Liberating criminology from a narrow focus on offender motivation meant criminologists could also understand that crime is partly caused by opportunities, which has been hugely important in developing effective ways to prevent crime. doi.org/10.1111/1745...

Liberating criminology from criminal motivation: The legacy of Ronald V. Clarke

Click on the article title to read more.

doi.org

This experiment finds a practitioner or global-south researcher without expensive institutional journal subscriptions can only access about 5% of criminology research. Long past time more researchers (especially in the US) got serious about open access. doi.org/10.21428/cb6...

A fruit fly brain looks for criminology it can read

We dropped a simulated fruit fly brain onto a randomly chosen criminology paper and let it walk outward through reference lists. Open-access papers are corridors. Paywalled papers are walls. It…

doi.org

Useful short summary of research evidence on the limited effect of CCTV (including automated numberplate recognition cameras) on crime and police outcomes. counciloncj.org/wp-content/u...

The decision not to install immobilisers on Kia/Hyundai cars (🇺🇸) led to over 1.1 million extra vehicle thefts over 5 years. Note: unlike other developed countries, the US doesn't require manufacturers to fit cars with immobilisers. www.crimrxiv.com/pub/4u5hwcwg...

The Kia-Hyundai vehicle theft surge: the roles of anti-theft devices and co-occurring offenses

Between 2019 and 2023, vehicle theft in the United States increased 40 percent. This study addresses this as a natural experiment, using a quasi-experimental design for causal inference to attribute…

crimrxiv.com

When a temporary speed trap (🇦🇺) appears on phone navigation apps (Waze, Google Maps, etc.), average vehicle speed on that road drops by about 4km/h. One for academics still teaching students that offenders don't make rational choices, I guess. 😉 doi.org/10.1007/s112...

@alextrinidad.eurosky.social and other members of esc-enoc.github.io, are thinking of creating a new OA journal in #Criminology under the PCI model. At this stage we are reaching out to see if we could gather 50 colleagues that could commit to help as associate editors. Let us know if interested.

Embedding mental-health clinicians in police control rooms (🇺🇸) was associated with a small drop (about 7%) in police deployments to mental-health calls. Seems like this would have been a good opportunity for a randomised controlled trial, though. doi.org/10.1080/0735...

Evaluating the impacts of a 911 dispatch diversion program for mental health-related calls on police deployments

When 911 centers receive mental health-related calls, Public Safety Operators often deploy police to a scene, contributing to early contact with the criminal justice system among people with mental...

doi.org

Repeat victimisation happens to police officers, too, especially when it comes to violent crime. Useful reminder in @policinginsight.bsky.social of the importance of leveraging concentrations of victimisation risk when trying to prevent officers being assaulted. policinginsight.com/feature/opin...

Of 812 articles in the British Journal of Criminology (2014–2024), only 0.2% (two articles in 11 years!) used experimental/quasi-experimental methods. (Quasi-)experiments aren't good for everything, but is UK crim research really using the right methods? doi.org/10.1007/s112...

Mark Rowley hits the nail on the head: “If we're serious about policing London effectively … Why wouldn't we want people who … can connect with every part of one of the world's most globally connected cities? These aren't ideological arguments. They're practical … necessities.” lnkd.in/p/e9XTGmvU

I will have more police officers of colour in the UK capital – and the culture wars won’t stop me doing it | Mark Rowley | Sir Mark Rowley | 34 comments

We're recruiting. We want the very best talent from every corner of London to consider a career with the Met. In January, it will be 40 years since I joined policing. Looking back over those four de...

lnkd.in

Replacing sodium street lights with LEDs (🇺🇸) led to substantial reductions in night-time property and violent crime outdoors, but the effect only lasted for six months before crime reverted to previous levels. doi.org/10.1007/s109...

For anyone looking for an up-to-date example of the base rate fallacy … 🤦‍♂️

Stephen Bush@stephenkb.bsky.social · 2w ago

"London has the largest number of Neets, an estimated 117,100, or one in six of all Neets in England, said the report" - you'll never guess what the other thing that London has one in six of all the things in England is.

A randomised trial (🇺🇸) of sending police drones to calls at the same time as dispatching officers found the drones decreased both how quickly police arrived at calls and how quickly calls were resolved. (Not yet peer reviewed) doi.org/10.21428/cb6...

Drones as First Responders and Police Response Time: Evidence From Two Randomized Controlled Trials

Drone as first responder (DFR) programs send drones to 911 calls ahead of, or instead of, patrol officers, yet causal evidence of efficacy is lacking. We report two preregistered randomized…

doi.org

An excellent blog post on some of the challenges of using generative AI tools in policing. As so often, it’s the non-technical issues that are the hardest to work through! Definitely worth your time: stephenrussell996702.substack.com/p/counting-c...

Counting Crime and Chasing Nines (1/2)

Part One · Beyond the Build

stephenrussell996702.substack.com

Incorporating street networks into geographic profiles of serial homicides produced results that were no more accurate, despite profiles using street networks requiring more work and taking longer. doi.org/10.21428/cb6...

Road-Network Versus Isotropic Distance in the Geographic Profiling of Serial Homicide: A Multinational Comparison

Purpose: Urban road networks impose structural constraints on movement that isotropic distance metrics fail to capture. This study evaluates whether road-network topology, via OpenStreetMap…

doi.org

This paper finds that the chances of a person with a criminal conviction (🇺🇸) being charged with a further crime drops rapidly every year afterward conviction, such that after 10 years they're no more likely to reoffend than the population at large. doi.org/10.1111/1745...

Criminal history's expiration date: Evidence of prediction decay

Criminal history is a well-established predictor of future offending, yet recidivism risk declines with time. Research has struggled to reconcile this tension as criminal history is often treated as…

doi.org

This study finds police officers (🇨🇦) perceive dealing with an armed robbery or violent domestic assault in progress as much more dangerous than driving to an emergency call, even though vehicle crashes are the top killer of cops (in 🇨🇦 and elsewhere). doi.org/10.1080/1043...

Join us tomorrow!

David Buil-Gil@davidbuil.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Are you around Manchester on 7 October? We've invited @iainbrennan.bsky.social to deliver a public seminar at @criminologyuom.bsky.social titled “Focused deterrence: Evaluating America's most successful violence intervention in an English context”. Registrations: eventbrite.co.uk/e/prof-iain-...

More undocumented immigrants moving into a neighbourhood (🇺🇸) is associated with a small *decrease* in violent crime rates and no change in property crime. More legal immigrants moving to an area isn't associated with changes in violent or property crime. doi.org/10.1080/0735...

Does unauthorized immigration drive community crime rates? Evidence from 11,500 U.S. neighborhoods

Research on the immigration-crime nexus has grown substantially, yet few studies differentiate among immigrants of different legal statuses, including undocumented immigrants. Of those that do, ana...

doi.org

This paper usefully categorises the ever-expanding use of AI in crime based on whether AI is an enabler or the principal executor of the crime, and whether the behaviour is human-directed or autonomous. doi.org/10.21428/cb6...

A hopefully useful (free) opportunity to hear from the statisticians who create our crime statistics on what they're working on. www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/annual-cri...

This huge replication (🇺🇸) of the 'Koper curve' on how long hotspot patrols should last reinforces the original findings: patrols are effective once cops are in a hotspot for 15 mins, after which staying in that area has no extra crime-prevention effect. doi.org/10.1111/1745...

Useful estimates in this paper of how long it takes for crimes of different types of be reported and recorded (🇺🇸), i.e. how long it takes for crime data to be 'stable' enough for research and analysis. For most types, >90% are reported within 14 days. doi.org/10.1080/0741...

'The Westminster government’s contribution to funding domestic undergraduates studying in England fell in real terms from £8.9 billion in 2012-13 to just £3.3bn in 2024-25, a drop of more than 60 per cent, an analysis has found.'

Research Professional News@resprofnews.bsky.social · 4w ago

Government funds just 16p in every £1 spent on teaching. Balance of higher education funding now “badly out of whack”, says Universities UK chief. www.researchprofessionalnews.com/rr-news-uk-u...

This paper finds the 'iron rule' that most crimes happen in a small number of places applies equally in an African city (Abuja, 🇳🇬) and when measured using data from a door-to-door survey rather than police data (which is limited by under-reporting). doi.org/10.1057/s413...

Previous research has found sending offenders a letter can have a surprisingly big effect on behaviour, but this paper (🇳🇱) found that didn't work to prevent people texting while driving: the letter in this case had no effect on the chance of reoffending. doi.org/10.1080/1561...

The effect of a procedural justice and deterrence-based letter on recidivism for smartphone use while driving in the Netherlands: a randomized controlled trial

This study evaluates the effectiveness of a Dutch police intervention conducted in March 2025 targeting drivers sanctioned for using a smartphone in traffic. As part of the intervention, individual...

doi.org

This paper (🇨🇱) finds more pedestrians (who are both 'eyes on the street' who might protect against crime, and potential targets of it) doesn't lead to any increase in theft until a critical crowd density is reached, after which theft rises sharply. doi.org/10.21428/cb6...

Eyes on the Street, Threshold Dynamics, and Property Crime

Why do crowded streets sometimes deter crime and sometimes attract it? Pedestrian volume can reduce crime through informal surveillance (“eyes on the street”) or raise it by expanding anonymity and…

doi.org

If you’re an emergency service that’s still encouraging people to use What3Words to locate themselves in an emergency, you might want to consider how likely it is the service will still be running given it’s run by a private company that loses millions every year.

Jonty Wareing@jonty.bsky.social · last mo.

Its What3Words accounts filing day! They're doing so great. Nothing to worry about. I'm sure "the launch of our advertising revenue stream" will offset the "lost major Enterprise customer". Ads are really profitable now, right? find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/0843...

Having had a great week at #EuroCrim2026 catching up with colleagues and their research, it’s time to head home. But fortunately not by plane! Should be an easy and simple train journey with only (!) 3 changes: Berlin, Cologne and Brussels. As long as Deutsche Bahn plays ball. 😬 Wish me luck! 🧵

Large survey finds police in England and Wales say “ill-fitting, inconsistent or low-quality uniforms [undermine] confidence, pride and their ability to present a professional image”. I doubt 46 forces each having slightly different uniforms helps. doi.org/10.1093/bjc/...

Negotiating (un)professionalism in police uniforms: A Corpus-Assisted Critical Discourse Analysis of officers’ and staff experiences

Abstract. This article examines how police officers and staff understand police uniforms as shaping professionalism, internal legitimacy and the public per

doi.org