Descriptor: Decisions on Illegal Wildlife Trade, Corruption, and Organized Crime in South Africa Dataset (DICWSA)

Illegal wildlife trade (IWT) is a globally distributed phenomena posing a suite of harms to people, animals, and the planet. A wide range of interventions exist to reduce these harms, including behavior change projects, market-based incentives, regulatory changes, law enforcement enhancement, and criminal sentencing options. Different sectors are interested in exploring the extent to which organized crime or criminal networks are involved; which species are involved in IWT; which courts are receiving prosecutions; or the IWT links with corruption. Criminologists, conservationists, and computer scientists all produce and use data about these attributes to help inform decision-making from local to international scales. In general, datasets to evaluate trends and to draw inferences about the efficacy of IWT-related interventions are scarce. Datasets about judicial decisions are almost absent, precluding identification of precedent, predictability of courts applying laws consistently, or judicial behavior. This novel dataset enables such exploration by encompassing information on criminal decisions issued by South African highest courts that had indications of IWT-related activities.