By Gian Maria Campedelli, Gianmarco Daniele, Marco Le Moglie

Detection is one of the main challenges in the fight against organized crime. We show that machine learning can be used to predict mafias infiltration in Italian local governments, as measured by the dismissal of city councils infiltrated by organized crime. The model successfully predicts up to 96% of out-of-sample municipalities previously identified as infiltrated by mafias, up to two years earlier, making this index a valuable tool for identifying municipalities at risk of infiltration well in advance. Furthermore, we can identify “high-risk” local governments that may be infiltrated by organized crime but have not been detected by the state, thereby improving the efficacy of detection. We then apply this new time-varying measure of organized crime to investigate the underlying causes of this type of rent-seeking. As criminals infiltrate politics to capture public resources, we study how a positive shock in public spending (European Union transfers), affects this phenomenon. Employing a geographic Difference-in-Discontinuities design, we find a substantial and lasting increase in the predicted risk of mafia infiltration (up to 14 p.p.), emphasizing the unintended effects of delivering aid where criminal organizations can appropriate public funds.

Unpublished paper, 2024. 103p.

Sergi, Anna

Attention to the Calabrian mafia, the ‘ndrangheta, has been increasing across law enforcement authorities around the world. This paper aims at bringing forward a theoretical and operational conversation on how to best approach, from a policing perspective, what is a complex clan-based criminality able to operate simultaneously in different states. The paper will therefore formulate a preliminary framework for strategies focusing on the policing of mafia dynasties. It will do so by identifying how ‘ndrangheta clans can be studied as family dynasties, including in their assessment also the factors of family life (familiness) that can facilitate or obstruct the dynasty’s success. By looking at ‘ndrangheta clans as family dynasties, we can inform a framework that cuts through the most common policing aims and strategies against organised crime, as shared by states involved in current anti-mafia efforts.

‘Ndrangheta Dynasties: A Conceptual and Operational Framework for the Cross-Border Policing of the Calabrian Mafia. Policing: A Journal of Policy and Practice, 15 (2). (2021) pp. 1522-1536.

Sergi, Anna and Vannucci, Alberto

This paper wishes to explore some characteristics of the relevant interconnections between mafias/ mafiosi and masonic lodges/masons in the Italian context. The paper sets out to study these interconnections from a social science perspective rooted in sociological and neo-institutional studies of organised crime and mafias, but also in criminological approaches to social constructionism, in the form of symbols and narratives. We will present a case study to reflect on the roles that (deviant) masons can assume in contexts where both mafias’ and personal, political, or economic interests are at play. The case study shows how masonic alliances can augment networking and enforcing capabilities: we call this process masonic deviance amplification. Additionally, the case study confirms the constitutive power that narratives around the masonic world hold today in the Italian context.

The Secret Nexus. A case study of deviant masons, mafia, and corruption in Italy. The British Journal of Criminology, 63 (5). (2022) pp. 1165-1183.

By Gemma Dipoppa

The widespread presence of criminal organizations in strong states presents a theoretical and empirical puzzle. How do criminal organizations — widely believed to thrive in weak states — expand to states with strong capacity? I argue that criminal groups expand where they can strike agreements with local actors for the provision of illegal resources they control, and that this practice is particularly profitable in strong states where costs from prosecution are higher. Using a novel measure of organized crime presence, I show that (1) increases in demand for unskilled labor — and in criminals’ capacity to fill it by exploiting migrants — allowed southern Italian mafias to expand to the north, and that (2) mafia expansion gave a persistent electoral advantage to political parties collaborating with them. This suggests the need to reconceptualize criminal organizations not only as substitutes for weak states but as complements to strong states.

Preprint, 2021. 59p.

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.