Search results for "Organized crime"
showing 10 items of 40 documents
Do terrorism, organized crime (drug production), and state weakness affect contemporary armed conflicts? An empirical analysis
2015
ABSTRACTIn 2014, the UN Security Council emphasized the dangers of terrorism, criminal activity (especially drug production and trafficking), and state weakness in conflict areas. However, neither policy debates nor scholarly analyses have focussed on the potential impact of these elements on conflict dynamics and characteristics, and the investigated partial relationships have led to inconclusive results. This article explores the presence in armed conflicts of terrorist groups among fighting parties, major drug production (indicating the presence of activities typical of criminal organizations), and state failure in the period 1990–2011. Focussing on intrastate conflicts, this article hig…
Early Representations of Organized Crime and Issues of Identity in the Italian American Press (1890 to 1910)
2016
Beginning from the early days of mass immigration (1890s), Italian immigrants were increasingly depicted in association with crime, especially organized crime, in the mainstream press. Fuelled by nativist views of immigrants as a threat to American safety, character, and morality, these first images of the newcomers became increasingly popular as the new century progressed, crystallizing in the minds of Americans and becoming the predominant representations of Italian immigrants. The response of the newly formed Italian communities can be found in the Italian-American press, which took upon itself the task of providing alternative images with which the burgeoning Italian community could ide…
Le vittime del racket. Imprenditori e commercianti alle prese con Cosa Nostra, ‘Ndrangheta e Camorra
2014
Il lavoro propone una ricerca su un mondo psichico fin qui ancora inesplorato: i pen-sieri, le emozioni, l’esperienza delle vittime del racket delle tre grandi organizzazioni criminali del meridione d’Italia: la Mafia, la Camorra e la ‘Ndrangheta. L’obiettivo è comprendere le multi-sfaccettate questioni psico-antropologiche e sociali sulle quali le organizzazioni criminali si sono radicate, ed in particolare quali dinamiche psico-relazionali e quali codici transculturali entrino in gioco nel complesso e controverso rapporto tra vittima e sistema criminale, tra vittima e sistemi di supporto. Con imprenditori e commer-cianti vittime della criminalità organizzata, sono stati analizzati i vissu…
Legal Norms Against the Italian Mafia
2016
Legislation expressly aimed at combating mafia-type crimes in the Italian criminal system has long represented a specific and distinctive set of rules, comprising provisions of criminal law, procedural criminal law and penitentiary law, and including provisions of administrative and civil law of a more preventive kind. However, the law constitutes only one aspect of the complex Italian anti-mafia policy, which indeed results from the combination of several factors, such as human losses, political choices, legislative solutions, evolving case law and reactions of the civil society. In the international arena, among the multiple actors engaged at various levels in the fight against organised …
La "lotta" alla criminalità organizzata
2020
Il contributo considera possibilità, limiti e condizioni dell’intervento del diritto penale nell’ampio fronte delle misure di contrasto al crimine organizzato. Si nega in primo luogo che tale forma di criminalità abbia una natura meramente temporanea e contingente, e che dunque la relativa normativa di contrasto possa confinarsi ad una pur grave, ma sempre circoscritta stagione dell’emergenza. Si procede quindi con una verifica della materia alla luce delle due teorie del diritto penale del nemico e del diritto penale di lotta. La conclusione nega l’utilizzabilità di formule così generali, per ragioni di ordine costituzionale e di caratteri costitutivi dell’intervento penale, e si pronuncia…
Criminalpol Sicilia and the mafia, 1966-1981
2022
This article reconstructs events relating to the Centro di coordinamento regionale di polizia criminale (Criminalpol Sicilia) in Palermo, from its establishment in the second half of the 1960s up to the beginning of the 1980s. Created in order to unify and coordinate mafia investigations at the regional level, Criminalpol Sicilia became, over time, one of the most significant ventures in the history of the battle against the mafia. First and foremost, this was because during the 1970s it managed to operate in total synergy with the most important investigative bodies engaged in fighting the mafia, including Palermo’s Squadra Mobile (Flying Squad). Secondly, it was because it proved capable …
I traffici illeciti nel Mediterraneo. Persone, stupefacenti, tabacco. Report Germania
2019
Il Report analizza il diritto penale tedesco relativo a quattro diversi tipi di traffico: il traffico di migranti, la tratta di esseri umani, il traffico di stupefacenti e il contrabbando di sigarette. Il Report fa parte di una più ampia ricerca ("The New Era of Smuggling in the Mediterranean Sea", NESMeS) volta ad analizzare i suddetti traffici illeciti nell'area del Mediterraneo, con particolare riguardo ai seguenti paesi: Germania, Grecia, Italia, Portogallo e Spagna. Insieme al Rapporto tedesco e ai Report dei singoli ordinamenti giuridici interessati, la ricerca NESMeS ha prodotto un Report criminologico e un libro finale ("I traffici illeciti nel Mediterraneo. Persone, stupefacenti, t…
Resisting the extortion racket: an empirical analysis
2018
While the contributions on the organized crime and Mafia environments are many, there is a lack of empirical evidence on the firm’s decision to resist to extortion. Our case study is based on Addiopizzo, an NGO that, from 2004, invites firms to refuse requests from the local Mafia and to join a public list of “non-payers”. The research is based on a dataset obtained linking the current administrative archives maintained by the chambers of commerce and the list updated by the NGO. The objective of this paper is twofold: first, to gather sound data on the characteristics of the Addiopizzo joiners; second to model the probability to join Addiopizzo by a two-level logistic regression model. We …
Measuring the presence of organized crime across Italian provinces: a sensitivity analysis
2020
AbstractThe existing literature identifies different indicators to construct organized crime indices and places equal importance to different concepts of organized crime. This paper examines the sensitivity of organized crime across Italian provinces when different set of indicators and weights are used to combine crime indicators. Our findings suggest that there is a remarkable variation in the distribution of organized crime across Italian provinces based on the choice of indicators and the importance given to different crime indicators. It is also found that the relationship of organized crime with socioeconomic and political factors varies depending on the normative choices made in the …
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…