The Story-Takers charts new territory in public pedagogy through an exploration of the multiple forms of communal protests against the mafia in Sicily. Writing at the rich juncture of cultural, feminist, and psychoanalytic theories, Paula M. Salvio draws on visual and textual representations including shrines to those murdered by the mafia, photographs, and literary and cinematic narratives, to explore how trauma and mourning inspire solidarity and a quest for justice among educators, activists, artists, and journalists living and working in Italy. Salvio reveals how the anti-mafia movement is being brought out from behind the curtains, with educators leading the charge. She critically analyses six cases of communal acts of anti-mafia solidarity and argues that transitional justice requires radical approaches to pedagogy that are best informed by journalists, educators, and activists working to remember, not only victims of trauma, but those who resist trauma and violence.

They ruled the streets of London in the 1960s. Half a century later, Ronnie and Reggie Kray, unrepentant purveyors of violence and murder, hold more fascination than ever before. Portrayed as charismatic gangsters on the big screen, the saga of the twins, their firm and their thirty-odd years behind bars is one that is determinedly and deliberately embellished with every passing year. Yet it is only recently that the stark, unvarnished truth about the twins has started to emerge after being so cunningly concealed behind the facade of charitable deeds and East End loyalties. Bestselling author Jacky Hyams has carefully re-examined some of the stories, the lies and the myths to reveal a very different portrait of the twins and those closest to them. She reveals the complexity of their relationships and their closest bonds, and contests the police's belief that Ronnie Kray senselessly murdered 'one of their own'. Ronnie Kray is said to have described he and his twin as 'vicious, elegant bastards'. It is one of the few truths ever uttered by either of them.

This book showcases recent advances in the theoretical and empirical understanding of the economic aspects of organised crime and illegal markets. It provides new insights into defining and quantifying the influence of organised crime by drawing on innovative approaches to studying criminal networks and organisations such as the Hells Angels. The book includes analysis of the structure of illegal drug markets from international leaders in the field. Finally the text includes empirical case studies of the diverse markets where organised crime is currently active including the illegal market for crystal methamphetamine in Australia, tiger products in China and the falcon and fur trades in Russia.

This book was based on a special issue of Global Crime.

In a society where trust is in short supply and democracy weak, the Mafia sells protection, a guarantee of safe conduct for parties to commercial transactions. Drawing on the confessions of eight Mafiosi, Diego Gambetta develops an elegant analysis of the economic and political role of "the Sicilian Mafia."

This book offers a contemporary look at violence in Mexico and argues for a recalibration in how necropolitics, as the administration of life and death, is understood. The author locates the forces of mortality directly on the body, rather than as an object of government, thereby placing death in a politics of the everyday. This necropolitics is explored through testimonies of individuals living in towns overrun by organized crime and resistance groups, namely, the autodefensa movement, that operate throughout Michoacan, one of the most violent states in Mexico. This volume studies how individuals and communities go on living not in spite of the death that surrounds life, but more disturbingly by attuning to it.

Robbery can be planned or spontaneous and is a typically short, chaotic crime that is comparatively under-researched. This book transports the reader to the streets and focuses on the real-life narratives and motivations of the youth gang members and adult organised criminals immersed in this form of violence. Uniquely focusing on robberies involving drug dealers and users, this book considers the material and emotional gains and losses to offenders and victims and offers policy recommendations to reduce occurrences of this common crime.

In Glasgow, street gangs have existed for decades, with knife crime becoming a defining feature. More than a decade on from Deuchar's original fieldwork, this book explores the transitional experiences of some of the young men he worked with, as well as the experiences of today's young people and the practitioners who work to support them. Through empirical data, policy analysis and contemporary insights, this dynamic book explores the evolving nature of gangs, and the contemporary challenges affecting young people including drug distribution, football-related bigotry and the mental health repercussions emerging from social media.

Examining the deviant structures of transnational organised crime, this book considers whether traditional mechanisms and national jusrisdictions can tackle this increasing menace. Highlighting the strengths and weaknesses in the present methods of control, the book discusses the possibilities of developing more effective national and international strategies; the creation of non-legal mechanisms outside the traditional criminal justice system and the implications of 'disruption strategies'. The roles of law enforcement officers, tax investigators, financial intelligence officers, compliance officers, lawyers and accountants in enforcing both civil and criminal sanctions on organised crime are also considered.

Forget what you think you know about the Mafia.  After reading this book, even life-long mob aficionados will have a new perspective on organized crime.

Informative, authoritative, and eye-opening, this is the first full-length book devoted exclusively to uncovering the hidden history of how the Mafia came to dominate organized crime in New York City during the 1930s through 1950s.  Based on exhaustive research of archives and secret files obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, author and attorney C. Alexander Hortis draws on the deepest collection of primary sources, many newly discovered, of any history of the modern mob.

Shattering myths, Hortis reveals how Cosa Nostra actually obtained power at the inception.  The author goes beyond conventional who-shot-who mob stories, providing answers to fresh questions such as:    

* Why did the Sicilian gangs come out on top of the criminal underworld?  
* Can economics explain how the Mafia families operated?  
* What was the Mafia's real role in the drug trade?  
* Why was Cosa Nostra involved in gay bars in New York since the 1930s? 

Drawing on an unprecedented array of primary sources, The Mob and the City is the most thorough and authentic history of the Mafia's rise to power in the early-to-mid twentieth century.

Comprehensively laying out the concept of crimilegality, this book presents a novel perspective on the relationship between what is conventionally termed organised crime and political order in the contemporary developing world. In hybrid crimilegal orders the moral, normative and social boundaries between legality and illegality-criminality are blurred, and through the violation of the official law, the illegal-criminal sphere of social life becomes legitimate and morally acceptable, while the legal turns illegitimate and immoral. Several examples of crimilegality and crimilegal governance in Colombia and Nigeria, including in relation to armed conflict termination, are used to illustrate these complex processes.

From corporate corruption and the facilitation of money laundering, to food fraud and labour exploitation, European citizens continue to be confronted by serious corporate and white-collar crimes. Presenting an original series of provocative essays, this book offers a European framing of white-collar crime. Experts from different countries foreground what is unique, innovative or different about white-collar and corporate crimes that are so strongly connected to Europe, including the tensions that exist within and between the nation-states of Europe, and within the institutions of the European region. This European voice provides an original contribution to discourses surrounding a form of crime which is underrepresented in current criminological literature.

We see mafias as vast, powerful organisations, harvesting billions of dollars across the globe and wrapping its tentacles around everything from governance to finance. But is this the truth? Travelling from mafia initiation ceremonies in far-flung Russian cities to elite gambling clubs in downtown Macau, Federico Varese sets off in search of answers. Using wiretapped conversations, interviews and previously unpublished police records, he builds up a picture of the real men and women caught up in mafia life, showing their loves and fears, ambitions and disappointments, as well as their crimes. Mafia Life takes us into the real world of organised crime, where mafia henchmen worry about their bad managers and have high blood pressure, assassinations are bungled as often as they come off, and increasing pressure from law enforcement means that a life of crime is no longer lived in the lap of luxury. As our world changes, so must the mafia. Globalisation, migration and technology are disrupting their traditions and threatening their revenue streams, and the mafiosi must evolve or die. Mafia Life is an intense and totally compelling look at an organisation and the daily life of its members, as it gets to grips with the modern world. Out now in paperback.

Like most former Soviet republics, Ukraine has experienced a formidable proliferation of crime and corruption as it struggles with economic reform and the establishment of democracy. During the early 90s, Ukraine became one of the primary recipients of foreign assistance from the United States and its crime and corruption situation was increasingly seen as an impediment to economic transition and achieving a more democratic way of life. Thus in 1998, as part of a larger U.S. law enforcement assistance effort in Ukraine, the idea for a research partnership between criminologists and legal scholars in the two countries was born in this volume. The original research papers contained are the products of this ambitious research project. The realities of crime in post-Soviet Ukraine, as well as divergent methodological approaches and communication problems, presented the research partners with enormous challenges. This volume represents the culmination of that collaborative effort, and provides a singular look into the current crime situation in Ukraine, and into the potential global threat presented by Ukrainian organized crime. Contributions include analyses of the prediction and control of organized crime, trafficking in women and children for sexual exploitation, international money laundering, the transnational political criminal nexus of trafficking in women, countermeasures against economic crime and corruption, heroin trafficking, business victimization by organized crime, and understanding and combating organized crime. "The Prediction and Control of Organized Crime" will be critical reading for security planners, policymakers, and criminal justice officials, as well as comparative criminologists, legal scholars, and political scientists interested in organized crime and political corruption.

This book provides a comprehensive analysis of the illegal extraction of metals and minerals from the perspectives of organized crime theory, green criminology, anti-corruption studies, and victimology. It includes contributions that focus on organized crime-related offences, such as drug trafficking and trafficking in persons, extortion, corruption and money laundering and sheds light on the serious environmental harms caused by illegal mining. Based on a wide range of case studies from the Amazon rainforest through the Ukrainian flatlands to the desert-like savanna of Central African Republic and Australia's elevated plateaus, this book offers a unique insight into the illegal mining business and the complex relationship between organized crime, corruption, and ecocide. This is the first book-length publication on illegal extraction, trafficking in mined commodities, and ecocide associated with mining. It will appeal to scholars working on organized crime and green crime, including criminologists, sociologists, anthropologists, and legal scholars. Practitioners and the general public may welcome this comprehensive and timely publication to contemplate on resource-scarcity, security, and crime in a rapidly changing world.

Letty Davenport, the brilliant and tenacious adopted daughter of Lucas Davenport, takes the investigative reins in the newest thriller from #1 bestselling author John Sandford.By twenty-four, Letty Davenport has seen more action than most law enforcement professionals. Working a desk job for US Senator Christopher Colles, she's bored and ready to quit. But when her skills catch Colles' attention, she is offered a lifeline: real investigative work. Texas oil companies are reporting thefts of crude. Rumour has it that a sinister militia is involved. Who is selling the oil? And what are they doing with the profits? Letty is partnered with a Department of Homeland Security investigator, John Kaiser. When the case turns deadly, they know they're onto something big. The militia has an explosive plan... and the clock is ticking down. From the bestselling and unputdownable author of the Prey series, The Investigator is perfect for fans of James Patterson and Lee Child.

From the slot machine trust of the early 1900s to the prolific Prohibition era bootleggers allied with Al Capone, and for decades beyond, organized crime in Chicago Heights, Illinois, represented a vital component of the Chicago Outfit. Louis Corsino taps interviews, archives, government documents, and his own family's history to tell the story of the Chicago Heights "boys" and their place in the city's Italian American community in the twentieth century.
Debunking the popular idea of organized crime as a uniquely Italian enterprise, Corsino delves into the social and cultural forces that contributed to illicit activities. As he shows, discrimination blocked opportunities for Italians' social mobility and the close-knit Italian communities that arose in response to such limits produced a rich supply of social capital Italians used to pursue alternative routes to success that ranged from Italian grocery stores to union organizing to, on occasion, crime.

This pioneering study looks across key trafficking crimes to develop a social theory of transnational criminal markets. These include human trafficking, drug dealing, and black markets in wildlife, diamonds, guns and antiquities, The author offers an in-depth analysis of structural similarities and differences within illicit trade networks, and explores the economic underpinnings which drive global trafficking. Revealing how traffickers think of their illegal enterprises as 'just business', he draws broader lessons for the ways forward in understanding criminality in this emerging field.

A timely look at a widespread yet largely uninvestigated area of Russian life. Chapters include: consideration of the history and basis in culture for the organization of crime in Russia; the actions of emigres to the USA; and the development of modern sophistications of exchange and networking that currently blight privatization. Diverse perspectives, including comparative, structural and ethnic frameworks, give unprecedented national and international insights into a pervasive element of modern Russia.

This Element introduces the concept of oligopoly of coercion to interpretate the interaction between drug trafficking and reconfiguration of the state in Colombia. Three elements are central to this interpretation: corruption in oligopolies of coercion must be understood as a payment by drug traffickers for acting like a parallel state; the state criminalizes more drug as merchandise than drug as capital - its equivalent in money; the politics and war around drug trafficking in Colombia should be understood as the way in which peripheral societies access global markets through the ruling institutions of private armies. With these elements, the author focuses on the dynamics of the reconfiguration of the state in Colombia after the cocaine boom in the mid-70s and the evolution of the private armies in Colombia.

Through analysis of data held by the National Crime Agency on organised crime groups, and in-depth analysis of qualitative interviews with convicted fraudsters and enforcement professionals, this detailed study fills a significant gap in the contemporary literature on organised crime groups involved in fraud. Throughout the chapters, the perspective of convicted offenders and those involved in its policing are juxtaposed to show the ease of committing fraud from the perspective of offenders on the one hand, and the investigative challenges experienced by law enforcement officers on the other. May and Bhardwa's insights shed light on offender motivations, routes into fraud and organised crime, and the nature and shape of organised crime groups and their operations. Alongside the offender perspective the law enforcement interviews provide a unique interpretation of the procedural and legislative weaknesses that appear to allow this type of offender to make considerable financial gain. The key recommendations based on empirical findings will greatly benefit those interested in understanding the links between fraud and organised crime in the UK and those seeking to improve enforcement efforts.

Combining a compulsive read with rigorous academic analysis, this book tells the real-life stories of drug dealers involved in county lines networks, including their methods, motives and misfortunes. Conventional wisdom surrounding county lines often portrays drugs runners as exploited victims and gang proliferation as a market-driven exercise, and suggests a business model facilitated exclusively by smart phone technology and routinely regulated by violence. Aimed at students, scholars, practitioners and policymakers, this myth-busting, accessible book offers a novel way of thinking about county lines in relation to gangs and serious organised crime and presents new ideas for drug crime prevention, intervention and enforcement.

This book provides a comprehensive sociological explanation for the emergence and continuation of organized crime in Chicago. Tracing the roots of political corruption that afforded protection to gambling, prostitution, and other vice activity in Chicago and other large American cities, Robert M. Lombardo challenges the dominant belief that organized crime in America descended directly from the Sicilian Mafia. According to this widespread "alien conspiracy" theory, organized crime evolved in a linear fashion beginning with the Mafia in Sicily, emerging in the form of the Black Hand in America's immigrant colonies, and culminating in the development of the Cosa Nostra in America's urban centers. Looking beyond this Mafia paradigm, this volume argues that the development of organized crime in Chicago and other large American cities was rooted in the social structure of American society. Specifically, Lombardo ties organized crime to the emergence of machine politics in America's urban centers. From nineteenth-century vice syndicates to the modern-day Outfit, Chicago's criminal underworld could not have existed without the blessing of those who controlled municipal, county, and state government. These practices were not imported from Sicily, Lombardo contends, but were bred in the socially disorganized slums of America where elected officials routinely franchised vice and crime in exchange for money and votes. This book also traces the history of the African-American community's participation in traditional organized crime in Chicago and offers new perspectives on the organizational structure of the Chicago Outfit, the traditional organized crime group in Chicago.

Sport-based crime prevention programmes are becoming increasingly popular worldwide but until now there has been very little research on the effectiveness of such approaches. Bringing together authoritative evidence from existing programmes, the authors identify and analyse emerging successful practices. Covering mentoring and coaching, particularly as they relate to Positive Youth Development (PYD) programmes, the authors explore how the development of core life skills can improve individual resilience and decrease the risk of criminal involvement. The book conceptualizes the links between criminological theory and PYD and gives recommendations for future policy and practice.

This book presents a study of street children's involvement as workers in Bangladeshi organised crime groups based on a three-year ethnographic study in Dhaka. The book argues that 'mastaans' are Bangladeshi mafia groups that operate in a market for crime, violence and social protection. It considers the crimes mastaans commit, the ways they divide labour, and how and why street children become involved in these groups. The book explores how street children are hired by 'mastaans', to carry weapons, sell drugs, collect extortion money, commit political violence and conduct contract killings. The book argues that these young people are neither victims nor offenders; they are instead 'illicit child labourers', doing what they can to survive on the streets. This book adds to the emerging fields of the sociology of crime and deviance in South Asia and 'Southern criminology'.