JustResearch Edition no. 13

JustReleased

The Development of the Brief Spousal Assault Form for the Evaluation of Risk (B-SAFER): A Tool for Criminal Justice Professionals

This report describes the development of a risk assessment tool to be used by criminal justice professionals in spousal abuse cases. The tool, called the Brief Spousal Assault Form for the Evaluation of Risk (B-SAFER), was developed and pilot tested with six police agencies in Canada, and in two jurisdictions in Sweden. The results of quantitative empirical analyses on Canadian and Swedish data are presented along with qualitative feedback received from police officers in Canada. Overall, the results were encouraging, suggesting that the B-SAFER tool includes relevant risk factors present in spousal assault cases and that the tool can be coded easily by police officers in the course of routine investigations. /eng/pi/rs/rep-rap/2005/rr05_fv1-rr05_vf1/index.html

The Cost of Pain and Suffering from Crime in Canada

This report presents the findings of research to assess the monetary cost of crime-induced pain and suffering. The research adopts an innovative approach to estimate the cost of pain and suffering from crime in Canada, both overall and for specific categories of crime, namely violent crimes, property crimes and other crimes such as drug offences and Criminal Code traffic offences. The estimation is based on three components: the number of incidents for each type of crime, the proportion of victims feeling worried about safety, and the value of perceived and actual mental distress as a result of the crime experience.Both the Uniform Crime Report (UCR) and the General Social Survey (GSS) on victimization were used as data sources, and the cost of pain and suffering from all crimes was estimated to be $35.83 billion using the GSS data, compared to $9.83 billion using police-reported statistics. /eng/pi/rs/rep-rap/2005/rr05_4/index.html

Assessing the Effectiveness of Organized Crime Control Strategies: A Review of the Literature

The purpose of this report is to examine studies and evaluations of strategies designed to combat organized crime. Overall, the review found that most of the evidence pertaining to the efficacy of organized crime control strategies is descriptive and anecdotal. Studies adopting sophisticated research designs are virtually non-existent. Nevertheless, the report highlights the challenges associated with the study of organized crime (e.g., lack of uniform definition of organized crime, paucity of data, etc.). It also describes 18 control strategies, including measures that range from regulation and legalization to tools available to prosecutors, law enforcement, and other public and private sector agencies. Finally, the report contains an assessment of the various strategies and their evaluations. In some cases, there were no data to help determine the effectiveness of the program; nonetheless, at least three of the 18 control measures can be considered "moderate to high" in effectiveness in combating organized crime. http;//justice.gc.ca/eng/pi/rs/rep-rap/2005/rr05_-5/index.html