From Mafia to Organised Crime (original) (raw)

Italian Organised Crime: Mafia Associations and Criminal Enterprises

Http Dx Doi Org 10 1080 1744057042000297954, 2010

The paper reviews the different forms of organised crime in Italy. To begin with, it focuses on the Sicilian Cosa Nostra and the Calabrian 'Ndrangheta, Italy's two largest and most powerful mafia associations. With their centuries-old histories, articulated structures, sophisticated ritual and symbolic apparatuses and claim to exercise a political dominion, these associations have few parallels in the world of organised crime. In its second section, the paper reviews other groups and networks that are-with varying degrees of justification-also routinely described as organised crime: these range from the Neapolitan Camorra to Apulian organised crime and the so-called new 'foreign mafie' and other criminal entrepreneurs. Whereas the new Italian and foreign players are likely to expand their activities on Italy's illegal markets, the future of Cosa Nostra and the 'Ndrangheta is more uncertain and largely depends on the decisions made by the public administrations.

Mafia Organizations: The Visible Hand of Criminal Enterprise

Journal of illicit economies and development, 2020

The author, Maurizio Catino, has undertaken a meticulous examination of criminal organizations that dominate the illicit marketplace throughout the world. The Mafia, Cosa Nostra, Camorra, 'Ndrangheta, Triads, Yakuza, and the South American cartels are dissected and their respective nomenclatures compared and contrasted. Catino addresses their relationship to the illicit markets that they operate within and organize in order to minimize risks and maximize profits. Relying upon electronic surveillances, investigative reports, and intelligence sources, Catino takes this ethnographic data and molds it into a series of principles that govern each criminal organization. His research has profoundly advanced our understanding of criminal organizations and the illicit markets they supply. It will likely go down as the most seminal piece of research in the past thirty or more years.

What’s in a name: Definition of organised crime

Bulletin de l'Institut etnographique

This paper provides an insight into the phenomenology of organised crime as a historical and contemporary experience, and discusses issues related to understanding and definitions. Since the social environment determines significance of organised crime in society, the paper highlights influence of political context in normative design of organised crime acts through the presentation of the genesis of criminal organisation. The paper also offers an analysis of the essential conceptual connections between various understanding of organised crime, primarily in the sense in which it is reflected in the norms, given that normative definitions of organised crime are typically influenced by the understanding of how organised crime generates social danger. By offering historical and anthropological overview of organised crime normative regulation, the authors seek to contribute to a deeper understanding of this socially destructive phenomenon and related challenges in social control state o...

Editorial: On the Edges of Organised Crime by Vittorio Martone and Antonio Vesco

European Review of Organised Crime, 2017

This Special issue is dedicated to Paola Monzini, Paola, we will never forget you! This special issue is the result of a collaboration that began in 2014 and spurns from a shared reflection among academics interested in Italian Mafias from different perspectives—that of sociology, anthropology and political science. Thanks to a series of official meetings (in Ottawa, Paris, and Naples), we progressively defined our theoretical frameworks and research questions through which to look at our subject matter. Introducing this special issue of EROC we think it is useful to recall the main theoretical and methodological issues that emerged during our meetings. In 2014 we presented a session entitled Mafias italiennes, capitalisme et mobilité internationale. Retour sur une perspective socio-anthropologique at the Conference Mobilité(s) of the Acsalf (Association canadienne des sociologues et anthropologues de langue française 1). On this occasion, we concentrated first and foremost on the implications of the mobility of Italian Mafias, looking at their transformations in the global economy. We analysed various case studies (from Northern Italy, Belgium, Germany, Canada, etc.) to understand the different relationships between Mafias and enterprises. We discussed the construction of " extensive networks " within trade, economic, and financial fluxes. We also questioned the changes in the relationships between Mafias and their local contexts, both of origin and new territories. Although they operate globally, we refer to mafias as being " rooted locally " , as they do not lose their symbolic value or their identity in their territory of origin, but we also look at how they build their own " recognisability " in their new territories and businesses.

Organised crime in Italy: Mafia and illegal markets–Exception and normality

Organised Crime in Europe, 2004

In Europe and elsewhere, southern Italian mafia organisations have long been considered a paradigm of organised crime or tout court identified with it. In the core sections of this article (4 and 5), the specificities of the southern Italian mafia phenomenon are singled out and ...

ITALIAN MAFIAS TODAY: TERRITORY, BUSINESS, AND POLITICS

Criminal Law and Criminal Justice Books a joint project of Rutgers School of Law and Rutgers School of Criminal Justice, 2021

'Still today Italian mafias are widely dismissed as ‘an Italian problem' despite vast evidence that these criminal groups have expanded well beyond Italy as their base for business.' Italian Mafias Today provides a comprehensive and up-to-date overview of the evolution of Italian organised crime as a multifaceted phenomenon through the contribution of different international experts.