The following are excerpts from recent research related to justice and law enforcement and reflect the views and opinions of the authors and not necessarily those of the organizations for which they work.
Samson Cree Nation's application of the HUB Model
By Chad Nilson
In 2012, Alberta's Samson Cree Nation, in partnership with the Maskwacis RCMP detachment, began using the Hub model of collaborative risk-driven intervention to provide solutions to ongoing crime, violence, arson, addictions and truancy in the community. The Hub model is a venue for service providers from various sectors to meet one or more times a week to share limited information about their clients whose current situation meets a defined threshold of acutely elevated risk.
Several communities across Canada have adopted the Hub model to improve community safety and wellness. However, the Samson Cree Nation remains the only First Nation to have fully applied the model over an extended period of time.
The objectives of this study were to identify why the model was adapted in the Samson Cree Nation, whether it's consistent with evidence-based practices, how compliant the Samson Cree Nation is with established practices of the model, what lessons have been learned, and what benefits and challenges have been observed.
The primary means of data collection included interviews with various health and human service providers, police officers, band leaders and community stakeholders. In total, 18 individuals were interviewed. An additional source of data was the researcher's own observations of the Samson Cree Hub made during a visit in June 2015.
The interviews demonstrated considerable support for the model, and advocates suggested that the Hub model is a promising alternative to the status quo in First Nation communities.
The impact of collaborative risk-driven intervention on clients brought forth to the Hub include the early identification of risk, being connected to services sooner, receiving assistance with complex problems, being held more accountable, avoiding crisis, and receiving multi-agency support.
The impact of the Hub on agencies include increased collaboration, a chance to learn perspectives of other agencies, acquiring more tools to help clients, more effective and efficient service provisions, access to more information, an opportunity to be proactive, build better relations with clients and, for some agencies, see a reduction in repeat calls for service.
Finally, the impact of Hub on police includes diverting complex clients to more appropriate services, reduced calls for service, improved community relations, improved co-operation with other agencies, an opportunity to become proactive, and an improved perspective of the client and their needs.
The results of this study also show that the Hub model aligns very well with First Nation culture and traditions in addressing complex social issues. While no concrete outcome measures on the Samson Cree Hub are available at this point, the results of this study are promising.
Improving the investigation and prosecution of state and local human trafficking cases
By National Institute of Justice
In this study, researchers focused on the challenges faced in identifying, investigating and prosecuting trafficking cases at the state and local levels. The researchers' primary goal was to improve law enforcement efforts to locate victims of trafficking and prosecute their traffickers.
The researchers used multiple methodologies, including analysis of quantitative data from 140 closed human trafficking case records; analysis of in-depth interviews with 166 police, prosecutors, victim service providers and other court stakeholders; and descriptive analysis of information from incidents that were never classified as human trafficking but might contain elements of human trafficking.
They collected data in 12 study counties representing three different levels of state human trafficking legislation (none, basic or comprehensive), as well as states with and without federally funded human trafficking task forces.
The researchers identified challenges in three areas of human trafficking cases — identifying victims, investigating cases and prosecuting cases.
Challenges in identifying victims:
- The covert nature of the activity.
- Victims were unable or unwilling to seek help, and fear of law enforcement.
- A failure of police agencies and other first responders to train all officers/front-line individuals on how to recognize victims.
Challenges in investigating cases:
- Law enforcement agencies don't uniformly make human trafficking a priority.
- Many agencies don't have the resources needed to train, staff and investigate cases — especially patrol officers and first responders.
- Agencies don't have officers who are sufficiently trained in appropriate interviewing techniques or who have the foreign-language skills necessary to facilitate identification.
- Law enforcement officers were often unprepared to deal with the amount of trauma suffered by victims. Consequently, law enforcement often resorted to using tactics they would normally use on suspects, including the use of arrest to secure victim co-operation.
Challenges in prosecuting cases:
- State prosecutors were reluctant to use new human trafficking laws and instead charged offenders with offences they were more familiar with, such as rape, kidnapping or pandering.
- No state prosecutor in the study had ever prosecuted a labour trafficking case. Background characteristics of the victims often influenced prosecutor decisions about charging, so most cases identified by local law enforcement were prosecuted federally.
- The researchers provide several recommendations for improving the identification of human trafficking: prioritizing human trafficking identification in communities and law enforcement agencies, providing institutional resources specifically for human trafficking, and using proactive investigation strategies.
- They also identified several strategies to improve investigations: providing adequate and comprehensive victim services — including adequate shelters, developing long-term plans to help survivors reintegrate into society, improving law enforcement training especially on interviewing techniques — and establishing open relationships between police and prosecutors.
Methamphetamine use and acquisitive crime
By Susan Goldsmid and Matthew Willis
Methamphetamine use among Australian police detainees is rising; but the impact of this rise on crime trends, and particularly on trends in acquisitive crime theft, is yet to be established. Identifying trends in and motivations for offending among methamphetamine users may assist law enforcement and policymakers to better target resources.
This paper examines the engagement in acquisitive crime, and perceived motivations for methamphetamine-driven crime, of a sample of Australian police detainees recruited in 2013 through the Drug Use Monitoring in Australia (DUMA) program.
Methods
Every quarter, the DUMA program conducts interviews with police detainees, at select locations across Australia, about their drug use and criminal offending. In 2013, data was collected in Perth, Adelaide and Brisbane and at two Sydney sites, Kings Cross and Bankstown.
A total of 1,146 police detainees were interviewed for the DUMA program in quarters 3 and 4 of 2013. Of these, 35.8 per cent of detainees reported using methamphetamine in the 30 days prior to their detention by police. This is a sufficiently large sample to allow comparison between detainees who used methamphetamine and those who did not.
Respondents were asked to provide basic demographic information including gender, age and Indigenous status. The charge(s) for which the detainee was being held in police custody at the time of interview was recorded for each respondent. They were also asked on how many of the previous 30 days they had used methamphetamine/speed/ice, alcohol, cannabis, heroin or ecstasy, along with how much of their income in the previous 30 days came from crime.
Results
This study provides further evidence of an association between methamphetamine use and criminal offending, particularly with property and drug-related crime. Both methamphetamine users and heroin users were approximately four times more likely than non-users to report obtaining income from acquisitive crime. Cannabis users were almost twice as likely as non-users to report generating income from acquisitive crime. This could indicate that the use of illicit drugs almost doubles the likelihood of a police detainee engaging in acquisitive crime. This may be driven by the illicit drug use itself, or by the demographic and socioeconomic factors that increase the likelihood of both illicit drug use and offending.
Methamphetamine users also reported deriving a significantly higher proportion of their income from crime than non-users. In addition, methamphetamine users reported their use played a contributing role in their offending, most commonly through intoxication or the need for money to purchase drugs.
Conclusion
Recognizing the impact of methamphetamine use on offending could assist police and government policymakers to proactively direct resources and implement strategies to combat any potential rise in offending that may be associated with a rise in the use of methamphetamine among offender populations.