By Johanna Skinnari, Karolina Hurve and Andrea Monti

In this report, the Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention (Brå) presents a government assignment regarding facilitators in the legal sector who provide assistance to criminal networks. For the purposes of this report, a facilitator is defined as someone misusing his or her position or mandate in local government or the public or private sectors in order to benefit criminal networks. Our research is based on analyses of interviews, cases and encrypted chat messages from members of criminal networks. Our study broadly confirms previous findings from Swedish and international research, particularly with regard to the tasks performed by facilitators. This report also presents a broader and more comprehensive picture of the conditions in Sweden. Unique data also provides us insight into areas not previously described.

What tasks do facilitators perform? Our study suggests that many members of criminal networks appear to have a substantial interest in using facilitators. Access to such facilitators is limited, but they can be found in all studied sectors. These mainly include the criminal justice system, numerous local government administrations, banking and finance, real estate, incorporation, bookkeeping and accounting services, legal services, security and surveillance, and transport. Overall, the identified cases occur in most regions of Sweden. This is therefore not solely a metropolitan phenomenon. The degree of activity among the identified facilitators ranges from sporadic, brief assistance to long-term and frequent assistance provided to numerous members of different criminal networks. The material as a whole shows that, in some areas, facilitators are more likely to assist criminal networks. Such professionals have frequent contacts with criminal actors, are exposed to threats or other pressure to a significant degree or receive remuneration that is tied to their number of clients. Facilitators mainly provide information to members of criminal networks, which is in line with previous studies. This information can be of very different kinds, including sensitive personal data, information about what public authorities or municipalities know about a criminal network, or more strategic information regarding potential criminal activity. Such information may also consist of warnings or instructions relayed to the criminal network from detained or imprisoned members. Such information allows them to coordinate their testimony and complicate investigations. One important observation is that information sought from facilitators need not be secret to be valuable. Rather, accumulated information and insider knowledge makes such information sensitive and useful to members of criminal networks. Professionals also facilitate logistics by smuggling, transporting or storing illegal goods. Facilitators may also create legitimate covers by generating credible documentation or certificates, or by providing companies which are used to commit crimes, as well as by identifying criminal schemes which appear as legitimate business activity. In some cases, facilitators are also needed to handle criminal proceeds, which public anti-money laundering measures have made more difficult for criminal networks. Finally, some facilitators even issue favourable decisions - they deviate from procurement procedures or other important decisions, fail to report crimes, or facilitate improper payments from welfare systems or the private sector. Our survey shows the facilitators are asked to perform a broad array of tasks of varying complexity. These range from logistical tasks, which the criminal network might have performed on its own or learned, to complex assignments which only a facilitator could perform, especially influencing the outcome of certain decisions and accessing sensitive information. Report 2024:2

Stockholm: Swedish Council on Crime Prevention 2025. 12p.

 By David C. Brotherton · Rafael Gude

 In 2008, the Ecuadorian Government launched a policy to increase public safety as part of its “Citizens’ Revolution” (La Revolución Ciudadana). An innovative aspect of this policy was the legalization of the country’s largest street gangs. During the years 2016–2017, we conducted ethnographic research with these groups focusing on the impact of legalization as a form of social inclusion. We were guided by two research questions: (1) What changed between these groups and society? and (2) What changed within these groups? We completed field observations and sixty qualitative interviews with group members, as well as multiple formal and informal interviews with government advisors, police leaders and state actors related to the initiative. Our data show that the commitment to social citizenship had a major impact on gang-related violence and was a factor in reducing the nation’s homicide rate. The study provides an example of social control where the state is committed to policies of social inclusion while rejecting the dominant model of gang repression and social exclusion practiced throughout the Americas.  

Critical Criminology, 2020.

By Vivian Miller

Peter Christian "Paddy" Barrie was a seasoned fraudster who transferred his horse doping and horse substitution skills from British to North American racetracks in the 1920s. His thoroughbred ringers were entered in elite races to guarantee winnings for syndicates and betting rings in the prohibition-era United States. This case study of a professional travelling criminal and the challenges he posed for the Pinkerton National Detective Agency in the early 1930s war on crime highlights both the importance of illegal betting to urban mobsters and the need for broader and more nuanced critiques of Depression-era organised crime activities and alliances.

Journal of American Studies, 2021. 35p.

By Mary Holper

This article examines evidence that the government presents in deportation proceedings against young men of color to prove that they are gang members. The gang evidence results in detention, deportation, adverse credibility decisions, and denial of discretionary relief. This article examines the gang evidence through the lens of the law’s use of presumptions and the corresponding burdens of proof at play in immigration proceedings. The immigration burden allocations allow adjudicators to readily accept the harmful presumption contained in the gang evidence—that urban youth of color are criminals and likely to engage in violent crime associated with gangs. The article seeks to explain how this racist assumption led to the creation of a gang database and proposes an evidentiary presumption that the gang evidence is not reliable, in order to specifically instruct the immigration adjudicator to reject the presumption society has put in place about urban youth of color and criminality. In this way, the article tracks common interests of critical race theory, by explaining how US society has subordinated people of color in the creation of gang databases, and seeking not only to understand, but to change this bond between law and racial power.

9 Brook. L. Rev. 119 (2023).

By Sjoukje van Deuren, Robby Roks & Teun van Ruitenburg

Outlaw biker clubs have drawn considerable attention of law enforcement agencies across European countries. Despite law enforcement efforts, the popularity of the outlaw biker subculture has been on the rise recently. There is, however, still little understanding of how individuals become engaged in the outlaw biker subculture. Using unique data from interviews with current members of the Dutch Hells Angels (N = 24), this article addresses the entry mechanisms into the club and how individuals become full-patched members. The results show that active recruitment by the Hells Angels MC and gradually growing into the club’s membership are common entering mechanisms. Pre-existing social ties, both on the club and the individual level, play a significant role for involvement in Dutch Hells Angels membership. Moreover, the Dutch Hells Angels apply various mechanisms to establish the trustworthiness, loyalty, and suitability of a person before becoming a full-patched member of the club.

Trends in Organized Crime, 2024.

By Prince Emmanuel of Jerusalem.

“ History shows that hanging did not prevent petit larceny. So we have abandoned the policy of frightfulness in punishment and cannot revert to it even though it still has some few supporters. And yet we feel that the theory of punishment being deterrent is philosophically sound. …The first news from the Laboratory revealed the prevalence of feeble-mindedness among delinquents. “

Rosburgh Publishing (1921) 247 pages.

R. Pena Gonzalez.

This study explores contexts of disorder and crisis, in which criminal actors gain legitimacy. By affirming that criminal groups are already social agents, this research argues that they gain political legitimacy to the extent that criminal groups engage in an authority-building process. Thus, it focuses on two instances in which criminal groups launched campaigns— or at least engaged in planned activities— in order to gain political and social legitimacy. La Familia Michoacana (LFM) and Los Caballeros Templarios (LCT) de Michoacán in Mexico, on the one hand, and Cosa Nostra (CN) in Italy, on the other, offer rich and instructive cases to examine. Precisely, the research asks for how these groups seek to forge legitimacy, as well as for what are their strategies for that purpose. The research opens two avenues of conceptual discussion.

Leiden: Leiden University 2020. 265p.