By Pia Johansson Heinsvig, Ask Vest Christiansen, Daniel Ayoubi, Laura Smedegaard Heisel, Christian Lindhols

This study examines doping products seized by the police in three regional police districts in Denmark from December 2019 to December 2020. The products, often referred to as performance and image-enhancing drugs (PIEDs), are described in relation to the country of origin, manufacturing company, and the active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) stated on the packaging versus the one identified by subsequent chemical analysis. The study also includes a description of the degree of professionalism by which the products appear according to EU requirements. A total of 764 products were seized during the study period. The products originate from 37 countries, mainly located in Asia (37%), Europe (23%), and North America (13%). One hundred ninety-three different manufacturing companies could be identified from the product packaging. The most frequent compound class was the androgenic anabolic steroids, found in 60% of the products. In 25%–34% of the products, either no or an incorrect API relative to the one stated on the product was found. However, only 7%–10% contain either no API or a compound from a different compound class than the one stated. Most products had a professional appearance fulfilling most EU requirements for packaging information. The study shows that many different companies supply PIEDs to the Danish market and that counterfeit and substandard products are widespread. Many products do, however, appear professional to the user giving an impression of a high-quality product. Although many products are substandard, they most often contain an API from the same compound class as the one labeled.

Drug Testing and Analysis Volume 15, Issue 6Jun 2023, Pages 595-705

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

The World Drug Report 2023 comes as countries are struggling at the halfway point to revive stalled progress towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Crises and conflict continue to inflict untold suffering and deprivation, with the number of people forcibly displaced globally hitting a new record high of 110 million. Peace, justice and human rights, which should be the birthright of all, remain out of reach for far too many. The harms caused by drug trafficking and illicit drug economies are contributing to and compounding many of these threats, from instability and violence to environmental devastation. Illicit drug markets continue to expand in terms of harm as well as scope, from the growing cocaine supply and drug sales on social media platforms to the relentless spread of synthetic drugs – cheap and easy to manufacture anywhere in the world, and in the case of fentanyl, deadly in the smallest of doses. Drug use disorders are harming health, including mental health, safety and well-being. Stigma and discrimination make it less likely that people who use drugs will get the help they need. Fewer than 20 per cent of people with drug use disorders are in treatment, and access is highly unequal. Women account for almost half the people who use amphetamine-type stimulants, but only 27 per cent of those receiving treatment. Controlled drugs needed for palliative care and pain relief, namely pharmaceutical opioids, are denied to those who desperately need them, with too little access in many countries – mainly low- and middle-income countries, where some 86 per cent of the world’s population lives. Drug challenges pose difficult policy dilemmas that cannot be addressed by any one country or region alone. The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime publishes the World Drug Report every year to provide a global perspective and overview of the world drug problem, offering impartial evidence with the aim of supporting dialogue and shared responses. This edition of the World Drug Report highlights the growing complexity of evolving drug threats. A special chapter explores how illicit drug economies intersect with crimes that affect the environment and insecurity in the Amazon Basin, with impoverished rural populations and Indigenous groups paying the price. Other sections of the report explore urgent challenges, including drug use in humanitarian settings, drugs in conflict situations and the changing dynamics of synthetic drug markets. The report also delves into new clinical trials involving psychedelics, medical use of cannabis and innovations in drug treatment and other services.   

New York: United Nations, 2023. 70p.

By United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC)

The booklet opens with a look at the challenges posed to law enforcement by synthetic drugs, both in terms of their increasing potency, adaptability and ease of manufacture and their shorter supply chains, reduced risk and lower production costs compared with drugs of natural origin. Other law enforcement challenges are considered in the context of the increasing use of social media for buying and selling drugs online.
Booklet 2 also examines approaches to regulating the medical cannabis market in different countries and assesses recent developments surrounding the therapeutic, spiritual and non-medical use of substances known as “psychedelics”. The remainder of the booklet focuses on issues related to drugs in specific contexts, including the Amazon Basin, where the convergence of drug crime and crimes that affect the environment poses a threat to natural and human ecosystems. The risk factors for and vulnerability to substance use disorders among forcibly displaced populations are also discussed in the booklet, and the interim outcomes of innovations and modifications of services for people who use drugs during the COVID-19 pandemic are summarized.

New York: United Nations,  2023. 205p.

By Joseph Friedman , George Karandinos, Laurie Kain Hart, Fernando Montero Castrillo, Nicholas Graetz, and Philippe Bourgois

Background. The United States is experiencing a continuing crisis of gun violence, and economically marginalized and racially segregated inner-city areas are among the most affected. To decrease this violence, public health interventions must engage with the complex social factors and structural drivers—especially with regard to the clandestine sale of narcotics—that have turned the neighborhood streets of specific vulnerable subgroups into concrete killing fields. Here we present a mixed-methods ethnographic and epidemiological assessment of narcotics-driven firearm violence in Philadelphia’s impoverished, majority Puerto Rican neighborhoods….Findings. Even controlling for poverty levels, impoverished majority-Puerto Rican areas in Philadelphia are exposed to significantly higher levels of gun violence than majority-white or black neighborhoods. Our mixed methods data suggest that this reflects the unique social position of these neighborhoods as a racial meeting ground in deeply segregated Philadelphia, which has converted them into a retail endpoint for the sale of astronomical levels of narcotics.

PLOS One:  November 21, 2019

By Miriam Cavazos Hernandez and Balasurya Sivakumar

We examine the effect of natural resource shocks on violence by drug cartels at the municipality level in rural Mexico from 2003 to 2017. For this, we use an Instrumental Variable setup by instrumenting our main explanatory variable vegetation density with rainfall. Vegetation density is an indicator for natural resource shocks and reflects the “greenness” in a particular area which is considered as an indicator of land productivity. Our main finding is that negative shocks in vegetation density increase homicides. This negative shock could imply crop failures resulting in bad economic outcomes for people in rural areas thereby pushing people to engage with violent drug cartels. Additionally, in order to confirm the main results we explore possible effects that natural resource shocks have on drug cartel presence, seizure of illegal drugs and other drug-related criminal activities. These results further confirm the negative relationship between natural resource shocks and violence by drug cartels. Our findings highlight the dynamics in the operation of the drug cartels and are relevant for understanding the determinants of conflict in rural Mexico.   

Lund, Sweden: Lund University, 2022. 48p.

By Carolina Sampó · Valeska Troncoso

  This article presents the results of an exploratory study aimed to analyze the contexts in which the use of Non-Traditional ports of cocaine departure and counterintuitive routes is prioritized, based on the experience of Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay. Moreover, we show that criminal organizations prioritize the Ports of Buenos Aires, San Antonio and Montevideo, and the counter-intuitive routes that lead to them, because they are spaces that generate incentives linked to the porosity of borders, the lack of control at the ports, and the possibility of exploiting the country’s lack of reputation for drug exportation to re-export cocaine undetected. This study constitutes a precedent for future research on the role of South American Southern Cone ports in cocaine trafficking. We can identify at least four emerging lines of research: 1. Cocaine trafficking from landlocked countries; 2. The role of the waterway Paraná-Paraguay; 3. The link between Non-Traditional ports of cocaine departure and new markets; and 4. Other Non-Traditional Ports of cocaine departure, which are not containerized.

Trends in Organized Crime, 2022. 

By Jesse Bruhn 

I study criminal street gangs using new data that describes the geospatial distribution of gang territory in Chicago and its evolution over a 15-year period. Using an event study design, I show that city blocks entered by gangs experience sharp increases in the number of reported batteries (6%), narcotics violations (18.5%), weapons violations (9.8%), incidents of prostitution (51.9%), and criminal trespassing (19.6%). I also find a sharp reduction in the number of reported robberies (-8%). The findings cannot be explained by pre-existing trends in crime, changes in police surveillance, crime displacement, exposure to public housing demolitions, reporting effects, or demographic trends. Taken together, the evidence suggests that gangs cause small increases in violence in highly localized areas as a result of conflict over illegal markets. I also find evidence that gangs cause reductions in median property values (-$8,436.9) and household income (-$1,866.8). Motivated by these findings, I explore the relationship between the industrial organization of the black market and the supply of criminal activity. I find that gangs that are more internally fractured or operate in more competitive environments tend to generate more crime. This finding is inconsistent with simple, market-based models of criminal behavior, suggesting an important role for behavioral factors and social interactions in the production of gang violence

Bravo Working Paper # 2021-004 . Brown University Orlando Bravo Center for Economic Research, 2021. 71p.

By Jose Antonio Sanchez , Scott H. Decker and David C. Pyrooz

Gang research has spanned nearly a century. In that time, we have learned that gang membership increases the chances of involvement in homicide as a victim or offender. The violence that embroils gang life, both instrumental and symbolic, often has consequences. In this paper we review the gang homicide literature covering topics such as definitional issues, available data, correlates and characteristics, and theoretical explanations. The review examines individual, group, and structural contexts for gang homicide. We conclude with a discussion of future needs in theory, data, and methods, to improve our understanding of gang homicide.

Homicide StudiesVolume 26, Issue 1, February 2022, Pages 68-90

By Adrian Bergmann

Gangs impact everyday life and politics across much of the world, yet the literature on gang disengagement—the process whereby people move on from the gang life—is mostly limited to the United States and Europe. In El Salvador, following 30 years of gang wars and a 20-year war on gangs, gang members face severe restrictions from both their gangs and wider society to disengage. Ultimately, this undermines the prospects not only for gang members to remake their lives, but for sustaining reductions in armed violence and addressing a broader set of pressing social issues. Theoretically, I propose a nested, multilevel analysis of gang disengagement, attentive to the interactions between individual, gang-organizational, and social conditions that enable and constrain processes of gang disengagement. Empirically, I employ this framework to scrutinize the evolution of gangs and gang disengagement in El Salvador, and the political solutions necessary for large-scale disengagement moving forward. 

Critical Criminology 2022.

By InSight Crime

In the suffocating heat of summer in El Salvador, José Elvis Herrera Reinoso, alias “Elvis,” is gathered with the family of an elderly woman inside her small home. The woman, who suffers from diabetes, had been close to death just a few days beforehand, but made a seemingly inexplicable recovery. With just a few simple tools, including a Bible and loudspeaker, Elvis guides the family members in a religious celebration of this “miracle.” His well-practiced preaching and passionate reading from the holy book tell anyone listening that he is a dedicated pastor. And the tattoos that cover his face let them know he was a member of the Mara Salvatrucha 13 (MS13), one of the most feared gangs in the world.   

Washington, DC: InSight Crime, 2022. 23p.

By Christopher Blattman, et al.

Urban armed groups, especially criminal gangs, are a growing threat to peace and economic growth in cities across the world. These groups often exert state-like powers, enforcing contracts, policing, and taxing businesses in the areas they informally govern. The conventional wisdom suggests that criminal organizations provide governance when states do not, and that increasing state services could crowd gangs out.  In partnership with the City of Medellín, researchers randomly introduced a program that intensified government outreach to gang-controlled neighborhoods. The study found no evidence that the city’s intervention reduced gang rule.

Washington, DC: Innovations for Poverty Action, 2019. 6p.

By Joana Monteiro, duardo Fagundes , Mariana Carvalho , Ramon Gomes

Some criminal groups are able to avoid confrontation and diversify their economic activities while others are constantly contested by rival groups and the state. To understand why, we propose a model to investigate criminal groups’ incentives to invest in military capacity and the state’s response to arming. Typically it is difficult to map criminal groups’ presence and document their economic activities. We build a novel panel dataset to map presence and characterize the economic activities of criminal groups in Rio de Janeiro, where drug factions and militia groups have controlled territories for at least three decades. We provide evidence that both groups are multi-product enterprises that explore a wide range of licit and illicit goods and services. We empirically test the predictions of our model. Our findings suggest that more groups in the territory increase conflict and state repression and reduce economic diversification. In addition, we argue that the ability to collaborate with the state is crucial for groups to exploit more markets. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study that uses systematic data to show how criminal groups in Rio de Janeiro evolve over time and diversify their economic activities. 

Encontro da Sociedade Brasileira de Econometria - Gran Mareiro Hotel | Fortaleza - CE, n: 44º . 2023. 2022. 48p.

By Paolo Campana  & Federico Varese

In this paper, we explore the determinants of co-membership in organised crime groups in a British police force. We find that co-membership of OCGs is higher among individuals who share the same ethnicity and nationality; who have committed acts of violence; and who perpetrate the vast majority of their crimes in the same area. We also find a homophily tendency in relation to age and gender, and that task specialisation within groups is driven by the type of activity. We interpret some results as conforming to the argument that recruitment from a small area and similar ethnic/national background increases cooperation and reduces the likelihood of opportunistic behaviour in a context of rather effective policing. Our findings do not conform to the suggestive image of OC members as ‘urban marauders’ and OCGs as large and powerful multinationals. OCGs tend to be small, localised and formed by people with the same background.

Global Crime  Volume 23, 2022 - Issue 1: 

By Timothy Brezina & MariTere Molinet

The unique scholarship of Carlo Morselli fuelled interest in criminal networks, entrepreneurship, and achievement. In this paper, we summarise Morselli’s contributions to the scholarship on criminal achievement, with special attention to the subjective aspects of such achievement. We show how Morselli’s work ignited interest in the novel concept of criminal self-efficacy and we offer a number of suggestions for continuing and extending this important line of work. In particular, we (1) discuss reasons why the subjective aspects of criminal achievement have been largely neglected by others, but why they are important to explore; (2) review the possible sources of criminal self-efficacy; (3) discuss gender differ-ences in this area; and (4) highlight the overall balance between criminal and conventional self-efficacy as an important considera-tion. Further research in this area may help us better understand the attraction to crime, the limited effectiveness of punishment, and reasons for the persistence of criminal careers.

GLOBAL CRIME                                               2022, VOL. 23, NO. 1, 81–100 

By Roxana Gutiérrez-Romero and Nayely Iturbe

When does organized crime resort to assassinating politicians? In narcocracies, criminal groups co-opt political elites through bribery in exchange for protection to traffic illegal drugs. When criminal groups compete, they may also resort to political violence to influence which candidate wins local elections in strategic areas and retaliate when state action threatens their survival. Using new data on political assassinations in Mexico during 2000–21, we show that political candidates are more likely to be assassinated in areas close to oil pipelines used by drug trafficking organizations for oil theft. Former mayors of areas near oil pipelines remain at high risk of assassination. In municipalities where at least one mayor has already been killed, the arrest of a member of organized crime significantly increases the chance that an incumbent mayor will be killed. Political violence is directed at politicians, not voters, so it has a negligible impact on voter turnout. 

WIDER Working Paper 2023/7 . Helsinki: UNU-WIDER, 2023. 43p.

By Pierfrancesco Rolla and  Patricia Justino

Organized crime affects security, development, and democracy worldwide, but not much is known about its social consequences. We study how exposure to the presence of organized crime groups shapes the social capital of Italian citizens, including political participation, civic engagement, and institutional and interpersonal trust. To address this question, we first leverage a survey of almost 800,000 respondents on social capital and exposure to organized crime conducted in Italy between 2000 and 2018. Second, we compile data on social capital and related variables between 1861 and 2020 in the Italian region of Apulia to exploit the unexpected and exogenous arrival, in the 1970s, of organized crime in the region, where no groups had been present before. We compare levels of social capital in Apulia with a synthetic control of regions which were not notably exposed to the presence of organized crime groups. Results from both exercises show that exposure to organized crime reduces political participation, institutional and interpersonal trust and has mixed effects on civic engagement. Using a mediation analysis leveraging both quantitative and qualitative evidence, we show that the negative effects of organized group presence on political participation and trust are largely explained by disinvestment in social capital by those exposed to the presence of criminal groups due to psychological factors (fear and resignation) and frustration with lack of state capacity to deal with the groups.

WIDER Working Paper 2022/106  . HELSINKI: UNU-WIDER 2022 79P.

By Christopher Dowling and Anthony Morgan

Regulatory approaches to organised crime aim to minimise exploitation of the legitimate economy by offenders. Unlike criminal justice approaches, regulatory approaches prioritise prevention over enforcement. This study explores the impact of a regulatory approach to organised crime in Queensland which restricted outlaw motorcycle gang (OMCG) members from working in certain industries. We exploit a delay in the implementation of these occupational restrictions after a wider suite of measures commenced, using interrupted time series analysis to analyse changes in organised crime related harm by OMCG members. Results suggest that the introduction of occupational restrictions was followed by a gradual reduction in organised crime related harm by OMCG members (3% to 4% per month). While the reduction is small, it supports the view that regulatory measures are a promising strategy for reducing organised crime.

Trends & issues in crime and criminal justice no. 652. Canberra: Australian Institute of Criminology. 2022. 16p.

By Anthony Morgan and Christopher Dowling

In this study we explore the enablers of illicit drug trafficking using law enforcement intelligence data on a sample of 587 organised crime groups. We measure the prevalence of other forms of criminal activity and their relationship with poly-drug trafficking, which refers to the trafficking of multiple drug types and is associated with increased profitability, versatility and resilience to disruption. Other forms of criminal activity— including enablers of illicit drug trafficking—were common. Half the groups (52%) were poly-drug traffickers. Groups suspected to have exploited or infiltrated the transport system (air, sea or surface) and those suspected of laundering money via the real estate market or gambling services were more likely to be trafficking multiple drug types. Groups that relied on these enabling activities were more likely to involve professional facilitators. This research highlights a number of key enablers of organised crime that may be targeted to disrupt illicit drug trafficking.

 Trends & issues in crime and criminal justice no. 665.  Canberra: Australian Institute of Criminology. 2023. 19p.

By Becca Cadoff, Erica Bond, Preeti Chauhan, & Allie Meizlish

In this report, the Data Collaborative for Justice (DCJ) presents analyses on criminal convictions in New York City from 1980 through 2019, using data provided by the New York State Division of Criminal Justice Services. DCJ presents the number of criminal convictions that have accumulated over the course of these four decades, broken down by charge severity (i.e., misdemeanor vs. felony), charge type (e.g., drug charges or property-related charges) and demographics (i.e., race/ethnicity, sex, and age). DCJ also documents the number of individuals who have criminal convictions on their records, including the race/ethnicity, sex, and age of people with conviction records. Finally, DCJ analyzes individuals’ conviction records to assess how long ago these convictions occurred and the number and type of charges that make up conviction records.

New York: Data Collaborative for Justice (DCJ) 2021. 69p.

By Becca Cadoff, Olive Lu, Sarah Monaghan & Michael Rempel

Key Findings:

Total Convictions

• Changes in Annual Conviction Totals From 1980 to 2021: In 1980, there were just over 71,000 statewide convictions. After rising sharply in the 1980s, and fluctuating from about 170,000 to 200,000 per year from 1990 to 2010, annual convictions dropped to 109,000 in 2019, and continued to decline significantly in 2020 and 2021.

• Geography: New York City accounted for 53% of the State’s convictions in 1980, declining to 33% in 2019, while 18% involved the suburban counties of Nassau, Suffolk, Westchester, and Rockland, and 49% involved the upstate region.

• Demographics: From 1980 to 2021, 82% of convictions involved men. From 1985 to 2021, 42% of convictions involved Black people (though they made up 15% of the State’s population in 2019), 20% involved Hispanic people, and 36% involved white people.

People with Convictions

• Overall: The 6.6 million total statewide convictions represented just under 2.2 million people. A misdemeanor conviction was the most serious on the record for three quarters of the cases.

• Racial Disparities: From 1980 to 2021, about 1.1 million white, 640,000 Black, 380,000 Hispanic, and 41,000 Asian New Yorkers accumulated a conviction. In 2019, the conviction rate per 100,000 people was 3.1 times higher for Black than white people statewide. New York City saw the starkest racial disparities of any region, with a conviction rate 5.7 times higher for Black than white people.

• Recency of Convictions: The most recent conviction was more than 20 years ago for 47% of people, 11 to 20 years ago for 26%, and within the past ten years for 27%.

• People Newly Accumulating a Conviction Record: In the 2019 pre-pandemic year, 107,481 people were convicted of a crime, of which 30,458 (28%) experienced their first conviction (and, hence, were newly exposed to resulting lifetime repercussions).

New York: Data Collaborative for Justice at John Jay College, 2023. 24p.