Drawing on new studies from major European countries and Australia, this exciting collection extends the ongoing debate on falling crime rates from the perspective of criminal opportunity or routine activity theory. It analyses the effect of post WW2 crime booms which triggered a universal improvement in security across the Western world.

Trafficking Culture outlines current research and thinking on the illicit market in antiquities. It moves along the global trafficking chain from 'source' to 'market', identifying the main roles and routines involved. Using original research, the authors explore the dynamics of this 'grey' market, where legal and illegal goods are mixed and conflated. It compares and contrasts this illicit trade with other 'transnational criminal markets', such as the illegal trades in wildlife and diamonds. The analytical frames of organized crime and white-collar crime, drawn from criminology, provide a fresh perspective on a problem that has tended to be seen as archaeological, rather than criminological. Bringing insights from both disciplines together, this book represents a productive discourse between experts in these two fields, working together for several years to produce the evidence base that is reported here. Innovative forms of regulation are the most productive way to explore crime control in this field, and this book provides a series of propositions about practical crime reduction measures for the future. It will be invaluable to academics working in the fields of archaeology, criminology, art history, museum studies, and heritage. The book will also be a vital resource for professionals in the field of cultural property protection and preservation.

In contrast to a globalizing approach to 'transnational organized crime,' this edited volume studies socio-historical environments in which mafia-esque violence has found a fertile ground for growth and development within the political arena.

Between 1919 and 1939, crime received a prominent place on the international public agenda. This book explores the blueprint for twenty-first century international crime prevention - The League of Nations approach - which established institutions for confronting dangerous drugs, traffic in women and terrorist violence.

'This American system of ours, ' observed Al Capone, 'call it Americanism, call it capitalism, call it what you like, gives to each and every one of us a great opportunity if we can only seize it with both hands and make the most of it.' Capone spoke as a member of a generation who, seizing the opportunities offered by the Eighteenth Amendment of the US Constitution, which prohibited the manufacture, transport, or sale of alcoholic beverages, enriched himself and laid the basis for modern organized crime in America. Yet if the story of the eminent gangsters is not the orthodox, rags-to-riches American success story, neither can it be dismissed as merely a crime story, a morality play where evil doers are brought to justice by the forces of law and order. Their story, rather, is a central and significant chapter in the social and economic history of modern America

Discover the secret history behind the headlines. The Mexican drug wars have inspired countless articles, TV shows and movies. From Breaking Bad to Sicario, El Chapo's escapes to Trump's tirades, this is a story we think we know. But there's a hidden history to the biggest story of the twenty-first century. The Dope exposes how an illicit industry that started with farmers, families and healers came to be dominated by cartels, kingpins and corruption. Benjamin T Smith traces an unforgettable cast of characters from the early twentieth century to the modern day, whose actions came to influence Mexico as we now know it. There's Enrique Fernandez, the borderlands trafficker who became Mexico's first major narco and one of the first victims of the war on drugs; Eduardo 'Lalo' Fernandez, Mexico's most prominent heroin chemist and first major cocaine importer; Leopoldo Salazar Viniegra, the brilliant doctor and Marxist who tried (and failed) to decriminalize Mexico's drugs; and Harry Anslinger, the head of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics whose sensationalist strategies paved the way for U.S. interference and the extraordinary levels of violence in Mexico today. The Dope is the epic saga of how violence and corruption came to plague modern Mexico, and the first book to make sense of the political and economic big picture of the Mexican drug wars.

The Blackstone's Guide Series delivers concise and accessible books covering the latest legislative changes and amendments. Published soon after enactment, they offer expert commentary by leading names on the effects, extent and scope of the legislation, plus a full copy of the Act itself. They offer a cost-effective solution to key information needs and are the perfect companion for any practitioner needing to get up to speed with the latest changes.
This Guide provides a detailed and practical commentary on the Serious Crime Act 2007. It examines the probable impact on the law, practice and procedure, with full case referencing to illuminate probable interpretation. The Act establishes the serious crime prevention order - also called a 'super-asbo' - which will impose restrictions on individuals and organizations convicted or suspected of being involved in serious crimes (such as people and arms trafficking, fraud, drug dealing and blackmail). It also introduces new offences of intentionally encouraging or assisting a criminal act; the strengthening of the recovery of criminal assets; and abolishes the Assets Recovery Agency - transferring its responsibilities to the Serious Organized Crime Agency
This Guide on the Serious Crime Act 2007:
Includes the full text of the Act
Provides a detailed and practical commentary on its likely effect on the law, practice and procedure - with full case referencing to illuminate probable interpretation
The narrative highlights the tensions caused with human rights and civil liberties issues - looking at possible conflict with the HRA and ECHR
Straightforward layout, organized by subject heading to enable ease of use as areference resource

The cover illustration of Mafia: Penge & politik pa Sicilien 1950-1994 represents a picture of Antonio Salvo. Salvo was a Mafioso, but he did not traffic in narcotics, he did not run weapons, he did not kill anyone, and he did not take part in the 'ordinary' Mafia activities. Antonio Salvo was a business man, one of the wealthiest business men in Sicily. He took an interest in all important lines of business and had close political connections at the highest levels in Rome. Antonio Salvo represented another, but not less important side of the Mafia. He was a central part of the far-reaching network of economic and political interests that dominated Sicily through decades. All the threads of the network came together in one place: the Mafia.

Suicide attacks have become the defining act of political violence of our age. From New York City to Baghdad, from Sri Lanka to Israel, few can doubt that they are a pervasive and terrifying feature of an increasing number of violent conflicts. Since 1981, approximately thirty organizations throughout the world - some of them secular and others affiliated to radical Islam - have carried out more than 500 suicide missions. Although a tiny fraction of the overall number of guerrilla and terrorist attacks occurring in the same period, the results have proved infinitely more lethal. This book is the first to shed real light on these extraordinary acts, and provide answers to the questions we all ask. Are these the actions of aggressive religious zealots and unbridled, irrational radicals or is there a logic driving those behind them? Are their motivations religious or has Islam provided a language to express essentially political causes? How can the perpetrators remain so lucidly effective in the face of certain death? And do these disparate attacks have something like a common cause? For more than two years, this team of internationally distinguished scholars has pursued an unprejudiced inquiry, investigating organizers and perpetrators alike of this extraordinary social phenomenon. Close comparisons between a whole range of cases raise challenging further questions: If suicide missions are so effective, why are they not more common? If killing is what matters, why not stick to 'ordinary' violent means? Or, if dying is what matters, why kill in the process? Making Sense of Suicide Missions contains a wealth of original information and cutting-edge analysis which furthers our understanding of this chilling feature of the contemporary world in radically new and unexpected ways.

Here, from Jay Dobyns, the first federal agent to infiltrate the inner circle of the outlaw Hells Angels Motorcycle Club, is the inside story of the twenty-one-month operation that almost cost him his family, his sanity, and his life.
Getting shot in the chest as a rookie agent, bartering for machine guns, throttling down the highway at 100 mph, and responding to a full-scale, bloody riot between the Hells Angels and their rivals, the Mongols-these are just a few of the high-adrenaline experiences Dobyns recounts in this action-packed, hard-to-imagine-but-true story.
Dobyns leaves no stone of his harrowing journey unturned. At runs and clubhouses, between rides and riots, Dobyns befriends bad-ass bikers, meth-fueled "old ladies," gun fetishists, psycho-killer ex-cons, and even some of the "Filthy Few"-the elite of the Hells Angels who've committed extreme violence on behalf of their club. Eventually, at parties staged behind heavily armed security, he meets legendary club members such as Chuck Zito, Johnny Angel, and the godfather of all bikers, Ralph "Sonny" Barger. To blend in with them, he gets full-arm ink; to win their respect, he vows to prove himself a stone-cold killer.
Hardest of all is leading a double life, which has him torn between his devotion to his wife and children, and his pledge to become the first federal agent ever to be "fully patched" into the Angels' near-impregnable ranks. His act is so convincing that he comes within a hairsbreadth of losing himself. Eventually, he realizes that just as he's been infiltrating the Hells Angels, they've been infiltrating him. And just as they're not all bad, he's not all good.
Reminiscent of Donnie Brasco's uncovering of the true Mafia, this is an eye-opening portrait of the world of bikers-the most in-depth since Hunter Thompson's seminal work-one that fully describes the seductive lure criminal camaraderie has for men who would otherwise be powerless outsiders. Here is all the nihilism, hate, and intimidation, but also the freedom-and, yes, brotherhood-of the only truly American form of organized crime.

"From the Hardcover edition."

The Japanese mafia - known collectively as yakuza - has had a considerable influence on Japanese society over the past fifty years. Based on extensive Japanese language source material and interviews with criminals, police officers, lawyers, journalists, and scholars, this is the first English language academic monography to analyse Japan's criminal syndicates. Peter Hill argues that the essential characteristic of Japan's criminal syndicates is their provision of protection to consumers in Japan's under- and upper-worlds. In this respect they are analogous to the Sicilian Mafia, and the mafias of Russia, Hong Kong, and the United States. Although the yakuza's protective mafia role has existed at least since the end of the Second World War, and arguably longer, the range of economic transactions to which such protection has been afforded has not remained constant. The yakuza have undergone considerable change in their business activities over the last half-century. The two key factors driving this evolution have been the changes in the legal and law enforcement environment within which these groups must operate, and the economic opportunities available to them. This first factor demonstrates that the complex and ambiguous relationship between the yakuza and the state has always been more than purely symbiotic. With the introduction of the boryokudan (Iyakuza) countermeasures law in 1992, the relationship between the yakuza and the state has become more unambiguously antagonistic. Assessing the impact of this law is, however, problematic; the contemporaneous bursting of Japan's economic bubble at the beginning of the 1990s also profoundly and adversely influenced yakuza sources of income. It is impossible to completely disentangle the effects of these two events. By the end of the twentieth century, the outlook for the yakuza was bleak and offered no short-term prospect of amelioration. More profoundly, state-expropriation of protection markets formerly dominated by the yakuza suggests that the longer-term prospects for these groups are bleaker still: no longer, therefore, need the yakuza be seen as an inevitable and necessary evil.

Philadelphia's 'Black Mafia' could be used as primary reading in deviance and organized crime courses. Academicians in the fields of criminology, sociology, history, political science and African-American Studies will find the book compelling and important. This book provides the first sociological analysis to date of Philadelphia's infamous "Black Mafia" which has organized crime (with varying degrees of success) in predominantly African-American sections of the city dating back to the late 1960's.
Philadelphia's 'Black Mafia':

-is a first step in developing both data and sophisticated theoretical propositions germane to the ongoing study of organized crime;
-uses primary source documents, including confidential law enforcement files, court transcripts and interviews;
-explores the group's activities in detail, depicting some of the most notorious crimes in Philadelphia's history;
-thoroughly examines the organization of the Black Mafia and the group's alliances, conspiracies and conflicts;
-challenges many of the current historical and theoretical assumptions regarding organized crime.

From Los Angeles and New York to Chicago and Miami, street gangs are regarded as one of the most intractable crime problems facing our cities, and a vast array of resources is being deployed to combat them. This book chronicles the astounding self-transformation of one of the most feared gangs in the United States into a social movement acting on behalf of the dispossessed, renouncing violence and the underground economy, and requiring school attendance for membership.

What caused the Almighty Latin King and Queen Nation of New York City to make this remarkable transformation? And why has it not happened to other gangs elsewhere? David C. Brotherton and Luis Barrios were given unprecedented access to new and never-before-published material by and about the Latin Kings and Queens, including the group's handbook, letters written by members, poems, rap songs, and prayers. In addition, they interviewed more than one hundred gang members, including such leaders as King Tone and King Hector. Featuring numerous photographs by award-winning photojournalist Steve Hart, the book explains the symbolic significance for the gang of hand gestures, attire, rituals, and rites of passage. Based on their inside information, the authors craft a unique portrait of the lives of the gang members and a ground-breaking study of their evolution.

While the success of national and international law enforcement cooperation to suppress organized crime means that stable, large-scale criminal organizations like the Cosa Nostra or the Japanese Yakuza have seen their power reduced, organized crime remains a concern for many governments. Economic globalization and the easing of restrictions on exchanges across borders now provide ample opportunity for money-making activities in illegal markets. Policies designed to stop illegal market flows often shift these activities to new places or create new problems, as the U.S.- led war on drugs spread production and trafficking to a number South and Central American countries. The Oxford Handbook of Organized Crime provides informed, authoritative, and comprehensive overviews of these issues and other principal forms of organized crime, as well as the type and effectiveness of efforts to prevent and control them. Leading scholars from criminology, law, sociology, history, and political science discuss the key concepts, history, and methods of organized crime; the major actors and interactions involved in it; the markets and activities frequently associated with organized crime; and the policies designed to combat it. Individual chapters on criminal organizations and specific activities or markets comprise the heart of the volume. The chapters on actors provide the history, analyze the structure and activities, and assess the strength and future prospects of each organization. Articles on particular markets address the patterns of activity, identify the most affected regions, and where possible provide estimated revenues, discuss factors promoting the activity, and disclose information on the victims and harms caused. The Oxford Handbook of Organized Crime delivers a systematic, high-quality, and truly global approach to the topic and with it a more complete understanding of organized crime in its many forms for researchers, government officials, and policymakers.

The story of how a criminal Shangri-La almost happened
In 1981, a small but heavily armed force of misfits from the United States and Canada set off on an unlikely mission: to invade the impoverished Caribbean island of Dominica, overthrow its government in a coup d'etat, and install a new bought-off prime minister. For two years, the gangleaders recruited manpower, wooed investors, forged links with the mob, stockpiled weapons, and planned their assault. They called it Operation Red Dog. They were going to make millions. All that stood in their way were two federal agents from Louisiana on the biggest case of their lives. Bayou of Pigs tells a remarkable story of foreign military intervention, revolutionary politics, greed, treachery, stupidity, deceit, and one of the most outlandish crimes ever attempted: the theft of a nation.
Stewart Bell (Toronto, ON) is the author of Cold Terror (978-0-470-84056-6).

Law today is incomplete, inaccessible, unclear, underdeveloped, and often perplexing to those whom it affects. In The Legal Singularity, Abdi Aidid and Benjamin Alarie argue that the proliferation of artificial intelligence-enabled technology - and specifically the advent of legal prediction - is on the verge of radically reconfiguring the law, our institutions, and our society for the better. Revealing the ways in which our legal institutions underperform and are expensive to administer, the book highlights the negative social consequences associated with our legal status quo. Given the infirmities of the current state of the law and our legal institutions, the silver lining is that there is ample room for improvement. With concerted action, technology can help us to ameliorate the law and our legal institutions. Inspired in part by the concept of the "technological singularity," The Legal Singularity presents a future state in which technology facilitates the functional "completeness" of law, where the law is at once extraordinarily more complex in its specification than it is today, and yet operationally vastly more knowable, fairer, and clearer for its subjects. Aidid and Alarie describe the changes that will culminate in the legal singularity and explore the implications for the law and its institutions.

A distinct line exists between right and wrong. Some people never dream of crossing that line. Others cross it willingly . . . At nineteen, Bobby Nauss joins the Warlocks Motorcycle Gang and plunges into a life of crime. At 2:30 a.m. on December 12, 1971, he has sex with his girlfriend. At 3 a.m. he kills her and disposes of her body. As time passes, four teenaged girls are kidnapped, raped, and murdered. Because their bodies are found in or around the Tinicum Marsh, they become known as "The Marsh Murders." The victims share three things in common - sex, drugs, and an association with members of the Warlocks. It takes the mobilization and galvanization of local, county, state, and federal law enforcement agencies across the country to deal with the outlaw bikers and determine who did what, where, and when. Born to Be Wild is a true story of rape, murder, and deception. The book drags you into the misogynistic world of outlaw motorcycle gangs, places you behind prison bars, and pins a badge on your chest to pursue the bad guys. Justice takes twenty years to reach Bobby Nauss.