Gotham unbound Dutch style

An inquiry committee of the Dutch parliament concluded that the capital Amsterdam – and especially the famous Red light district – is a centre of national and international organized crime. The city of Amsterdam set up a project to develop and implement an administrative approach to combat the organized crime problem: the Van Traa-project. This project is internationally recognized as a successful example of such an approach. Elaborating on an evaluation study this article critically analyses the policy theory and the effects of this project. This analysis shows that the assumptions that underlie the project are debatable, or proved hard to employ in practice. Despite the fact that in the policy plans the necessity of a multi-agency approach is stressed, external parties such as the police and the public prosecutors department take a rather passive stand, preventing the administrative approach of becoming a part of a truly integrative approach to organized crime. Furthermore, this article proves that it is hard to confirm this successfulness in a sound scientific manner. Many positive results can be observed, but it remains unclear to what extent these results have an impact on organized crime. Although some indications of a plausible impact of the measures taken in the Van Traa-project on organized crime were found, this article also refers to some indications of counterproductive effects.     

Women,brokerage and transnational organized crime. Empirical results from the Dutch Organized Crime Monitor

This paper analyzes the role of women in various types of transnational organized crime and tests the ‘gendered markets’ hypothesis by Zhang et al. (Criminology 45(3):699–733 2007) for a wide cross-section of 150 cases from the Dutch Organized Crime Monitor. The main information sources for the Dutch Organized Crime Monitor are closed Dutch police investigations into criminal groups, often spanning a period of several years. Following four data sweeps, a wide cross-section of 150 cases was collected about various forms of organized crime (period 1994–2011): ‘traditional’ drug trafficking cases (cocaine, heroin, and cannabis), but also other—less frequently prioritized—phenomena such as synthetic drugs (production and export), human smuggling, human trafficking, and fraud and money laundering. The paper discusses several important theoretical perspectives from the organized crime literature: the gendered markets hypothesis; the social embeddedness of (transnational) organized crime: and the idea of brokerage. Furthermore, empirical data are presented on how often women play a (prominent) role in different types of criminal activities and which roles they play. These findings are related to the ‘gendered markets’ hypothesis and alternative explanations. Further qualitative analysis is presented on the transnational aspects which can be discerned in the studied cases: transnational marriage and transnational relationships; language and mediation; and migration and legal status. Finally, the main conclusions are discussed as well as their theoretical and empirical relevance.     

浅论走私贩卖易制毒化学品案件的特点及侦查

随着世界毒品问题的泛滥和化学合成毒品的扩张,受高额利润的诱惑,走私、贩卖易制毒化学品的活动剧增。易制毒化学品流入非法渠道以及贩卖、走私出境用于生产、加工毒品现象日益严重。易制毒化学品犯罪的主要特点是品种多、数量大,主体复杂,隐蔽性强,境内外毒贩相互勾结、结伙作案。执法机关必须充分认识非法走私、贩卖易制毒化学品活动的危害性,积极主动地进行公开查缉、海关实行有效的监督管理、科学地组织实施控制下交付、实行案件倒查、即时讯问犯罪嫌疑人,及时、有效地打击、制止犯罪。     

The prediction and control of organized crime: A risk assessment instrument for targeting law enforcement efforts

Linking isolated instances of organized crime in a systematic way can inform law enforcement in identifying high-risk activities and markets and prioritizing them according to objective factors known to be associated with organized crime. There are five ways in which risk assessment organized crime can be achieved. Improvements to data collection, utilizing a team approach to gather information, identifying common elements in organized crime incidents, understanding the parameters of a risk assessment instrument, and connecting organized crime risk assessment to the implementation of law and policy are practical ways in which organized crime activity can be better anticipated, investigated, and prevented. Connecting isolated incidents to organized crime through better information from offenders, victims, and police is possible with teams of investigators, researchers, and analysts. An organized crime risk assessment tool is presented that offers systematic analysis of opportunity factors, the criminal environment, and harm potential among the seventeen risk factors identified. Risk assessment can be used to evaluate the influence of organized crime in local jurisdictions, and the impact of new laws and policies that affect commerce and criminal opportunities.     

Problems of definition: What is organized crime?

What do most people, or at least most Americans, think of when they hear, see, or read the term “organized crime”? What do they know about it? And from whence do they get their information? What about law enforcement practitioners, prosecutors, judges, and politicians? And, what about academics and journalists, the folks who study and write about organized crime? Agreeing upon a commonly accepted definition of just what is organized crime has been a continuing problem for both research and policy. The discussion that follows addresses various dimensions of this problem, looks at the implications, and makes certain recommendations.     

有组织犯罪刑罚之比较研究--兼论我国刑法关于有组织犯罪刑罚规定的完善

有组织犯罪目前已成为各国普遍关注的热点问题.本文通过对各国关于有组织犯罪刑罚的具体规定比较,建议我国刑法对有组织犯罪的刑罚规定从以下几方面予以完善:扩大财产刑的适用范围;增加规定其他附加刑;并且,对有组织犯罪的犯罪分子在刑罚执行过程中应予以一定的限制,以贯彻对有组织犯罪从严打击的刑事政策.     

Recruitment into Organized Crime: An Agent-Based Approach Testing the Impact of Different Policies

Journal of Quantitative Criminology - We test the effects of four policy scenarios on recruitment into organized crime. The policy scenarios target (i) organized crime leaders and (ii) facilitators...     

DOES CRIME JUST MOVE AROUND THE CORNER? A CONTROLLED STUDY OF SPATIAL DISPLACEMENT AND DIFFUSION OF CRIME CONTROL BENEFITS*

Recent studies point to the potential theoretical and practical benefits of focusing police resources on crime hot spots. However, many scholars have noted that such approaches risk displacing crime or disorder to other places where programs are not in place. Although much attention has been paid to the idea of displacement, methodological problems associated with measuring it have often been overlooked. We try to fill these gaps in measurement and understanding of displacement and the related phenomenon of diffusion of crime control benefits. Our main focus is on immediate spatial displacement or diffusion of crime to areas near the targeted sites of an intervention. Do focused crime prevention efforts at places simply result in a movement of offenders to areas nearby targeted sites—“do they simply move crime around the corner”? Or, conversely, will a crime prevention effort focusing on specific places lead to improvement in areas nearby—what has come to be termed a diffusion of crime control benefits? Our data are drawn from a controlled study of displacement and diffusion in Jersey City, New Jersey. Two sites with substantial street‐level crime and disorder were targeted and carefully monitored during an experimental period. Two neighboring areas were selected as “catchment areas” from which to assess immediate spatial displacement or diffusion. Intensive police interventions were applied to each target site but not to the catchment areas. More than 6,000 20‐minute social observations were conducted in the target and catchment areas. They were supplemented by interviews and ethnographic field observations. Our findings indicate that, at least for crime markets involving drugs and prostitution, crime does not simply move around the corner. Indeed, this study supports the position that the most likely outcome of such focused crime prevention efforts is a diffusion of crime control benefits to nearby areas.     

A model of local crime displacement

In this paper, we develop a two-region model of crime spatial displacement. For high crime regions, the crime rate in one locality is negatively influenced by the crime rate of the other. The magnitude of the displacement depends on the distance between the two regions and on their relative size. For given sized neighbors, a closer distance implies greater displacement. When one region is larger, relative to the other, this increases the displacement, holding distance fixed. Examples show that the displacement from the treated to the adjacent areas can be small, if the relative size of the former is small. Nonetheless, the displacement can be large for other nearby areas, provided that the treated region is relatively big. Neglecting this result can cause an upward bias at the estimated impact of a policy. We also analyze the consequences for the design of public policies.     

Quantitative criminology in The Netherlands

This article briefly describes quantitative criminology in The Netherlands since the seventies. Dutch quantitative criminologists have been active in most fields of the discipline of criminology: research has been done on the etiology of crime and, in relation to this, the self-report methodology. A number of victimization surveys have been executed, and in relation to this, attention was given to fear of crime, victims in the judicial system, and situational approaches to crime. There has been research on policy evaluation, sentencing, and differential treatment in the criminal justice system, and alternative sanctions. Recently three major international studies have been coordinated by Dutch criminologists: an international self-report study, an international victim survey of households, and an international survey of victimization among businesses. In this article we describe the first two studies and briefly compare some of their features. Overall, it appears that Dutch quantitative criminology is embedded in the international mainstream of criminology and, in general, has been strongly related to policy concerns.     

Of bogus hunters,queenpins and mules: the varied roles of women in transnational organized crime in Southern Africa

Organized crime scholars have paid scant attention to gender and stereotyped roles of women in the commission of organized crime activities. Traditionally, organized crime is seen as a form of criminality perpetrated by men only. Women are usually portrayed as victims of organized crime or as “mean girls”, girlfriends, wives, lovers of brides of notorious gangsters and mobsters. In the southern African context, little historical or comparative data is available on the role of women in organized crime. Existing data is basic and proceeds on the assumption of gender-neutrality or the implied male composition of organized crime groups. The link of women to organized crime is one of suffering and exploitation. However, in reality women fulfill varied roles and functions within transnational organized crime networks in the region. In some instances, they are the foot soldiers of drug and human trafficking syndicates. Sometimes they are the intermediaries or powerful matriarchs at the apex of transnational organized crime networks. Reliant on empirical findings undertaken for a regional 3-year project on organized crime trends in southern Africa, this paper will examine the dynamism of the role of women in organized crime in the region and argues that women play a multifaceted role with implications for themselves, their families, society and organized crime. Gender mainstreaming within scholarly literature and policy research is in nascent stages, this paper pleads for a more gender-sensitive approach to organized crime analysis.     

Shipping and scuttling: Criminogenesis in marine insurance

Among the instances of maritime fraud, the scuttling of ships, the deliberate sinking of a ship in order to collect the insurance money, stands out. It has been suggested that marine transport is prone to infiltration by organized crime groups. These are suggestions that have never been substantiated, but they could point towards a criminogenic market-structure of the (marine) insurance industry. The Dutch marine insurance-industry has a reputation to lose. The insuring of ships requires skill, professionalism and money, but the practice of marine insurance has hardly changed since the Dutch Golden Age. Drawing upon the results of two years of fieldwork in the Dutch marine insurance industry, it will be argued that the scuttling of ships is interlinked and intertwined with the practice of marine insurance and the way the marine insurance industry is commercially and legally organized. An analysis of the opportunity-for-fraud-structure of the (Dutch) marine insurance market will be made. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

SAVINGS AND LOAN FRAUD AS ORGANIZED CRIME: TOWARD A CONCEPTUAL TYPOLOGY OF CORPORATE ILLEGALITY*

This paper proposes a classification scheme for distinguishing “organized crime” and “corporate crime” based not on the occupational position or social status of their perpetrators, but on the motives and methods of the offenses themselves. Using government documents, interviews with FBI investigators and thrift regulators, as well as a variety of secondary sources, it documents patterns of crime in the savings and loan industry and demonstrates that these conspiracies more closely approximate organized crime than corporate crime. Included in the discussion is a brief exploration of the other forms of corporate illegality to which this broader typology can be applied. The paper concludes with a discussion of the theoretical and policy implications of applying the organized crime model to certain forms of white-collar crime and argues that with the proliferation of financial fraud, it is imperative to replace traditional ad hominem assumptions about corporate illegality with more analytically useful distinctions based on the modus operandi.     

Measuring the Geographical Displacement and Diffusion of Benefit Effects of Crime Prevention Activity

The displacement of crime is an important criminological phenomenon. However, while there has been theoretical discussion of this issue in the research literature, there has been little in the way of either standardized empirical work that investigates the incidence of displacement or in the development of techniques that can be used to measure it. In the current paper we discuss a new technique, the weighted displacement quotient (WDQ), that was developed to measure the geographical displacement of crime. A critical feature of the rationale is that displacement can only be attributed to crime prevention activity if crime is reduced in the target area considered. Thus, the WDQ not only measures what occurs in a buffer (displacement) zone but also relates changes in this area to those in the target area. Part of the appeal of the measure is that it can be used either with aggregate or disaggregate crime data and for any geographical boundary selected, provided the appropriate data are available. In addition to detecting displacement, when detailed data are available, the technique can also be used to identify where the effect was most prominent. The WDQ can equally be used to measure the diffusion of benefit of any crime prevention activity. A series of examples are presented for illustration purposes.     

试析有组织犯罪的演变特征及存在形态

我国有关黑社会性质组织犯罪的立法虽经多次修订和司法解释，不仅仍难以消除理论上的纷争和执法上的不统一，而且客观上也难以发挥遏制有组织犯罪发展的功能。立法与司法的这种无为状态，表面上看只是立法规范的表述问题，实质上则是因这一刑事规范本身缺乏坚实的事实基础导致在立法观念与规范设计上出现重大缺陷。科学立法的基础在于把握力图调控的犯罪事实特征及其本土性的现实反映。唯有如此j才能确立科学的有组织犯罪观念，并不断地完善有效打击有组织犯罪的法律制度。     

The “G-local” Dimension of Albanian Organized Crime: Mafias,Strategic Migration and State Repression

This paper elaborates on the relation between globalization, migration, and transnational organized crime. The case selected is on ethnic Albanian organized crime and its migration to Western Europe and the United States. There are a few perspectives on the ability of organized crime to take advantage of globalization in an effort to expand their criminal markets. One view is that criminal groups, similarly to multinational corporations, are taking advantage of globalization and are opening outposts in Western cities. The opposing view is that organized crime groups are highly localized and territorial. This paper tries to answer the following questions: Are Albanian groups operating in the USA and Europe part of the same species originating from Albania and Kosovo? Are these groups coordinated by a central organization in the country of origin that sought opportunity to exploit the process of international integration? The paper concludes that the migration of Albanian organized crime may not be a strategic business choice. Therefore, rather than fitting the stereotype of hypersophisticated international organized crime bureaucracies found in news reports, this study suggests that many Albanian organized crime groups are localized and spontaneously formed. What might appear to be the product of globalizations is, in fact, the consequence of state repression or wars between rival criminal groups. The conclusions are based on a mixed-methods approach, including interviews with experts, Albanian migrants and offenders, and in-depth analysis of court cases.     

White-collar and organized crimes: Questions of seriousness and policy

The line between organized crime and white-collar crime is often vague, compounding the separate social problems represented by these two types of criminality. This blurring is complicated further by the general assumption that organized criminals pose a more serious threat, thus requiring a stronger sanction than white-collar criminals. The controversy surrounding certain recent crime-control statutes centers around different assessments of the seriousness of both types of criminality. Prior studies of crime seriousness have focused primarily on crimes in general, with some attention to white-collar crime in contrast to ordinary crime. To date, however, no one has examined the differences in perceptions of seriousness between white-collar and organized crime. This paper investigates how occupation and attitudes toward the seriousness of white-collar and organized crime influence attitudes toward policy distinctions between the two, as well as toward the usefulness of various definitions of organized crime.     

Risky business: A risk-based methodology to measure organized crime

This paper describes the result of two studies on the development of a methodology to measure organized crime. The purpose of these studies, tasked by the Belgian Federal Police and Minister for Justice, was to provide a concrete and knowledge-based framework for the drafting of annual reports on organized crime that can give better answers to questions like ‘Is there much organized crime? Is the situation serious? Is it bad that there are more criminal groups now than in the past? Which criminal groups are the most dangerous?’. Two features provide a common thread that binds the methodology: the operating principle of the spectrum of enterprise and the application of a risk-based methodological process to the overall framework. The starting hypothesis is that organized crime is entrepreneurial in nature and that the dynamics of the market space provide the main environment and explanation for organized crime. The application of a risk-based methodology is founded on the recognition that the analysis of organized crime will always depend on imperfect information and resource limitations. Furthermore, the utility of a risk-based approach is seen in the provision of findings that are transparently arrived at with a clearly established framework for prioritization of decision-makers. The proposed methodology consists of three parts: environmental scanning, analysis of organizations and counter strategies and licit and illicit sector analysis.