Search results for "Organised Crime"
showing 10 items of 44 documents
Exploring the determinants of anti-mafia entrepreneurial behaviour: an empirical study on southern Italian SMEs
2017
This study analyses organized crime from an economic perspective and highlights the crucial role of extortion in mafia activities. From an economic viewpoint, we debate the conditions that lead companies to resist mafia extortion. To study the reactions of firms to extortion, we adopt an institutional perspective and consider the contribution of different theories in the socially responsible behaviour and organized crime literature, in an attempt to understand this complex entrepreneurial behaviour better. A sample of 116 southern Italian SMEs, whose entrepreneurs have publicly opposed mafia extortion, was selected. By adopting a matched-pair design, anti-mafia firms were subsequently match…
The notion of Organised Crime in eu law
2017
The contribution consider, first, the original multiplicity of national legislative solutions with respect to the crucial issue of ‘punishability’ of criminal organisations; then, identify the common standards under european harmonisation legislation, along with their respective characteristics and problems, in order to finally assess the most recent situation and the effectiveness of EU action in this area. A more general consideration on the nature of harmonisation in this area serve as background: what is at stake is not so much a rule (of EU law), but rather an actual principle (of EU law). As such, it cannot be evaluated in absolute terms of success or failure, of either standards rigi…
LA ORDEN EUROPEA DE INVESTIGACIÓN COMO INSTRUMENTO PARA LA LUCHA CONTRA LA CRIMINALIDAD ORGANIZADA. Significado, sujetos y herramientas en la obtenci…
2022
The study focuses on the analysis and investigation of the European instrument called the European Investigation Order (EIO), and its contributions to the fight against organised crime. This instrument was adopted by the European legislator, with the aim of achieving effective and swift cross-border judicial cooperation in criminal matters. In this context the main question that encourages research is: to what extent is the EIO a suitable instrument in the fight against organised crime? From this question the rest of the questions arise, articulating the structure of the thesis. In addition, in this work, we highlight the comparative perspective: the EIO instrument has been examined from a …
The pentiti of the Sicilian mafia in the 1930s
2013
Mussolini had declared that Fascism, through the anti-mafia campaign entrusted to Cesare Mori, prefect of Palermo, in the second half of the 1920s, had conclusively liberated Sicily from the mafia. However, from the early 1930s a new deterioration of public order on the island was evident, and the regime was forced to launch a second, and much less publicised, repression of this phenomenon. In the course of its careful investigations the body given responsibility for pursuing this repression, the Ispettorato Generale di Pubblica Sicurezza per la Sicilia, compiled a series of reports, including the Processo verbale di denunzia relating to the area around Palermo. With a level of detail never…
Business, Finance and Organized Crime: Proposing a Risk-Based Approach for Governance in a Law and Economics Perspective (the 'Vigna Code')
2008
Nowadays the organized crime exploits the development of integration and globalization in the industrial, commercial and financial activities, taking advantage of the same networks that facilitate the legitimate transactions. In expanding their businesses the criminal organizations try to use unwitting firms and banks in order to find new profit opportunities and at the same time to camouflage the dishonest activities into the legal ones. The risk of pollution for the honest corporations is increasing. The aim of the paper is to propose an Anti-mafia governance Code (the Vigna Code) developing a risk - based approach in assessing and managing the risk of pollution into the firms, in order t…
Organized crime and public spending: a panel data analysis
2018
The aim of this paper is to investigate, empirically, what components of public spending imply a decreasing effect on organized crime and what components create opportunities for organized crime, discussing also the role of government efficiency. Using a panel data analysis, the results show a strikingly consistent pattern for the EU Member States. Organized crime mainly operates in the distribution of government spending for local public goods and public provision of private services. There is a decreasing effect on organized crime of the public expenditure devoted to education and social policy. Government efficiency in public spending is beneficial to limit the opportunities of the organ…
Socio-economic inequalities and organized crime: An empirical analysis
2020
In this chapter we contribute to the recent literature (e.g., Istat, 2010, Acciari et al., 2016, Guell et al., 2017) that provides evidence that inequality is high and social mobility is low in the Italian regions and prov-inces where organized crime is widespread such as those of Southern Italy. We complement this line of work in two respects. First, using a novel pan-el dataset at the regional level for the period 1985-2014 we investigate the relationship between inequality and organized crime at the regional level, exploiting both time and cross-sectional variation. Second, we assess the role of social mobility in organized crime. Our main finding is that higher inequality leads to highe…
Cosa nostra and Camorra: illegal activities and organizational structures
2016
This article intends to develop an introductory reflection concerning the most recent trends of two of the major Italian mafia organisations: the Sicilian Cosa Nostra and the Campanian Camorra. Following a comparative perspective, the analysis will focus the attention on changes that have occurred in recent years both at the level of illegal activities and at the level of organisational structures. After the bombs of the nineties, Cosa Nostra has moved towards a flexible and less centralised organisation, investing dirty money in the legal economic sector, to reduce its exposure to law enforcement investigations. At the same time, the Camorra clans have considerably widened their range of a…
Transnational Organized Crime and European Union: Aspects and Problems
2014
The fight against criminal organizations and their ability to carry out illegal activities beyond the national borders has represented a “bridge head” in the European path towards the harmonization of criminal laws in the member states. After considering the role played by the harmonization of criminal law in the European Union treaties, the study underlines how the difficulty in defining the concept of transnational organized crime could result in an excessive European intervention. In order to avoid such a risk, it is useful to refer to other relevant international sources, like the 2000 Palermo UN Convention, and also to recent European documents on the matter (in particular, a Resolutio…
The Mafia Psychology: The Study of the ‘Ndrangheta and the Cosa Nostra
2016
According to many explorative analyses, the more diffused Italian Mafias represent a real global threat. In order to better understand the dynamics of the organized crime as well as its destructive effects on the economic, environmental, and psychosocial spheres, the chapter aims to deepen the devastating impacts upon its victims. The common traits and the specific characteristic of the Sicilian Mafia and the Calabrian ‘Ndrangheta are detected through the group analytic assumptions relating to Mafia Psychism. The contextualized concepts of blood ties, family roots, power, and territory make the Mafias’ organizational culture first of all an anthropological and a psychological identity. Ther…