This book examines community-based approaches to counter-terrorism through an analysis of the notions of community, partnership, engagement, gender and religion in order to shed new light on the potential of, and drawbacks to these approaches. Dr. Spalek stresses the need for policy makers and practitioners to reflect on the effectiveness of the initiatives that they are engaged with, particularly in relation to how community-targeted or community-focused they are.

The first close-up look at the hidden world of Somali pirates by a young journalist who dared to make his way into their remote havens and spent a year infiltrating their lives.
For centuries, stories of pirates have captured imaginations around the world. The recent ragtag bands of pirates off the coast of Somalia, hijacking multimillion-dollar tankers owned by international shipping conglomerates, have brought the scourge of piracy into the modern era. Jay Bahadur's riveting narrative expose--the first of its kind--looks at who these men are, how they live, the forces that created piracy in Somalia, how the pirates spend the ransom money, how they deal with their hostages, among much, much more. It is a revelation of a dangerous world at the epicenter of political and natural disaster.

Understanding Criminal Networks is a short methodological primer for those interested in studying illicit, deviant, covert, or criminal networks using social network analysis (SNA). Accessibly written by Gisela Bichler, a leading expert in SNA for dark networks, the book is chock-full of graphics, checklists, software tips, step-by-step guidance, and straightforward advice. Covering all the essentials, each chapter highlights three themes: the theoretical basis of networked criminology, methodological issues and useful analytic tools, and producing professional analysis. Unlike any other book on the market, the book combines conceptual and empirical work with advice on designing networking studies, collecting data, and analysis. Relevant, practical, theoretical, and methodologically innovative, Understanding Criminal Networks promises to jumpstart readers' understanding of how to cross over from conventional investigations of crime to the study of criminal networks.

Murder Inc. is the latest blockbuster by Ireland's most respected crime writer and journalist, Paul Williams. Murder Inc. is the definitive account of how organized crime exploded in Limerick from the 1990s and in the noughties. It describes the depravity and decadence of the gangs, their deadly rivaliries, and their reigns of terror over the community in which they lived. Finally, Williams traces the faultlines that eventually led to the implosion of the gangs and their defeat. Drawing on his vast inside knowledge of the criminal underworld, an unparalleled range of contacts and eye witness interviews, Paul Williams provides a chilling insight into the mobsters and events that corroded entire neighbourhoods and devastated countless lives.

Why would a gun-wielding, tattoo-bearing "homie" trade in la vida loca for a Bible and the buttoned-down lifestyle of an evangelical hermano (brother in Christ)? To answer this question, Robert Brenneman interviewed sixty-three former gang members from the "Northern Triangle" of Central America--Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras--most of whom left their gang for evangelicalism. Unlike in the United States, membership in a Central American gang is hasta la morgue. But the most common exception to the "morgue rule" is that of conversion or regular participation in an evangelical church. Do gang members who weary of their dangerous lifestyle simply make a rational choice to opt for evangelical religion? Brenneman finds this is only partly the case, for many others report emotional conversions that came unexpectedly, when they found themselves overwhelmed by a sermon, a conversation, or a prayer service. An extensively researched and gritty account, Homies and Hermanos sheds light on the nature of youth violence, of religious conversion, and of evangelical churches in Central America.

The expansion of organized crime across national borders has become a key security concern for the international community. In this theoretically and empirically vibrant portrait of a global phenomenon, Jana Arsovska examines some of the most widespread myths about the so-called Albanian Mafia. Based on more than a decade of research, including interviews with victims, offenders, and law enforcement across ten countries, as well as court files and confidential intelligence reports, Decoding Albanian Organized Crime presents a comprehensive overview of the causes, codes of conduct, activities, migration, and structure of Albanian organized crime groups in the Balkans, Western Europe, and the United States. Paying particular attention to the dynamic relationships among culture, politics, and organized crime, the book develops a framework for understanding the global growth of the criminal underworld and provides a model for future comparative research.

Albert Fried recalls the rise and fall of an underworld culture that bred some of America's most infamous racketeers, bootleggers, gamblers, and professional killers, spawned by a culture of vice and criminality on New York's Lower East Side and similar environments in Chicago, Cleveland, Boston, Detroit, Newark, and Philadelphia. The author adds an important dimension to this story as he discusses the Italian gangs that teamed up with their Jewish counterparts to form multicultural syndicates.

'Human trafficking' brings to mind gangsters forcing people, often women and girls, to engage in dangerous activities against their will, under threat of violence. However, human trafficking is not limited to the sex trade, and this picture is inadequate. It occurs in many different industries---domestic service, construction, factory labour, on farms and fishing boats---and targets people from all over the globe. Human trafficking is much more complicated and nuanced picture than its common representations. Victims move through multiple categories along their journey and at their destination, shifting from smuggled migrant to trafficking victim and back again several times. The emergence of a criminal pyramid scheme also makes many victims complicit in their own exploitation. Finally, the threat posed by the involvement of organised crime is little understood. The profit motives and violence that come with such crime make human trafficking more dangerous for its victims and difficult to detect or address. Drawing on field research in source, transit and destination countries, the authors analyse trafficking from four countries: Albania, Eritrea, Nigeria and Vietnam. What emerges is a business model that evolves in response to changes in legislation, governance and law enforcement capacities.

The stunning true story of the rise of Nazism in America in the years leading to WWII—and the fearless Jewish gangsters and crime families who joined forces to fight back. With an intense cinematic style, acclaimed nonfiction crime author Michael Benson reveals the thrilling role of Jewish mobsters like Bugsy Siegel in stomping out the terrifying tide of Nazi sympathizers during the 1930s and 1940s.

As Adolph Hitler rose to power in 1930s Germany, a growing wave of fascism began to take root on American soil. Nazi activists started to gather in major American cities, and by 1933, there were more than one-hundred anti-Semitic groups operating openly in the United States. Few Americans dared to speak out or fight back—until an organized resistance of notorious Jewish mobsters (Meyer Lansky, Bugsy Siegel, Red Levine, and others) waged their own personal war against the Nazis in their midst, gangland-style . . .

Packed with surprising, little-known facts, graphic details, and unforgettable personalities, Gangsters vs. Nazis chronicles the mob’s most ruthless tactics in taking down fascism—inspiring ordinary Americans to join them in their fight. The book culminates in one of the most infamous events of the pre-war era—the 1939 Nazi rally in Madison Square Garden—in which law-abiding citizens stood alongside hardened criminals to fight against the Nazis for the soul of America.

This is the story of the mob that’s rarely told—one of the most fascinating chapters in American history and American organized crime.

This engrossing tale of gangs and organized criminality begins in the frontier saloons situated in the marshy flats of Chicago, the future world class city of Mid-continent. Gangland Chicago recounts the era of parlor gambling, commercialized vice districts continuing through the bloody Prohibition bootlegging wars; failed reform movements; the rise of post-World War II juvenile criminal gangs and the saga of the Blackstone Rangers in a chaotic, racially divided city. , Gang violence and street crime is endemic in contemporary Chicago. There is much more to the saga of crime, politics, and armed violence than Al Capone and John Dillinger. Gangland Chicago explores the changing patterns of criminal behavior, politics, gangs, youth crime and the failures of reform in its historic totality. Richard Lindberg takes the reader on a journey through decades of a troubled past to delve deep into the evolution of street gangs and organized violence endemic in Chicago. Small ethnic gangs organized in ethnic slum districts of the city expanded into the well-known organized crime syndicates of Chicago's history. Gangland Chicago is full of stories of unchecked violence, lawlessness, and mayhem. Unlike other standard true crime accounts focused exclusively on the Prohibition era, this historical look-back probes the obscure and forgotten dark corners of city crime history. Lindberg details how both "organized" and "dis-organized" street gangs have paralyzed city neighborhoods and transformed the crimes of the Windy City from street thuggery and common ruffians protected and nurtured by politicians into a protected class is gripping. Gangland Chicago is a revealing look at the Chicago underworld of yesterday and today. This comprehensive volume is sure to entertain and inform any reader interested in the evolution of organized crime and gangs in America's most representative city of the American Heartland.

Unckle is a foreign national who escapes from Kashmir Province in Pakistan after attracting attention for leading protests against the Indian occupation of Kashmir. It is during a peaceful protest that he becomes a violent character after suffering at the hands of police during a protest march. Unckle is re-united with his brother - Barbar - and the two brothers make use of Barbar’s link to Beijing and the bosses of the State Security Firm. The tale unfolds as the two brothers agree to do the bidding of the Beijing masters.

The international underworld of human trafficking, rhino horn poaching and the capture of money from the masses, takes a foothold in the coastal city of East London and Grahamstown.

Unckle will reach into the psyche of all Africans while the storyline will hold an international audience spellbound with the cultural background to three nations - Pakistan, China, South Africa, and in particular, the amaXhosa characters as the ancestors are invoked to deal with Rafiki Majosa and the foreigner, Barbar.

Andrew Hutchinson draws his experience from within the auctioneering, trading and wildlife arenas to bring you Unckle, a fictional/factual tour of the underbelly of the corrupt grab for Africa and her resources.