By Peter B. E. Hill

The Japanese mafia - known collectively as yakuza - has had an extensive influence on Japanese society over the past fifty years. Based on extensive interviews with criminals, police officers, lawyers, journalists, and academics, this is the first academic analysis in English of Japan's criminal syndicates. Peter Hill argues that the essential characteristic of Japan's criminal syndicates is their provision of protection to consumers in Japan's under- and upper-worlds. In this respect they are analogous to the Sicilian Mafia, and the mafias of Russia, Hong Kong and the United States. Although the yakuza's protective mafia role has existed at least since the end of the Second World War, and arguably longer, their sources of income have not remained constant. The yakuza have undergone considerable change in their business activities over the last half-century.

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  The two key factors driving this evolution have been the changes in the legal, and law-enforcement environment within which these groups must operate, and the economic opportunities available to them. This first factor demonstrates that the complex and ambiguous relationship between the yakuza and the state has always been more than purely symbiotic. With the introduction of the boryokudan (yakuza) countermeasures law in 1992, the relationship between the yakuza and the state has become more unambiguously antagonistic. Assessing the impact of this law is, however, problematic; the contemporaneous bursting of Japan's economic bubble at the beginning of the 1990s also profoundly and adversely influenced yakuza sources of income. It is impossible to completely disentangle the effects of these two events. By the end of the twentieth century, the outlook for the yakuza was bleak and offered no short-term prospect of amelioration. More profoundly, state-expropriation of protection markets formerly dominated by the yakuza suggests that the longer-term prospects for these groups are bleaker still: no longer, therefore, need the yakuza be seen as an inevitable and necessary evil.

Oxford, UK; New York: Oxford University Press, 2006. 336p.

By Nicholas Pileggi

Nicholas Pileggi’s vivid, unvarnished, journalistic chronicle of the life of Henry Hill—the working-class Brooklyn kid who knew from age twelve that “to be a wiseguy was to own the world,” who grew up to live the highs and lows of the mafia gangster’s life—has been hailed as “the best book ever written on organized crime” (Cosmopolitan).

This is the true-crime bestseller that was the basis for Martin Scorsese’s film masterpiece GoodFellas, which brought to life the violence, the excess, the families, the wives and girlfriends, the drugs, the payoffs, the paybacks, the jail time, and the Feds…with Henry Hill’s crackling narration drawn straight out of Wiseguy and overseeing all the unforgettable action.

New York: Pocket Books, 1987. 400p.

By Robert M. Lombardo

This book provides a comprehensive sociological explanation for the emergence and continuation of organized crime in Chicago. Tracing the roots of political corruption that afforded protection to gambling, prostitution, and other vice activity in Chicago and other large American cities, Robert M. Lombardo challenges the dominant belief that organized crime in America descended directly from the Sicilian Mafia. According to this widespread "alien conspiracy" theory, organized crime evolved in a linear fashion beginning with the Mafia in Sicily, emerging in the form of the Black Hand in America's immigrant colonies, and culminating in the development of the Cosa Nostra in America's urban centers.

Looking beyond this Mafia paradigm, this volume argues that the development of organized crime in Chicago and other large American cities was rooted in the social structure of American society. Specifically, Lombardo ties organized crime to the emergence of machine politics in America's urban centers. From nineteenth-century vice syndicates to the modern-day Outfit, Chicago's criminal underworld could not have existed without the blessing of those who controlled municipal, county, and state government. These practices were not imported from Sicily, Lombardo contends, but were bred in the socially disorganized slums of America where elected officials routinely franchised vice and crime in exchange for money and votes. This book also traces the history of the African-American community's participation in traditional organized crime in Chicago and offers new perspectives on the organizational structure of the Chicago Outfit, the traditional organized crime group in Chicago.

Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2013. 257p.

By Mark Galeotti

Mark Galeotti is the go-to expert on organized crime in Russia, consulted by governments and police around the world. Now, Western readers can explore the fascinating history of thevory v zakone, a group that has survived and thrived amid the changes brought on by Stalinism, the Cold War, the Afghan War, and the end of the Soviet experiment.

Thevory—as the Russian mafia is also known—was born early in the twentieth century, largely in the Gulags and criminal camps, where they developed their unique culture. Identified by their signature tattoos, members abided by the thieves’ code, a strict system that forbade all paid employment and cooperation with law enforcement and the state. Based on two decades of on-the-ground research, Galeotti’s captivating study details thevory’s journey to power from their early days to their adaptation to modern-day Russia’s free-wheeling oligarchy and global opportunities beyond.

New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2018. 344p.

By Diego Gambetta

In a society where trust is in short supply and democracy weak, the Mafia sells protection, a guarantee of safe conduct for parties to commercial transactions. Drawing on the confessions of eight Mafiosi, Diego Gambetta develops an elegant analysis of the economic and political role of the Sicilian Mafia.

Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1996. 346p.

By Pino Arlacchi and Don Antonio Calderone

The startling 1992 confessions of Antonino Calderone, a boss in the Sicilian Mafia, provide a behind-the-scenes look at la Cosa Nostra that reveals the Mafia's history, organization, and worldwide influence.

New York: William Morrow, 1993. 289p.

By John Dickie

Hailed in Italy as the best book ever written about the mafia in any language, Cosa Nostra is a fascinating, violent, and darkly comic account that reads like fiction and takes us deep into the inner sanctum of this secret society where few have dared to tread.In this gripping history of the Sicilian mafia, John Dickie uses startling new research to reveal the inner workings of this secret society with a murderous record. He explains how the mafia began, how it responds to threats and challenges, and introduces us to the real-life characters that inspired the American imagination for generations, making the mafia an international, larger than life cultural phenomenon. Dickie's dazzling cast of characters includes Antonio Giammona, the first "boss of bosses''; New York cop Joe Petrosino, who underestimated the Sicilian mafia and paid for it with his life; and Bernard "the Tractor" Provenzano, the current boss of bosses who has been hiding in Sicily since 1963.

New York; Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004. 400p.

By Joe Pieri

This book reveals a shocking and sensational story: the mafia and the huge syndicates it controls have infiltrated the government in Italy, the US, the highest levels of the Catholic Church, and in modern times, are even implicated in the murder of an American president and the pope. At lower levels of criminality the mafia is omnipresent - from prostitution, gambling and boot-legging during the Prohibition era in the 1920's, to the present day control of drug trafficking in Europe and America. The annals of the mafia are bloodstained and littered with corpses, both of the mobsters themselves and the law-abiding citizens and legislators who have tried to resist their intimidation. Peopled with compelling characters, Pieri rattles through the tangle of rackets, feuds, business affairs and political chicanery that satisfies our fascination with the criminal underworld.

Edinburgh: Birlinn, 1990. 182p.

By Celerino Castillo, III , Dave Harmon

The truth about the remaining dark secret of the Iran-Contra scandal- the United States government's collaboration with drug smugglers. Powderburns is the story of Celerino Castillo III who spent 12 years in the Drug Enforcement Administration. During that time, he built cases against organized drug rings in Manhattan, raided jungle cocaine labs in the Amazon, conducted aerial eradication operations in Guatemala, and assembled and trained anti-narcotics units in several countries. The eerie climax of Agent Castillo's career with the DEA took place in El Salvador. One day, he received a cable from a fellow agent. He was told to investigate possible drug smuggling by Nicaraguan Contras operating from the ilpango air force base. Castillo quickly discovered that Contra pilots were, indeed, smuggling narcotics back into the United States - using the same pilots, planes, and hangars that the Central Intelligence Agency and the National Security Council, under the Direction of Lt. Col. Oliver North, used to maintain their covert supply operation to the Contras.sm

Oakville, Ont: Mosaic Press,1994. 205p.

By John Coleman

The drug trade is a very profitable business of enormous proportions, stretching across the world from producer countries to consumer countries, of which the United States of America is the leader. The cost of the product is negligible, with profits far exceeding those of some of the greatest companies in modern times. The drug trade is a war being waged principally against the United States , where innovative methods and ever-shifting pitched battles are fought. Thus far, nothing has been able to put an end to this cancer upon the United States and other western countries.

This book tells, in alarming detail, the story of how the drug trade was started in earnest with the arrival of a mop-haired group of musicians known as the Beatles. The band was brought to the U.S. to go on concert tours, which acted as a magnet for teenagers and provided cover for the distribution of drugs that got a generation of young Americans hooked.

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  Most Americans have only been exposed to the street pusher and know very little about the insidious, illicit trade being carried out in their country; a trade that has cost time and billions in health care and anti-drug police expenditures. This timely book by Dr. Coleman rips the lid off the drug trade, from the opium growing poppy fields of Afghanistan to the desolate coast line at Maccra, Pakistan, to the British Bank of the Middle East in Dubai and beyond to the cocoa bush processing plants in Bolivia and Colombia, where the murderous M19 FARC guerillas, better armed than the Colombian military, run the country.

  This account is no soap opera, but real life in which the drug trade is playing an increasingly ugly and costly role of our treasure and finances. It is a book which should be read by every thinking person concerned about the welfare of his country.Description text goes here

Carson City, NV: World In Review, 2009. 203p.

By Matthew B. Robinson and Renee G. Scherlen

First published in 2007, Lies, Damned Lies, and Drug War Statistics critically analyzed claims made by the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP), the White House agency of accountability in the nation's drug war since 1989, as found in the six editions of the annual National Drug Control Strategy between 2000 and 2005. In this revised and updated second edition of their critically acclaimed work, Matthew B. Robinson and Renee G. Scherlen examine seven more recent editions (2006–2012) to once again determine if ONDCP accurately and honestly presents information or intentionally distorts evidence to justify continuing the drug war. They uncover the many ways in which ONDCP manipulates statistics and visually presents that information to the public. Their analysis demonstrates a drug war that consistently fails to reduce drug use, drug fatalities, or illnesses associated with drug use; fails to provide treatment for drug-dependent users; and drives up the prices of drugs. They conclude with policy recommendations for reforming ONDCP's use of statistics, as well as how the nation fights the war on drugs.

Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2014. 310p.

By The Global Commission on Drug Policy

The global war on drugs has failed, with devastating consequences for individuals and societies around the world. Fifty years after the initiation of the UN Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, and 40 years after President Nixon launched the US government’s war on drugs, fundamental reforms in national and global drug control policies are urgently needed. Vast expenditures on criminalization and repressive measures directed at producers, traffickers and consumers of illegal drugs have clearly failed to effectively curtail supply or consumption. Apparent victories in eliminating one source or trafficking organization are negated almost instantly by the emergence of other sources and traffickers. Repressive efforts directed at consumers impede public health measures to reduce HIV/AIDS, overdose fatalities and other harmful consequences of drug use. Government expenditures on futile supply reduction strategies and incarceration displace more cost-effective and evidence-based investments in demand and harm reduction.

Global Commission on Drug Policy, 2011. 24p.

By Horace A. Bartilow

In this book, Horace Bartilow develops a theory of embedded corporatism to explain the U.S. government’s war on drugs. Stemming from President Richard Nixon’s 1971 call for an international approach to this “war,” U.S. drug enforcement policy has persisted with few changes to the present day, despite widespread criticism of its effectiveness and of its unequal effects on hundreds of millions of people across the Americas. While researchers consistently emphasize the role of race in U.S. drug enforcement, Bartilow’s empirical analysis highlights the class dimension of the drug war and the immense power that American corporations wield within the regime.

Drawing on qualitative case study methods, declassified U.S. government documents, and advanced econometric estimators that analyze cross-national data, Bartilow demonstrates how corporate power is projected and embedded—in lobbying, financing of federal elections, funding of policy think tanks, and interlocks with the federal government and the military. Embedded corporatism, he explains, creates the conditions by which interests of state and nonstate members of the regime converge to promote capital accumulation. The subsequent human rights repression, illiberal democratic governments, anti-worker practices, and widening income inequality throughout the Americas, Bartilow argues, are the pathological policy outcomes of embedded corporatism in drug enforcement.

Chapel Hill, NC:The University of North Carolina Press, 2019. 320p.

By David A. Shirk

The drug war in Mexico has caused some U.S. analysts to view Mexico as a failed or failing state. While these fears are exaggerated, the problems of widespread crime and violence, government corruption, and inadequate access to justice pose grave challenges for the Mexican state. The Obama administration has therefore affirmed its commitment to assist Mexico through continued bilateral collaboration, funding for judicial and security sector reform, and building “resilient communities.”

David A. Shirk analyzes the drug war in Mexico, explores Mexico’s capacities and limitations, examines the factors that have undermined effective state performance, assesses the prospects for U.S. support to strengthen critical state institutions, and offers recommendations for reducing the potential of state failure. He argues that the United States should help Mexico address its pressing crime and corruption problems by going beyond traditional programs to strengthen the country’s judicial and security sector capacity and help it build stronger political institutions, a more robust economy, and a thriving civil society.

Washington, DC; Council on Foireign Relations Press, 2011, 56p.

By Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, Office of the Special Representative and Co-ordinator for Combating Trafficking in Human Beings

The paper aims to leverage off of the strengths and successes of established but disparate anti-THB financial investigatory practices, developed across the OSCE participating States, to raise awareness of the strategic value of financial investigations and the resources available, and to help create a more harmonised approach that can contribute to mainstreaming of financial investigations across the OSCE region.

Vienna: Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, Office of the Special Representative and Co-ordinator for Combating Trafficking in Human Beings, 2019. 68p.

By Deborah Azrael, Anthony A. Braga and Mallory O’Brien

This report presents the methodology and findings of an evaluation of the effectiveness of the Milwaukee Homicide Review Commission (MHRC), which was established in May 2004 with the mandate to address the city's persistent lethal violence.

A distinguishing feature of the MHRC is its inclusion of community agencies and leaders outside of the traditional criminal justice system. The evaluation examined MHRC's work from January 2005 through December 2007. Overall, the homicide review process found that homicide in the city's intervention districts were largely clustered in specific locations, such as in and around taverns, as well as in districts with concentrations of active offenders who had been involved in the criminal justice system. Homicides were often the outcome of persistent disputes between individuals and/or groups (usually gangs). Homicides were often committed to gain respect and status among peers who valued fearless displays of power and control over others, as well as to inflict retribution on those showing disrespect and confrontational interactions. Generally, the MHRC decision-making and actions produced a comprehensive set of actionable policy and practice recommendations whose implementation and effects were continuously monitored by the MHRC. MHRC actions were intended to better position criminal justice, social service, and community based organizations in addressing the violence-related factors in high-risk locations and high-risk individuals with a propensity for violence. The impact evaluation found that the implementation of the MHRC interventions was linked with a statistically significant 52-percent decrease in the monthly count of homicides in the treatment districts. In comparison, the control districts had a statistically insignificant 9.2- percent decrease in homicides, after controlling for the other covariates. Apparently, the MHRC's crafting of interventions designed to address underlying risks associated with homicides has had a significant impact in reducing incidents of lethal violence.

Boston, MA: Harvard School of Public Health, 2012. 95p.

By Calum Inverarity, Gareth Price, Courtney Rice and Christopher Sabatini

Travel restrictions and lockdowns have forced changes to the traditional means illicit groups have used to launder their ill-gotten profits. This paper explores whether COVID-19 may have affected these processes through three main channels: increased reliance on cryptocurrencies to move and launder funds tied to illicit activity; the expanded use of the internet through e-commerce sites to continue and expand trade mispricing practices to move illicit funds; and the use of FinTech and peer-to-peer payment services to transfer illicit funds.

Miami: Florida International University, 2021. 37p.

By Mark Ungar

Because of the increasingly organized and lethal nature of criminality in Latin America and Caribbean (LAC), OC policy may be the single most important safeguard for regional security. Nearly every current report, in fact, stresses OC’s increasingly threatening impact “on the economic and sociopolitical environment of the region” as it fuels manifestations of criminal violence such as “trafficking of persons, exploitation of natural resources, threats to protected areas, forced displacement, criminal governance, robbery, physical aggression, extortion and kidnapping,” according to UNDP. A recognition of the tandem growth of OC’s forms, though, does not mean a policy-relevant understanding of them. Such an understanding requires disentangling these crimes’ many overlapping sources, removing embedded layers of methodological obstruction, and attuning responses with OC practice. This multiple challenge, though, first requires stepping back to re-evaluate existing paradigms in at least three ways that this report discusses. First is to question existing OC data, since much of it is suspect, biased, or incomplete – reflecting the misalignment of institutional process and policy goals. Second is the ways in which OC draws its power from a multitude of local, national and regional links among non-state, economic, and state agencies that, like dark matter, are omnipresent but largely invisible. Third is a need to widen and re-examine physical and geographic space.

Miami: Florida International University, Jack D. Gordon Institute for Public Policy, 2021.

By The Global Initiative AGainst Transnational Organized Crime and InSight Crime

In parts of Central America, extortion has become so endemic that it is now a feature of the daily socio-economic life of citizens, businesses and the fabric of the state. The pervasive impunity and weakness of state institutions to combat extortion have meant that, for many central American communities, extortion, or the threat of it, has become a normalized facet of life – a form of violent, omnipresent, criminally enforced taxation – and its effects are far-reaching on a personal, economic and societal level. For the violent, armed street gangs that continually threaten and harass communities in the Northern Triangle countries (El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras) – a region that is the main focus of this report – the extortion market is the main security threat to those countries and one of the principal sources of criminal income. These gangs have bred a criminal regional economy on such a scale that extortion forms a sizeable tranche of some Northern Triangle countries’ GDP. The revenue from extortion has provided some gangs in the region with a solid economic operating base, and at the same time allowed them to diversify into other criminal enterprises, including drug trafficking, and human smuggling and trafficking, which means that they have consolidated their influence over broader transnational organized-crime networks operating in the region. Meanwhile, extortion revenue is laundered through investments in formal businesses, extending the gangs’ economic stranglehold over the communities they target.

Geneva: Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime, 2019. 70p.

By Lucia Dammer

Extortion is a phenomenon that can be understood from various disciplines, such as economics, criminology, the political sciences, and sociology. Each of these fields of knowledge emphasizes either the system or economic models under which extortionists and victims operate, the short- or long-term relationship sought by establishing simple or complex extortion mechanisms, the political relationship between extortionists and victims, or citizens’ perceptions of the institutional framework, which can serve as a gateway for criminal groups to create ties of protection through extortion. This report sheds light on the importance of extortive practices in Latin America. It is based on qualitative research since 2019. The report shows that extortive practices are a region-wide trend, albeit with national, specific characteristics. Although it is primarily a non-violent crime, an increasing tendency—specifically linked to practices against women—should make it a priority for the public security agenda.

Miami: Florida International University, Research Publications 47, 2021. 22p.