By Geoff Ramsey and David Smilde

While corruption and organized crime are thriving amid Venezuela’s political and economic crisis, previously unpublished U.S. government drug trade monitoring data suggests that Venezuela is not a primary transit country for U.S.-bound cocaine. In “Beyond the Narcostate Narrative,” the authors assess the implications of official U.S. drug control data for prospects at advancing a peaceful, negotiated return to democracy in Venezuela.  When U.S. policymakers talk about Venezuela’s crisis, the flow of cocaine through the country is a frequent talking point. And there is no question that organized crime and corruption have flourished in the midst of Venezuela’s crisis. Yet the true extent of drug trafficking is often magnified by actors who suggest that a negotiated, democratic solution in Venezuela is impossible. The authors have heard some version of “you can’t negotiate with a narcostate” countless times in recent years.

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  This paper uses the U.S. government’s own best estimates of transnational illegal cocaine shipments to gauge the scale and relative importance of Venezuela’s role as a transit country. In particular, we draw on recent data from the U.S. interagency Consolidated Counterdrug Database (CCDB), a multi-source collection of global illegal drug trafficking events that is gathered from intelligence data such as detection and surveillance, as well as interdiction and law enforcement data. According to the Department of Defense, “The CCDB event-based estimates are the best available authoritative source for estimating known illicit drug flow through the Transit Zone. All the event data contained in the CCDB is deemed to be high confidence (accurate, complete and unbiased in presentation and substance as possible).” We have supplemented CCDB estimates with public statements and presentations made by officials at the Drug Enforcement Administration, Department of Defense, and Department of State regarding drug trafficking trends in the Americas. 

Washington, DC: Washington Office on Latin America, 2020. 20p.

By Walter Kemp, Kristina Amerhauser and Ruggero Scaturro

The Western Balkans is a crossroads for the trafficking of many illicit commodities, and a geographical hub for the smuggling of migrants who are trying to enter Western Europe. While these facts are well known, information on the size of the markets and the potential profits is less evident. And while the Western Balkans has a bad reputation for laundering illicit proceeds, there is not much information on cities or sectors where it is a problem. This report sheds light on the dark numbers of mixed migrant flows through the Western Balkans, the prices that they pay to be smuggled, as well as the cost of drugs in the region. To do this, it uses an approach pioneered in two previous Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime (GI-TOC) reports on organized crime in the Western Balkans, namely pinpointing and looking at what is going on in selected hotspots, especially high-volume entry and exit routes through which migrants are smuggled, and key drug trafficking nodes. Focusing on illicit activity in these hotspots provides a close-up look at the drivers and enablers of organized crime. At the same time, an analysis of these hotspots in a regional context gives an indication of the volume of illicit trade and the potential profits being made.

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  After looking at the amounts of money being made in these hotspots and showing where and how the smuggling of migrants and drugs is taking place, the report looks at a third flow – money. The third section of the report explains how money laundering works in the region both in terms of cleaning small amounts in the informal economy as well as bigger volumes generated by serious organized crime and large-scale corruption. It identifies sectors and industries as well as particular hotpots in the Western Balkans that are particularly vulnerable to money laundering. This report contains a wealth of information that was gathered in the fourth quarter of 2020 – despite the COVID-19 pandemic. The findings are based on field research and interviews carried out with current and former law enforcement officials; investigative journalists; researchers; local officials; asylum seekers and migrants; drug users; humanitarian agencies; international organizations; and representatives of civil society in the hotspots. It also draws on secondary sources, such as analytical and media reports, and official government information. To make this information more user-friendly, a number of maps and graphics have been specially produced for this report.

Geneva: Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime. 2021. 88p.

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 Lesley Williams Reid

By exploring the political and economic histories of Atlanta, Boston, Detroit, and New Orleans, Reid documents how each city experienced the demise of the industrial, welfare-state political economy and the rise of the post-industrial, absentee-state political economy and how these transformations have affected urban crime rates. Crime rates increased as manufacturing employment decreased. By contrast, high-skill service-sector growth led to less crime in Boston, while low-skill service-sector growth led to more crime in Atlanta. In addition, those cities emphasizing criminal justice expenditures at the expense of social welfare expenditures have had more crime than those cities that did not. Political and economic conditions have influenced crime rates, in sometimes surprising ways, across the post-World War II urban landscape.

New York: LFB Scholarly Publishing, 2003. 269p.

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.

Edited by Anthony Bottoms and Michael Tonry

This book consists of papers originally presented at the Radzinowicz Commemoration Symposium convened in Cambridge in March 2001. It is offered as a tribute to the founding Director of the Institute of Criminology at the University of Cambridge, who was also the first professor of criminology to be appointed in any British university. In wide-ranging chapters, the contributors - all leading scholars of crime and criminal justice - debate some of the central issues of ideology, crime and criminal justice, including morality and policing. Two of the chapters focus on the history of criminal just. Read more... Ideology, Crime and Criminal Justice; Copyright Page; Contents; Preface; Sir Leon Radzinowicz an appreciation; Recollections of Sir Leon Radzinowicz; Part I Theory; 1 Ideology and crime: a further chapter; 2 Morality, crime, compliance and public policy; Part 2 History; 3 Gentlemen convicts, Dynamitards and paramilitaries: the limits of criminal justice; 4 The English police: a unique development?; Part 3 Prisons; 5 A 'liberal regime within a secure perimeter'?: dispersal prisons and penal practice in the later twentieth century; Part 4 Research and Policy. 6 Criminology and penal policy: the vital role of empirical researchSir Leon Radzinowicz: a bibliography; Index

Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2002. 224p

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

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New York: Center for Court Innovation, 2022. 40p.

By Rosemary L Barberet

"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.

By The United Nations Office on drugs and Crime (UNODC)

The unique socioeconomic context in Palestine, characterized by political and economic tensions, has created conditions that facilitate the spread of illicit drug use among Palestinians. Data are lacking on the extent of high-risk drug use (HRDU) in both the West Bank and Gaza Strip but are a prerequisite to inform policy-making. HRDU is defined as ‘recurrent drug use that causes actual harm (negative consequences) to the person (including dependence, but also other health, psychological or social problems) or places the person at a high probability/risk of such harm’. The overall objective of this study was to provide insight into the extent of male HRDU in Palestine. This survey sampled only male participants based on findings from formative research indicating that females are not connected socially to males and/or to other females who use drugs. The study had four sites representing the Gaza Strip and the three regions in the West Bank: north, middle, and south. The study found that drug use is not confined to specific areas or localities within Palestine, but is widely distributed across the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Based on the data, it is estimated that there are 26,500 high risk drug users (HRDU) in Palestine, comprising 1.8% of the male population aged 15 and above.

Vienna: United Nations Offce on Drugs and Crime (UNODC). 2017. 77p.

By Mark Micallef

This report provides an assessment of drug smuggling routes and dynamics in Libya and aims to establish areas for further in-depth research. It draws on a mixed-methods approach, which includes the analysis of relevant open-source data alongside data from interviews with a variety of key stakeholders in the region. Libya’s smuggling and trafficking economies have been in a tumultuous state of flux since the 2011 revolution, and drug trafficking is no exception. The initial post-revolution period was characterised by changes that opened the door to new players, and even new markets, and led to a huge increase in the country’s internal consumption of illicit drugs, as well as to an expansion in its role as a transit point for drugs heading to Europe and countries neighbouring Libya. The disruption caused by the revolution also reordered the control of this profitable criminal activity, in some cases resulting in wars between criminal actors, including several tribes. Much of this reorganisation was related to the involvement of armed groups in drug trafficking. Two concurrent and conflicting developments in drug trafficking have taken place in the past few years.

Geneva: European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA), 2019. 29p.

By Fiona Mangan

This report explores how illicit drug trafficking and drug use in Libya has shaped and been shaped by the country’s ongoing conflict. Drawing on hundreds of interviews and dedicated research, it examines Libya’s pre-2011 illicit economy, delves into the social impact of drugs, and focuses on drug use on the frontlines of Libya’s ongoing conflict, the corrosive impact of drug trafficking and use on the justice and security sector, and how trafficking and organized crime undercut peacebuilding and state consolidation.

Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace, 2020. 36p.

By United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC)

This is a time for science and solidarity, as United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres has said, highlighting the importance of trust in science and of working together to respond to the global COVID19 pandemic. The same holds true for our responses to the world drug problem. To be effective, balanced solutions to drug demand and supply must be rooted in evidence and shared responsibility. This is more important than ever, as illicit drug challenges become increasingly complex, and the COVID-19 crisis and economic downturn threaten to worsen their impacts, on the poor, marginalized and vulnerable most of all. Some 35.6 million people suffer from drug use disorders globally. While more people use drugs in developed countries than in developing countries, and wealthier segments of society have a higher prevalence of drug use, people who are socially and economically disadvantaged are more likely to develop drug use disorders. Only one out of eight people who need drug-related treatment receive it. While one out of three drug users is a woman, only one out of five people in treatment is a woman. People in prison settings, minorities, immigrants and displaced people also face barriers to treatment due to discrimination and stigma. Of the 11 million people who inject drugs, half of them are living with hepatitis C, and 1.4 million with HIV. Around 269 million people used drugs in 2018, up 30 per cent from 2009, with adolescents and young adults accounting for the largest share of users. More people are using drugs, and there are more drugs, and more types of drugs, than ever.

Vienna: UNODC, 2020. 64p.

By Carina Gallo, Kerstin Svensson

. This book provides a rich analysis of the history of Swedish victim support. With the majority of research on victim support centering on the Anglosphere, this book offers a unique case study for considering the role of the victim in the criminal justice system. While Sweden has enacted many laws to support victims, and victim assistance programs have grown rapidly, welfare policy has become more restrictive and crime policy, to some degree, more punitive.

Routledge (2021) 186 pages.

By Ulrik Boesen

The crafting of tax policy can never be divorced from an understanding of the law of unintended consequences, but it is too often disregarded or misunderstood in political debate, and sometimes policies, however well-intentioned, have unintended consequences that outweigh their benefits. One notable example of this is the ever increasing tax rates on tobacco products. A consequence of high state cigarette excise tax rates has been increased smuggling as people procure discounted packs from low-tax states and sell them in high-tax states. Growing cigarette tax differentials have made cigarette smuggling both a national problem and, in some cases, a lucrative criminal enterprise. Each year, scholars at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, a Michigan think tank, use a statistical analysis of available data to estimate smuggling rates for each state.1 Their most recent report uses 2019 data and finds that smuggling rates generally rise in states after they adopt cigarette tax increases. Smuggling rates have dropped in some states, often where neighboring states have higher cigarette tax rates. T

Washington, DC: Tax Foundation, 2021. 8p.

By Simone Haysom and Mark Shaw

Over the past 15 years, there has been significant growth in awareness that environmental crime constitutes serious organized crime. There has also been a development of laws and policies to accompany that. However, despite the urgency and importance of the issue, responses still fall far short of what is needed. Leading scientists have contributed to these shifts in awareness by producing major syntheses that delineate the vast scale of global risk that environmental damage is unleashing.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPPC) and Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) have both released dire warnings, with the landmark 2019 IPBES report concluding that over a million species are at risk of extinction in the coming decades. IPBES has also warned that environmental crisis undermines progress towards 80% of the assessed targets of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Environmental crime has a key and underappreciated role in this developing crisis.

Our analysis shows that all of the contributing factors identified by IPBES have both direct and indirect connections to criminal networks and transnational criminal flows. We also know that, at its worst, environmental crime is intimately bound up with threats to global peace and stability. It provides a soft entry point into global illicit flows for traffickers, and is often accompanied by widespread human rights abuses and dispossession by criminal networks and actors.

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  The corruption related to environmental crime can be so damaging that it creates political instability and entrenches systems of patronage or the elite capture of democratic institutions. While there has been a significant increase in multilateral investments in responding to wildlife and timber crime, some of these interventions are themselves producing harms that outweigh or undermine their benefits. Human-rights abuses, such as torture, rape and displacement, are also bound up in militarized responses to environmental crime. All of this points to the conclusion that the international community is still failing to support effective, sustainable ways of combatting environmental crime. There is still much to do and much to learn – all within a narrow window of time. The severity of these problems and the pressing time constraints on responding are linked to their intersection with other crises – a broader global failure to address the drivers of climate change; the rapid growth of organized crime and illicit trade over the past two decades; and the fall-out of the enormous shifts wrought by the greater social and economic integration of globalization, particularly through the changes introduced by digital communication and commerce on virtual platforms. The latter is having a transformative impact on all sectors, not least of which is the illicit trafficking of multiple commodities.

Geneva; Global Initiative Against Transnational organized Crime, 2022. 44p.

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.