This illuminating study explores crimes against, and involving, wildlife and the resultant social harms. The authors go well beyond basic conceptions of animal-related crime, such as illicit trade, for a deeper exploration of wildlife criminology, using a novel approach that combines philosophical, legal and criminological perspectives. They shed light on both legal and illegal harms, including blood sports, wildlife as food and abuse in zoos, and consider the potential connections with inter-human crimes. This is a unique treatment of wildlife as victims of crime and a consideration of their rights as sentient beings that sets new horizons for the concept of wildlife criminology.

This book uniquely applies theoretical approaches from criminology and sociology to the problem of corruption. Theoretical thoughts have future consequences on how we treat, punish and deter and corruption policy illustrates that theoretical approaches affect what laws and techniques are implemented. Theoretical approaches, however, are not developed in a social and political vacuum; they are a part of the changing social world and understanding why corruption occurs is a preface to developing strategies to control and prevent it. Criminology of Corruption analyses corruption on an international scale and uses numerous case studies to help explain why individuals, organisations and states are corrupt. The book charts the development of the most relevant theoretical approaches and uses them to help explain acts of corruption and prevention. It will be of great interest to scholars researching these issues across criminology, sociology and other disciplines.

More than a hundred years have passed since the adoption of the first prohibitionist laws on drugs. Increasingly, the edifice of international drug control and laws is vacillating under pressures of reform. Scholarship on drugs history and policy has had a tendency to look at the issue mostly in the Western hemisphere of the globe or to privilege Western narratives of drugs and drugs policy. This volume instead turns this approach upside down and makes an intellectual attempt to redefine the subject of drugs in the Global South. Opium, heroin, cannabis, hashish, methamphetamines and khat are among the drugs discussed in the contributions to the volume, which spans from Sub-Saharan Africa to Southeast Asia, including the Middle East, North Africa, Latin America and the Indian Subcontinent. The volume also makes a powerful case for an interdisciplinary approach to the study of drugs by juxtaposing the work of historians, political scientists, geographers, anthropologists and criminologists. Ultimately, this edited volume is a rich and diverse collection of new case studies, which opens up venues for further research. This book was originally published as a special issue of Third World Quarterly.

'Action-packed, gripping, and wildly entertaining . . . Amen Alonge is a powerful new voice in thriller writing and a talent to watch' ADAM HAMDY Meet Pretty Boy. Vengeance is on his mind. His real name: Unknown His code of conduct: Don't be a pawn in someone else's game. Never underestimate the enemy. Above all, survive. There is no glory in death. His mission: It's been ten years since Pretty Boy left the big city - today he's back. No one knows why, but it's clear that revenge is on his mind: he is determined to make the person responsible for his exile from the London scene finally pay. But his plans seem derailed when he takes possession of a bracelet, unaware that its original owner has set a high price for its safe return. Suddenly, the hunter becomes the hunted and Pretty Boy will have to find out if it is indeed a 'good day to die'. Jam-packed with action, an unforgettable cast of characters and peppered with dry humour, A Good Die To Die marks the arrival of a fresh and exciting new voice in thriller writing.

What is the Russian Mafia? This unique book thoroughly researches this question and challenges widely-held views. The author charts the emergence of the Russian Mafia in the context of the transition to the market, the privatization of protection, and pervasive corruption. The ability of the Russian state to define property rights and protect contracts is compared to the services offered by fragments of the state apparatus, private security firms, ethnic crime groups, the Cossacks, and the Mafia. Past criminal traditions, rituals, and norms have been resuscitated by the Mafia of today to forge a powerful new identity and compete in a crowded market for protection. The book draws on reports of undercover police operations; in-depth interviews conducted over several years with the victims of the Mafia, criminals, and officials; and documents from the Gulag archives. It also provides a comparative study, making references to other Mafia (the Japanese Yakuza, the Sicilian Cosa Nostra, the American-Italian Mafia, and the Hong Kong Triads).

This study is based on five years of ethnographic fieldwork with Colombian drug traffickers (traquetos) in The Netherlands and Colombia. The author has uncovered the social world of traquetos: how and why they get involved in illicit activities, the nature of their work, and how they organize their businesses. This book will be valued by criminologists, social scientists, drug researchers, policymakers, organized crime scholars, and by those interested in Colombia, Latino immigrants issues, and the cocaine business.

This book explores how the 'new' Asian criminal entrepreneurs in Canada, known as The Big Circle Boys (BCB), competitively dominated the Canadian heroin market in the 1990s without a formal organisation or explicit hierarchical structure. Drawing on the market resilience framework, it examines how the BCB smuggled drugs by using social capital, shared resources, and trust effectively through their ethnicity. How did they counter external security challenges and promote internal competitive cooperation? Were they able to resolve disputes peacefully by managing internal relations? These questions are answered through an analysis of their networking processes and illustrated in the structural properties and dynamics of their mono-ethnic criminal network. For the first time, the BCB players that contributed to the 2001 Canadian and Australian heroin droughts are revealed through intercepted telephone calls and court testimonies. It shows how the BCB collectively switched from heroin to ecstasy since the year 2000. The operation logistics of drug importation and local trafficking are scrutinised. This book speaks to those interested in how a collective of ethnic-Chinese career criminals succeeded and failed in the international drugs trade, particularly for scholars and students of social sciences disciplines.

This innovative book investigates the paradoxical situation whereby organized crime groups, authoritarian in nature and anti-democratic in practice, perform at their best in democratic countries. It uses examples from the United States, Japan, Russia, South America, France, Italy and the European Union.

This expose investigates the evolution of the Almighty Black P Stone Nation, a motley group of poverty-stricken teens transformed into a dominant gang accused of terroristic intentions. Interwoven into the narrative is the dynamic influence of leader Jeff Fort, who--despite his flamboyance and high visibility--instilled a rigid structure and discipline that afforded the young men a refuge and a sense of purpose in an often hopeless community. Details of how the Nation procured government funding for gang-related projects during the War on Poverty era and fueled bonuses and job security for law enforcement, and how Fort, in particular, masterminded a deal for $2.5 million to commit acts of terrorism in the United States on behalf of Libya are also revealed. In examining whether the Black P Stone Nation was a group of criminals, brainwashed terrorists, victims of their circumstances, or champions of social change, this social history provides both an exploration of how and why gangs flourish and insight into the way in which minority crime is targeted in the community, reported in the media, and prosecuted in the courts.

The perceived threat of 'transnational organised crime' to Western societies has been of huge interest to politicians, policy-makers and social scientists over the last decade. This book considers the origins of this crime, how it has been defined and measured, and the appropriateness of governments' policy responses. The contributors argue that while serious harm is often caused by transnational criminal activity - for example, the trafficking in human beings - the construction of that criminal activity as an external threat obscures the origins of these crimes in the markets for illicit goods and services within the 'threatened' societies. As such, the authors question the extent to which global crime can be controlled through law enforcement initiatives and alternative policy initiatives are considered. The authors also question whether transnational organised crime will retain its place on the policy agendas of the United Nations and European Union in the wake of the 'war on terror'.

This is a collection of original research reports on the status of street gangs and problematic youth groups in Europe, as well as a set of reports on the current status of American street gang research and its implications for the European gang situation. Seven American papers are joined with reports from England, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Germany, Russia, Holland, Belgium, France, and Slovenia. Summary chapters by the American and European editors provide overviews of the street gang picture: the associated issues and problems of definition, community context, comparative research procedures, and implications for prevention and intervention. Professionals and students will find these papers easy to comprehend yet fully informative on comparative street gang studies.

This exploration of the full diversity of the Italian Antimafia draws on primary sources and interviews to provide a complete analysis of social, political and grassroots efforts since 1922. The murders of judges Falcone and Borsellino in 1992 caused an institutional crisis in Italy, aggravated by evidence of rampant corruption in political and business life. Since then, exceptional law enforcement successes have been undermined by inadequate efforts to address the underlying social and economic conditions that facilitate the expansion of the Mafia. This study looks at Antimafia initiatives within the context of international initiatives against organized crime.

This book is a systematic study of New York City's Chinatown gangs. First-hand data was collected from a substantial number of gang victims, gang members, community leaders, and law enforcement authorities. Also examined are the details and severity of gang extortion, gang characteristics, gang violence, gang enterprise, and gang control strategies.

Mexico's Drug War and Criminal Networks examines the effects of technology on three criminal organizations: the Sinaloa cartel, the Zetas, and the Caballeros Templarios. Using social network analysis, and analyzing the use of web platforms Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, Nilda M. Garcia provides fresh insights on the organizational network, the central nodes, and the channels through which information flows in these three criminal organizations. In doing so, she demonstrates that some drug cartels in Mexico have adopted the usage of social media into their strategies, often pursuing different tactics in the search for new ways to dominate. She finds that the strategic adaptation of social media platforms has different effects on criminal organization's survivability. When used effectively, coupled with the adoption of decentralized structures, these platforms do increase a criminal organization's survival capacity. Nonetheless, if used haphazardly, it can have the opposite effect. Drawing on the fields of criminology, social network analysis, international relations, and organizational theory and featuring a wealth of information about the drug cartels themselves, Mexico's Drug War and Criminal Networks will be a great source for all those interested in the presence, behavior, purposes, and strategies of drug cartels in their forays into social media platforms in Mexico and beyond.

An examination of the forces and events that led to the most successful organized crime control initiatives in American history Since Prohibition, the Mafia has captivated the media and, indeed, the American imagination. From Al Capone to John Gotti, organized crime bosses have achieved notoriety as anti- heroes in popular culture. In practice, organized crime grew strong and wealthy by supplying illicit goods and services and by obtaining control over labor unions and key industries. Despite, or perhaps because of, its power and high profile, Cosa Nostra faced little opposition from law enforcement. Yet, in the last 15 years, the very foundations of the mob have been shaken, its bosses imprisoned, its profits diminished, and its influence badly weakened. In this vivid and dramatic book, James B. Jacobs, Christopher Panarella, and Jay Worthington document the government's relentless attack on organized crime. The authors present an overview of the forces and events that led in the 1980s to the most successful organized crime control initiatives in American history. Enlisting trial testimony, secretly taped conversations, court documents, and depositions, they document five landmark cases, representing the most important organized crime prosecutions of the modern era-Teamsters Local 560, The Pizza Connection, The Commission, the International Teamsters, and the prosecution of John Gotti.

This book provides a novel criminological understanding of white-collar crime and corporate lawbreaking in China focusing on: lack of reliable official data, guanxi and corruption, state-owned enterprises, media censorship, enforcement and regulatory capacity. The text begins with an introduction to the topic placing it in global perspective, followed by chapters examining the importance of comparative study, corruption as a major crime in China, case studies and etiology, domestic, regional and global consequences, and concluding theoretical and policy issues that can inform future research.

Piracy and Intellectual Property in Latin America is the first sustained effort to present an alternative framework for understanding piracy and contemporary challenges to global discourses on intellectual property (IP) in the Americas. While piracy might just look like theft and derivative reproduction from the perspective of many right-holders, the contributors to this volume go beyond this economic-driven logic and show how practices of copying are in fact practices of reinvention that reflect the rich social networks and forms of creativity, authorship, commerce, and consumption that characterize informal economies. From a perspective informed by contemporary scenarios in Mexico, Brazil, Chile, Argentina, Peru, Guatemala, and the United States, they engage in a discussion of alternatives that-predicated on the importance of protecting culture-allow for other ways of conceiving prosperity at local, national, regional, and global levels. Examples discussed include video games, clothing, trinkets, music, film, TV, and books. Designed to help understand the broader implications of IP and piracy for the field of Latin American studies, this book will be a major contribution to Global South studies, as well as to the growing bibliography on globalization, informal markets, and piracy.

War, poverty, and famine; political, social, and economic change; and the deep seated views and rituals rooted in a culture's history and traditions all contribute to the widespread and growing trafficking of women and children. The multilayered complexity, myriad contributing factors, enormous amount of money involved, and sheer magnitude of the problem render it impossible to solve with the fractured and isolated measures of individual organizations and countries. Only complete cooperation and collaboration at all levels can establish the most proactive and self-sustaining approach to reduce this global crime. Gathering knowledge and experience from more than 40 countries, Global Trafficking in Women and Children clearly demonstrates the scale and spread of the problem, providing a powerful analysis of the circumstances that contribute to the abuse and victimization of women and children as well as the international policies and strategies used to combat this crime. Divided into two parts, the book begins with an introduction to the definition, nature, and scope of human trafficking. It discusses several social theories as well as evident environmental influences. It also examines measures to control and prevent human trafficking from stricter laws and monetary aid, to global community and law enforcement collaboration. Part 2 consists of case studies, drawing examples from a range of countries involved in every stage in the process, and highlighting the unique characteristics of human trafficking in each. Chapters include the prevalence of child pornography in Japan, child abduction in China, bonded child labor in India, and child soldiering in Congo (Zaire) and other African countries. The final chapters discuss law enforcement in the US and UK, community policing in Australia, and the cooperative national plan in place in Croatia.

Millions of pounds are spent every year trying to tackle human trafficking, modern slavery and child sexual exploitation. These are apparently threats perpetrated by 'criminal masterminds', spreading at a dizzying rate and approaching epidemic proportions - or so the story goes. Amid all the bold rhetoric and sweeping claims, there is very little robust research to help understand these problems and inform evidence-based policy and practice. In this book, readers are invited to delve inside the murky world of human trafficking. It focuses on the internal (domestic) trafficking of children for sexual exploitation. It is based on far-reaching analysis of six of the earliest and largest such investigations in the United Kingdom (UK), including the infamous Derby and Rochdale cases that sparked nationwide concerns about 'street grooming' and 'Asian sex gangs'. Innovative methods, analytical rigour and truly extraordinary data underpin the research: a nuanced and sometimes unsettling exploration of the offender and victim networks, their characteristics, structure, activity and dynamics and the problems they pose for investigation and prosecution. The results paint a picture of a sprawling and dynamic system of grooming and abuse that is deeply embedded in complex webs of social relations and interactions. This book challenges accepted wisdom, debunks myths and introduces new and fundamentally different ways of thinking about trafficking and its prevention. An accessible and compelling read, this book is for academics, policymakers, practitioners and others interested in serious and organised crime.

Based on 15 years of ethnographic fieldwork, the book understands the increasing violence seen in cities as a product of the emergence of transnational illegal markets since the 1970's, followed by the suppression of unskilled workers, in many places racialised young men from poor neighbourhoods. The book gives flesh and blood to these transformations through a careful study of Sao Paulo's case in Brazil. The first part of the book is based on the trajectories of three families, featuring young men affiliated with illegal markets such as drug dealing and car theft, although in very different situations. The clash between the everyday life patterns of these black families, compared to Sao Paulo's white middle classes, gives plausibility to the city's social conflict, most violent after the 80's, when transnational markets arrive and incarceration grows. Sao Paulo's case offers more: this conflict is 70% less lethal in 2017 than it was in the 2000, mostly due to the actions of the PCC (the main criminal group in Brazil, a transnational one) discussed in the second part of the book. The "world of crime" is stronger , yet at the same time homicide rates are falling. The final argument demonstrates that informality, illegality and criminal violence are produced entangling legal and illegal markets and formal/informal institutions, not only in Sao Paulo. -- .

Nigeria and Nigerians have acquired a notorious reputation for involvement in drug-trafficking, fraud, cyber-crime and other types of serious crime. Successful Nigerian criminal networks have a global reach, interacting with their Italian, Latin American and Russian counterparts. Yet in 1944, a British colonial official wrote that 'the number of persistent and professional criminals is not great' in Nigeria and that 'crime as a career has so far made little appeal to the young Nigerian'. This book traces the origins of Nigerian organised crime to the last years of colonial rule, when nationalist politicians acquired power at a regional level. In need of funds for campaigning, they offered government contracts to foreign businesses in return for kickbacks, in a pattern that recurs to this day. Political corruption encouraged a wider disrespect for the law that spread throughout Nigerian society. When the country's oil boom came to an end in the early 1980s, young Nigerian college graduates headed abroad, eager to make money by any means. Nigerian crime went global at the very moment new criminal markets were emerging all over the world.

This book describes and analyzes the convergence of transnational organized crime and jihadist terrorism that has taken place within Russian-speaking social networks in Western Europe. Studies have shown that while under certain circumstances links between criminal organizations and terrorist groups appear, these are usually opportunistic and temporary in nature. Only rarely do they develop into something deeper and transformative, a convergence between crime and terrorism. This book reveals that Russian-speaking transnational organized crime and jihadist terrorism pose a serious threat to security and constitute a major challenge for law enforcement. Through their links with transnational organized crime, Russian-speaking jihadist networks from the Caucasus and Central Asia have easier access to weaponry, commercial explosives, and forged IDs than many other jihadist networks. Being in effect an integral component of transnational organized crime, the Russian-speaking jihadists can be assessed as potentially more capable than many other jihadists. The book assesses the effects of terrorism and organized crime on Russian-speaking diasporas in Western Europe and examines the implications for counterterrorism as well as policing on how to counteract the illegal activities of these networks. Drawing on Swedish court cases the work shows that an additional, and sometimes more effective way, to fight terrorism is by focusing on the non-terrorist types of crime perpetrated by terrorists. This book will be of much interest to students of terrorism and counter-terrorism, political violence, criminology, security studies and IR in general.