integrated in a generative social context. As a metatheoretical contribution, the article develops a domain-specific ontology of how enforcement deficits can be conceptualised beyond neo-positivist accounts. The wider institutional arrangements of political economy and criminal justice policy conditions are shown to constrain the capable guardianship of wildlife on the rural frontier. The article contributes new knowledge to wildlife insecurity while advancing novel theory on structure and agency in the aetiology of crime control.

This study examines whether general-purpose governments or their collaborative partnerships with subgovernment units deliver crime control more effectively. In some jurisdictions, voters can establish subgovernment units to enhance local service delivery, but systematic comparisons between municipalities with and without these units remain limited. Collaborative subunit governance structures can be designed to expand and safeguard resources for salient services, which, over time, results in better performance than general-purpose governments without subunits. Using a difference-in-differences design with matching, we find that municipalities with Crime Control and Prevention Districts (CCPDs) experience greater reductions in violent crime than comparable municipalities without CCPDs, although the effects diminish over time. The impact on property crime is limited, and no significant effect is found for homicide. These findings highlight the importance of ongoing performance evaluation and structural adjustments in evolving local governance arrangements to ensure more effective local service delivery.

High-risk neighborhoods represent complex social environments where crime is shaped by intertwined socio-economic, institutional, and cultural factors. Traditional crime control strategies that rely predominantly on reactive law enforcement have proven insufficient in ensuring long-term public safety in such areas. This article explores mechanisms for improving crime prevention in high-risk neighborhoods through an integrated and preventive governance approach. Drawing on criminological theories and comparative analysis of preventive practices, the study examines the role of community-based policing, early social intervention, institutional coordination, and data-driven prevention tools. The findings indicate that effective crime prevention requires a shift from punitive models toward comprehensive frameworks that emphasize social inclusion, community participation, and inter-agency cooperation. Strengthening trust between residents and public institutions is identified as a critical condition for sustainable crime reduction. The study contributes to contemporary crime prevention discourse by highlighting the necessity of context-sensitive and multidisciplinary strategies in addressing criminal risks in high-risk neighborhoods.

The relationship between rights and duties is fundamental to structuring citizen security, with morality as an essential factor in defining public policies. Ethics guide the balance between law enforcement and the guarantee of fundamental rights, ensuring that security measures are not applied abusively. The principle of morality influences both security agents and society, promoting an environment of respect for legal norms and human dignity. The absence of a solid moral foundation in security policies can result in abuses of authority and discriminatory practices, compromising public trust in institutions. Furthermore, respect for individual and collective rights strengthens social cohesion, contributing to a fairer and more effective security system. Equity in law enforcement must be ensured to prevent certain groups from being targeted by selective or repressive approaches. In this way, morality presents itself as an essential pillar for constructing public policies that reconcile crime control and the preservation of fundamental rights. The ethical training of security agents is also essential, ensuring that their actions are guided by principles of justice and impartiality. Thus, a citizen security model that prioritizes morality and ethics tends to be more legitimate and efficient, promoting an environment of mutual respect and trust between the population and institutions responsible for public order.

Abstract Gun violence has led many police agencies to adopt acoustic gunshot detection technology (GDT) to identify gunshots and provide precise locations for rapid police response. Theoretically, GDT could reduce crime through incapacitation and/or deterrence. However, high costs and concerns about effectiveness have led some communities to discontinue its use. Despite growing policy interest, few studies have directly examined GDTs impact on crime. Only 14 such studies were identified in this systematic review, examining the impact of GDT on a range of crime types. A multilevel random effects meta-analysis was conducted of 44 effect sizes from 8 studies with sufficient information. The pooled effect size indicates no significant relationship between GDT and crime (RIRR=1.02; 95% CI [0.90, 1.16]). Moderator analyses using multilevel meta-regression models indicated that neither crime type nor study strength influenced the effects. Substantial between-study heterogeneity was observed, possibly due to inconsistent implementation across jurisdictions. Our findings suggest that while GDT might increase intermediary outcomes like evidence and arrests, it will not reduce crime on its own. Policymakers should consider how technologies like GDT could support other crime reduction efforts. A strategic crime control approach to GDT, including problem analysis, evidence-based responses, partnerships, strategic planning, and built-in accountability mechanisms, is discussed. Achieving GDT-facilitated incapacitation or deterrence requires a comprehensive approach to integrating GDT into organizational practices.

Abstract Research summary Crime and violence continue to be problems that plague urban areas across the United States and the globe. One key approach for responding to these problems is “focused deterrence” which includes programs that prevent criminal behavior by blending criminal justice, social service, and community‐based action. While previous systematic reviews have supported the crime control effectiveness of focused deterrence, prior reviews have not included randomized experimental evaluations which are generally recognized to provide stronger causal claims when implemented with fidelity. This updated review of 50 controlled evaluations benefits from the addition of 26 rigorous studies, of which 9 are randomized experimental field trials. This suggests the importance of reassessing the evidence and provides opportunities for additional moderator analyses of program impacts. The overall meta‐analysis suggested that focused deterrence was associated with a statistically significant 23% crime reduction in treatment groups relative to control groups. Meta‐analysis of the 9 randomized experiments suggested focused deterrence generated a smaller 16% crime reduction. Programs designed to reduce gang and group‐involved gun violence were associated with the largest crime reduction impacts. Studies that examined community outcomes generally observed positive impacts. Policy implications A much more rigorous scientific evidence base now exists to support the continued use of focused deterrence to control crime and violence. These analyses, which include randomized controlled trials, provide robust and consistent evidence that focused deterrence reduces crime. Moreover, preliminary results from a group of studies that measure community outcomes, suggest that community residents have positive perceptions of these programs. Program implementation remains challenging with studies noting persistent problems with treatment integrity and sustainability. Further research is also needed to clarify prevention mechanisms so key program activities can be better understood and enhanced.

This article explores the concept ‘pockets of punitiveness’ by tracing the historical origins, transformations, and resilient features of the relatively indeterminate Danish Youth Prison Sanction (YPS), in force from 1933 to 1973. Drawing on archival and published sources from the 1890s to 1930s, the study examines how the YPS's ‘coercive confinement’ practices were shaped by key professionals, experts, and politicians within penal and social spheres. Situating these sources within influential Nordic welfare historiography, penal studies, and youth history, the analysis highlights the sanction's inter-institutional nature and deep rootedness in welfare governance emerging in the late nineteenth century. Building on a pluralistic understanding of historical time, the article suggests that youth deemed a(t) risk constitutes a ‘pocket’ within the fabric of the Danish welfare state. Ultimately, the study offers an expanded understanding of the resilience of these penal-welfare entanglements and the historical and structural dynamics shaping Danish youth crime control today.

The article examines the features of prevention and control of sexual and violent crime. Sexual and violent crimes are of exceptional public danger. They cause the deepest physical and psychological trauma to the victims, cause a significant public resonance, create an atmosphere of fear and undermine the trust of citizens in the ability of the state to ensure their safety. Of particular concern is the fact that the existing system of criminal law and preventive measures does not always demonstrate sufficient effectiveness in countering these complex and multifactorial criminal phenomena. The lack of an effective mechanism for monitoring and compulsory treatment of individuals who have served their sentences for such crimes creates a high risk of recidivism and endangers the lives and health of citizens. This highlights the urgent need for a comprehensive criminological analysis. Of particular concern is the fact that the existing system of criminal law and preventive measures does not always demonstrate sufficient effectiveness in countering these complex and multifactorial criminal phenomena. The lack of an effective mechanism for monitoring and compulsory treatment of individuals who have served their sentences for such crimes creates a high risk of recidivism and endangers the lives and health of citizens. This highlights the urgent need for a comprehensive criminological analysis. All of this necessitates a comprehensive criminological analysis of these phenomena and the development of scientifically grounded proposals for improving the system of their prevention, which determines the relevance of this study.

This study is motivated by the increasing dynamics of criminal activity within the jurisdiction of the East Nusa Tenggara Regional Police (Polda NTT), characterized by regional variations and complex causal factors. Conventional crimes such as assault, theft, and mob violence dominate the crime landscape and significantly affect social stability. The purpose of this research is to analyze the patterns, causes, and crime control strategies implemented by Polda NTT in maintaining public security and order. The study employs an empirical legal approach using a mixed-methods design, combining quantitative analysis of crime statistics with qualitative interviews involving police officers. Data were obtained from the Directorate of General Criminal Investigation (Ditreskrimum) of Polda NTT and cover all police jurisdictions, including one city police department and twenty-one district police offices. Findings reveal that crime rates in NTT are strongly influenced by social, economic, cultural, and geographical factors. The most prevalent crimes include assault, ordinary theft, traffic accidents, and mob violence. Major contributing factors consist of a local culture of violence, alcohol consumption, economic hardship, and low legal literacy. Polda NTT’s strategies involve preventive measures (routine patrols and public legal education), repressive actions (law enforcement and offender guidance), and humanistic approaches such as the Jumat Curhat program, which facilitates direct dialogue with the community.

"Gangsterism and Crime Control in India: A Comparative Study of Uttar Pradesh and Ladakh" 

The relationship between national security and human rights remains a central challenge for democratic states, particularly in the context of crime control and law enforcement. In Kenya, security operations aimed at countering terrorism, maintaining public order, and safeguarding territorial integrity have frequently generated tensions with constitutional and international human rights obligations. This paper examines the nexus between national security and human rights in Kenya through the analytical framework of Van Kempen’s four human rights–security concepts. Adopting a qualitative doctrinal and conceptual research design, the study analyses constitutional provisions, security legislation, judicial decisions, and international human rights instruments relevant to Kenya’s security governance. The findings demonstrate that human rights and national security are not mutually exclusive but are interdependent and mutually reinforcing when grounded in the rule of law. Human rights function as safeguards against abuse of state power, legitimate grounds for proportionate security interventions, and positive obligations requiring the state to protect individuals from harm. However, persistent gaps between normative commitments and operational practice continue to undermine effective security governance. The paper concludes that a human rights–centered approach to national security is essential for legitimacy, public trust, and sustainable peace in Kenya, and offers policy recommendations to strengthen rights-based security frameworks.