G8 Against Transnational Organized Crime

The fight against money laundering, drug trafficking, illegal immigration, cyber crime, and the promotion of the enhancement of judicial and police cooperation in criminal matters have been at the core of the G8's actions in this field since the 1990s. This book sheds light on the nature, structure and modus operandi of the G8's specific expertise on transnational organized crime from a sociological approach in order to understand the elaboration, production and diffusion of international norms and standards. It provides a detailed analysis of an under-researched aspect of international politics: the intensification of expert-level exchanges on the international stage over the enhanced cooperation against transnational organized crime that has led to an impressive elaboration of best practices and soft law recommendations. Very few studies have focused on the experts who determine these: who they are, what their socio-professional background is, and the nature and impact of their collective work in the global fight against organized crime.

The fight against money laundering, drug trafficking, illegal immigration, cyber crime, and the promotion of the enhancement of judicial and police cooperation in criminal matters have been at the core of the G8's actions in this field since the 1990s. This book sheds light on the nature, structure and modus operandi of the G8's specific expertise on transnational organized crime from a sociological approach in order to understand the elaboration, production and diffusion of international norms and standards. It provides a detailed analysis of an under-researched aspect of international politics: the intensification of expert-level exchanges on the international stage over the enhanced cooperation against transnational organized crime that has led to an impressive elaboration of best practices and soft law recommendations. Very few studies have focused on the experts who determine these: who they are, what their socio-professional background is, and the nature and impact of their collective work in the global fight against organized crime.

From 23 to 26 January 2001 the incoming Belgian Presidency of the European Union organized an international conference on the strategies of the European Union and the United States in combating transnational organized crime. The conference gathered policy-makers, police and judicial authorities and other actors with a view to discussing important problems regarding the fight against organized crime. Apart from focusing on the European dimension of the subject (including Eastern Europe), the conference primarily addressed co-operation with the United States. This book collects, along with a number of plenary reports, texts that have been presented and discussed at the conference during the workshops, dealing with integrity and control on information exchange, cross-border operational activities, international/regional framework to fight organized crime, intelligence gathering in the context of peace-keeping activities, training of law enforcement authorities, integrity/corruption, drug trafficking, trafficking in human beings, money laundering and cyber crime.

The fight against the sexual exploitation of and trade in children has gained particular and renewed international attention in the last few years and has become one of the most important concerns in the context of international law enforcement policy and cooperation. Since 1998, policy makers have come up with new legal initiatives at global as well as regional levels in order to tackle this problem in a more effective and coordinated way. This proves that the time has come to match words and actions, and to come up with concrete and useful tools for law enforcement services and NGO's active in the areas concerned. The current study therefore examines the feasibility of the further elaboration and implementation of recommendations from a previous project (96/STOP/003) regarding the systematic gathering and administration of data concerning missing minors, minor victims of trafficking in or sexual exploitation of children and perpetrators of sexual offences against minors, with the goal to further prepare the practical setting up of several international databases with immediate relevance to the police and the prosecuting or investigating magistrates or officials, both in the EU Member States and the candidate countries. It is recommended to give Interpol a mandate to host an international database on missing persons and to create an EU monitoring centre responsible for the gathering and administration of reliable statistics and legal information on sexual exploitation of children and trafficking in human beings. It is also recommended for Interpol to host an international reference database on child pornography and to set up an analysis/intelligence child porn database at Europol. Regarding suspected and convicted sex offenders, it is proposed to create a database on pending investigations, an EU criminal records database and a database at Europol containing encoded information on both suspected and convicted offenders of sexual offences against children. Finally, it is suggested to create a European network of national DNA databases. The book also contains a summary of the conclusions in French.

Organized crime is now a major threat to all industrial and non-industrial countries. Using an inter-disciplinary and comparative approach this book examines the nature of this threat. By analysing the existing, official institutional discourse on organized crime it examines whether or not it has an impact on perceptions of the threat and on the reality of organized crime. The book first part of the book explores both the paradigm and the rationale of policy output in the fight against organized crime, and also exposes the often ‘hidden’ internal assumptions embedded in policy making. The second part examines the perceptions of organized crime as expressed by various actors, for example, the general public in the Balkans and in Japan, the criminal justice system in USA and circles within the international scientific community. Finally, the third part provides an overall investigation into the realities of organized crime with chapters that survey its empirical manifestations in various parts of the world. This book will be of interest to students and scholars of international relations, criminology, security studies and practitioners.

In The globalization of crime: a transnational organized crime threat assessment, UNODC analyses a range of key transnational crime threats, including human trafficking, migrant smuggling, the illicit heroin and cocaine trades, cybercrime, maritime piracy and trafficking in environmental resources, firearms and counterfeit goods. The report also examines a number of cases where transnational organized crime and instability amplify each other to create vicious circles in which countries or even subregions may become locked. Thus, the report offers a striking view of the global dimensions of organized crime today.

Popular histories of organized crime in the United States often look to the Mafia and the sons of early twentieth-century immigrants – such as Al Capone, Lucky Luciano, and Meyer Lansky – for their origins. In this second edition of Organized Crime and American Power, Michael Woodiwiss refocuses on US organized crime as an American problem. The book starts in 1789, with the birth of a new nation, intended to be run according to laws and conventions, with a written commitment to civil rights. Woodiwiss examines the organization of crime before the Civil War, which damaged or destroyed the lives of those excluded from constitutional protections: Indigenous peoples, Black people, and women. The book focuses on white supremacist crime and the pernicious influence of Southern leaders in alliance with opportunistic politicians. It examines the organized crimes of powerful business interests in alliance with politicians, as well as the corrupt consequences of the US moralistic campaigns against alcohol, gambling, drugs, and abortion. Organized Crime and American Power brings solid historical evidence and analysis to the task of refuting conventional wisdom that frames organized crime as something external to US political, economic, and social systems.

"Histories of Transnational Criminal Law provides for the first time a set of legal histories of state efforts to combat and cooperate against transnational crime"--Publisher.