Social network analysis finally reached a critical mass of scholars in the field of criminology. The proven track record of network theory and methods in fostering new advances in our understanding of crimes and criminals has extended the web of researchers willing to integrate this approach to their work. It is more than just a fad - once you adopt a network approach, it almost inevitably becomes the main lens through which you see crime. The insights learned from analysing matrices of relations among offenders, from exploiting the interdependence among actors instead of finding ways to avoid it are simply too great to ignore. This book provides a state of the art assessment into network research currently being conducted in criminology and beyond, pushing the field further in multiple ways. A series of contributions tackle themes and offending types that had yet to be previously empirically investigated, including political conspiracies, steroid distribution, methamphetamine production, illicit marketplaces on the Internet, and small arms trafficking. Advances are also found in the data sources used to extract illicit networks, and the methods used to analyse them. This book was originally published as a special issue of Global Crime.

Based on five years of ethnography, archival research, census data analysis, and interviews, Police, Power, and the Production of Racial Boundaries reveals how the LAPD, city prosecutors, and business owners struggled to control who should be considered "dangerous" and how they should be policed in Los Angeles. Sociologist Ana Muniz shows how these influential groups used policies and everyday procedures to criminalize behaviors commonly associated with blacks and Latinos and to promote an exceedingly aggressive form of policing. Muniz illuminates the degree to which the definitions of "gangs" and "deviants" are politically constructed labels born of public policy and court decisions, offering an innovative look at the process of criminalization and underscoring the ways in which a politically powerful coalition can define deviant behavior. As she does so, Muniz also highlights the various grassroots challenges to such policies and the efforts to call attention to their racist effects. Muniz describes the fight over two very different methods of policing: community policing (in which the police and the community work together) and the "broken windows" or "zero tolerance" approach (which aggressively polices minor infractions - such as loitering - to deter more serious crime). Police, Power, and the Production of Racial Boundaries also explores the history of the area to explain how Cadillac-Corning became viewed by outsiders as a "violent neighborhood" and how the city's first gang injunction - a restraining order aimed at alleged gang members - solidified this negative image. As a result, Muniz shows, Cadillac-Corning and other sections became a test site for repressive practices that eventually spread to the rest of the city.

INSPIRATION FOR THE NETFLIX SERIES 'THE LINCOLN LAWYER' - THE HOTTEST NEW THRILLER DRAMA ON TV Defense attorney Mickey Haller - a.k.a The Lincoln Lawyer - has been down on his luck but has a shot at the big-time. When another lawyer is killed, Mickey inherits his entire practice, including an incredibly high-profile murder trial. It promises big money - and an even bigger spotlight - as he must defend a Hollywood studio executive accused of murdering his wife and her lover. But the detective working the case, Harry Bosch, has his own plan to catch the killer - and suspects that Mickey Haller might be the next victim...

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.

In Corruption and Organised Crime in Europe, Gounev and Ruggiero present a discussion of the relation between organized criminals and corruption in the EU's 27 Member States. The book draws on research and scholarly work the editors carried out, respectively, within the Center for the Study of Democracy (CSD) in Bulgaria, and within academic institutions, as well as on behalf of the European Commission and the United Nations. Combining empirical data and theoretical debates, the book focuses on three main areas of the relationship between corruption and organised crime: public bodies, the private sector and criminal markets. It presents the findings of a recent research project carried out by the CSD on behalf of the European Commission, providing an analysis of the specific national contexts in which corruption and organized crime thrive. The essays also address institutional responses and policies, focusing particularly on how EU Member States attempt to sever the links between the official economy, the political sphere and organized crime. The second part of the book presents case studies, written by some of the foremost international experts on the subject matter, analysing corrupt exchange and criminal organisations, concentrating on specific European countries - Bulgaria, France, Greece, Italy, Russia, Spain and the UK. As the first comprehensive study of corruption and organised crime in the countries of the European Union, the book will be a valuable resource for students and scholars of criminology, sociology, law and international politics, as well policy makers and law-enforcement agencies.

A raw, gritty and hot read from the author of The Artists Trilogy, Love, in English and The Pact. Filled with forbidden love, twisted lives, and explosive action, and set in the scorching heat and headiness of Mexico, fans of Joanna Wylde, Kristen Proby and Tarryn Fisher won't want to miss this. For Luisa Chavez, former beauty queen, every day is a struggle to survive. Working as a waitress in Cabo San Lucas is her only hope until Salvador Reyes, depraved leader of a Mexican drug cartel, offers her a lifeline. Salvador wants Luisa as his prized wife, and she can't say no. Robbed of all her freedom, even the finest wines and most precious jewels can't make up for the ugliness and violence of her marriage. Desperate to escape, Luisa's wish comes true in the deadliest form: Javier Bernal, head of a rival cartel. Javier will stop at nothing to get what he wants. And he wants to take Luisa, use her, and ruin her. Unless she ruins him first... Don't miss Book Two in the Dirty Angels series, Dirty Deeds - for more dark, dangerous and breathtakingly sexy action. And be sure to catch The Artists Trilogy for more of Javier...

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.

2013 Outstanding Book Award Winner from the Division of International Criminology, American Society of Criminology Every year, thousands of Chinese women travel to Asia and the United States in order to engage in commercial sex work. In Selling Sex Overseas, Ko-lin Chin and James Finckenauer challenge the current sex trafficking paradigm that considers all sex workers as victims, or sexual slaves, and as unwilling participants in the world of commercial sex. Bringing to life an on-the-ground portrait of this usually hidden world, Chin and Finckenauer provide a detailed look at all of its participants: sex workers, pimps, agents, mommies, escort agency owners, brothel owners, and drivers. Ultimately, they probe the social, economic, and political organization of prostitution and sex trafficking, contradicting many of the 'moral crusaders' of the human trafficking world.

Challenging Organized Crime in the Western Hemisphere: A Game of Moves and Countermoves takes the unusual approach of exploring and describing how organized crime groups develop their capacities in response to heightened powers of law enforcement; and how law enforcement in turn responds, creating an ongoing dynamic interaction. The book shows how a state, such as the United States, has and can develop new laws and practices in ways that enable them to deal with relatively large violent groups-and yet preserve the rule of law and civil liberties. While most texts describe organized crime groups and the challenges to government they impose from a static perspective, the authors dissect the interaction over time of organized crime and democratic governance that has created the present structure and balance of advantages in the United States. Readers learn about the markets for contraband and extortionate protection that form the bulk of organized criminal enterprise, the vulnerabilities of the traditional practices and rules of law enforcement, the effects of globalization of criminal enterprises on their contest with the state, the effectiveness of various practices of law enforcement, and the continuing forces of change, often technological, in the businesses of organized crime and law enforcement that play important roles in the contest between them. This thought- provoking book is ideal for students of organized and transnational crime in university programs and law schools, as well as researchers and legal practitioners, who seek to look beyond the simple traditional history of organized crime and develop a strategy to confront organized crime in the future.

____________________ THE EXPLOSIVE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER 'A bombshell.' Daily Mail 'Damning, terrifying and enraging.' The Spectator ____________________ House of Trump, House of Putin offers the first comprehensive investigation into the decades-long relationship among Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, and the Russian Mafia that ultimately helped win Trump the White House. It is a chilling story that begins in the 1970s, when Trump made his first splash in the booming, money-drenched world of New York real estate, and ends with Trump's inauguration as president of the United States. That moment was the culmination of Vladimir Putin's long mission to undermine Western democracy, a mission that he and his hand-selected group of oligarchs and associates had ensnared Trump in over more than two decades of shady business associations. As Unger traces Donald Trump's sordid ascent from foundering real estate tycoon to leader of the free world, House of Trump, House of Putin, reveals the deep-rooted alliance between the highest echelons of American political operatives and the biggest players in the frightening underworld of the Russian Mafia. Examining Russia's phoenixlike rise from the ashes of the post-Cold War Soviet Union, Unger reveals its ceaseless covert efforts to retaliate against the West and reclaim its status as a global superpower, and how such ambitions came to compromise the president. Without Trump, Russia would have lacked a key component in its attempts to return to imperial greatness. Without Russia, Trump would not be in the White House. This essential book is crucial to understanding the real powers at play in the shadows of today's world.

Just a few months after the entry into force of the EU Framework Decision on the fight against organized crime, this book provides an unprecedented analysis of the national and European legislation on organized crime.

The book provides a critical examination of the European policies and legal instruments to promote the harmonization and approximation of criminal law in this field (including the United Nations Convention on Transnational Organized Crime).

The current level of harmonization among EU Member States and the approximation to the standards of the new Framework Decision are discussed in detail, with the help of tables, graphs and maps.

The results highlight the problems surrounding the international legal instruments and the inconsistencies of the national approaches to combating organized crime.

Concerns over the changing nature of gangs and cartels and their relationships to states in the late 20th and early 21st centuries has resulted in the emergence of a scholarly body of work focused on their national security threat potentials. This body of work, utilizing the third generation gangs and third phase cartel typologies, represents an alternative to traditional gang and organized crime research and one that is increasingly influencing the US defense community. Rather than being viewed only as misguided youth and opportunistic criminals or, in their mature forms, as criminal organizations with no broader social or political agendas, more evolved gangs and cartels, are instead seen as developing political, mercenary, and state-challenging capacities. This evolutionary process has emerged due to the growing illicit economy and other unintended consequences of globalization. This important anthology of writings by Robert J. Bunker and John P. Sullivan draws upon a collection of their works from the mid-1990s to the present with the addition of new essays written specifically for this publication. The work will be of great interest to academics and students in the fields of political science and criminal justice and to military, law enforcement, and governmental professionals and policy makers. This book is a collection of new and previously published works from a variety of publications, a full list of which is on the Citation Information page.

When criminal activity is as straightforward as a child s game of cops and robbers, the role of the police is obvious, but today s bad guys don t always wear black. In fact, the most difficult criminals to cope with are those who straddle the gray divide between licit and illicit activity. Many of these nefarious sorts operate on the fringe of society, often acting the part of businesspersons, meeting the demands of otherwise law-abiding clientele with illegally procured or delivered goods. Others, specially trained to occupy positions of responsibility, make the most of position and special knowledge to partake of ill-gotten gains. Then there are the organized crime families and syndicates who make use of common business models to turn dubious undertakings into profitable ventures.

Policing Organized Crime: Intelligence Strategy Implementation addresses these very real types of modern criminals. It examines the methods and motives of those operating on the fringes of society, including more obvious outlaws as well as less obvious lawyers, businesspeople, and bankers, social outcasts as well as devoted family people. Written by Petter Gottschalk, an internationally respected police expert in organized crime, this book details the workings of entrepreneurial crime through the use of case studies from around the world. He presents strategies that will alter the thinking and investigative styles of those police charged with the responsibility of preventing and putting a stop to business crimes. Implementation of an effective intelligence strategy is a key element in his thinking. He demonstrates the shrewd skill set required to bring down those criminals who twist the rules of supply and demand with business models designed to maximize illegal gain.

This important resource is a volume in the Advances in Police Theory and Practice Series, which features the work of international experts who provide researchers and those in the field with access to the most advanced tools being employed in police work today.

The end of communism marked the re-emergence of a huge rise in organised crime across Russia and Eastern Europe. High-profile efforts to combat it have met with little success. Patricia Rawlinson argues that burgeoning crime rates result not only from the failures of communism but also from the problems of free market economies. Drawing on interviews with members of the Russian criminal underworld, the business community, journalists and the militia, she argues that organised crime provides us with a barometer of economic well-being, not just for Russia but for any market economy.

Gangs are multifaceted and varied, so any attempt to understand them cannot be restricted to a singular approach. On Gangs provides a diverse and comprehensive survey of the available theories for understanding this social issue as well as the broad range of responses to it. The authors look at the many influences on gangs' operation, growth, prevention, and enforcement. The authors provide different criminological, psychological, and sociological approaches to gang studies, including interviews with past and current gang members. On Gangs presents the core issues for understanding gangs, including emerging topics like prison gangs, gender and gangs, and international gangs. There is also a focus on policing, legislation, and punishment. Weaving together research and policy findings to address the causes, contexts, and consequences of gangs, the authors address topics including joining, resisting, and leaving gangs, and how gangs operate in communities and institutions. An authoritative and sweeping tour of gang scholarship, On Gangs showcases the critical evidence-based solutions in prevention, enforcement, legislation, and intervention. The authors seek to answer the question: How do we effectively deal with gangs and gang membership?

The rapid growth of organized crime in Mexico and the government's response to it have driven an unprecedented rise in violence and impelled major structural economic changes, including the recent passage of energy reform. Los Zetas Inc. asserts that these phenomena are a direct and intended result of the emergence of the brutal Zetas criminal organization in the Mexican border state of Tamaulipas. Going beyond previous studies of the group as a drug trafficking organization, Guadalupe Correa-Cabrera builds a convincing case that the Zetas and similar organizations effectively constitute transnational corporations with business practices that include the trafficking of crude oil, natural gas, and gasoline; migrant and weapons smuggling; kidnapping for ransom; and video and music piracy. Combining vivid interview commentary with in-depth analysis of organized crime as a transnational and corporate phenomenon, Los Zetas Inc. proposes a new theoretical framework for understanding the emerging face, new structure, and economic implications of organized crime in Mexico. Correa-Cabrera delineates the Zetas establishment, structure, and forms of operation, along with the reactions to this new model of criminality by the state and other lawbreaking, foreign, and corporate actors. Since the Zetas share some characteristics with legal transnational businesses that operate in the energy and private security industries, she also compares this criminal corporation with ExxonMobil, Halliburton, and Blackwater (renamed "Academi" and now a Constellis company). Asserting that the elevated level of violence between the Zetas and the Mexican state resembles a civil war, Correa-Cabrera identifies the beneficiaries of this war, including arms-producing companies, the international banking system, the US border economy, the US border security/military-industrial complex, and corporate capital, especially international oil and gas companies.

One of the most colorful parts of American History is the time of train robberies and the daring outlaws who undertook them in the period covering from just after the Civil War to 1924. For decades, the railroads were the principal transporters of payrolls, gold and silver, bonds, and passengers who often carried large sums of money as well as valuable jewelry. For the creative outlaw, trains became an obvious target for robbery. Willis Newton has never enjoyed the recognition and fame of the better known train robbing outlaws of our time such as Frank and Jesse James, Butch Cassidy, the Daltons, and the Doolins, but he was the most prolific and successful train robber in the history of North America. Newton stole more money from the railroads than all of the others put together. During his lifetime, Newton robbed six trains and an estimated eighty banks, pulled off the greatest train robbery ever, netting $3,000,000, yet remains virtually unknown. So unknown was he that, of all of his successful robberies, he was rarely identified as a suspect. Following his greatest heist, Newton and his gang member, composed of his brothers, were arrested, tried, convicted, and sent to serve long terms at Leavenworth Prison. When they were granted early release for good behavior, they lost no time in returning to robbing banks. Willis Newton's life and times as America's greatest, and last, train robber has been gleaned and developed from extensive interviews he granted during the 1970s when he was in his eighties. In addition, newspaper reports of his numerous train and bank robberies have been obtained and researched for precise details of robberies and pursuit.

In Chicago in mid-twentieth century amid the haze and smoke of urban renewal and the sounds of the wrecking balls and bulldozers, there lived two men, both street-savvy, one Black, one Irish, one young, one old and both leaders of their clans. Each ruled with an iron fist. Each embodied the fighting spirit of the turbulent 1960s. One was David Barksdale, the Black Disciples leader, a Black youth club that would give birth to America's largest street gang; the other was Richard J. Daley, the legendary Mayor of the City of Chicago. He was one of the longest-serving, most prominent mayors in American history and the last of the big-city "bosses." Although the two never met, at least not face-to-face, their fates were linked by a time of change, an era of protest, which was a decisive moment of transformational power that was on the verge of a violent uprising in America's second-largest city. This is a book that is as lively as its subject. A braided narrative of two larger than life people, it has the boldness to combine two oddly related 1960s stories into a single narrative that is both intimate and epic. One captures the unlikely story of a Negro boy whose share-cropping family migrated from rural Mississippi to Chicago, where he started a street gang that became the largest in America. The book's other path follows America's last big city "boss," whose persona is legendary and bigger than life. While historians, political pundits, and those who knew him speak of "Hizzonor" as being a proud, Irish-Catholic who was the long-time godfather of the Chicago Democratic Party and Mayor who saved Chicago from becoming another Detroit or Cleveland, they also acknowledge that he was a fierce segregationist. He had a contentious relationship with civil rights leaders like Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Richard Daley also played a significant role in the history of the United States Democratic Party. Williams an internationally recognized gang expert and interventionist, eloquently tells the story of these men, their clans, and their on-going struggle for power, status, and legacy. However unheard of and unimaginable, some of the incidents may seem, this is not a work of fiction. Everything written comes from archival documents, official reports, focus groups, in-depth interviews, or first-hand accounts. The action takes place mostly in Chicago's Englewood neighborhood. Still, there are some occasions where the action takes place in Bronzeville, the Woodlawn community, on the West Side of the City and downtown.

COSA NOSTRA is the compelling story of the Sicilian mafia, the world's most famous, most secretive and most misunderstood criminal fraternity. The mafia has been given many names since it was founded one hundred and forty years ago: the Sect, the Brotherhood, the Honoured Society, and now Cosa Nostra. Yet as times have changed, the mafia's subtle and bloody methods have remained the same. Now, for the first time, COSA NOSTRA reconstructs the complete history of the Sicilian mafia from its origins to the present day, from the lemon groves and sulphur mines of Sicily, to the streets of Manhattan. COSA NOSTRA is a definitive history, rich in atmosphere, and with the narrative pace of the best detective fiction, and has been updated to make it the most vital contemporary account of the mafia ever published. The mob genre has finally grown up.

More than any other sport, boxing has a history of being easy to rig. There are only two athletes and one or both may be induced to accept a bribe; if not the fighters, then the judges or referee might be swayed. In such inviting circumstances, the mob moved into boxing in the 1930s and profited by corrupting a sport ripe for exploitation. In Boxing and the Mob: The Notorious History of the Sweet Science, Jeffrey Sussman tells the story of the coercive and criminal underside of boxing, covering nearly the entire twentieth century. He profiles some of its most infamous characters, such as Owney Madden, Frankie Carbo, and Frank Palermo, and details many of the fixed matches in boxing's storied history. In addition, Sussman examines the influence of the mob on legendary boxers-including Primo Carnera, Sugar Ray Robinson, Max Baer, Carmen Basilio, Sonny Liston, and Jake LaMotta-and whether they caved to the mobsters' threats or refused to throw their fights. Boxing and the Mob is the first book to cover a century of fixed fights, paid-off referees, greedy managers, misused boxers, and the mobsters who controlled it all. True crime and the world of boxing are intertwined with absorbing detail in this notorious piece of American history.

*AVAILABLE TO PRE-ORDER NOW* A sheriff investigates his own brother's murder, deep in the heart of the Appalachian Mountains... Estranged after a devastating betrayal, brothers Victor and Frank Landis - sheriffs of neighbouring counties - hadn't spoken for years. In truth, Victor didn't care if Frank was alive or dead. Until the day somebody killed him. Crossing county lines in search of answers, Victor is soon on the trail of a sinister conspiracy that takes him deep into the heart of the Appalachian Mountains. From the poorest communities to the most powerful and corrupt organisations, he soon becomes ensnared in a dangerous web of drugs, trafficking and murder. For Victor, finding the truth will mean uncovering dark secrets he'd rather have left buried, and risking everything to protect the family his brother left behind... At once a gripping mystery and a moving portrait of life in an isolated, misunderstood community, The Last Highway is the latest atmospheric suspense novel from award-winning Sunday Times bestseller, RJ Ellory. PRAISE FOR R.J. ELLORY 'Beautiful and haunting... A tour de force' MICHAEL CONNELLY 'There aren't nearly enough beautifully written novels that are also great mysteries... A Quiet Belief in Angels is one of them' JAMES PATTERSON 'A uniquely gifted, passionate, and powerful writer' ALAN FURST

Since the late 1940s, a violent African criminal society known as the Marashea has operated in and around South Africa's gold mining areas. With thousands of members involved in drug smuggling, extortion, and kidnapping, the Marashea was more influential in the day-to-day lives of many black South Africans under apartheid than were agents of the state. These gangs remain active in South Africa. In We are fighting the world - a history of the Marashea Gangs in South Africa, 1947-1999, Gary Kynoch points to the combination of coercive force and administrative weakness that characterized the apartheid state. As long as crime and violence were contained within black townships and did not threaten adjacent white areas, township residents were largely left to fend for themselves. The Marashea's ability to prosper during the apartheid era and its involvement in political conflict led directly to the violent crime epidemic that today plagues South Africa. Highly readable and solidly researched, We are fighting the World is critical to an understanding of South African society, past and present. This pioneering study challenges previous social history research on resistance, ethnicity, urban spaces, and gender in South Africa. Kynoch's interviews with many current and former gang members give We Are Fighting the World an energy and a realism that is unparalleled in any other published work on gang violence in southern Africa.