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

In 1978, the US government waged a war against organised crime. One man was left behind the lines. From 1976 until 1981, Special Agent Pistone lived undercover with the Mafia. Only able to visit his young family once every few months, Pistone - under the alias Donnie Brasco - ate, drank, partied, worked and sometimes killed with the wiseguys. He got so close that his Mafia partner, Lefty Ruggiero, asked him to officiate as best man at his wedding. Pistone's eventual testimony, in such spectacular prosecutions as 'the Pizza Connection' and 'the Mafia Commission' resulted in more than 200 indictments and 100 convictions of members of organised crime.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

'A thriller-like tale ... [Mazur] is a good story-teller, with a flair for details that brings the criminal and their world to life' Daily Mail 'Bob Mazur delivers again ... he artfully takes the reader through the harrowing account of life as an undercover cop embedded in the drug cartels' BRYAN CRANSTON 'A book you can't put down, nor will you' JOSEPH PISTONE, aka Donnie Brasco From the bestselling author who inspired Bryan Cranston's The Infiltrator. Three years after undercover agent Robert Mazur infiltrated Pablo Escobar's Medellin drug cartel, he re-emerged, a half-million-dollar bounty still on his head, with a new identity for a risky new sting. Deployed to Panama, he worked, travelled, partied and washed millions with Central America's criminal elite. Partnered with a DEA task force agent, Mazur slipped effortlessly into Colombia's notorious Cali drug cartel. But as his underworld reputation skyrocketed, the operation started going dangerously off the rails. Robert Mazur's riveting true story exposes the corruption at the heart of one of the most explosive undercover missions of his career. Refusing to acknowledge the danger, Mazur was obsessed with seeing the mission through to its treacherous end: expose the Cali cartel, find out who betrayed him, and escape with his life. This is his true story.

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

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

This innovative book examines radicalization from new psychological perspectives by examining the different typologies of radicalizing individuals, what makes individuals resilient against radicalization, and events that can trigger individuals to radicalize or to deradicalize. What is radicalization? Which psychological processes or events in a person's life play a role in radicalization? What determines whether a personal is resilient against radicalization, and is deradicalization something that we can achieve? This book goes beyond previous publications on this topic by identifying concrete key events in the process of radicalization, providing a useful theoretical framework that summarizes the current state-of-the-art research on radicalization and deradicalization. A model is presented in which a distinction is made between different levels of radicalization and deradicalization, with key underlying psychological needs discussed: the need for identity, justice, significance, and sensation. The authors also describe what makes people resilient against messages from "the outside world" when they belong to an extremist group and discuss observable events which may "trigger" a person to radicalize (further) or to deradicalize. Including real-world examples and clear guidelines for interventions aimed at prevention of radicalization and stimulation of deradicalization, this is essential reading for policy makers, researchers, practitioners, and students interested in this crucial societal issue.

The book focuses on the psychosocial effects that organized crime related violence has produced in Mexico. It connects one of the major worries of our times - terrorism - with the conditions of peacelessness that prevail in Mexico. Specifically, the project explores the role played by fear as a peace disruptor, as well as one of the most important obstacles to social and democratic development, and inclusiveness. The volume contributes to the debate on whether the escalation of violence in Mexico since 2006 has produced circumstances similar to those countries that suffer terrorism, and to what degree that discussion can help in the construction of a more democratic and inclusive society.

Most research on organized crime reveals only a limited sense of its history. Our understanding suffers as a result. Space, Time, and Organized Crime shows how arguments about the sources, consequences, and extent of crime are distorted as a consequence of crude empiricism. Originally published in Europe in 1991 as Perspectives on Organizing Crime, this book is a timely blend of history, criticism, and research. Fully one-fourth of this new edition contains hitherto unpublished materials especially relevant to the American experience.

Space, Time, and Organized Crime describes the background of Progressive Era New York. It then broadens its scope by exploring the changes in drug production and distribution in Europe from about 1925 to the mid-1930s. Block addresses such little explored issues as the ethnicity of traders, the structure of drug syndicates, and the impact of legislation that attempted to criminalize increasing aspects of the world's narcotic industry prior to the Second World War. He then goes on to present organized crime's involvement with transnational political movements, intelligence services, and political murders. Space, Time, and Organized Crime concentrates on ambiguities evident in organized crime control, such as the U.S. Internal Revenue Service's protection of criminal off-shore financial interests, and the contradictions found in America's war on drugs.

Space, Time, and Organized Crime demonstrates that the essential nature of crime in the twentieth century (regardless of where it takes place) cannot be understood without sound historical studies and a more sophisticated criminological approach. Block's unique blend of stratification in a historical context will be of special interest to historians, sociologists, criminologists, and penologist.

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 are unparalleled in any other published work on gang violence in southern Africa.

Transnational Organized Crime and Gangs: Intervention, Prevention, and Suppression of Cybersecurity provides several first-person examples of the mind set and mentality present in today's transnational organized crime groups combined with a holistic approach towards prevention and intervention in the cybersecurity space. Transnational organized crime groups have tremendous power and money, which means they have the ability to pay hackers to defeat cybersecurity measures. The dangers posed by organized crime groups are nothing new. For decades, these groups have launched sophisticated attacks against individuals as well as major corporations. Billions of dollars have been stolen every year, and large, continuous hacks of our highly sensitive computer systems. What is new, is the acknowledgement that cybersecurity should be high priority for every individual, company, and government entity. While Department of Homeland Security's involvement in cybersecurity is a step in the right direction, more measures need to be put in place that facilitates collaboration across industries and government entities. Transnational organized criminal elements will continue to find creative and effective ways to use technology for illegal activity. They will continue doing so unless law enforcement works closer with policymakers to enact uniform laws, regulations, and policies beyond current practices. Transnational Organized Crime and Gangs explores effective programs, policies, technologies and builds a body of knowledge to guide future regulations and resources for our criminal justice leaders of tomorrow.

The true story of London's toughest, deadliest street gangs: the events, the rules and the real top boys. Are the streets of London some of the deadliest in the world? What's the truth behind the headlines? And who are the real top boys? Looking beyond the hit TV series, The Real Top Boys reveals the lives of the street gangs who have taken over, and now rule, dozens of corners of the UK's capital. Bestselling true crime author Wensley Clarkson takes us on a tour of the housing estates and volatile neighbourhoods where pride, rivalry and revenge are the codes people live and die by. He talks to the criminals who have helped create this chilling modern-day underworld and recounts the vicious turf wars that changed the map, unravels the rules and rights of the streets, and charts the rise and fall of many of the game's key players over the decades that have transformed the city. Featuring interviews with real-life gangsters and told in a gripping story that lays bare the hard life in this world, The Real Top Boys is the ultimate account of gang life in London and a jaw-dropping look at who really runs the streets.

The 'ndrangheta - the Calabrian region of Italy's mafia - is one of wealthiest and most powerful criminal organizations today. It is considered Italy's most powerful mafia; it's not only the main object of concern for anti-mafia units in Italy, but also for joint investigative teams in Europe and beyond. Combining autobiography, travel ethnography, memoir, academic rigour and investigative journalism, this book provides a global outlook on the 'ndrangheta, taking the reader to small villages and locations in Italy and abroad to Australia, Canada, United States and Argentina.

For over fifty years, Freddie Foreman's name has commanded respect, and occasionally fear, from those who work to uphold the law - and those who operate just outside of it. With almost all of his compatriots - like the notorious Kray twins - now gone, Freddie is the last real gangster. A true entrepreneur and businessman, Freddie was one of the great personalities of the criminal underworld. A man of principle, protective of his family and unfailingly loyal to his friends, Freddie was someone who could be relied upon with complete confidence in all circumstances. Running with the Krays is the no-holds-barred account of life alongside the Kray twins - as well as dozens of other recognisable 'Faces' - and the exciting and glamorous world they lived.