Criminology & Criminal Justice

Publisher:
Sage Publications, Inc.
Publication date:
2021-09-06
ISBN:
1707-7753

Issue Number

Latest documents

  • The geographies and complexities of online networks in the off-street sex market

    Exploitation and human trafficking in sex markets tend to include both online and offline spaces. Understanding the scale, complexity and geography of networks is important in policing human trafficking and online escort adverts are often used to identify organised crime in this context. This article aims to make a methodological contribution to how data relating to online networks in the sex market can be collected and analysed. Through the application of web scraping, social network analysis and principal component analysis, the digital traces of 15,016 online networks operating on an adult services website were analysed in relation to their complexity and geographical patterning. The findings suggest that structural and geographical characteristics are useful for understanding the heterogeneity of online networks. Analysing networks, as opposed to assessing escort adverts, offers a more robust approach to understanding the sex market, which is more sensitive to the continuum of experiences encapsulated therein.

  • #GANGSTER_ARE_COWARDS, #MERCHANTS_ARE_KILLERS and #SAVE_OUR_KIDS: Online geographies of gang content on TikTok originating from Cape Town, South Africa

    Research on gang-related content on social media in an African context is limited, if any exists at all, and this article provides an exploratory and descriptive narrative on this topic. The study establishes online geographies: mapping unique characteristics of the digital world, how it corresponds to the actual reality and what differences can be observed. Data were collected by conducting digital observation on TikTok, and only data originating from searches related to gangs in Cape Town, South Africa, were recorded. In this physical geographical location, TikTok facilitated new virtual territories in mainly two diverse online geographies. First is that of gang culture in the symbolic parading of the criminal life, exploring the creative abilities of TikTok. Gangs occupy the virtual space through communications, associations and threats. The second online geography is found in responses to gangs in the form of community activism and vigilantism, with a significant digital trajectory and aggressive material, aiming to facilitate social change.

  • The geographical embeddedness of organised crime in China: A rural–urban divide perspective

    Organised crime groups do not operate in a social vacuum; instead, they embed themselves in society through various interfaces. Criminologists have therefore given increasing attention to the intricate relationship between territory and organised crime, highlighting how territory serves as both a physical space with geographical boundaries and a social construct shaped by human interactions and cultural values. In this article, we delve into the geographical embeddedness of organised crime, which denotes territories where organised crime groups seek out business opportunities and shape their environments through social practices. Drawing on 861 Chinese judgements of organised crime, we employ the content analysis approach to illustrate this concept through the lens of a rural–urban divide. We specifically look at organised crime groups’ illegal activities and their efforts to conceal them. We also theoretically address the supply and demand mechanism in geographical embeddedness, particularly in connection with natural resources.

  • The impact of the kingpin strategy on extortion and kidnapping

    The ‘kingpin’ strategy focuses on dismantling criminal groups by apprehending their leaders. However, existing evidence indicates that removing a criminal leader may lead to a surge in organised crime-related homicides, and to spatial displacement of organised crime violence. This study explores the strategy’s impact on other organised crimes, specifically extortion and kidnapping. Analysing Mexican data from 2011 to 2015, we employ a novel matching method for cross-sectional time-series data to assess how leadership removals affect the incidence of extortion and kidnapping, and whether there are any displacement effects. Our results reveal a significant rise in extortions within 6 months of a leadership removal in a municipality, while kidnappings show no significant change. Notably, no spatial displacement effects were observed in neighbouring municipalities post-removal. These findings underscore the unintended consequences of the kingpin strategy, emphasising the need for alternative policies to address organised crime-related violence.

  • Enduring flows: The transit of drugs in contemporary Honduras

    Since the 2000s, Honduras has expanded its role as a transit hub for international cocaine trafficking, with tonnes of cocaine passing through the country every year. Nevertheless, research on illicit drug flows in the country – and more generally across transit areas – remains limited. This resides in a tendency within both academic and institutional discourses to depict illicit flows as detached from societal structures, with little implications for the realities they touch. Drawing on the qualitative analysis of publicly available official US court documents on drug trafficking in Honduras and semi-structured interviews with experts on the country’s drug economy, this article addresses this gap by exploring the movement of US-bound cocaine shipments across Honduras. It explores whether, and how, transient activities such as illicit drug flows become embedded in the territories they traverse. The discussion shows the extent to which the drug trade has become embedded within Honduras’ political and territorial realities, concluding that drugs do not merely pass through transit spaces but become integrated into them. Drug traffickers rely on relationships they establish with both legal and extra-legal actors – including other drug traffickers and state officials – to receive and move drugs across the country. These relationships allow them to obtain access to ‘points of passage’ such as clandestine airstrips, security checkpoints and road networks – all of which are crucial infrastructures for facilitating the transit of drugs. Furthermore, the article reveals both legal and extra-legal actors’ role in exerting control over these logistics infrastructures and therefore in enabling the transnational flow of illicit goods. These insights contribute to broader debates on illicit flows, organised crime and the control of passage points along trade routes, while also shedding light on the often-overlooked role of transit countries like Honduras in the transnational cocaine trade.

  • Land on fire: The spatial production of the mafia

    “Land on Fire: The Spatial Production of the Mafia” proposes to address a major lacuna in geographic literature: How mafia groups are socially and spatially reproducing themselves through the intentional setting of fire. Analyzing the 2021 and 2023 wildfire seasons in Sicily, this research proposes that the Sicilian Mafia is operationalizing both rural and urban space in novel ways that reflect a transformation in their organizational structure. This work engages with Henri Lefebvre’s theory on the production of space but also uses ethnography in Sicily to reorient our understanding of mafia crime, suggesting that the Sicilian Mafia’s operationalization of the landscape reflects not only an evolution of the Mafia but also an altered relationship with the land itself.

  • Bricks or cooks? Geographical and social determinants of the investment choices of mafia-type organized crime

    This article studies legitimate businesses confiscated from mafia groups in Italy to assess whether mafia investment patterns across industries depend on the characteristics of the geographical environment in which infiltrated firms operate. We carry out a spatial regression analysis of more than 1700 firms, with special emphasis on restaurants/hotels and construction, confiscated from mafia groups in Italy against a set of variables related to the social and criminal environment (with a special emphasis on mafia presence) after controlling for the local business structure and the economic/financial composition of the areas. Ceteris paribus, mafia investments in the construction industry are greater in regions with a higher level of mafia presence, infiltration of public administration and more protected markets; while investments in bars, restaurants and hotels are greater in areas characterized by less rooted mafia presence, higher violence, higher trade openness and cash intensity. The results suggest that mafia investments in construction can benefit from the opportunities offered by grip on the territory and on the public administration; and those in restaurants by concealment drivers, such as money laundering. This article contributes to the understanding of the geography of mafia economy and of the mobility of mafia groups beyond territories of origin, by highlighting the possible instrumental use of legitimate businesses, and the relationship between mafias’ migration and infiltration mechanisms.

  • Chinese triads and the notion of territory

    Territory, where a network of influence and business interests can be developed, is an important feature of criminal organizations. While some research on organized crime by Chinese triads has been published in recent years, the concept of triad territory is still under-researched. This article discusses what a triad territory is and how it is formed, managed and defended. Through qualitative research, it is found that triad business is territorial in nature. Different triad societies have their own turfs and monopolize certain geographical territories or economic sectors. Territory is important for the survival of triad societies, not only because most of their business operates within the territory but also because they rely on the territory to maintain social networks, exchange criminal market information, gather intelligence and source business opportunities. This article concludes that a triad territory is structurally, culturally and cognitively embedded, and is a defensible social and economic space of a triad society.

  • Anatomy of a route: Script analysis of irregular migration, smuggling and harms on the Central Mediterranean route to Europe

    Since the so-called ‘migrant crisis’ in 2015, there has been intense policy interest around irregular migration along the Central Mediterranean Route to Europe. Despite increased research focus on this route, the details and geographical intricacies of these migration journeys have scarcely been examined. In this study, we investigate the what, where and how of the journeys of 71 people who travelled from Libya across the Mediterranean Sea to Malta. To do so, we break down their journeys into scripts (i.e. sequences of activities) and represent them as a composite script graph. We find that journeys were long – 18 months on average – and circuitous, involving diverse and complex geographical paths. Smuggling, brokerage and working during transit were key aspects of most journeys. Worryingly, two-thirds of participants experienced detention and/or forced labour before reaching Malta. By pinpointing where and how harm occurs, the composite script graph can support policy makers in reducing harm, including by accounting for the possible harm that interventions may cause, directly or as a result of displacement.

  • Organized crime after earthquakes

    Natural disasters can affect the behavior of criminal organizations. This article analyses the effect of the 2017 earthquakes that hit Mexico on the incidence of crimes related to organized crime. In particular, the outcomes of interest are rates for homicides, extortion, drug crime, and kidnapping. Using a difference-in-differences and an event-study methodologies, the findings indicate an increase in kidnapping rates of 4.0% after the earthquakes in affected areas. Then, we explore what type of criminal organizations modifies its behavior after earthquakes. We find a shift in organizational behavior (e.g. violence and altruism) of local criminal organizations, but no effect on large criminal organizations. In all, earthquake events in Mexico increase kidnapping rates through the organizational behavior of local criminal organizations. The significance of this research stems from its methodological approach, which enables the inference of causality by leveraging geographical variation in earthquake strikes.

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