News

Washington State Institute for Public Policy (WSIPP)

Adam Darnell, Kristofer Bitney

September 2017

Initiative 502, passed by Washington voters in November 2012, legalized the limited adult possession and private consumption of cannabis, as well as its licensed production and sale. The initiative directs WSIPP to evaluate the impact of the law in a series of reports between 2015 and 2032.

In this second required report we address preliminary findings from analyses of effects of I-502 on non-monetary outcomes. We used two main analysis strategies. We examined the effect of I-502 enactment on cannabis abuse treatment admissions, comparing Washington to similar non-legalizing states before and after I-502 enactment. We also examined how local differences in the amount of legal cannabis sales affected cannabis abuse treatment admissions, youth and adult substance use, and drug-related criminal convictions.

These analyses represent an intermediate step towards the ultimate benefit-cost evaluation of I-502 that is required by the law.

The International Center for the Prevention of Crime (ICPC) will be holding its 12th International Colloquium in association with the Ministry of Public Safety of Canada and the Government of Quebec in Montreal, Canada, from November 6 to 8, 2017. Consequent to its mission to promote crime prevention as a way to ensure community safety and overall increased quality of life for all, the ICPC has hosted colloquiums of this sort every two years in several countries such as Australia, Norway, Mexico, Chile, South Africa and Italy among others. ICPC’s Colloquiums offer a space for debate and dialogue between international experts, fostering innovative ideas and the formation of partnerships that will increase the effects of crime prevention as a tool for social improvement.

This year’s Colloquium will be titled “Crime Prevention Strategies in the 21st Century: Evolving Practices and Policies”. As such, it will focus on the evolution of the role of crime prevention actors as well as the challenges related to coordination and collaboration between governments. This theme will allow the Colloquium’s participants to share their perspectives on important subjects such as the different issues that affect crime prevention in different global regions, financial challenges in the field, or the need for strategies that are adapted to local urban settings.

London, UK / 22-27 October 2017

Innovation in Rehabilitation: Building Better Futures

Over 100 presentations and Speakers!

"Our diverse programme includes plenary, parallel plenary and workshop sessions covering a wide range of topics. We will publish more details about the conference programme next week. For now we would like to introduce you to one of our highlighted speakers".

Leeds on 18-19 September 2017

As a part of the Thirtieth Anniversary celebrations of Centre for Criminal Justice Studies (CCJS) the University of Leeds will be hosting a two day conference to bring together international experts, scholars and practitioners to showcase research, practice and theorising about future direction and new advances in restorative justice.

Day One of the conference will explore conclusions from recently completed research into restorative justice within policing undertaken by the University of Sheffield and University of Leeds as part of the national Police Knowledge Fund. Speakers from the UK and overseas will help to situate the findings within a wider discussion and debate about possible futures in restorative justice not only in the UK but internationally.

Day Two will broaden the scope to explore findings from international research into the role of restorative justice in transitional societies and inter-group conflicts.

ANZSOC preliminary program now available

5–8 December 2017

QT Hotel, Canberra

"The preliminary program for the 30th annual Australian and New Zealand Society of Criminology (ANZSOC) conference is now live on our website. We have a fantastic line-up of speakers for this year’s conference including our confirmed keynote speakers:

• Professor Richard Rosenfeld, University of Missouri

• Elizabeth Stanley, Victoria University of Wellington

• Louise Taylor, Legal Aid ACT

The conference will bring together academics, researchers, students, policy makers and practitioners from across the criminology and criminal justice field to share knowledge and insights from criminology’s rich traditions, its vital current contributions and its emerging future".

16 October 2017

Online, 13.00 - 14.00 GMT

This free webinar is for anyone with an interest in exploring long term changes in social attitudes and in experiences of crime using social surveys.

Presented by Professor Stephen Farrall and organised by the UK Data Service, this webinar will introduce new survey datasets, now available for download from the UK Data Service under SN7875, which bring together multiple years of data from each of the British Social Attitudes Surveys (1983-2012) and the Crime Survey for England and Wales (formerly the British Crime Survey) (1982-2012).

Each dataset has been collated at the individual level so that a range of analysis techniques can be used to interrogate them and each has been given standardised variable names, labels, codings etc, which permit easy use. The datasets can be used by those who either wish to model processes of social change at the cohort level (e.g. by birth year) or those who want to develop models at the macro level and run, for example, times series models.

This talk will:

• Outline the contents of each of the datasets including how each dataset is structured and how you may want to either use or extend the datasets

• Provide some caveats to their use

• Give some examples of how they can be used in analysis, and

• Explain how colleagues can access the datasets The webinar will consist of a 40 minute presentation followed by 20 minutes for questions.

Level: Introductory Experience/Knowledge required: None Target audience: Anyone with an interest in exploring long term changesin social attitudes and in experiences of crime using social surveys

The IGLP Scholars Workshop, hosted and sponsored by the Thailand Institute of Justice, will be held in Bangkok, Thailand from January 7-11, 2018.

The IGLP Scholars Workshop is an intensive, regionally-focused residential program that brings together an international cohort of young doctoral scholars, post-doctoral scholars and junior faculty for intensive collaboration, mentoring, and cross-training. IGLP’s signature Workshops aim to strengthen the next generation of scholars by placing them in collaboration with their global peers as they develop innovative ideas and alternative approaches to issues of global law, economic policy, social justice and governance. The 2018 IGLP Scholars Workshop will focus on how these issues relate to ongoing legal and policy debates throughout Asia and across the world, while offering unparalleled opportunities to strengthen participants’ writing and research.

Submissions are now open for the Crime Surveys User Conference 2017.

The annual Crime Surveys User Conference, organised by the UK Data Service, will be held on Friday 8 December.

The event is free to attend and will be held at the Royal Statistical Society in London. The programme will contain a mixture of presentations from data producers, including the Office for National Statistics (ONS), and researchers who use crime-related data. We would like to invite offers of presentations based on analysis of the UK crime surveys, such as the Crime Survey for England and Wales, the Commercial Victimisation Survey, and the Scottish Crime and Justice Survey. Presenters will have approximately 20 minutes for their talk followed by 10 minutes for questions. Please send offers of a paper, including a 200-word abstract, to gillian.meadows@manchester.ac.uk by Monday 25 September. We will evaluate all abstracts and notify authors after the selection process. A detailed programme of presentations will be provided prior to the conference.

Restorative Responses to Sexual Violence: Legal, Social and Therapeutic Dimensions (Hardback) book cover

This international collection brings together leading expert scholars and practitioners to offer both theoretical and practical perspectives on restorative justice and sexual violence. This book will be of interest to researchers in the field of law, criminology, psychology, social science, social work and psychotherapy, as well as practitioners in the fields of criminal justice, restorative justice and sex offender and victim trauma therapies. ‘Developing integrated responses to sexual violence: an interdisciplinary research project on the potential of restorative justice‘.

Brussels, 19 September 2017

Questions and answers

Why does the EU need to take action on cybersecurity?

Since 2013, the technological and security landscape in the European Union has changed at a very fast pace. Digital technologies are now an integral part of our daily life and the backbone of our economy. The Internet of Things revolution has become a reality, with tens of billions of devices expected to be connected to the Internet by 2020. At the same time the number and diversity of cyber threats is continuously growing. With the recent ransomware attacks, a dramatic rise in cyber-criminal activity, state actors increasingly using cyber tools to meet their geopolitical goals and the diversification of cybersecurity incidents, the EU needs to be more resilient to cyber- attacks and create effective cyber deterrence, including through criminal law, to better protect Europe's citizens, businesses and public institutions. As announced in President Juncker's State of the Union address on 13 September, the Commission and the High Representative are therefore today proposing to reinforce the EU's resilience and response to cyber-attacks by strengthening the European Union Agency for Network and Information Security (ENISA), creating an EU-wide cybersecurity certification framework, a Blueprint for how to respond to large-scale cybersecurity incidents and crises, and a European Cybersecurity Research and Competence Centre. Today's proposals also include a new Directive on the combatting of fraud and counterfeiting of non-cash means of payment to provide for a more efficient criminal law response to cyber–attacks, as well as a Framework for a Joint EU Diplomatic Response to Malicious Cyber Activities and measures to strengthen international cooperation on cybersecurity.

This wide-ranging cyber security package builds on existing instruments and presents new initiatives to further improve EU cyber resilience and response in three key areas:

• Building EU resilience to cyber-attacks and stepping up the EU's cybersecurity capacity
• Creating an effective criminal law response
• Strengthening global stability through international cooperation

Facts and Figures

The scale of the problem makes the need to act even more urgent. Recent figures show that digital threats are evolving fast: since the beginning of 2016, more than 4,000 ransomware attacks have occurred worldwide every day, a 300% increase since 2015, while 80% of European companies have been affected last year. Studies suggest that the economic impact of cybercrime rose fivefold from 2013 to 2017, and could further rise by a factor of four by 2019. Ransomware has seen a particular increase, with the recent attacks reflecting a dramatic rise in cyber-criminal activity. However, ransomware is far from the only threat. An increasing number of Europeans also see cyber-crime as an important threat for the European Union, according to a Eurobarometer survey. 87% of respondents regard cyber-crime as an important challenge to the EU's internal security and a majority are concerned about being victims of various forms of cybercrime, with the largest proportions concerned about discovering malicious software on their device (69%), identity theft (69%) and bank card and online banking fraud (66%). The two most common concerns about online payments are the misuse of personal data, identified by 45% percent of respondents, and the security of the transaction itself, with 42%. This has prompted many to act to better ensure their security online, with 62% having changed their passwords over the past six months and 45% having installed anti-virus software. However, some have even stopped conducting online transactions with 12% having reduced their online purchases and 10% having opted out of online banking.

The Alliance for Torture-Free Trade is an initiative of Argentina, the European Union and Mongolia, bringing together countries from around the world. Its aim is to end the trade in goods used to carry out the death penalty and torture. The countries of the Alliance commit themselves to take measures to control and restrict exports of such products. We also want to monitor trade routes and exchange information in order to put an end to this trade.

Theresa May will tell the likes of Google and Facebook they must remove terror content within two hours or face potential hefty fines.

By Mark Scott and Laurens Cerulus

| 9/20/17, 12:51 PM CET | Updated 9/20/17, 12:52 PM CET

Europe can’t make up its mind about policing terrorist propaganda and hate speech online.

That divide will again be on display Wednesday when British Prime Minister Theresa May will tell the United Nations that the likes of Google and Facebook must remove terror content within two hours or face potential hefty fines. Not to be outdone, new laws in Germany will take effect in early October that may dole out financial penalties of up to €50 million if tech giants fail to take down hate speech from their digital platforms. While some of Europe’s largest countries are pushing ahead with new legislation and possible fines to clamp down on such illegal online material, other EU member countries, as well as the European Commission, have yet to be convinced. Many countries, particularly those from the former Soviet bloc, are concerned that this aggressive policing of what can, and cannot, be posted online may restrict people’s freedom of expression, even if such material borders on either terrorist propaganda or hate speech directed at vulnerable groups like refugees. EU policymakers also have so far restrained from crafting legislation that mirrors domestic efforts from the British or German governments, among others, instead relying on voluntary codes to nudge companies like Twitter to do more to remove illegal content from their social networks. This muddled approach, experts warn, raises questions about how the EU is approaching the growing amount of illegal material online when it already has pushed ahead of other countries, notably the United States, in policing the digital world. By potentially forcing tech companies to decide what can be published online, others fear Europe is moving toward outsourcing decisions over freedom of expression to private companies often headquartered outside of the EU. “Until Europe has a consistent position on these things it is really hard to lecture others on this,” said David Kaye, U.N. special rapporteur on the protection of freedom of expression. “The fundamental problem is this imposition of liability on the companies for their own policing of expression.” In response, tech companies say they have removed hundreds of thousands of accounts from their platforms that shared illegal material and invested in new technologies and manpower to combat illegal content whenever they are made aware of it by users online. The digital giants also continue working with governments, including a new voluntary global initiative announced Wednesday aimed at combating jihadist material online. “Combatting terrorism requires responses from government, civil society and the private sector,” said a spokesperson for the Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism, the newly created body that includes EU countries and the likes of Brazil and Indonesia. “We are committed to doing everything in our power to ensure that our platforms are not used to distribute terrorist content.” These efforts, though, are unlikely to win over critics in Europe, including some of the region’s most powerful lawmakers.