The Office on Violence Against Women (OVW) has announced the opening of several grants to improve the criminal justice response program. The Grants to Improve the Criminal Justice Response Program (ICJR Program) encourages state, local, and tribal governments, as well as courts, to improve the criminal justice response to domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, and stalking as serious violations of criminal law, and to seek safety and autonomy for victims, by requiring the coordinated involvement of the entire criminal justice system. The foundation of the ICJR Program is a Coordinated Community Response (CCR). A CCR brings together a diverse group of community partners to work together to address the widespread impact of domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, and stalking and to provide multiple pathways to support, healing, and accountability for families. Eligible applicants include states, units of local government, Indian tribal governments, tribal organizations, nongovernmental entities, nonprofit organizations, and victim service providers.

Hosted by the Justice Clearinghouse, this webinar discusses the sex trafficking of minors as a real and significant threat in our communities across the United States. Traffickers must be prosecuted and held accountable, and victims must be met with a trauma-informed approach. This presentation will provide investigators, prosecutors, probation officers, and victim advocates with insight into the culture and dynamics of domestic minor sex trafficking. These cases come with significant hurdles to overcome, such as a lack of corroborating evidence or “compliant” victims. Ms. Sara Micflikier, deputy county attorney with the Maricopa County, Arizona, Attorney’s Office, will incorporate case studies and real-life examples of trafficking prosecutions to provide the audience with a basic understanding of trafficking culture, terminology, and the unique circumstances involved in the trafficking of minors for sex. 

When: Thursday, April 6, 2023
Time: 1:00 p.m. – 2:15 p.m., ET

The National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START)’s Radicalization and Disengagement research team has launched a major update to the Profiles of Individual Radicalization in the United States (PIRUS) dataset, adding 955 subjects who were charged with committing extremist crimes in the United States from 2019 to 2021. This update shows a sharp increase in crimes committed by offenders affiliated with far-right groups and movements. For instance, in 2015, when extremism inspired by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) was at its peak, far-right subjects made up just 32.2 percent of the offenders included in the data. In 2021, nearly 90 percent of the offenders included in PIRUS were affiliated with the extremist far-right—the highest percentage of any year recorded in the database.

The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) Center on Extremism (COE) published a report discussing white supremacist propaganda.  White supremacist propaganda incidents have reached the highest number ever recorded in one year—6,751 cases. This is a 38 percent increase from the previous year. These propaganda efforts include “the distribution of racist, antisemitic and anti-LGBTQ+ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer or questioning, and more) fliers, stickers, banners, graffiti and posters, as well as laser projections.” Antisemitic propaganda, in particular, has more than doubled in size over the past year.  The report includes a link to an interactive tool called the H.E.A.T. map (the acronym stands for hate, extremism, antisemitism, and terrorism). This tool details specific incidents of H.E.A.T. by state as well as nationwide. According to the map, Texas reported the highest level of activity for white supremacist propaganda.  The Texas-based white supremacist group Patriot Front contributed to 80 percent of the propaganda distributed in 2022. Other groups mentioned in this report include Goyim Defense League (GDL), White Lives Matter (WLM), Folkish Resistance Movement, and others.

Published by The Council of State Governments (CSG) Justice Center, these tools help provide state leaders with a plan to advance safety and justice. To equip state leaders, the CSG Justice Center has analyzed the most recent 50-state data on crime, arrests, and prison populations and has developed a list of ten ways states can lower crime.