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Shaping space. A conceptual framework on the connections between organised crime groups and territories Trends in Organized Crime (IF 1.25) Pub Date : 2021-04-07 Anna Sergi, Luca Storti
This paper, which is the introduction to this special issue on ‘Spaces of Organised Crime’, aims to analyse the nexus between organised crime groups and territories. Such groups are able to exploit resources that circulate within territorial contexts in which they are embedded. They also operate concretely as entities that can take part to the transformation of spaces into places. Accordingly, we will
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Contract killings: a crime script analysis Trends in Organized Crime (IF 1.25) Pub Date : 2021-04-07 Laura R. de Korte, Edward R. Kleemans
This article contributes to our existing knowledge through a crime script analysis of contract killings, based on six extensively analyzed police investigations in the Netherlands. Starting from a universal crime script, a more specific crime script for contract killings is elaborated. To provide a clear picture of the whole process, the description of the scenes focuses on requirements, facilitators
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The organization of Danish gangs: a transaction cost approach Trends in Organized Crime Pub Date : 2021-03-10 Stefan Kirkegaard Sløk-Madsen, David Skarbek, Andreas Hansen, Alexander Rezaei
How do criminal groups organize, operate, and govern in Denmark? We argue that organized crime groups face governance challenges in the form of principal-agent problems and transaction costs. Based on interviews with law enforcement officers, former gang members, and prisoners, we provide evidence for how people involved in crime respond to these organizational dilemmas. We find that the more severe
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Cross-jurisdictional review of Australian legislation governing outlaw motorcycle gangs Trends in Organized Crime Pub Date : 2021-03-05 Lorana Bartels, Max Henshaw, Helen Taylor
This paper presents a review of the key Australian legislation passed between 2009 and 2019 targeting outlaw motorcycle gangs (OMCGs). It identifies the key similarities and differences across the reforms and provides examples of the legislation being used to disrupt serious and organised crime activity by OMCGs. It also presents some of the barriers to effective enforcement of the legislation. There
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‘Through a glass darkly’: organised crime and money laundering policy reflections - an introduction to the special issue Trends in Organized Crime Pub Date : 2021-01-09 Michael Levi, Georgios A. Antonopoulos
This paper provides some reflections on the articles and the report excerpt included in the special issue of Trends in Organised Crime on organised crime and money laundering policy. The aim of this special issue to invite the reader to re-examine conventional wisdom in this issue area. The papers in this special issue emphasise the variation in policy measures, as they articulate the interplay between
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Correction to: Networked territorialism: the routes and roots of organised crime Trends in Organized Crime Pub Date : 2021-02-10 Andy Clark, Alistair Fraser, Niall Hamilton-Smith
A Correction to this paper has been published: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12117-021-09405-2
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Correction to: Survey research with gang and non-gang members in prison: operational lessons from the LoneStar Project Trends in Organized Crime Pub Date : 2021-01-04 Meghan M. Mitchell, Kallee McCullough, Jun Wu, David C. Pyrooz, Scott H. Decker
A Correction to this paper has been published: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12117-020-09404-9
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The poverty business: landlords, illicit practices and reproduction of disadvantaged neighbourhoods in Czechia Trends in Organized Crime Pub Date : 2021-01-03 Petr Kupka, Václav Walach, Alica Brendzová
This paper is guided by the question: How do illicit practices of organized groups contribute to the formation and reproduction of disadvantaged neighbourhoods in Czechia? By asking this question we depart from the dominant understanding of disadvantaged neighbourhoods in the study of organized crime. Instead of seeing them as “breeding grounds of organized crime”, it is explored how regular neighbourhoods
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Making sense of professional enablers’ involvement in laundering organized crime proceeds and of their regulation Trends in Organized Crime Pub Date : 2020-11-26 Michael Levi
Money laundering has ascended the enforcement and criminological agenda in the course of this century, and has been accompanied by an increased focus on legal professionals as ‘enablers’ of crime. This article explores the dynamics of this enforcement, media and political agenda, and how the legal profession has responded in the UK and elsewhere, within the context of ignoring the difficulties of judging
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An exploration of organized crime in Italian ports from an institutional perspective. Presence and activities Trends in Organized Crime Pub Date : 2020-11-14 Marco Antonelli
The article will present the results of a qualitative research into organized crime in the Italian port system. It is a pioneering attempt to assess an extensive and diachronic perspective on the presence and activities of organized crime groups into the Italian seaports in order to provide a systematic analytical map through the analysis of institutional law enforcement reports. The article attempts
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Contested borders: organized crime, governance, and bordering practices in Colombia-Venezuela borderlands Trends in Organized Crime Pub Date : 2020-11-12 Viviana García Pinzón, Jorge Mantilla
Based on the conceptualizations of organized crime as both an enterprise and a form of governance, borderland as a spatial category, and borders as institutions, this paper looks at the politics of bordering practices by organized crime in the Colombian-Venezuelan borderlands. It posits that contrary to the common assumptions about transnational organized crime, criminal organizations not only blur
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Under a setting sun: the spatial displacement of the yakuza and their longing for visibility Trends in Organized Crime Pub Date : 2020-11-06 Martina Baradel, Jacopo Bortolussi
Spaces occupied by organised crime are usually kept secret, hidden, invisible. Japanese criminal syndicates, the yakuza, made instead visibility a key feature of the spaces they occupy through an overt display of their presence in the territory: in the past, a yakuza headquarter could have been instantly recognised by the crest and group name emblazoned on the front wall. However, recent changes in
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Getting a foot in the door. Spaces of cocaine trafficking in the Port of Rotterdam. Trends in Organized Crime Pub Date : 2020-10-07 Robby Roks, Lieselot Bisschop, Richard Staring
As an important gateway to Europe, the Port of Rotterdam is known for its high-quality facilities and efficiency, but also attracts organised crime groups who use the transatlantic legal trade flows to traffic cocaine. Based on a qualitative study, consisting of 73 interviews with public and private actors, an analysis of 10 criminal investigations and field visits to public and private organisations
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Economic geographies of the illegal: the multiscalar production of cybercrime Trends in Organized Crime Pub Date : 2020-09-29 Tim Hall, Ben Sanders, Mamadou Bah, Owen King, Edward Wigley
Economic geographers have traditionally been reluctant to extend their analysis to illicit and illegal markets despite their being significant in their global economic extent and displaying highly uneven geographies. By contrast, the geographies of licit, legal industries have produced multiple traditions of empirically rich, theoretically diverse accounts. Our understandings of the spatialities of
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Bloody investment: misaligned incentives, money laundering and violence Trends in Organized Crime Pub Date : 2020-09-13 Vidal Romero
Money laundering is not a victimless crime. Under certain circumstances, it may lead to significant criminal violence. We analyze the specific case of money laundering in local economies. Criminal organizations invest dirty money in legal local businesses, which may lead to short-term improvements in the economy that benefit the population. Authorities with access to local information may (purposely)
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Entrepreneurial elements of human smuggling rings: findings from a multiple case study Trends in Organized Crime Pub Date : 2020-08-15 Fabrizio Costantino, Andrea Di Nicola
Human smuggling towards Europe has reached an unprecedented level in the last years. The past decade has seen an intensification of the demand for irregular migration services, which increased the role of smuggling rings as service providers to assist irregular migrants in evading national border controls, migration regulations and visa requirements. These criminal organizations feature an entrepreneurial
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From horticulture to psychonautics: an analysis of online communities discussing and trading plants with psychotropic properties Trends in Organized Crime Pub Date : 2020-07-08 Anita Lavorgna, Gopala Sasie Rekha
This study is a spinoff of the cross-disciplinary project “FloraGuard: Tackling the Illegal Trade in Endangered Plants”, and focuses on the analysis of online forums dedicated to the discussion and the trades of plant species, often highly endangered in nature, that are sought after for their psychotropic properties. The study sheds light on the interesting but overlooked area of the intersection of
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Who are the enforcers? The motives and methods of muscle for hire in West Scotland and the West Midlands Trends in Organized Crime Pub Date : 2020-05-21 Mohammed Rahman, Robert McLean, Ross Deuchar, James Densley
Enforcement, ranging from threats to intimidation to assault to homicide, has long been an established practice within criminal networks. However, comparatively little academic research exists about the nature and role of enforcers within and beyond the context of contract killings. Drawing on qualitative interviews with criminal enforcers from two contrasting sites within the UK—the West Scotland
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Differentiating criminal networks in the illegal wildlife trade: organized, corporate and disorganized crime Trends in Organized Crime Pub Date : 2020-05-11 Tanya Wyatt, Daan van Uhm, Angus Nurse
Historically, the poaching of wildlife was portrayed as a small-scale local activity in which only small numbers of wildlife would be smuggled illegally by collectors or opportunists. Nowadays, this image has changed: criminal networks are believed to be highly involved in wildlife trafficking, which has become a significant area of illicit activity. Even though wildlife trafficking has become accepted
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Incapacity, pathology, or expediency? Revisiting accounts of data and analysis weaknesses underpinning international efforts to combat organised crime Trends in Organized Crime Pub Date : 2020-05-06 Sappho Xenakis
Organised crime saw swift ascent as a security priority for the international community after the end of the Cold War. High political excitement surrounded the subject of organised crime, accompanied by an apparently bottomless demand for calculations of its magnitude and attendant risks. Over ensuing decades, concerns were repeatedly raised about the limitations afflicting pertinent cross-national
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A world fit for money laundering: the Atlantic alliance’s undermining of organized crime control Trends in Organized Crime Pub Date : 2020-04-25 Mary Alice Young, Michael Woodiwiss
This is the untold history of how prominent civil servants in the UK tailored US-devised anti-money laundering (AML) policies in ways that suited the needs of Britain’s financial services industry. In the aftermath of these initial compromises in 1987, criminal money managers in both the US and the UK were able to continue to operate in an environment that easily allowed them to hide and use dirty
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The organisational structure of transnational narcotics trafficking groups in Southeast Asia: a case study of Vietnam’s border with Laos Trends in Organized Crime Pub Date : 2020-04-14 Hai Thanh Luong
The Golden Triangle—the area where the borders of Thailand, Laos, and Myanmar converge—is considered one of the most complicated narcotics-trafficking hotspots in the world. More research is needed, however, to understand the supply and demand resources as well as the overall structure of transnational narcotics trafficking (TransNT) in this area and neighboring regions. The present paper provides
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Firearms and Injuries during Home Robberies in Mexico, 2010–2017 Trends in Organized Crime Pub Date : 2020-04-01 Eugenio Weigend Vargas, Silvia Villarreal González
According to data from Mexico’s National Crime Victimization and Public Security Surveys (ENVIPE), from 2010 through 2017, home robberies involving an interaction between a victim and an aggressor occurred every two minutes and resulted in more than 257,000 injuries. The objective of this study is to explore whether victims of home robberies in Mexico are more likely to report an injury if perpetrators
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Comparing operational terrorist networks Trends in Organized Crime Pub Date : 2020-03-31 Matteo Gregori, Ugo Merlone
In this paper we provide a presentation of the most popular metrics and systematically apply them to seven terrorist networks studied in the literature and to three new ISIS-affiliated networks. This study then investigates the correlates between structural network characteristics and severity of the attack carried out by the terrorists. Such approach allows us to analyze these networks from several
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‘Illegal labour practices, trafficking and exploitation’: an introduction to the special issue Trends in Organized Crime Pub Date : 2020-02-11 Anthony Lloyd, Georgios A. Antonopoulos, Georgios Papanicolaou
This is an introduction to the articles submitted to the special issue of Trends in Organized Crime on ‘Illegal Labour Practices, Trafficking and Exploitation’. The aim of the special issue is to draw together empirical research findings and theoretical accounts on the wider context to illegal labour and exploitation that has implications for identification, detection, prevention and regulation.
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“Spotting the signs” of trafficking recruitment online: exploring the characteristics of advertisements targeted at migrant job-seekers Trends in Organized Crime Pub Date : 2019-12-31 Ada Volodko, Ella Cockbain, Bennett Kleinberg
Despite considerable concern about how human trafficking offenders may use the Internet to recruit their victims, arrange logistics or advertise services, the Internet-trafficking nexus remains unclear. This study explored the prevalence and correlates of a set of commonly-used indicators of labour trafficking in online job advertisements. Taking a case study approach, we focused on a major Lithuanian
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Diversification of tobacco traffickers on cryptomarkets Trends in Organized Crime Pub Date : 2019-12-17 Rasmus Munksgaard, David Décary-Hétu, Vincent Mousseau, Aili Malm
Specialization in criminal activities generally refers to offenders that repeat the same or similar offenses over time. While some research has found support for offender specialization, most empirical studies suggest that most offenders engage in various forms of offenses during their criminal trajectory and fail to specialize in a specific offense. The aim of this paper is to build on past research
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Illicit/cheap cigarettes in South Africa Trends in Organized Crime Pub Date : 2019-11-22 Kirsten van der Zee, Corné van Walbeek, Sibahle Magadla
Using wave 5 of the National Income Dynamics Study (conducted in 2017), this paper investigates the market for very low-priced cigarettes in South Africa, which, in all probability, are illicit. Since the sum of the excise tax and VAT in 2017 amounted to R16.30 (1.22 USD) per pack, any cigarettes selling for R20 (1.50 USD) per pack or less are likely to be illicit, assuming reasonable production costs
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Gangs in the El Paso-Juárez borderland: the role of history and geography in shaping criminal subcultures Trends in Organized Crime Pub Date : 2019-11-08 Mike Tapia
This paper examines the early precursors of organized criminal subcultures using the U.S.-Mexico border city of El Paso, Texas as a case-study. El Paso is known as the birthplace of the pachuco; the Mexican Americans’ original street-oriented subculture. It formed the basis for the numerous delinquent groups that would emerge there throughout the decades, ultimately producing a binational organized
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Do local elections increase violence? Electoral cycles and organized crime in Mexico Trends in Organized Crime Pub Date : 2019-09-13 Aldo F. Ponce, Rodrigo Velázquez López Velarde, Jaime Sáinz Santamaría
Although several previous studies have advanced the knowledge of how violence perpetrated by DTOs affects electoral outcomes, the study of how levels of criminal violence vary during local electoral contests remains scant. Stated differently, we know little on whether the local electoral cycle has an effect on the level of criminal violence. Employing the CIDE-PPD Database, we find that local elections
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Pathways into organized crime: comparing founders and joiners Trends in Organized Crime Pub Date : 2019-09-12 Luke Kemp, Sanaz Zolghadriha, Paul Gill
This paper outlines research on the engagement processes and pathways into organised crime (OC). In recent years research on OC has increased, however there is still little understanding of how individuals become engaged in OC, and specifically whether differences exist in engagement patterns between certain groups of OC offenders. A content analysis was undertaken on the auto/biographies of one-hundred
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Criminological reflections on the regulation and governance of labour exploitation Trends in Organized Crime Pub Date : 2019-07-18 Jon Davies
The regulation and governance of labour exploitation is a well-researched area across numerous disciplines. Common approaches towards regulating labour exploitation in businesses and supply chains include state interventions to tackle organised crime via the criminal justice system. However, due to strict criminal-legal definitions, these interventions are only possible when targeting severe exploitation
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The roles and actions of sex traffickers in Cyprus: an overview Trends in Organized Crime Pub Date : 2019-06-21 Angelo G. Constantinou
While the preponderance of delineation, exploration, and analysis of human trafficking concentrates on the victimization of trafficked people, the offenders’ criminal partaking is often left unexplored. That said, this study aims to examine the conundrum of human trafficking by exploring the traffickers’ demographics, tactics, connections, and collaborations. In order to accomplish this, data are drawn
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The variable and evolving nature of ‘cuckooing’ as a form of criminal exploitation in street level drug markets Trends in Organized Crime Pub Date : 2019-06-21 Jack Spicer, Leah Moyle, Ross Coomber
A form of criminal exploitation rarely mentioned in the academic literature has recently emerged, evolved and taken meaningful hold in the UK. Hundreds of cases of ‘cuckooing’ have been reported, where heroin and crack cocaine dealers associated with the so-called ‘County Lines’ supply methodology have taken over the homes of local residents and created outposts to facilitate their supply operations
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Policing labor trafficking in the United States Trends in Organized Crime Pub Date : 2019-05-28 Amy Farrell, Katherine Bright, Ieke de Vries, Rebecca Pfeffer, Meredith Dank
Despite new mandates to identify and respond to labor trafficking crimes, US law enforcement struggles to integrate labor trafficking enforcement with traditional policing routines and roles. As a result, human trafficking enforcement has primarily focused on sex trafficking and few labor trafficking cases have been identified and prosecuted. This study utilizes data from 86 qualitative interviews
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Criminal networks in a digitised world: on the nexus of borderless opportunities and local embeddedness Trends in Organized Crime Pub Date : 2019-05-04 E. Rutger Leukfeldt, Edward R. Kleemans, Edwin W. Kruisbergen, Robert A. Roks
This article presents the results of empirical analyses of the use of information technology (IT) by organized crime groups. In particular, it explores how the use of IT affects the processes of origin and growth of criminal networks. The empirical data presented in this article consist of 30 large scale criminal investigations into organized crime, including traditional organized crime, traditional
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Criminal markets: the dark web, money laundering and counterstrategies - An overview of the 10th Research Conference on Organized Crime Trends in Organized Crime Pub Date : 2019-04-26 Julia Weber, Edwin W. Kruisbergen
On 10–11 October 2018, the 10th Research Conference on Organized Crime took place in The Hague. This year’s theme was Criminal Markets: The Dark Web, Money Laundering and Counterstrategies. Researchers, practitioners and policy makers gathered to discuss research results, trends and policy issues. This article looks into recent developments on the topics mentioned and gives an overview of the conference
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Intergenerational transmission and organised crime. A study of seven families in the south of the Netherlands Trends in Organized Crime Pub Date : 2019-03-19 Toine Spapens, Hans Moors
Kinship ties play an important role in organised crime, but little attention has been paid as yet to criminal families and intergenerational transmission of delinquent behaviour as well as criminal ‘leadership.’ This paper presents the results of an in-depth study of seven families in the south of the Netherlands that produced a leader of a criminal group in at least one generation. In almost every
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Organised crime in Latin America: an introduction to the special issue Trends in Organized Crime Pub Date : 2019-03-08 Damián Zaitch, Georgios A. Antonopoulos
This article provides an introduction to the articles submitted to the special issue of Trends in Organised Crime on ‘Organised Crime in Latin America’. The aim of the special issue is to draw together novel empirical research findings and theoretical accounts on various aspects of organised crime in the particular geographic context.
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Criminal procedure reform and the impact on homicide: evidence from Mexico Trends in Organized Crime Pub Date : 2019-03-04 Erin Terese Huebert
While significant efforts have been made to reform the criminal justice system across Latin America, we do not know the conditions under which reform effectively deters homicide, one of many goals of the reform. Drawing on a novel sub-national design in Mexico, I find that criminal procedure reforms aimed at improving due process are not sufficient for deterring homicide in places where non-state actors
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Combating trafficking of Hungarian women to Western Europe: a multi-level analysis of the international law enforcement cooperation Trends in Organized Crime Pub Date : 2019-02-13 Noemi Katona
Human trafficking is an increasing field of academic research, but the obstacles of investigation and prosecution of traffickers is still under-researched. This article analyses the challenges of prosecution of criminal groups facilitating the prostitution of Hungarian women to Western European countries by focusing on international cooperation of law enforcement agencies. Although the scientific literature mostly
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Public nuisance, public enemy, public servant? Introduction to the special issue on outlaw bikers in Europe Trends in Organized Crime Pub Date : 2019-02-01 Klaus von Lampe
This essay presents an introduction to the special issue on outlaw motorcycle clubs in Europe. Apart from providing an overview of the papers contained in the special issue, it presents a classificatory scheme for the analysis of the links between outlaw biker clubs-also known as outlaw motorcycle gangs (OMCGs)-and crime. Against the backdrop of the history of the outlaw biker subculture in Europe
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The rise of shaming paternalism in Japan: recent tendencies in the Japanese criminal justice system Trends in Organized Crime Pub Date : 2019-01-23 Martina Baradel
The ‘reintegrative shaming’ and ‘benevolent paternalism’ models, traditionally used to describe the Japanese criminal justice system, have been periodically criticised for their orientalist approach. Nevertheless, no critique addressed the fact that these models ignored the presence of long-lasting crime syndicates, the yakuza, in Japan. Meanwhile, since 1991 the Japanese government has passed different
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Is drawing from the state ‘state of the art’?: a review of organised crime research data collection and analysis, 2004–2018 Trends in Organized Crime Pub Date : 2019-01-08 James Windle, Andrew Silke
This paper presents a systematic review of organised crime data collection and analysis methods. It did this by reviewing all papers published in Trends in Organized Crime and Global Crime between 2004 and 2018 (N = 463). The review identified a number of key weaknesses. First, organised crime research is dominated by secondary data analysis of open-access documents, and documents are seldom subjected
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Brazilian criminal organizations as transnational violent non-state actors: a case study of the Primeiro Comando da Capital (PCC) Trends in Organized Crime Pub Date : 2018-11-05 Marcos Alan S. V. Ferreira
This article aims to analyze the evolution of Brazilian criminal organization Primeiro Comando da Capital (PCC—First Command of the Capital), especially its transformation from a group advocating human rights to a transnational violent non-state actor. Created in the late 1990s by inmates at Taubate Prison, PCC is currently a key trigger of violence in South America. Since a massive attack performed
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A mixed methods social network analysis of a cross-border drug network: the Fernando Sanchez organization (FSO) Trends in Organized Crime Pub Date : 2018-10-17 Nathan P. Jones, W. Layne Dittmann, Jun Wu, Tyler Reese
This study is a mixed methods case study of the Fernando Sanchez Organization (FSO) better known as the Tijuana Cartel in the 2008–2010 period, aimed at better understanding internal structures and the roles of individuals in crossborder polydrug networks under pressures from rivals and state leadership targeting. In addition to historical archival data to build a qualitative case study, it uses arrest
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Working for free illegal employment practices, ‘off the books’ work and the continuum of legality within the service economy Trends in Organized Crime Pub Date : 2018-09-15 Anthony Lloyd
Much of the literature on illegal labour focuses on the exploitation of illegal migrants and, by extension, the trafficking and smuggling networks that transport them to destination countries. Using evidence from two projects that investigated working conditions in the formal service economy, the paper presents evidence of ‘off the books’ work, illegal employment practices such as denial of benefits
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Business cartels and organised crime: exclusive and inclusive systems of collusion Trends in Organized Crime Pub Date : 2018-09-15 J. D. Jaspers
In this article, two case studies of large-scale bid rigging in the construction industry in Canada and the Netherlands are analysed to explore why business cartels sometimes do and sometimes do not involve organised crime. By combining concepts from both organised crime and organisational crime, an integrated understanding of the organisation of serious crimes for gain is applied. Across time and
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Corruption among mayors: evidence from Italian court of cassation judgments Trends in Organized Crime Pub Date : 2018-08-23 Annamaria Nese, Roberta Troisi
This study focuses on Italian corruption among mayors, since they are key players in the Italian institutions. Political decentralization has brought local government closer to the citizens while allowing a more direct expression of democracy on the part of mayors. In this study, we analyse the probability of mayors committing crime with i) external actors, i.e., entrepreneurs, professionals or other
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Performance and image enhancing drug (PIED) producers and suppliers: a retrospective content analysis of PIED-provider cases in Australia from 2010-2016 Trends in Organized Crime Pub Date : 2018-07-04 Katinka van de Ven, Matthew Dunn, Kyle Mulrooney
Traditionally policymakers have paid little attention to the consumption of steroids and other performance and image enhancing drugs (PIEDs) in Australia. Yet, in recent times PIEDs have come to occupy an increasing amount of discursive space and, indeed, regulatory action. This newfound interest may be attributed to several broader developments, not least the perception of the involvement of organized
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Correction to: Survey research with gang and non-gang members in prison: operational lessons from the LoneStar project Trends in Organized Crime Pub Date : 2018-06-19 Meghan M. Mitchell, Kallee McCullough, Jun Wu, David C. Pyrooz, Scott H. Decker
The original version of this article unfortunately contained a mistake.
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Policing bikers: confrontation or dialogue? Trends in Organized Crime Pub Date : 2018-06-11 Paul Larsson
This article deals with the policing of biker groups in Norway. It describes the two idealtypical approaches of dialogue and confrontation. It tries to explain why the police use certain methods. It finds that policing is rarely based on knowledge of what works or the causes of a problem. Instead the approaches chosen seem to reflect certain styles of policing described in cultural studies of the police
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Violence and electoral competition: criminal organizations and municipal candidates in Mexico Trends in Organized Crime Pub Date : 2018-05-25 Aldo F. Ponce
This article evaluates the effects of violence related to the operations of drug-trafficking organizations (DTOs) on electoral competition, defined by the number of electoral alternatives or candidates in Mexico’s municipal elections. I find that the killing and threatening of politicians, which are effective tools to influence politics, jeopardizes competition in violent Mexican municipalities by
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An anatomy of Turkish football match-fixing Trends in Organized Crime Pub Date : 2018-05-23 Serhat Yilmaz, Argyro Elisavet Manoli, Georgios A. Antonopoulos
While discussion on corruption in sport is intensifying and football match-fixing in particular is attracting increasing attention, new fixing scandals emerge offering new accounts of actors and corrupt practices within the football industry and the level of the external threat to the sport. The scandal exposure of fixed matches in Turkey in 2011 sheds light on the fixing of 17 matches played in the
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Cyber-organised crime. A case of moral panic? Trends in Organized Crime Pub Date : 2018-05-16 Anita Lavorgna
A growing number of studies show that the advent of the Internet has transformed the organisational life of crime, with many academic and non-academic articles and reports describing various types of organisational structures involved in cybercrimes as “organised crime”. Other researchers are more critical in applying the organised crime label to cybercrimes. These debates are not merely speculative
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Organized crime, violence, and territorial dispute in Mexico (2007–2011) Trends in Organized Crime Pub Date : 2018-05-07 María del Pilar Fuerte Celis, Enrique Pérez Lujan, Rodrigo Cordova Ponce
In the wake of so-called “hardline policies” against criminal groups (persecution, militarization, strengthening of security apparatuses), we take a comprehensive approach to the study of violent territorial disputes. We offer features for studying the violence attributed to organized crime, particularly in Mexico from 2007 to 2011, a time known as the “War on Drugs”; we identify characteristics of
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An introduction to the special issue on ‘Organised crime and illegal markets in the UK and Ireland’ Trends in Organized Crime Pub Date : 2018-04-23 Klaus von Lampe, Georgios A. Antonopoulos
This paper provides an introduction to the articles and report excerpt submitted to the special issue of Trends in Organized Crime on ‘Organised crime and illegal markets in the UK and Ireland’. The aim of the special issue is to draw together empirical research findings and theoretical accounts on various manifestations of organised crime in the particular geographic context(s), the evolution of organised
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Tackling local organised crime groups: lessons from research in two UK cities Trends in Organized Crime Pub Date : 2018-04-06 Ruth Crocker, Sarah Webb, Michael Skidmore, Sarah Garner, Martin Gill, John Graham
This study examines the nature and community-level impact of organised crime groups known to the police in three deprived, high-crime neighbourhoods in which a wide range of organised crime was evident. By doing so, we were able to identify how the groups in these areas were structured, who was involved and how they operated. A number of key group features emerged. We describe these features to provide
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Self-governing prisons: Prison gangs in an international perspective Trends in Organized Crime Pub Date : 2018-03-30 Michelle Butler, Gavin Slade, Camila Nunes Dias
This paper finds qualified support for the use of Skarbek’s (2011, 2014) governance theory to understand the emergence of prison gang-like groups in Kyrgyzstan, Northern Ireland and Brazil. However, Skarbek’s (2011, 2014) governance theory has little to say about how many prison gangs emerge and how they organise comparatively outside the US context. This paper argues that variation in the number of
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Structure, multiplexity, and centrality in a corruption network: the Czech Rath affair Trends in Organized Crime Pub Date : 2018-03-22 Tomáš Diviák, Jan Kornelis Dijkstra, Tom A. B. Snijders
The present study is an analysis of a Czech political corruption network known as the Rath affair reconstructed with publicly available data. We argue that for the study of criminal networks it is fruitful to follow a multiplex approach, i.e., to distinguish several interdependent network dimensions and study how they are interrelated. Relational elements in corruption are identified, and we propose
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