Toxic behavior is on the rise in public safety organizations, businesses, politics, and churches, to name a few. Faced with unprecedented circumstances, there is a need to better understand leader/follower interdependence when destructive leaders are at the helm making harmful decisions. Toxic followership begins with the pioneering spirit of a trusted individual who, through creative manipulation, transforms our mindset whereby we can so easily become an extension of a toxic leader's moral decay. There is a myth that the Jonestown tragedy is a distant episode in history that can only happen in certain environments with people unlike oneself. The survivor's stories are reminders that without understanding the framework of toxic followership, the unsuspecting targets are prey, available for consumption by a leader with liquidated morals. This book is for those who desire to gain insight into the leader/follower dynamic in order to serve others by unmasking the dangers of toxic followership, provide prevention suggestions, and reveal followers' power, even in desperate situations.

Organized crime in Mexico has been responsible for a worrying increase in violence in that country since Felipe Calderon assumed the presidency in 2006. The country's main criminal gangs are now a real challenge to the Mexican state. Government policies aimed at combating that threat have not been very successful to date. While it is certainly possible to exaggerate the threat posed by organized crime to the Mexican state, the real problems posed are serious enough. This book considers the issue from a variety of viewpoints. The essential argument is that the organized crime is best combated by institutional reforms directed at strengthening the rule of law and winning over public opinion rather than by a heavy reliance on armed force. Some such reforms have indeed taken place in Mexico, and are discussed in the book.

This edited collection provides an innovative and detailed analysis of the relationship between the financial crisis, risk and corruption. A large majority of the published research has concentrated on identifying the traditional factors that contributed towards the largest financial crisis since the Wall Street Crash and subsequent Great Depression. This original volume contests this, and provides the alternative view that white collar crime was also an underappreciated, and important factor. Divided into five parts: bribery and corruption; financial crime; market manipulation; technology and white collar crime; and the financial crisis, and based on contributions by a wide range of experts in the field, this book will be of great interest to policy makers and practitioners, researchers and students alike.

This book explores and explains how traditional and alternative media have framed the issues of gun trafficking into Mexico, drug-related violence, and spillover violence. It reveals how gun trafficking and drug-related violence are social problems for Mexico, while spillover violence is portrayed as a moral panic for the US. Readers will gain a better understanding of how the media portrays and frames the criminal activity that is occurring in Mexico and how it impacts the US. The book analyzes national newspapers from both sides of the US–Mexico border—The New York Times and El Universal—and draws on a theoretical framework of moral panics, social problems, and cultivation theory. It reveals six framing devices, "the blame game," "worthy and unworthy victims," "positive aspects," "negative aspects of gun trafficking," "indirect mention of gun trafficking," and "direct mention of gun trafficking," which are utilized by The New York Times and El Universal to discuss and frame the issue of gun trafficking into Mexico and its impact on Mexico’s border violence. Mexico’s Drug-Related Violence will be of great interest to students and scholars interested in the perception of media and crime, as well as those researching the topic of drug cartels and drug-related violence.

Hollywood Confidential is the first truly in-depth look at the sexy, humorous, violent, and tragic history of the mob in Hollywood from the 1920s, when Joe Kennedy decided to buy a motion picture company, to the 1980s when the last vestiges of mob influence were revealed through investigations of former Screen Actors Guild President Ronald Reagan and his union backers. The revelations continue into the 1980s when the major studios were no longer important, the independents were on the rise, and it was no longer possible to buy, bribe, or blackmail in a meaningful way. There were deals and bad guys, but the mob as it existed was finished in Hollywood.

In the world of organized crime the bosses grab the headlines, as the names Capone, Gotti, Bonnano, Cotroni and Rizzuto attest. But a crime family has many working parts and the young mobster known as The Weasel was the epitome of a crucial, invisible cog-the soldier, the muscle, the driver, the gopher.

By a quirk of fate, Marvin Elkind-later The Weasel-was placed in the foster home of a tough gangster family, immersing him from the age of nine in a daring world of con men, cheats, bootleggers, loan sharks, bank robbers, leg breakers and Mafia bosses. During a Golden Age of underworld life in New York, Detroit and across Canada, The Weasel found himself working with a surprising cast of colourful characters. He befriended powerful gangsters by smuggling bottles of Scotch to their tables as a waiter at New York's famed Copacabana; he was pushed to be Jimmy Hoffa's chauffeur.

But his disenchantment with the broken promises of mob life brought him into another fraternity, one offering the same adrenaline rush, danger and dark comedy he craved. After a startling confrontation, he was embraced by law enforcement, and a cop with a reputation for results. Now a career informant, The Weasel learned he was a far better fink than he ever was a crook.

With his impeccable gangland pedigree, enormous girth, cold stare and sausage-like fingers adorned with chunky rings, no one questioned The Weasel's loyalty. The backroom doors were flung open and The Weasel slipped in, bringing undercover cops with him. For case after case over two decades, he worked for the FBI, U.S. Customs, Scotland Yard, RCMP, Ontario Provincial Police and other law enforcement agencies on three continents, trapping and betraying mobsters, mercenaries, spies, drug traffickers, pornographers, union fat cats and corrupt politicians.

With unflinching honesty, The Weasel and many of the undercover officers he worked with revealed their successes and failures to award-winning crime reporter and best-selling author Adrian Humphreys.

The Weasel is the riveting chronicle of a unique and engaging figure who lived a most dangerous and rare experience.

It is a story that was never supposed to be told.

This book introduces 'convenience' as the key concept to explain financial crime by white-collar criminals. Based on a number of fraud examination- reports from the United States and Norway, the book documents empirical evidence of convenience among white-collar criminals. It advances our understanding of white-collar crime by drawing attention to private investigation reports by fraud examiners and financial crime specialists, who are in the growing business of fraud investigations. Reports of investigations have never before been researched in terms of white-collar criminals nor crime convenience. Reports of investigations by auditing and law firms represent a valuable empirical basis - in addition to court documents and other sources of information about financial crime. A methodical and well-researched study, this book will be of particular interest to scholars of criminological theory and law - in addition to ethics courses in business schools.

During the 1990's Boston was a world leader in arts, culture, higher education, and medicine. It was also a world leader in organized crime. In this exciting account, former FBI supervisory special agent David Nadolski tells the story of an unlikely alliance between two diametrically opposed people-the con and the FBI agent. While investigating a break-in at the Stone Library in Quincy, MA that houses the personal book collection of John Quincy Adams, the FBI gets a call from prison inmate, Anthony (Tony) Romano, requesting to meet with the case agent on the burglary. Romano provides a helpful tip that leads to the apprehension of the thief and the recovery of four priceless, historically significant books. Recognizing Tony's potential as an informant, Nadolski begins to cultivate a relationship in hopes of recruiting Romano as a criminal informant. Nadolski recruits Romano to play a very dangerous game-infiltrate the Merlino gang, controlled by Carmello Merlino, a career criminal who specialized in bank robberies, armored car robberies, and home invasions. The Merlino gang also became suspects in the largest art theft in history which took place at the Isabella Stuart Gardner Museum in Boston and remains unsolved to this day. Romano, a former armed robber, agrees. With sights set on the Loomis Fargo Armored Car Company money vault, located south of Boston, the Merlino gang gets to work. Little did they know, Romano, at great personal risk, was a wearing a wire and recording their planning sessions. After two years of being joined at the hip and learning to trust each other unconditionally, special agent Nadolski and Romano run a successful criminal investigation and undercover sting operation to catch four dangerous criminals poised to launch one of the biggest armed robberies of the twentieth century.

Drawing on extensive life-history interviews with serious violent offenders, this book offers a unique socio-historical analysis of gang membership and gang evolution in Glasgow, Scotland's largest city. The book chronicles the lives of young men in and around Glasgow from early childhood to present day and examines the lived experience of family, friendship, community, and crime. It demonstrates how street reputations are won and lost and how gang membership is not a single event but an experiential process of offending, victimisation, consensus, and conflict. The book follows the young men's descent into knife crime and street violence and the impact of imprisonment on their life chances. Detailed narratives capture how they individually and collectively transitioned from street violence to profit-driven organised crime, before eventually disengaging from gangs and desisting from offending. The book concludes with an in-depth discussion of the evolution of gangs and organised crime in the 21st century and in the inner-workings of Scotland's marketplace for illegal goods and services, with implications for police, practitioners, and policymakers. A page-turner from start to finish, Scotlands' Gang Members is a truly unique contribution to knowledge about gangs and crime, written to high academic standards but readable and accessible to all.

Leading scholars and policy analysts from around the Americas come together to untangle the factors that have fuelled the implementation of mano dura politics, their rising popularity, and impacts across nine widely heterogeneous countries in Latin America. Beginning with a discussion on the concept of mano dura, the editors move to survey various theoretical approaches to punitivism, and later review of the empirical research evaluating different drivers behind the adoption of tough on crime policies. Since hard-line initiatives often have consequences beyond the general goal of reducing violence, they then analyze the impacts of these policing strategies on crime rates and different democratic institutions. Country chapters on Mexico, El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, Colombia, Ecuador, Bolivia, Brazil, and Argentina follow a common thematic structure to answer the following questions: What are some of the trends in gangs, organized crime, and violence? How have governments responded to combat crime and violence? What factors have fuelled the implementation of mano dura policies? Why are mano dura policies popular? What have the consequences of these policies been? Mano Dura Policies in Latin America is essential reading to students of Latin American studies, political science, public policy, and criminal justice. It will also interest scholars working on drug trafficking, organized crime, and violence in Latin America.

In this vivid account, Ron Chepesiuk tells the story of the organised crime in Harlem through in-depth profiles of the major gangs and motley gangsters whose exploits made them legends.

In the mid-1970s, there were a series of gangland murders, committed by unknown killers, often wielding .22-caliber revolvers. At first these murders seemed unconnected, but law enforcement started noticing links to organized crime and by 1978, federal authorities were involved in the investigations. The FBI compiled a list of 25 gangland figures killed, from potential witnesses and low-level associates, to made men. All shot with a .22 between 1975 and 1978, all from the same batch of guns purchased in Florida, some even the same weapon. The main suspects were members of the East Harlem Purple Gang. Starting on the fringes they quickly became a violent offshoot syndicate of the Mafia, some even became high-ranking members of the Genovese, Bonanno, and Lucchese families. Often serving as freelance hitmen, kidnappers, and drug traffickers, their exploits quickly crossed into mythology. The Purple Gang became an almost obsession with the media. Accounts of the Gang's activities popped up in the newspapers across the country in the late 1970s. They were the shadow army of the underworld and every law enforcement agency's favorite suspect. They were accused of being behind all the major mob hits through the early 1980s and became the ultimate boogeyman in the era of mob upheaval and a flailing New York City mired in crime and financial woes. Digging through the mystery and mythos, Scott Deitche brings the gritty City of the late 1970s and early 1980s back to life in this in-depth account of the Purple Gang, the real members, their operations, and where some of the major players are today.

This book presents an historical and sociological account of the Italian mafia-type organisation known as the 'ndrangheta. It draws together diverse perspectives on the various 'ndrangheta clans and their behavioural models, focusing specifically on their organisational skills, their bonds with Calabrian society and Calabrian communities around the world, their mobility, and their characterisation as poly-crime organisations. The authors demonstrate that 'ndrangheta clans have an innovative way of being and doing mafia work through a dense network of relationships both in the 'upperworld' and in the 'underworld', a particularly acute sense of business, a reputation built on the protection of blood and family ties, and, last but not least, a symbiotic relationship and camouflage within Calabrian society. By focusing on both the structures and the activities of the clans and with findings based on judicial documents, this book explores why the 'ndrangheta is today labeled as "the most powerful Italian mafia". It will be of great interest to upper-level students and scholars of organised crime and sociology.

Unlike much of the existing literature on organised crime, this book is less focused on the problem per se as it is on understanding its implications. The latter, especially in fragile and conflict regions, amount to strategic challenges for the state. Whereas most commentators would agree that criminal activities are harmful, this volume addresses the questions of 'how?', 'for whom?' and, controversially, 'are they always harmful?' The volume is authored by experts with multi-year experience analysing criminal and other non-state activities. They do so through different lenses - conflict and security, development, and technology - engaging academics, practitioners and policy makers. They offer a comprehensive integrated response to the challenges of transnational organised crime beyond traditional law-enforcement driven recommendations.

This edited collection provides an original and comprehensive take on retail crime and its prevention, by combining international data and multidisciplinary perspectives from criminologists, economists, geographers, police officers and other experts. Drawing on environmental criminology theory and situational crime prevention, it focusses on crime and safety in retail environments but also the interplay between individuals, products and settings such as stores, commercial streets and shopping malls, as well as the wider context of situational conditions of the supply chain in which crime occurs. Chapters offer state-of-the-art research on retail crime from a range of countries such as Australia, Brazil, Israel, Italy, Sweden, the UK and the USA. This methodological and well-researched study is devoted to both academics and practitioners from a variety of disciplines and backgrounds whose common interest is to prevent retail crime and overall retail loss. The chapters 'Crime in a Scandinavian Shopping Centre' and 'Perceived Safety in a Shopping Centre' are published open access under a CC BY 4.0 license at link.springer.com.

Terrorism has become an everyday reality in most contemporary societies. In a context of heightened fear can juries be trusted to remain impartial when confronted by defendants charged with terrorism? Do they scrutinize prosecution cases carefully, or does emotion trump reason once the spectre of terrorism is invoked? This book examines these questions from a range of disciplinary perspectives. The authors look at the how jurors in terrorism trials are likely to respond to gruesome evidence, including beheading videos. The 'CSI effect' is examined as a possible response to forensic evidence, and jurors with different learning preferences are compared. Virtual interactive environments, built like computer games, may be created to provide animated reconstructions of the prosecution or defence case. This book reports on how to create such presentations, culminating in the analysis of a live simulated trial using interactive visual displays followed by jury deliberations. The team of international, transdisciplinary experts draw conclusions of global legal and political significance, and contribute to the growing scholarship on comparative counter-terrorism law. The book will be of great interest to scholars, students and practitioners of law, criminal justice, forensic science and psychology.

Drawing from an interdisciplinary body of research and data, Women of Piracy employs a criminological lens to explore how women have been involved in, and impacted by, maritime piracy operations from the 16th century to present day piracy off the coast of Somalia. The book challenges and resists popular understandings of women as peripheral to the criminal enterprise of piracy by presenting and analyzing their roles and experiences as victims, perpetrators, and criminal justice actors, showing that women have been, and continue to be, central figures in maritime piracy. Unfolding in three parts, part one sets the context by providing readers with a history of the masculinization of the sea. Part two focuses on the gendered division of labor in piracy operations, discussing how and why the roles and responsibilities associated with this gendered labor have emerged, persisted, evolved, and/or ceased over time, as well as considering which roles and responsibilities appear to be context-specific and which seem to transgress geographical locations. Part three explores how women have (or have not) been brought to justice for their participation in crimes of piracy as well as the roles of women in efforts to combat piracy. The overarching objective is to ignite a broader discussion about the various cultural, social, historical, and economic forces that create opportunities for women to participate in maritime piracy and counter-piracy, why women continue to be invisible figures of piracy, and what implications this has for how we study, police, and bring pirates to justice. The first criminologically-grounded, global study exploring the continuity and evolution of women in maritime piracy, this book will be of great interest to students and scholars of criminology, gender, feminist studies, international relations, anthropology, history, and political geography. It will also be useful to maritime and law enforcement professionals.

This book analyzes how strategic intelligence can support decision-makers in national policing organizations to anticipate transnational organized crime (TOC). The authors examine case studies from Australia, Canada and the UK, and argue for the development of empirically-grounded intelligence theory to aid the policy process and law enforcement.

This book presents primary research conducted in Italy, USA, Australia and the UK on countering strategies and institutional perceptions of Italian mafias and local organized crime groups. Through interviews and interpretation of original documents, this study firstly demonstrates the interaction between institutional understanding of the criminal threats and historical events that have shaped these perceptions. Secondly, it combines analysis of policies and criminal law provisions to identify how policing models which combat mafia and organised crime activities are organized and constructed in each country within a comparative perspective. After presenting the similarities between the four differing policing models, Sergi pushes the comparison further by identifying both conceptual and procedural convergences and divergences across both the four models and within international frameworks. By looking at topics as varied as mafia mobility, money laundering, drug networks and gang violence, this book ultimately seeks to reconsider the conceptualizations of both mafia and organized crime from a socio-behavioural and cultural perspective.

'Utterly compelling reading, The Other Girlfriend is inspiring and I wouldn't hesitate to highly recommend it.'Bestselling author Sheryl Browne She loves him... Lizzie Green once loved Tom Murphy with a passion that bordered on obsession. All she wanted was his love to be returned. Then one night something terrible happened and Tom left Lizzie broken hearted. She swore she would never let him hurt her again.... She loves him not. Now, ten years later, Tom turns up on Lizzie's doorstep still as charming as ever. Lizzie knows he still has the power to break her heart and destroy her life again. But Lizzie can't say no to him.... Can she? A gripping new psychological thriller from bestselling author Alex Stone. Perfect for fans of Sue Watson, Shalini Boland and S.E.Lynes Chillingly Compelling 5 Bestselling author Diane Saxon I just finished #TheOtherGirlfriend by Alex Stone Author and OMG. I had such an ominous feeling of uncertainty as I turned the pages. It was tense, engrossing and twisty! Loved it. Full review for publication on #CrimeBookJunkie. Recommend you add it to your TBR! Bestselling author Noelle Holton A brilliant debut 5 Bestselling author Erin Green I loved it!!! Couldn't put it down Life coach and author Lisa Phillips

This edited volume examines the use of militarised responses to different forms of criminal activity, discussing the outcomes and unintended consequences. Politicians and policymakers frequently use militarised responses to look tough on crime. The deployment of armies, navies, military assets and militarised approaches can send a powerful message, but have produced mixed results. While they generate the perception that governments are actively engaged on issues of concern to the public, and in some cases have resulted in notable successes, on the downside they have frequently also increased the loss of life, exacerbated the humanitarian consequences of a particular crime and entrenched divides between security and state institutions and the criminal proponents, narrowing the possibilities for future negotiated solutions. By focusing on four different areas of criminality - wildlife crime, piracy, migration and drug trafficking - the book allows context and evidence-based conclusions to be drawn on the strategic value and commonality of responses and their outcomes.

Smuggling people into industrialized countries has become a growing industry globally, and Chinese human smuggling represents a significant source of illegal immigration. The financing of the illegal immigration process, however, is a vastly under explored area. This book provides an in-depth understanding of the relationship between informal financial systems, illegal migration and human smuggling, tracing a trajectory of the evolution of Chinese underground banks in the US over the past two decades. With a focus on a border-spanning informal financial system from the perspective of their clients, this book elicits firsthand information from an extremely understudied population illustrating the motivation, patterns, and tendencies of their use of illegal fund transfer systems. Through extensive ethnographic fieldwork, this study illuminates the varied experiences of the undocumented Chinese immigrant population, providing revealing insights into the financial element of the migration and settlement process. Alongside discussion of policy implications for law enforcement in the US and China, Zhao explores whether Chinese underground banks represent a key mechanism in the larger social problem of illegal migration aided through human smuggling. Moreover, the book addresses the important question: is the Chinese underground banking system an integral part of organized crime, or is it a new type of ethnic-specific illegal enterprise?

Global cybercrime is arguably the biggest underworld industry of our times. Global forces and technologies such as mobile phones, social media and cloud computing are shaping the structure of the global cybercrime industry estimated at US$1 trillion. Nir Kshetri documents and compares the patterns, characteristics and processes of cybercrime activities in major regions and economies in the Global South such as China, India, the former Second World economies, Latin America and the Caribbean, Sub-Saharan Africa and Middle East and North Africa. Integrating theories from a wide range of disciplines, he explains initiatives at the global, supranational, national, sub-national and local levels.

This book provokes fresh ways of thinking about small developing States within the transnational legal order for combating money laundering and the financing of terrorism and proliferation (TAMLO). From the global wars on drugs and terror to journalistic exposes such as the 'Paradise', 'Panama' and 'Pandora' Papers, the Commonwealth Caribbean has been discursively stigmatised as a mythical island paradise of 'rogue' States. Not infrequently, their exercise of regulatory self-determination has been presented as the selling of their economic sovereignty to facilitate shady business deals and illicit finance from high-net-worth individuals, kleptocrats, tax-dodgers, organised crime networks and terrorist financiers. This book challenges conventional wisdom that Commonwealth Caribbean States are among the 'weakest links' within the global ecosystem to counter illicit finance. It achieves this by unmasking latent interests, and problematising coercive extraterritorial regulatory and surveillance practices, along the onshore/offshore and Global North/South axes. Interdisciplinary in its outlook, the book will appeal to policymakers, regulatory and supervisory authorities, academics and students concerned with better understanding legal and development policy issues related to risk-based regulatory governance of illicit finance. The book also provides an interesting exposition of substantive legal and policy issues arising from money laundering related to corruption and politically exposed persons, offshore finance, and offshore Internet gambling services.

Psychology of Gang Involvement expands existing knowledge by applying psychological knowledge to gangs, including how gang members think, their mental and emotional well-being, and their perceptions of gang involvement, as well as issues relating to gang prevention and intervention strategies. This book offers readers a clearer understanding of the important role that social psychological processes play in the formation and maintenance of gangs and gang membership. It will enhance readers' understanding of gang members' social cognition, emotional intelligence, well-being, and mental health, as well as how these factors potentially promote and sustain individual gang involvement. Readers will discover also how these important psychological characteristics vary according to an individual's commitment to a gang. Organized in three sections, the first focuses on issues relevant to theoretical perspectives of gang involvement. Chapters include detailed examinations of a gang member's experiences and the implications of these for theoretical development, and considerations of the importance of social and psychological issues such as group processes and levels of commitment to gang membership to, understand and explain involvement in gangs. The second section centers on issues such as adverse childhood experiences and trauma, and examines their links to male and female gang membership as potential risk factors and outcomes of gang involvement. The section concludes by contemplating how the mental health, traumatic experiences, and involvement in violence compares between gang members and other violent men in adulthood. The final section considers current responses to gang membership by evaluating individual and group-based approaches to gang prevention and intervention strategies, and concludes with a theoretical conceptualization of how a strengths-based approach could work to reduce gang involvement. This book will be a useful text for a wide range of readers interested in, or working with gang members, including academics and students, practitioners, youth workers, clinicians, and criminal justice agents.