Criminal Intelligence Coordinating Council

Developed by the National White Collar Crime Center (NW3C), this course is designed to assist attendees in developing an understanding of how financial systems are used to support terrorism activities and transnational criminal organizations. Attendees will work with tools and methods to investigate the manipulation of financial, communication, and business systems used for illicit purposes. Attendees will learn how to work with suspicious activity reports, crucial financial records such as Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications (SWIFT) messaging, and records used in banking and money service businesses. They will also learn how to gather information and evidence on other means of value transfer methods associated with money laundering, the black-market peso and forms of trade-based money laundering, hawala, virtual assets (cryptocurrency), and other alternate remittance systems.

Date: Tuesday, June 25, 2024 – Thursday, June 27, 2024
Time: 9:00 a.m. – 6:00 p.m., ET

Hosted by the Justice Clearinghouse (JCH), this webinar is intended for professionals who investigate or prosecute crimes against children, namely forensic interviewers, law enforcement investigators, child protection workers, and prosecutors. This webinar will identify ways to assess the strengths and weaknesses of forensic interviews, as well as how to prepare and defend forensic interviews in pretrial interviews and testimony.

Date: Thursday, June 27, 2024
Time: 1:00 p.m. – 2:15 p.m., ET

Released by the National Institute of Justice (NIJ), this article explores recent research on the use of conventional versus unconventional wisdom for identifying sex trafficking in online escort ads, highlighting four key examples of long-held beliefs regarding sex trafficking indicators that have been shown to be invalid as well as four key indicators that are strongly predictive of sex trafficking; it also highlights sex trafficking enforcement challenges that have developed since 2018, with discussion of implications for investigators as well as recommendations. This article details how recent research supported by NIJ reveals that many assumptions are likely unwarranted. The primary goal of the study was to help investigators and prosecutors better focus their limited resources on cases that involve trafficking rather than consensual sex work. This research adds to knowledge about how traffickers construct and use ads when they advertise a trafficking victim, as opposed to ads for nontrafficking sex work. The researchers also created a quick reference guide that law enforcement and other practitioners can use to build trafficking cases and train investigators, prosecutors, judges, and victim service providers.

Funded by the National Institute of Justice and published by the Center for Naval Analyses (CNA), this publication presents the results of a randomized controlled study that evaluated the effects of an individualized focused deterrence program sponsored by the St. Louis, Missouri, Metropolitan Police Department and the Missouri Department of Corrections. Findings from this study indicate that the experimental treatment had a significant indirect effect on recidivism by boosting employment: treatment group participants were more likely than control participants to be employed, and employed participants were less likely than unemployed participants to be arrested or charged with a technical violation by the end of the study. Future research should seek to replicate the current evaluation on larger samples. Randomized controlled studies that show individualized focused deterrence programs to be an effective method of crime reduction should help scale such programs and overcome suspicions that they are soft on crime.

Published by the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS Office), this publication offers guidance for law enforcement agencies in planning and preparing for remembrance events commemorating the victims of mass casualty events. Focusing on incident management, it covers considerations for operational and communications plans, identifying and working with stakeholders, and the trauma impact of such events on the public and on first responders. The publication also includes a detailed checklist of public safety planning considerations.