Feature Stories

By a Biometrica staffer Anyone can, potentially, help in the battle against human trafficking. How? One possible place to start is by learning and researching on spotting some typical signs and indicators of this tragic crime. So, if you happen to come...

By a Biometrica staffer Ten years ago today, on Dec. 14 2012, a then 20-year-old gunman fired 154 rounds in under five minutes using various types of firearms, and killed 20 children and six educators at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown,...

By a Biometrica staffer This midterm election season, along with the state of the economy, the country's crime rate has been under the scanner. Forty percent of U.S. registered voters said crime is an extremely important issue when it comes to their...

By a Biometrica staffer Nov. 1 marks the start of Native American Heritage Month, an annual celebration to honor the traditions, culture, history, and contributions of American Indians and Alaskan Natives (AI/AN) to the country. It's a celebration, dating back to 1916,...

By a Biometrica staffer No matter what database you look at, the stats on school shootings in the United States in recent times should be cause for worry for anyone with any interest in child safety and child protection. After the latest...

By a Biometrica staffer Ever since the Covid-19 pandemic struck, all manner of criminal activity also increasingly shifted to the virtual world. That included human traffickers, who began to use online channels more and more to conduct their activities. They used digital...

By a Biometrica staffer Fraud accounted for 30.1% of all organizational offenses during the near-30 year period between fiscal 1992 and 2021. Environmental offenses was the second largest offense category at 24%, according to a report published late last month by the...

By a Biometrica staffer The inmate population at Indian country jails increased 8% at midyear 2021 to a total of 2,180 inmates held in 80 jails, from the 2,020 inmates held in 82 facilities at midyear 2020, the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS)...

By a Biometrica staffer On Thursday, Aug. 11, an armed man clad in body armor tried to breach the Federal Bureau of Investigation's (FBI's) Cincinnati office. The confrontation that ensued between him and law enforcement officers (LEOs) came as officials warned of...

By a Biometrica staffer There were 93 school shootings with casualties at public and private elementary and secondary schools in 2020–21— the highest number since 2000–01, according to a new joint report published by the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) and the...

By a Biometrica staffer By now, most of us have probably read that on Tuesday, June 21, Senate bargainers reached agreement on an incremental yet necessary bipartisan gun violence bill. The bill is in response to recent deadly mass shootings in Texas...

By a Biometrica staffer Is Organized Retail Crime (ORC) really a cause for concern? Isn't it a victimless crime, as many perceive? The answer to the first question is an emphatic yes, while the answer to the second is an equally clear...

By a Biometrica staffer Late last November, about 80 people barged into a Nordstrom department store in the East Bay Area city of Walnut Creek in California, stealing merchandise until police arrived and arrested three of them. That was but one of...

By a Biometrica staffer On May 31, Tuesday, the Federal Bureau of Investigation's (FBI) Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program published the National Use-of-Force Data Collection's report for 2021 and some data for the first quarter of this year. Per the report, 50.7% of...

By a Biometrica staffer Wednesday, May 25, was International Missing Children's Day. It's a day that's dedicated to encouraging parents, guardians, caregivers, and others concerned with the well-being of children to make child safety a priority. The commemoration of this day, per...

By a Biometrica staffer One-and-a half centuries. Over 400 Indigenous boarding schools run by the federal government, with support from religious institutions. The use of systematic militarized and identity-alteration methodologies in an attempt to 'assimilate Indigenous persons.' Corporal punishment to enforce rules...

By a Biometrica staffer In a previous piece, we gave you a quick look at contractor fraud. We examined what it is, looked at common signs, and gave you a few tips to protect yourself from falling prey to such scams. In...

By a Biometrica staffer The Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) published what it called the first complete enumeration of tribal court systems operating in the United States. Termed the National Survey of Tribal Court Systems (NSTCS), it consists of three surveys specific...

By a Biometrica staffer An estimated 3.4 million U.S. residents aged 16 or older were victims of stalking in 2019, the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) said in its Stalking Victimization report published this month. That estimated number amounts to around 1.3%...

By a Biometrica staffer On Friday, Feb. 4, the Justice Department announced that Aaron Crawford of Maryland had been sentenced to 20 years in federal prison, followed by 20 years of supervised release. Why? For engaging in what Attorney General Merrick B....

By a Biometrica staffer There's no doubt that combating child sex abuse material (CSAM) is a serious challenge that law enforcement officers, parents, caregivers, and various others involved in or concerned about child safety and protection face. Sample this: Of the 21.7+...

By a Biometrica staffer Workplace related harassment, assault and other acts of violence is not new to healthcare workers. Even around a decade ago, research by Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) had found that healthcare workers were at increased risk for...

By a Biometrica staffer An overwhelming majority (over 90%) of all money mule transactions identified through the European Money Mule Actions are linked to cybercrime, the Europol says. What does that mean? It means a large number of law-abiding citizens in the...

By a Biometrica staffer At Biometrica, child safety and protection has always been at the heart of what we do. We ended 2021 with a look-back special at various issues surrounding this all-important public safety subject that took centerstage through last year....

By a Biometrica staffer When 2021 began, it was not a Covid-19-free world as many had hoped. For all of 2020 and several months into 2021, casinos across the country were either entirely closed or operating under capacity restrictions and other measures...

By a Biometrica staffer At Biometrica, the safety of children has always been a priority. This year, amidst general chaos and anxiety, the safety of children took center stage like never before. Here are some of the relevant issues and news stories...

By a Biometrica staffer In this piece, we look at the DHS Blue Campaign Enhancement Act, introduced in both chambers of Congress, which seeks to increase coordination between various components of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and augment the Blue Campaign....

By a Biometrica staffer In October, the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance (CVSA) released findings of its surprise inspection initiative over the summer, which cracked down on safety issues related to the transport of hazardous materials and dangerous goods (HM/DG) as part of...

By a Biometrica staffer Last month, we kicked off our mini series on the history of Las Vegas, a city that was originally built as a desert railroad town but evolved into the casino capital of the world. The city, its residents,...

By a Biometrica staffer In the first part of our mini series on youth gangs and violence, we established that there have been repeated reports suggesting spikes in violent crime even among the youth. Just over two weeks after we published that...

By a Biometrica staffer The trucking industry is currently in the midst of a well-publicized driver shortage crisis, which has combined with other factors to exacerbate a supply chain crisis in the U.S. This has prompted some to advocate for a radical...

By a Biometrica staffer On average, a woman or girl is killed by someone in her own family every 11 minutes across the world, according to a report published by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) this month. In...

By a Biometrica staffer On Monday, Dec. 6, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) published data on nearly 8.9 million criminal offenses reported via the National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS) in 2020. Of the total 8,879,728 offenses reported in 7,560,867 incidents, 60.5%...

By Aara Ramesh Going off the sheer volume of content generated about it, if there’s one thing Americans can’t get enough of, it’s a story about a cult. Be that NXIVM, which made headlines a few years ago when it emerged that...

By Aara Ramesh When it comes to gun rights, one demographic proponents of gun control are particularly concerned about is children that live in homes that also have firearms. While the presence of a firearm in the house can be dangerous to...

By Aara Ramesh The U.S. is currently in the grip of what experts are calling a historic crime wave, with violent crime — and homicide rates particularly — reaching levels previously seen in the 1980s and 1990s. In fact, over the last...

By a Biometrica staffer The multi-billion dollar casino industry, possibly much like several other sectors, has sometimes been a target of unscrupulous characters who try and use the cover of a legitimate business to surreptitiously carry out criminal activities. When it comes...

By a Biometrica staffer Earlier this month, Congress officially passed the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (colloquially known as the “Bipartisan Infrastructure Deal”), which allocated over $1 trillion to physical infrastructure, as well as aspects like access to clean drinking water and...

By Deepti Govind April 3, 2021 marked 25 years since the capture of the notorious domestic terror actor, Theodore “Ted” Kaczynski, also known as the Unabomber. Kaczynski was active for nearly two decades, but managed to evade arrest because he was meticulous...

By Aara Ramesh Among the many challenges faced by Indigenous Peoples in North America today, one that has gained particular attention is that of unmarked graves (usually associated with former Indian boarding schools) and of artifacts taken from various Tribes in the...

By a Biometrica staffer In Portsmouth, Virginia, the local police department and the Up Center are reaching out to the public as they seek mentors to help steer youth in the right direction. The two organizations have come together due to an...

By Aara Ramesh A week ago, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) issued a warning that the U.S. is facing a “heightened threat environment” from domestic terrorists this holiday season. Though there have been no “credible” or specific threats yet made, the...

By Aara Ramesh Even before the Covid-19 pandemic, the child welfare system was rife with gaps that made children in foster care extra susceptible to abuse. Like with many other societal problems, however, the pandemic only worsened that situation on a number...

By Deepti Govind & Aara Ramesh At Biometrica, we've repeatedly written about an epidemic that many in the country have been quietly dealing with: of missing and murdered Indigenous persons. There is no doubt that it is a public safety epidemic demanding...

By a Biometrica staffer Gang activity in the United States is said to have declined in the mid-1990s to 2000. But between 2001 and 2005, it increased again and stayed constant until around 2012, per government estimates. From around 2002-2012 annual estimates...

By a Biometrica staffer Halloween 2017 turned out to be one the city of New York will never forget. At some point before 3 p.m. on the day, Sayfullo Habibullaevic Saipov took the white Home Depot pickup truck he had rented in...

By Deepti Govind It's a story that everyone in today's legitimate U.S. casino industry knows. But some stories never grow old, no matter how many times you revisit them. So, in today's feature, we introduce you to a timeless tale: Of powerful...

By Aara Ramesh In an earlier story in this series on sports betting, we wrote about how just as there have been wagers (legal or otherwise) placed on sporting outcomes as long as there have been sports, match-fixing has existed just as...

By Deepti Govind We set the stage in a piece published about two weeks ago, on examining the kind of threats surface transportation around the world has faced from terror actors over time. To quickly recap what we said then: While the...

By a Biometrica staffer In 2019, the last year for which data is available, a total of 5,998 post-secondary institutions (across almost 11,000 campuses) reported 34,933 criminal offenses to the federal government, and 17,758 offenses related to violence against women, be that...