Edited by Enrico Carloni, Diletta Paoletti  

The challenge of fighting corruption is strategic at a global and European level, and the inadequacy of the repressive and penal response alone has now been evidenced: corruption must not only be fought, but understood, and preventive administrative measures must be taken. Anti-corruption is not an issue that concerns only the judiciary branch, the legal system, and police authorities, but it is, above all, a challenge for society and institutions as a whole. And it is a challenge to be transformed, in particular, into a change in administrations and institutions, in their way of organizing and operating. This volume the result of the Project “Administrative Prevention through Targeted Anti-corruption MODels for candidate countries” – APTAMOD, co-funded by the European Union’s HERCULE III programme, which has conducted comparative law studies and high-profile research activities in the field of administrative prevention of corruption, with specific focus on Albania, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Serbia.

Milan: FrancoAngeli, 2022.  178p.

Edited by Peter Larmour and Nick Wolanin 

There is new international attention being given to the old problem of corruption. It has been taken up by international organisations, and driven by economic analysis. It is impatient of cultural justifications, and suspicious of state action. It is concerned with corruption prevention as much as detection, investigation and prosecution. Corruption and Anti-Corruption deals with the international dimensions of corruption, including campaigns to recover the assets of former dictators, and the links between corruption, transnational and economic crime. It deals with corruption as an issue in political theory, and shows how it can be addressed in campaigns for human rights. It also presents case studies of reform efforts in the Philippines, India and Thailand. The book explains the doctrines of a well-established domestic anti-corruption agency. It is based on research to develop a curriculum for a unique international training course on ‘Corruption and Anti-Corruption’, designed and taught by academics at The Australian National University, the Australian Institute of Criminology and public servants in the New South Wales Independent Commission Against Corruption. Versions have been taught in Canberra, and several countries in South East Asia.

Canberra: ANU Press, 2013.  286p.

By Federico Ceschel  · Alessandro Hinna  · Fabian Homberg

Corruption is widespread and preventive strategies to reduce corruption need to be adapted within the local context. Considering the United Nations (UN) Convention against corruption as our starting point, the paper presents a literature review based on 118 articles on corruption prevention initiatives in the public sector. The analysis indicates a substantial alignment between the guidelines deriving from the UN Convention, except for a lack of work on the risk-based approach to corruption prevention. Further, the review indicates problems with research designs. Based on the insights generated from the analysis, we develop an agenda for future research. 

Public Organization Review (2022) 22:571–591 

By Viktoriia Poltoratskaia and Mihály Fazekas  

  Our research on corruption risk assessments (CRAs) identifies three main approaches: centralised, decentralised, and transparency-oriented methodologies. Case studies from the Netherlands, Lithuania, Mexico, and Italy highlight the role of resource and institutional constraints in the choice of approach, and the importance of ensuring high-quality, complete, and accessible data. To ensure the mitigation of the identified risks, CRA should include systematic and explicit recommendations for assessed entities to follow up.   

  Oslo: U4 - Chr. Michelsen Institute (CMI), 2023. 43p.   

By Kelsey S. Henderson, Christopher M. Campbell,  Brian Renauer

 This report provides the initial findings of Year 1 of a multi-year project to understand the effects of successive drug policy efforts in Oregon, with special focus given to Ballot Measure 110 (M110). In 2021, M110 decriminalized possession of controlled substance (PCS), and effectively downgraded certain quantities of PCS from a misdemeanor to a E-violation (i.e., a citation), resulting in a maximum $100 fine or a completed health assessment. In addition, M110 also earmarked roughly $300 million for local-level treatment and recovery systems. Prior to M110 other statewide changes in policy (e.g., Justice Reinvestment in 2014), law (de-felonization of PCS in 2017), and the COVID-19 lockdown also likely had important impacts on PCS enforcement, prosecution/sentencing, and public safety outcomes. Ultimately, this study will attempt to parse out the individual impacts of these unique events. In Year 1 we set out to gather officer perceptions regarding M110 and other recent policies that may impact law enforcement practices. We report on the general findings from 23 interviews/focus groups representing ten agencies (two state agencies; four Sheriff’s Departments; and four Police Departments), and six different counties (three categorized as “urban” and three categorized as “rural”). The interview data presented here represent officers’ perceptions and decision-making related to drug crimes, among other public safety issues in the state of Oregon. In addition, we include quantitative data trends to compare to officer perceptions of what’s occurring in Oregon. These data include an early examination of statewide trends in law enforcement arrests for PCS; law enforcement stops, searches, and search outcomes; and drug-related deaths. Analyzing the interviews revealed 25 codes of officer perceptions ranging from characteristics of M110 implementation and impacts to community safety and wellbeing.

Portland: Portland State University, 2023. 47p.

By Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services (UK)

  Serious violence and drug abuse are major problems in England and Wales. In its Serious Violence Strategy, published in April 2018, the Government identified strong links between increases in violence and the exploitation of children and vulnerable adults by criminal drug dealers operating ‘county lines’. The strategy included a commitment that Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services would carry out an inspection. Policing county lines drug offending involves three main components as follows: • The 43 territorial police forces in England and Wales. Each is responsible for policing a local area (usually a county, several counties or a metropolitan area). • A network of police-led regional organised crime units. These provide specialist policing capabilities to help the forces in their region tackle organised crime. • The National Crime Agency. This operates on a national (and international) basis, providing further specialist capabilities to support regional organised crime units and individual forces. Also, the National Crime Agency hosts the national county lines co-ordination centre (also referred to in this report as ‘the centre’), which it operates jointly with the police. For this inspection, we analysed documents and data. We visited the national county lines co-ordination centre, three regional organised crime units and ten police forces. We visited British Transport Police (which polices the rail network across Great Britain) because rail travel is a common feature of county lines offending. We interviewed relevant staff in each location. We also consulted representatives from other bodies. 

London: HMICFRS, 2020. 38p.

By Laura M. Maruschak, Todd D. Minton, and Zhen Zeng

This report provides data on the screening and treatment practices of local jail jurisdictions for opioid use disorder. It presents the prevalence of screenings among jail admissions and rates of positive screenings. It describes the prevalence of jail admissions receiving medication for opioid withdrawal and of the confined population receiving medication-assisted treatment for opioid use disorder. The report also details differences by jail characteristics and state rates of opioid overdose deaths.

  Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2023. 25p.  

Edited by Roy Krøvel and Mona Thowsen  

"Each year local and national economies throughout the world lose billions of dollars through so-called illicit financial flows. Conservative estimates indicate that over a billion dollars are diverted illegitimately out of countries in the Southern Hemisphere every year. This diversion of revenue reinforces poverty while facilitating the concentration of authority in the hands a select few through corruption and abuse of power. The authors’ objective with this book is to increase transparency in finance and global financial transactions. Understanding the phenomenon of illicit financial flows requires input from several disciplines including law, finance and economics, and much of what is known about illicit financial flows is thanks to whistleblowers and investigative journalists. This anthology highlights journalism about illicit, global financial activity from an interdisciplinary perspective. In conveying the experiences of whistleblowers and investigative journalists who have been involved with the Panama Papers, Paradise Papers, Lux Leaks and Swiss Leaks, the contributing authors underscore the need for journalism students to also learn the basics of economics, finance and law if they are to be able to carry out investigative projects in an increasingly more globalized economy. In the first part of the book, investigative journalists describe their work to expose corruption and capital flight, and whistleblowers in some of the most significant cases tell their stories, while lawyers and accountants explain what needs to be done at the legislative level. In the second half of the book, analyses of revelations of corruption and illegitimate financial flows are presented. The authors explore themes including the value of investigative journalism, new journalistic methods, inadequate protections for whistleblowers and the education of investigative journalists. This book will be of interest to anyone concerned about illicit financial flows, but especially to journalists, journalism students and journalism instructors seeking an understanding of what it takes to reveal the mechanisms behind illicit, global flows of wealth."

Oslo:  Cappelen Damm Akademisk/NOASP. 2019. 323p.

By Saša Đorđević

  Organized crime and corruption in the Western Balkans have been on the rise since the 1990s, following the war in former Yugoslavia in 1995 and the political-economic crisis triggered by the collapse of pyramid schemes in Albania in 1997. Accordingly, popular, journalistic and academic research on organized crime in these states – namely, Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Serbia – has also increased. In 1996, for example, the head of Belgrade’s criminal police, Marko Nicović, published the book Droga: Carstvo zla (Drugs: Evil Empire) about the history of organized drug trade and the current fight to curtail it. In 2001, the Serbian Interior Ministry mapped and systematically identified 118 organized criminal groups for the first time in the White Book.  In 2002, journalist Jelena Bjelica wrote a study on human trafficking in Europe and the Balkans. In 2005, journalist Miloš Vasić published an in-depth profile of the Zemun Clan, which he described as one of the most powerful criminal organizations in the Balkans during their heyday between 1999 and 2003. One of the first regional projects on the impact of organized crime on peace-building in the region was launched in 2006. Organized crime in the region also sparked interest among international scholars, such as Misha Glenny, who, in 2018, published McMafia, about the global rise in organized crime since the 1980s. Despite the surge in research on organized crime in the Western Balkans, the findings are still insufficient and lacking in certain respects. These works reflect three main trends of illicit economies in the Western Balkans. First, the geography of organized crime has advanced from heroin smuggling through the Balkan route to cocaine trafficking from Latin America to Western Europe, and to the region being a source of particular illicit goods such as weapons and cannabis.6 Second, the politics of illicit economies in the region has evolved from being an ecosystem of political protection for crime facilitators to organized corruption that enriches and shields those with power. Third, following the end of communism and regional wars, the lack of institutional capacity to provide tangible societal improvements resulted in only partial reforms in criminal justice systems across the region. This is despite the 1999 reforms in justice and home affairs fostered by the EU through the Stabilization and Association Process. The objective of this study prepared by the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime (GI-TOC) is to systematically and strategically identify gaps in the current understanding of organized crime in the Western Balkans, and to suggest future areas of work that could help close these gaps and better understand illicit practices. This gap analysis maps existing knowledge, identifies  trends and emerging issues, and reveals the under-researched aspects of illicit economies in the region. With this approach, this study aims to better understand areas of uncertainty and initiate new studies more quickly. Identifying blind spots in the existing literature is a necessary step for creating a new research agenda, establishing strategic and funding priorities and designing research projects that can build the knowledge base, enhance analysis and contribute to evidence-based policymaking.10 Ultimately, this research agenda should aid in the prevention and disruption of organized crime both in the Western Balkans or perpetrated by criminals from the region. After first describing the methodology and data collection techniques of the gap analysis, the paper explains the scale, scope and impact of organized crime and corruption research in the Western Balkans. It then examines the main thematic focus of research on organized crime in the region – namely, criminal markets, criminal actors, and the resilience of state and non-state actors to organized crime and corruption. The third part lays out recommendations and further steps to better understand and increase knowledge of the illicit economies in the Western Balkans.   

 Geneva:  The Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime. 2023. 38p. 

By Stephanie G. Stahlberg

Brazilian prison gangs have spilled out to the outside world and become criminal enterprises. The expansion of São Paulo’s Primeiro Comando da Capital (PCC) and Rio de Janeiro’s Comando Vermelho into all regions and most states in Brazil signifies a major security concern for the country. A third player, Família do Norte (FDN), poses a challenge to the other organized criminal groups (OCGs), especially in the North region, where the FDN fights to retain control of the lucrative drug trading route through the Amazon. Although organized crime is believed to play a significant role in the violence level in Brazil, no study has been able to measure their presence and activity levels beyond one city or state. This dissertation develops a novel methodology for tracking criminal groups, by using the number of Google searches about each OCG in a given state and year. This method creates a proxy for the OCGs' presence and activity level, which is also used to generate a competition index. The analysis shows that OCG presence by itself does not explain homicide rates well; in fact, some states with high levels of OCG activity have relatively low homicide rates. However, in combination with a highly competitive scenario, the strong presence of these groups can translate into high levels of violence. When all three OCGs are present, the homicide rate is on average five points higher than when there are fewer OCGs present. In places where there is dominance of a single OCG, violence levels are lower. Findings from the data analysis and expert interviews reveal that the homicide reduction occurs because of higher levels of criminal market monopolization and criminal governance. Powerful OCGs replace the state and regulate violence in these communities, and are strong and threatening enough to prevent the state from challenging them directly. This study shows that a decrease in the homicide rate in the presence of OCGs should not be seen as a clear success, but rather as a warning sign that criminality may be more united and stronger.

Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University, 2021. 176p.

By  Vanda Felbab-Brown

  This paper explores the trends, characteristics, and changes in the Mexican criminal market, in response to internal changes, government policies, and external factors. It explores the nature of violence and criminality, the behavior of criminal groups, and the effects of government responses. • Over the past two decades, criminal violence in Mexico has become highly intense, diversified, and popularized, while the deterrence capacity of Mexican law enforcement remains critically low. The outcome is an ever more complex, multipolar, and out-of-control criminal market that generates deleterious effects on Mexican society and makes it highly challenging for the Mexican state to respond effectively. • Successive Mexican administrations have failed to sustainably reduce homicides and other violent crimes. Critically, the Mexican government has failed to rebalance power in the triangular relationship between the state, criminal groups, and society, while the Mexican population has soured on the anti-cartel project. • Since 2000, Mexico has experienced extraordinarily high drug- and crime-related violence, with the murder rate in 2017 and again in 2018 breaking previous records. • The fragmentation of Mexican criminal groups is both a purposeful and inadvertent effect of high-value targeting, which is a problematic strategy because criminal groups can replace fallen leaders more easily than insurgent or terrorist groups. The policy also disrupts leadership succession, giving rise to intense internal competition and increasingly younger leaders who lack leadership skills and feel the need to prove themselves through violence. • Focusing on the middle layer of criminal groups prevents such an easy and violent regeneration of the leadership. But the Mexican government remains   deeply challenged in middle-layer targeting due to a lack of tactical and strategic intelligence arising from corruption among Mexican law enforcement and political pressures that makes it difficult to invest the necessary time to conduct thorough investigations. • In the absence of more effective state presence and rule of law, the fragmentation of Mexican criminal groups turned a multipolar criminal market of 2006 into an ever more complex multipolar criminal market. Criminal groups lack clarity about the balance of power among them, tempting them to take over one another’s territory and engage in internecine warfare. • The Mexican crime market’s proclivity toward violence is exacerbated by the government’s inability to weed out the most violent criminal groups and send a strong message that they will be prioritized in targeting......

Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 2019. 29p.

ByScott Duxbury and Dana L. Haynie

Physical, technological, and social networks are often at risk of intentional attack. Despite the wide-spanning importance of network vulnerability, very little is known about how criminal networks respond to attacks or whether intentional attacks affect criminal activity in the long-run. To assess criminal network responsiveness, we designed an empirically-grounded agent-based simulation using population-level network data on 16,847 illicit drug exchanges between 7,295 users of an active darknet drug market and statistical methods for simulation analysis. We consider three attack strategies: targeted attacks that delete structurally integral vertices, weak link attacks that delete large numbers of weakly connected vertices, and signal attacks that saturate the network with noisy signals. Results reveal that, while targeted attacks are effective when conducted at a large-scale, weak link and signal attacks deter more potential drug transactions and buyers when only a small portion of the network is attacked. We also find that intentional attacks affect network behavior. When networks are attacked, actors grow more cautious about forging ties, connecting less frequently and only to trustworthy alters. Operating in tandem, these two processes undermine long-term network robustness and increase network vulnerability to future attacks.

  PLoS ONE 15(9):  2020.  

By Dušan Stanković

This research focuses on the six European Union (EU) accession candidates from the Western Balkans (WB6): Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Serbia. Its objectives are to map the phenomenon and main characteristics of organized crime groups (OCGs) in the region. The analysis is based on the research of both primary and secondary data, using expert interviews, police announcements, official statistics, national SOCTA documents, etc. The study finds that OCGs from some countries such as Albania, Montenegro and Serbia developed largely international networks with 30 and more members. These OCGs represent the main actors and leaders of organized crime (OC) in the region. Other OCGs which have fewer members (from 3-4 to around 15), perform mainly on a national level or as facilitators of bigger OCGs. Male gender is the most common (in about 90% of the cases). Women are engaged in logistic activities, although there are individual cases where they are higher in the criminal group hierarchy. The age of the members can vary between 20 and 50 years old, depending on the activity and territory. The estimated average is around 35, but there are cases of members aged 65 and over. The nationalities and ethnicities of the OCGs follow the patterns of their regions, having solid bonds with their families and traditions. However, differences in background do not stop OCGs to cooperate and make criminal networks. The main criminal activities performed by the OCGs in WB6 are the illicit drug trafficking and migrant smuggling. At the same time, illegal firearms and explosives trafficking and money laundering serve as facilitators of the major activities. Less frequent crime types are organized property crimes, where smuggling of goods is the most prominent activity. Trafficking in human beings has recently been much-evoked in public, mainly by large migration going through the Balkans and creating opportunities for illegal migration and human trafficking. Still, it seems like the authorities currently do not identify big OCGs in the trafficking of human beings. In addition, cybercrime represents an incremental trend, but there also seem to be no prominent OCGs which perform it as a core activity.  

Belgrade, Serbia:  Belgrade Centre for Security Policy (BCSP), 2022. 48p.

By Alina Rocha Menocal

  This paper argues that political settlements analysis and an understanding of elite bargains need to incorporate a deeper and more systematic exploration of serious organised crime (SOC), since this affects critical elements related to the nature and quality of elite bargains and political settlements. In particular, the paper examines how SOC affects these issues – from the elites that constitute a bargain or settlement, to violence and stability, to ‘stateness’, or the extent to which a state is anchored in society, state capacity and political will, to legitimacy and electoral politics. The paper draws on insights from a rich body of research on organised crime and its impacts on conflict, violence, governance and development to articulate how SOC can be more thoroughly integrated into research focused on political settlements and/or elite bargains to enhance its analytical depth, quality and accuracy. The paper also outlines lessons and implications that may guide further reflection in conflict and development circles on the nexus between organised crime, elite bargains and political settlements from a thinking and working politically perspective.  

SOC ACE Research Paper No. 15. Birmingham, UK: University of Birmingham. 2022. 41p.

By Tomáš Diviák 

Objectives: Criminal networks tend to recover after a disruption, and this recovery may trigger negative unintended consequences by strengthening network cohesion. This study uses a real-world street gang network as a basis for simulating the effect of disruption and subsequent recovery on network structure.

Methods: This study utilises cohesion and centrality measures to describe the network and to simulate nine network disruptions. Stationary stochastic actor-oriented models are used to identify relational mechanisms in this network and subsequently to simulate network recovery in five scenarios.

Results: Removing the most central and the highest-ranking actors have the largest immediate impact on the network. In the long-term recovery simulation, networks become more compact (substantially so when increasing triadic closure), while the structure disintegrates when preferential attachment decreases.

Conclusion: These results indicate that the mechanisms driving network recovery are more important than the immediate impact of disruption due to network recovery.

Journal of Experimental Criminology (2023)

By Robin Cartwright and Nicholas Atampugre

The Niger Delta is a global focal point for oil crime that has devastated Nigeria's environment, land, air and water.

Niger Delta oil crime is one of the most serious natural resource crimes globally, with the systematic theft, sale and illegal refining of up to 20% of Nigeria’s oil output. Illegal bunkering and artisanal refining have increased exponentially over the past decade. This paper draws on qualitative interviews with Niger Deltan citizens, and government and community experts, to examine the impact on society. While state security forces continue to treat the crime with ‘extreme prejudice’ – destroying illegal camps and transportation – Niger Deltan citizens have normalised it, justifying it as an economic, energy and employment necessity despite its health and environmental toll.

Enact Africa, 2020. 28p.

By Christopher Hernandez-Roy and Rubi Bledsoe

A journalist recently made an apt joke about living under President Daniel Ortega’s dictatorship: “Hi, I am from Nicaragua, and I represent your future. I am living what you will be experiencing soon enough: harassment, persecution, and threats to your lives and imprisonment,” he said to a group of Northern Triangle colleagues by way of introduction. This anecdote recalls Charles Dickens’ Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come in his 1843 novella A Christmas Tale, where the ghost portends the demise of Ebenezer Scrooge. In this context, it portends the death of democracy in the Northern Triangle, and the dire effects of democratic backsliding. Up until very recently, the conditions in Nicaragua were starkly different from its neighbors. The Ortega regime is a dictatorship that persecutes and detains opponents at will and with complete impunity. Nicaragua’s Northern Triangle neighbors have been democracies, even if imperfect ones. However, in 2019, the election of Nayib Bukele as president of El Salvador marked the beginning of a stark shift in the anti-crime strategy of the country and a turn toward authoritarian tendencies. The new leader opted to suspend constitutional guarantees and engage in mass incarceration in order to fight crime and gang violence, setting off alarm bells across the region, as concerns grew over democratic backsliding. The self-identified “coolest dictator in the world,” used his background in marketing and social media branding to propel an extreme version of mano dura, or “zero tolerance,” to fight crime. Three years later, Honduras and other countries have taken notice of the appeal of these tactics and are now replicating it, or considering it, in whole or in part. This is a slippery slope for the region and a precedent that poses a great danger to the hemisphere’s democracies.   

Washington, DC: Center for Strategic and International Studies, 2023. 12p.

By Ioan Grillo

The world has watched stunned at the bloodshed in Mexico. Thirty thousand murdered since 2006; police chiefs shot within hours of taking office; mass graves comparable to those of civil wars; car bombs shattering storefronts; headless corpses heaped in town squares. The United States throws Black Hawk helicopters and drug agents at the problem. But in secret, Washington is confused and divided about what to do. "Who are these mysterious figures tearing Mexico apart?" they wonder.

London: Bloomsbury, 2017. 250p.

By Michael G. Findley, Daniel L. Nielson & J. C. Sharman

Every year a staggering number of unidentified shell corporations succeed in hiding perpetrators of terrorist financing, corruption and illegal arms trades, but the degree to which firms flout global identification standards remains unknown. Adopting a unique, experimental methodology, Global Shell Games attempts to unveil the sordid world of anonymous shell corporations. Posing as twenty-one different international consultants, the authors approached nearly 4,000 services in over 180 countries to discover just how easy it is to form an untraceable company. Combining rigorous quantitative analysis, qualitative investigation of responses and lurid news reports, this book makes a significant research contribution to compliance with international law and international crime and terrorism whilst offering a novel, new approach to the field of political science research.

Cambridge, UK; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014. 250p.

By World Economic Forum

From the Preface: "The 2023 edition of the 'Global Risks Report' highlights the multiple areas where the world is at a critical inflection point. It is a call to action, to collectively prepare for the next crisis the world may face and, in doing so, shape a pathway to a more stable, resilient world."

World Economic Forum: www.weforum.org/. 2023. 98p.