Aim

Peace and Justice for Deadly Violence

Aim is an incident, information and stakeholder management system seeking peace and justice for deadly violence. It operates across, and compares all communities in a country, with additional focus on current and emerging hotspots.

There are two sides to it. Aim Justice seeks to reduce impunity for deadly violence offences, such as murder, planning massacres and arming militias, and to increase collection of the deadliest, illicit weapons.

Aim Peace seeks to increase diffusion of high-risk situations and community support for peace and arms control.

Aim seeks to cover:

All Communities – Aim seeks to identify and to track relevant information in any and every community across a country. Information is available and sent to relevant people depending on the information source and their requests. Some information is publicly available, some is only for authorised law enforcement personnel, and some remains confidential within the Aim system.
Comparisons – data is aggregated across all communities, provinces, and nationally. The data and information are displayed in maps, dashboards, tables, and reports online, as well as being forwarded via a range of direct messaging and social media. The data enables trend information and comparisons between all jurisdictions, for example on successful conviction rates and collection of illicit weapons.
Hotspots – the priority areas are current and emerging hotspots at risk of high levels of deadly violence. Additional resources and support are provided to these.

Aim seeks to provide:

Data and Information – on all reported incidents and responses by justice and community to deadly violence within a country. It provides this information in a variety of forms to maximise its usefulness.
Tailored Content – Aim turns information into the resources and content most requested and used by stakeholders. This includes personal stories recognising individuals and groups, case-studies of what does and does not work, digital libraries, news feeds, reports, training and public campaign material.
Tools for Stakeholders to Use – Aim provides technology and services which would not otherwise be available for violence reduction. This includes digital tools for reporting; practical information management for police, prosecutors and magistrates; automated dissemination of relevant information to relevant people; and tools to create campaign content, for example for disarmament in the stakeholder’s community.

Aim is supported by teams of experienced people in country, at CAVR and at participating universities in Australia, currently the University of Sydney and Macquarie University – both ranked in the top 1% of universities globally.

Aim Justice

Globally 235 million victims of violence have not reported their victimisation. In too many situations, conviction rates are far below 10%. There are many reasons for this, and they vary in different contexts. Aim Justice seeks to identify gaps and to offer solutions.

Aim Justice supports the following people:

Witnesses – witnesses benefit from access to digital reporting and evidence submission, as well as the ability to track the progress of justice system and community responses to incidents. Aim Justice also provides access to information about the justice system and resources to assist those seeking reform to reduce impunity.
Police, Local and Command – police contacts are mapped across a country to provide them with relevant incident reports, evidence, and support information and to gather information on investigation progress and charges. There is restricted access for police to confidential information. Relevant information is aggregated for every level of Command. Aim also offers tools, research and content to increase effectiveness of police-led campaigns, such as firearm registration or collection.
Prosecutors and Magistrates – Aim identifies why some cases progress to conviction and others fall apart at different stages. It will provide information and assistance, including case notes, practical tips and jurisprudence to prosecutors and all involved in the justice system.
Affected communities – communities also respond to violent incidents. Their response information is sought and tracked for effectiveness. Police and justice system progress on incidents which affect them is provided to their interested representatives.
Justice Seekers – some individuals, journalists, victim-support and violence reduction organisations are seeking to help achieve justice. Aim seeks to support these Justice Seekers by providing them additional tools and information and partnering with them to progress justice.

Through greater sharing of relevant and timely information, Aim Justice seeks to help create a virtuous cycle of activity. Improving reporting and evidence-gathering enables improved responses from all stakeholders. As responses become more effective, community trust in law enforcement builds and reporting can be further improved.

Increasing Violence Reporting

Aim seeks to enable an increase in reporting tip-offs, evidence, and witness statements. It includes digital reporting tools for witnesses, many of whom are survivors of violence. It is similar in this regard to CrimeStoppers, which is usually only available in high income countries. With assistance from IT experts, we are developing virtual agents for apps regularly used, such as WhatsApp. We will work with victim support groups, other community organisations and information promoters to encourage safe reporting and community support for increased reporting and justice.

Aim also gathers publicly available information from reports, media, researchers, and partners such as ACLED. The information is then accessible in a country Aim Database, in an online country Aim Data Map and disseminated by email, social media and text message.

More sensitive information is kept confidential and only accessible to relevant authorities, for example as witness reports and confidential response information.

Ending Impunity – Achieving Justice

While there are many factors which lead to witnesses withdrawing statements and prosecutions being abandoned, Aim can help to increase the number of prosecutions. Through Aim, the progress of responses will be regularly sought from the relevant authorities and community representatives on each incident of serious violence. This information is added to the Aim database and to the law enforcement version of the online data map and reporting.

Aim Justice Info maps and reporting show which incidents have been followed up with police, justice and community responses and which have led to arrests, prosecutions, convictions and illicit weapons seized. It also enables tracking so that stakeholders can:

Note response gaps or poor outcomes in order to enable follow-up;
Learn and engage more about the responses that affect them and to gather additional evidence, and;
See and learn from the provinces and districts which are most effective in responding to, and in reducing incidents.

Building upon Aim Data, we will work with stakeholders to create and provide requested resources and content. All requests for resource and content types are welcome, as well as feedback on their usefulness. These resources and content include:

Case studies on what has worked and hasn’t in different PNG situations, as well as in like situations overseas;
Analysis and reports, setting out insights from the information gathered;
Practical templates, such as on proven initiatives, and;
Media and campaigning content.

Collecting and Seizing Illicit Arms

Ineffective arms and ammunition collection campaigns are common in many regions. Aim collects information on all attempted campaigns around the world, including contents, strategy, and impact. Aim will provide a digital Aim Campaign Library, including on firearm collections, which will be continuously improved with stakeholder feedback. We will work with stakeholders in participating countries to enable an increase in illicit firearm and ammunition collection, especially of the most lethal weapons in hotspot areas.

Aim Peace

Aim Peace will provide and share a wide range of peace, reconciliation and prevention information and resources with interested people and organisations in participating countries. This information is gathered from people working on violence prevention in those countries as well as dozens of researchers working for Aim Peace at leading universities.

Aim does not intend to duplicate the work of other peace organisations. We look for gaps in information sharing and consider how the Aim system can assist. A common gap relates to tracking and supporting violence interruptions by credible interrupters engaging directly with the high-risk people regularly and at high-risk moments. There are many effective interruption programmes in a few countries, such as the Cure Violence model which regularly reduces violent death by over 50% in target locations.

Aim will assist by identifying and connecting violence interrupters and their NGOs, sharing information between them and others in similar situations on what works and doesn’t, recognising their work, alerting them to new incidents in real-time when possible, and offering training and tools to assist their work. The resources and content will be available online, forwarded directly to them and provided to others who are willing to promote the information.

Community Campaigns

We collect violence prevention campaign information and content from around the world. We also collect public campaign information on a range of other effective life-saving campaigns in target countries to gain insights.

The growing digital Aim Campaign Library, which includes peace and justice resources, will be continuously improved and made publicly available. The purpose of our Peace resources and support is to enable stakeholders to achieve greater impact with their campaigns and support additional peace and justice activities such as reporting incidents, pursuing prosecutions for violent deaths and collecting deadly illicit weapons.

Aim