By The European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA)
The Trends and Developments report presents the EMCDDA’s latest analysis of the drug situation in Europe. Focusing on illicit drug use, related harms and drug supply, the report contains a comprehensive set of national data across these themes and key harm-reduction interventions.
Lisbon: EMCDDA, 2022. 60p.
By Anne T. Gallagher and Fiona David
Whether forced into relocation by fear of persecution, civil war, or humanitarian crisis, or pulled toward the prospect of better economic opportunities, more people are on the move than ever before. Opportunities for lawful entry into preferred destinations are decreasing rapidly, creating demand for a range of services that is increasingly being met by migrant smugglers: individuals or criminal groups who facilitate unauthorized entry into in another country for profit. This book, a companion volume to the award-winning The International Law of Human Trafficking, presents the first-ever comprehensive and in-depth analysis of the international law of migrant smuggling. The authors call on their direct experience of working with the United Nations to chart the development of new international laws and to link these specialist rules to other relevant areas of international law, including law of the sea, human rights law, and international refugee law. Through this analysis, the authors identify and explain the major legal obligations of States with respect to migrant smuggling, including those related to criminalization, interdiction and rescue at sea, protection, prevention, detention, and return.
Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2014. 840p.
By Jens Beckert and Matías Dewey
From illegal drugs, stolen artwork, and forged trademarks, to fraud in financial markets - the phenomenon of illegality in market exchanges is pervasive. Illegal markets have great economic significance, have relevant social and political consequences, and shape economic and political structures.Despite the importance of illegality in the economy, the field of economic sociology unquestioningly accepts the premise that the institutional structures and exchanges taking place in markets are law-abiding in nature. This volume makes a contribution to changing this. Questions that stand at the centre of the chapters are: What are the interfaces between legal and illegal markets? How do demand and supply in illegal markets interact? What role do criminal organizations play in illegal markets? What is the relationship between illegality and governments? Is illegality a phenomenon central to capitalism? Anchored in economic sociology, this book contributes to the analysis and understanding of market exchanges in conditions of illegality from a perspective that focuses on the social organization of markets. Offering both theoretical reflections and case studies, the chapters assembled in the volume address the consequences of the illegal production, distribution, and consumption of products for the architecture of markets. It also focuses on the underlying causes and the political and social concerns stemming from the infringement of the law.
Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2017. 315p.
By Petrus C. van Duyne and Michael Levi
The phenomenon of psycho-active drugs, and our reactions to them, is one of the most fascinating topics of the social history of mankind. Starting with an analysis of the 'policy of fear' in which law enforcement is 'haunted' by drug money, Drugs and Money offers a radical reconsideration of this highly contentious issue.In this intriguing book, Petrus C. van Duyne and Michael Levi expose an ever-unfolding series of problems: the proliferation of mind-influencing substances the complications of international drug regulation the interaction between markets and economic actors, with the consequent amassing of huge amounts of crime-money. The social, cultural and economic aspects of this crime-money are explored, alongside the ongoing threat it poses to the legitimate economy and the state.
Abingdon, Oxon, UK: Routledge, 2005.219p.
By Christopher Harding
This is a study of agency in the field of criminal liability, considering the respective roles of individuals and organisations and the allocation of criminal responsibility to these different kinds of actor. The issue of criminal responsibility, which is informed by both the sociological analysis of conduct and by ethical considerations of responsibility, provides an important and revealing focus for discussion. Criminal Enterprise analyses criminal responsibility through three main types of organisation: corporate actors in the field of business activity, states and governments, and delinque. Read more... Cover; Copyright Page; Contents; Preface; 1 Introduction: searching for the responsible criminal actor; Part I; 2 The organisation in contemporary society; 3 Agency: the philosophy of the collective; 4 Legal routes to responsibility; 5 Models of responsibility; Part II; 6 Human or corporate? Allocating responsibility for business conspiracy; 7 Delinquency within structures of governance; 8 The legal control of criminal organisations; Part III; 9 The organisation as an autonomous criminal actor; 10 The criminal enterprise as a facilitating framework.
Collumpton, Devon, UK: Willan Publishing, 2007. 284p.
By Nadia Campaniello
In recent decades, women's participation in the labor market has increased considerably in most countries and is converging toward the participation rate of men. Though on a lesser scale, a similar movement toward gender convergence seems to be occurring in the criminal world, though many more men than women still engage in criminal activity. Technological progress and social norms have freed women from the home, increasing their participation in both the labor and the crime market. With crime no longer just men's business, it is important to investigate female criminal behavior to determine whether the policy prescriptions to reduce crime should differ for women.
Bonn: IZA World of Labor, 2019. 11p.
By Sharon White-Harrigan, Michelle Feldman, Zachary Katznelson, Dana Kaplan, Michael Rempel and Joanna Weill
On Rikers Island, the widespread violence, dysfunction, and lack of access to basic services mean no one leaves better off than when they went in. The roughly 300 women and gender-expansive people incarcerated at Rikers are uniquely vulnerable.* They face an elevated risk of sexual abuse and retraumatization.1 Over 80 percent are being treated for mental illness and 27 percent have a serious mental illness. Many are victims of domestic violence. Seventy percent are caregivers, and incarceration has profoundly negative consequences for their children and families. Almost 90 percent are held before trial, mostly due to unaffordable bail. Last fiscal year, the city spent over $550,000 to keep a single person locked up at Rikers for a year.2 New York City is legally required to close Rikers by August 2027. The city is on track to replace the Rikers jail complex with four borough-based facilities closer to courthouses, lawyers, families, and service providers. Women and gender-expansive people, most of whom are currently housed at the Rose M. Singer Center on Rikers (“Rosie’s”), are slated to be relocated to a new facility in Kew Gardens, Queens (see box below). The deaths of 31-year-old Mary Yehudah and the other eight people incarcerated at Rikers who have died this year—underscore the importance of shutting the jails as soon as possible.3
New York: Center for Court Innovation, 2022. 40p.
"Women, Crime and Criminal Justice speaks to the need for a new book that offers a global and diverse approach to the study of women and criminology. Despite an explosion of interest in international women's issues such as femicide and trafficking in women, criminological books in the area have previously focused predominantly on domestic issues. This is the first fully internationalized book to focus on women as offenders, victims and justice professionals. It provides background, as well as specialized information that allows readers to comprehend the global forces that shape women and crime; analyze different types of violence against women (in peacetime and in armed conflict); and grasp the challenges faced by women in justice professions such as the police, the judiciary and international peacekeeping. Provocative, highly topical, engaging and written by an expert in the field, this book examines the role of women in crime and criminal justice internationally. Topics covered include: the role of globalization and development in patterns of female offending and victimization, how a human rights framework can help explain women's crime, victimization and the criminal justice response, global women's activism, international perspectives on violence against women, including femicide, violence in conflict and post conflict settings, sex work and sex trafficking, women's access to justice, as well as the increased role of women in international criminal justice settings.
London; New York: Routledge, 2014. 248p.
Edited by Richard F. Wetzell.
”There is a notable asymmetry between the early modern and modern German historiographies of crime and criminal justice. Whereas most early modern studies have focused on the criminals themselves, their socioeconomic situations, and the meanings of crime in a particular urban or rural milieu, late modern studies have tended to focus on penal institutions and the discourses of prison reformers, criminal law reformers, criminologists, and psychiatrists.”
Open Access Book (2018) 325p.
By Lauren Greenwood and Kevin Fashola
According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), synthetic opioids—primarily illicit fentanyl—remain the largest cause of overdose deaths in the United States. 1 The CDC estimates that in the United States, there were more than 93,000 drug overdose deaths in 2020, of which an estimated 69,710 were opioid overdoses. This is a more than 30 percent increase from the 50,963 opioid overdoses in 2019. *2 Stay-home orders, disruption of normal routines, economic hardships, and other stressors related to the novel coronavirus (COVID19) pandemic contributed to the rise in abuse of illicit opioids in the United States in 2020,3 despite the increased price of street fentanyl.
Washington, DC: U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, 2021. 15p.
By Laura Y. Calderón
Mexico had the most violent year in its history in 2019, reporting 29,406 intentional homicide cases, resulting in 34,588 individual victims.1 However, violence remains a highly focalized phenomenon in Mexico, with 23% of all intentional homicide cases concentrated in five municipalities and three major clusters of violence with homicide rates over 100 per 100,000 inhabitants. Following the national trend, the state of Guanajuato also had its most violent year in 2019, with one of its largest cities featured in the country’s top five most violent municipalities. This paper will analyze the surge in violence in Guanajuato in 2019, comparing the number of intentional homicide cases with the increasing problem of fuel theft in the state, and describing some of the state and federal government measures to address both issues.
San Diego: Justice in Mexico, University of San Diego, 2020. 28p.
By Karina Garcia
This paper provides first-hand data regarding the perpetrators’ perspectives about their engagement in practices of drug trafficking-related violence in Mexico such as murder, kidnapping and torture. Drawing on the life stories of thirty-three former participants in the Mexican drug trade—often self-described as “narcos”— collected in the North of Mexico between October 2014 and January 2015, this paper shows how violent practices serve different purposes, which indicates the need for different strategies to tackle them.
San Diego: Justice in Mexico, University of San Diego, 2019. 37p.
By Jorge Cabat
Since the beginning of his administration, President Felipe Calderon launched a war against drug trafficking using the Army and the Federal Police. This strategy has had serious unintended consequences in terms of the level of violence. By August 2010, the government acknowledged that there were 28,000 drug-related deaths since December 2006. This violence has provoked hard criticisms of the Calderon Administration and some analysts have suggested that the decision to attack the drug cartels was motivated by political reasons in order to obtain legitimacy after a very close and polemic Presidential election in 2006. However, since the end of the Fox Administration there are parts of the Mexican territory controlled by drug traffickers, which no State can allow. The paper argues that even if the anti-drug strategy of Calderon has been very costly in terms of violence, there was no other alternative, as the other options were not viable at the beginning of the Calderon administration. From this point of view it is an inevitable war. The weak results achieved to date are due to the fact that the Mexican government does not possess the institutional and human resources to carry out this war. This explains the emphasis of the Mexican government on institutional building. However, this is a long-term solution. In the short term, everything suggests that the high levels of drug-related violence are going to continue.
México, D.F. : CIDE: 2010. 24p.
By Ko-lin Chin and Sheldon X. Zhang
n 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.
New York; London: New York University Press, 320p.
Edited by Bruce M. Bagley and Jonathan D. Rosen
In 1971, Richard Nixon declared a war on drugs. Despite foreign policy efforts and attempts to combat supply lines, the United States has been for decades, and remains today, the largest single consumer market for illicit drugs on the planet.
This volume argues that the war on drugs has been ineffective at best and, at worst, has been highly detrimental to many countries. Leading experts in the fields of public health, political science, and national security analyze how U.S. policies have affected the internal dynamics of Mexico, Colombia, Bolivia, Peru, Brazil, Argentina, Central America, and the Caribbean islands. Together, they present a comprehensive overview of the major trends in drug trafficking and organized crime in the early twenty-first century.
In addition, the editors and contributors identify emerging issues and propose several policy options to address them. This accessible and expansive volume provides a framework for understanding the limits and liabilities in the U.S.-championed war on drugs throughout the Americas.
Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2015. 464p.
By Marcelo Bergman
This book describes the main patterns and trends of drug trafficking in Latin America and analyzes its political, economic and social effects on several countries over the last twenty years. Its aim is to provide readers an introductory yet elaborate text on the illegal drug problem in the region. It first seeks to define and measure the problem, and then discusses some of the implications that the growth of production, trafficking, and consumption of illegal drugs had in the economies, in the social fabrics, and in the domestic and international policies of Latin American countries.
This book analyzes the illegal drugs problem from a Latin American perspective. Although there is a large literature and research on drug use and trade in the USA, Canada, Europe and the Far East, little is understood on the impact of narcotics in countries that have supplied a large share of the drugs used worldwide. This work explores how routes into Europe and the USA are developed, why the so-called drug cartels exist in the region, what level of profits illegal drugs generate, how such gains are distributed among producers, traffickers, and dealers and how much they make, why violence spread in certain places but not in others, and which alternative policies were taken to address the growing challenges posed by illegal drugs.
With a strong empirical foundation based on the best available data, Illegal Drugs, Drug Trafficking and Violence in Latin America explains how rackets in the region built highly profitable enterprises transshipping and smuggling drugs northbound and why the large circulation of drugs also produced the emergence of vibrant domestic markets, which doubled the number of drug users in the region the last 10 years. It presents the best available information for 18 countries, and the final two chapters analyze in depth two rather different case studies: Mexico and Argentina.
Cham: Springer International Publishing, 2018. 166p.
By Jakob Demant and Silje A. Bakken
Use of the internet has changed drug dealing over the past decade. While there is a growing understanding of the role of darknet drug markets, little is known about how drug dealing works on public online services such as social media. This study reports findings from a Nordic comparative study of social media drug dealing, which represents the first in-depth study of increasing levels of digitally mediated drug dealing outside cryptomarkets.
Lisbon, Portugal: European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA)m 2019. 22p.
By Thomas J. Holt and Olga Smirnova
As consumers and businesses have come to rely on computers and the Internet to buy and sell, manage finances, and retain customer information, opportunities for financial data theft and fraud have skyrocketed. Recent evidence suggests that cybercriminals often buy and sell stolen credit card, bank and online account data through online discussion forums.
A Michigan State University study examined how cybercriminals use international Web forums as advertising spaces for buying and trading stolen financial information, especially credit cards. Researchers analyzed almost 2,000 discussion threads from 13 easily accessible Web forums, 10 of which use Russian as their primary language and three of which use English. The study found that cybercriminals often group information from tens to hundreds of bank and credit card accounts into “dumps” that they then sell for an average of $100. Dumps were the most common product sold (44.7 percent), followed by CVV (card verification value code) data from credit cards (34.9 percent), and various forms of electronic data, such as eBay and PayPal account information (1.4 percent).
Most of the data came from continental European nations, but much also came from Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom. The more data available from a country, the lower the price. Bank account data from the European Union, for example, sold for about $4, whereas data from the U.S. sold for about $5.
The forums are particularly collaborative and social in nature, unlike traditional crime networks, such as the Italian Mafia or Yakuza. Participation costs little, and cybercriminals of various skill levels can find the products and services they want through a range of sellers.
The lack of hierarchy suggests that law enforcement attempts to target individuals would cause little disruption to the overall network. Instead, the study proposes that one of the most effective mechanisms to disrupt the sale of stolen data may be law enforcement investigation into the payment systems the criminals use, such as WebMoney and Liberty Reserve.Description text goes here
East Lansing, MI: Michigan State University, 2014. 156p.
By Kevin Poulsen
Former hacker Kevin Poulsen has, over the past decade, built a reputation as one of the top investigative reporters on the cybercrime beat. In Kingpin, he pours his unmatched access and expertise into book form for the first time, delivering a gripping cat-and-mouse narrative—and an unprecedented view into the twenty-first century’s signature form of organized crime. The word spread through the hacking underground like some unstoppable new virus: Someone—some brilliant, audacious crook—had just staged a hostile takeover of an online criminal network that siphoned billions of dollars from the US economy. The FBI rushed to launch an ambitious undercover operation aimed at tracking down this new kingpin; other agencies around the world deployed dozens of moles and double agents. Together, the cybercops lured numerous unsuspecting hackers into their clutches. . . . Yet at every turn, their main quarry displayed an uncanny ability to sniff out their snitches and see through their plots. The culprit they sought was the most unlikely of criminals: a brilliant programmer with a hippie ethic and a supervillain’s double identity. As prominent “white-hat” hacker Max “Vision” Butler, he was a celebrity throughout the programming world, even serving as a consultant to the FBI. But as the black-hat “Iceman,” he found in the world of data theft an irresistible opportunity to test his outsized abilities. He infiltrated thousands of computers around the country, sucking down millions of credit card numbers at will. He effortlessly hacked his fellow hackers, stealing their ill-gotten gains from under their noses.
. Together with a smooth-talking con artist, he ran a massive real-world crime ring. And for years, he did it all with seeming impunity, even as countless rivals ran afoul of police. Yet as he watched the fraudsters around him squabble, their ranks riddled with infiltrators, their methods inefficient, he began to see in their dysfunction the ultimate challenge: He would stage his coup and fix what was broken, run things as they should be run—even if it meant painting a bull’s-eye on his forehead. Through the story of this criminal’s remarkable rise, and of law enforcement’s quest to track him down, Kingpin lays bare the workings of a silent crime wave still affecting millions of Americans. In these pages, we are ushered into vast online-fraud supermarkets stocked with credit card numbers, counterfeit checks, hacked bank accounts, dead drops, and fake passports. We learn the workings of the numerous hacks—browser exploits, phishing attacks, Trojan horses, and much more—these fraudsters use to ply their trade, and trace the complex routes by which they turn stolen data into millions of dollars. And thanks to Poulsen’s remarkable access to both cops and criminals, we step inside the quiet, desperate arms race that law enforcement continues to fight with these scammers today. Ultimately, Kingpin is a journey into an underworld of startling scope and power, one in which ordinary American teenagers work hand in hand with murderous Russian mobsters and where a simple Wi-Fi connection can unleash a torrent of gold worth millions.Description text goes here
New York: Crown Publishing, 211. 288p.
By Nir Kshetri
This book is about the global cybercrime industry, which according to some estimates, is a US$1 trillion industry and is growing rapidly. It examines economic and institutional processes in the cybercrime industry, provides insights into the entrepreneurial aspect of firms engaged in cyber-criminal activities, takes a close look at cybercrime business models, explains the global variation in the pattern of cybercrimes and seeks to understand threats and countermeasures taken by key actors in this industry. This book’s distinguishing features include the newness, importance, controversiality and complexity of the topic; cross-disciplinary focus, orientation and scope; theory-based but practical and accessible to the wider audience; and illustration of various qualitative and quantitative aspects of the global cybercrime industry.
Cham: Springer, 2010. 252p.
