Internationally known authorities in criminal justice provide one of the most comprehensive and detailed surveys today of the diverse ethnic and racial groups in the criminal underworld and their grave threats to the very fabric of American society. This coherent overview describes Mafia, Chinese, African American, Russian, and other criminal activities in different cities currently with historical background, showing the pernicious effects that their illicit operations have had on the economic, social, political, and moral life of the nation. This one-volume reference also assesses law enforcement and crime control programs during the 20th century, defines key problems, analyzes recent trends, and reviews the basic research about organized crime through the years. Lengthy bibliographical data and a full index further enrich this landmark study. This sobering overview should be required reading for specialist and general audiences alike and for broad library use given the serious threat of organized crime to all Americans in the 1990s.

The President's Commission on Organized Crime predicted that Asian crime groups would be the United States' foremost organized crime problem by the 1990s. There are few comprehensive studies on the nature and scope of these groups. Ko-lin Chin warns that our limited law enforcement resources will be ineffective without a precise understanding of the norms, values, structure, criminal patterns, and interrelationships of these groups. His study takes a major step toward this effort. A sociological investigation of Triads, tongs, and street gangs, Chin's volume explores the where, how, and why of these groups as well as the connection between Triad subculture and criminality. Chinese Subculture and Criminality is a thoroughly researched study of Asian criminality and its manifestations in America's ethnic communities. Ko-lin Chin describes both the history and activities of Chinese secret societies, and how these societies degenerated into crime groups. He analyzes the symbiotic relationship of Chinese communities and tongs; and details the history of the gangs' development in San Franscisco, Los Angeles, Monterey Park, and New York City. The causative and intervening factors leading to the rise of these gangs is explored as well as their nature and activities. Personal and group characteristics help explain why these gangs persist. Comparisons are made with other ethnic gangs. The volume predicts the future direction of Chinese organized crime. It concludes with a discussion of ethnic succession and the role of Chinese gangs in the heroin trade.

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.

This work examines the structure and illegal activities of organized crime groups in Taiwan and explores the infiltration of crime groups into the business and political arenas. It looks at the intricate relationship among government officials, elected deputies, businessmen, and underworld figures.

In recent years, black gold politics has become a major issue in Taiwan. The term black gold politics refers to the penetration of violent racketeers and self-serving businessmen into politics. According to Ko-lin Chin, this situation can be very threatening to a society since it undermines the integrity and legitimacy of public institutions. As members of the underworld transform their criminal identities into that of legitimate businessmen a society may experience changes in the institutional structure of the political economy. This book examines the structure and illegal activities of organized crime groups in Taiwan and explores the infiltration of crime groups into the business and political arenas. The author looks at the intricate relationship among government officials, elected deputies, businessmen, and underworld figures. He evaluates the impact of the purification of organized crime in Taiwan and includes data collected from first-hand interviews with underworld figures, government officials, law enforcement authorities, elected representatives, and other key informants. This timely study will help academics and policymakers to better understand the social and poli

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.

No one knows how many Chinese are being smuggled into the United States, but credible estimates put the number at 50,000 arrivals each year. Astonishing as this figure is, it represents only a portion of the Chinese illegally residing in the United States. Smuggled Chinese presents a detailed account of how this traffic is conducted and what happens to the people who risk their lives to reach Gold Mountain.

When the Golden Venture ran aground off New York's coast in 1993 and ten of the 260 Chinese on board drowned, the public outcry about human smuggling became front-page news. Probing into the causes and consequences of this clandestine traffic, Ko-lin Chin has interviewed more than 300 people -- smugglers, immigrants, government officials, and business owners -- in the United States, China, and Taiwan. Their poignant and chilling testimony describes a flourishing industry in which smugglers -- big and little snakeheads -- command fees as high as $30,000 to move desperate but hopeful men and women around the world. For many who survive the hunger, filthy and crowded conditions, physical and sexual abuse, and other perils of the arduous journey, life in the United States, specifically in New York's Chinatown, is a disappointment if not a curse. Few will return to China, though, because their families depend on the money and status gained by having a relative in the States.

In Smuggled Chinese, Ko-lin Chin puts a human face on this intractable international problem, showing how flaws in national policies and lax law enforcement perpetuate the cycle of desperation and suffering. He strongly believes, however, that the problem of human smuggling will continue as long as China'scitizens are deprived of fundamental human rights and economic security.

Smuggled Chinese will engage readers interested in human rights, Asian and Asian American studies, urban studies, and sociology.

This book is a systematic study of New York City's Chinatown gangs. First-hand data was collected from a substantial number of gang victims, gang members, community leaders, and law enforcement authorities. Also examined are the details and severity of gang extortion, gang characteristics, gang violence, gang enterprise, and gang control strategies.

The Golden Triangle region that joins Burma, Thailand, and Laos is one of the global centers of opiate and methamphetamine production. Opportunistic Chinese businessmen and leaders of various armed groups are largely responsible for the manufacture of these drugs. The region is defined by the apparently conflicting parallel strands of criminality and efforts at state building, a tension embodied by a group of individuals who are simultaneously local political leaders, drug entrepreneurs, and members of heavily armed militias.

Ko-lin Chin, a Chinese American criminologist who was born and raised in Burma, conducted five hundred face-to-face interviews with poppy growers, drug dealers, drug users, armed group leaders, law-enforcement authorities, and other key informants in Burma, Thailand, and China. The Golden Triangle provides a lively portrait of a region in constant transition, a place where political development is intimately linked to the vagaries of the global market in illicit drugs.

Chin explains the nature of opium growing, heroin and methamphetamine production, drug sales, and drug use. He also shows how government officials who live in these areas view themselves not as drug kingpins, but as people who are carrying the responsibility for local economic development on their shoulders.

In a country long associated with the trade in opiates, the Chinese government has for decades applied extreme measures to curtail the spread of illicit drugs, only to find that the problem has worsened. Burma is blamed as the major producer of illicit drugs and conduit for the entry of drugs into China. Which organizations are behind the heroin trade? What problems and prospects of drug control in the so-called "Golden Triangle" drug-trafficking region are faced by Chinese and Southeast Asian authorities? In The Chinese Heroin Trade, noted criminologists Ko-Lin Chin and Sheldon Zhangexamine the social organization of the trafficking of heroin from the Golden Triangle to China and the wholesale and retail distribution of the drug in China. Based on face-to-face interviews with hundreds of incarcerated drug traffickers, street-level drug dealers, users, and authorities, paired with extensive fieldwork in the border areas of Burma and China and several major urban centers in China and Southeast Asia, this volume reveals how the drug trade has evolved in the Golden Triangle since the late 1980s. Chin and Zhang also explore the marked characteristics of heroin traffickers; the relationship between drug use and sales in China; and how China compares to other international drug markets. The Chinese Heroin Trade is a fascinating, nuanced account of the world of high-risk drug trafficking in a tightly-controlled society.

In this book, eighteen Chinese women tell how they came to sell sex in Hong Kong, Macau, Taipei, Bangkok, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Jakarta, Los Angeles, and New York. The women’s candid stories put a human face on issues of globalized commercial sex and provide a raw, inside view of the money-driven transnational sex industry. The author, an expert in the field of criminal justice, frames their personal accounts with contextual details and incisive commentary to provide a rich understanding of the realities and myths of prostitution and global sex trafficking. While the interviews were gathered as part of an extensive research project for the author’s 2012 book, Selling Sex Overseas, the full accounts are published here for the first time. The women describe, in their own words, what motivated them to leave China to work in the sex trade abroad, how much they earn, what hardships they face, and what they hope for in the future.

The National Institute of Justice (NIJ) is the research, development and evaluation agency of the US Department of Justice. The NIJ is dedicated to improving knowledge and understanding of crime and justice issues through science. NIJ provides objective and independent knowledge and tools to reduce crime and promote justice, particularly at the state and local levels. Each year, the NIJ publishes and sponsors dozens of research and study documents detailing results, analyses and statistics that help to further the organization's mission. These documents relate to topics like biometrics, corrections technology, gun violence, digital forensics, human trafficking, electronic crime, terrorism, tribal justice and more. This document is one of these publications.

The Golden Triangle region that joins Burma, Thailand, and Laos is one of the global centers of opiate and methamphetamine production. Opportunistic Chinese businessmen and leaders of various armed groups are largely responsible for the manufacture of these drugs. The region is defined by the apparently conflicting parallel strands of criminality and efforts at state building, a tension embodied by a group of individuals who are simultaneously local political leaders, drug entrepreneurs, and members of heavily armed militias.

Ko-lin Chin, a Chinese American criminologist who was born and raised in Burma, conducted five hundred face-to-face interviews with poppy growers, drug dealers, drug users, armed group leaders, law-enforcement authorities, and other key informants in Burma, Thailand, and China. The Golden Triangle provides a lively portrait of a region in constant transition, a place where political development is intimately linked to the vagaries of the global market in illicit drugs.

Chin explains the nature of opium growing, heroin and methamphetamine production, drug sales, and drug use. He also shows how government officials who live in these areas view themselves not as drug kingpins, but as people who are carrying the responsibility for local economic development on their shoulders.