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Special Edition On Organized Crime: Editorial by Felia Allum Guest Editor
Special Edition On Organized Crime: Editorial by Felia Allum Guest Editor
Alongside the need to control international ter- deed, one of the major shifts is the recognition, pro-
rorism, the challenge of combating organized crime fessionally and politically, that success against the
has forced structural change in policing. For the major organized crime threats is as much a matter
UK, the need to focus on the organizations rather of foreign policy as home affairs.
than the commodities has produced the Seri- For police forces the need for a common language
ous Organised Crime Agency. Across the world of investigation and evidence, common training,
the recognition that upstream policingor polic- and shared approaches to management, is driving
ing the problem at source rather than trying to a much more outward facing, international profes-
deal with its symptoms in countryhas been sionalism. In the case of the National Policing Im-
accompanied by a switch of tactics from tradi- provement Agency, for example, international lead-
tional arrest and criminal-justice-based outcomes to ership and training is now as integral part of the new
a greater focus on disruption and asset seizures, of- agency as change programmes in the UK, because
doi: 10.1093/police/pan013
Dr Felia Allum is a lecturer in Politics and Italian in the Department of European Studies and Modern Languages at the
University of Bath, UK. Research interests: comparative politics, Italian politics, and organized crime (in particular, the
Neapolitan Camorra and other foreign groups, the role of women in organized crime groups and the EUs fight against
organized crime). She has published various articles and books on these subjects, in particular, Camorristi, Politicians and
Businessmen, The Transformation of Organized Crime in Post-war Naples (Leeds: Maney, 2006) and co-edited with Renate
Siebert Organized Crime and the Challenge to Democracy (London: Routledge, 2003).
Editorial Editorial Policing 3
understand how it acts and above all, there is proved a controversial and endless task whether in
always a more dangerous illness we should be pro- the United States of the 1950s or the EU of the 1990s.
tecting ourselves against. Organized crime is thus Moreover, different disciplines as well as nation-
becoming a multifaceted common problem, often alities see the phenomenon from different aspects
invisible and difficult to police, insidious in its net- and angles: a criminologist will be interested in a
works, dangerous because it is extremely violent, criminals profile, a sociologist will be interested in
resilient and adaptable, and subtle and respectable. the social group dynamic, an anthropologist in the
The Serious Organized Crime Agency highlights criminals behaviour, a lawyer in how they break
the most damaging forms of organized crime to the law, an economist in how they use the economy
the UK as being trafficking of Class A drugs, or- in their activities, and a political scientist on the
ganized immigration crime and fraud as well as relationship which the gangs have with politicians.
high-tech crime, counterfeiting, the use of firearms And they all adopt different theoretical approaches:
1
http://www.soca.gov.uk/orgCrime/index.html (accessed 2 Feb. 2008).
2
Falcone, G. with Padovani, M. (1992). Men of Honour, The Truth about the Mafia. London: Fourth Estate, see the chapter on
Profits.
4 Policing Editorial Felia Allum
different disciplines, different schools of thought, or versity, Berlin, working on organized crime, pro-
countries. It is hoped that this issue will help break vides a useful discussion: he wants to know: What
down these barriers.3 is organized crime in Europe and what activities
Putting together a special issue of Policing on or- does it undertake? After many years studying orga-
ganized crime has proved to be a real and stimu- nized crime and undertaking different projects on
lating challenge. As a political scientist, I am inter- the subject,4 he proposes a new typology for clas-
ested in organized crime as a criminal system and sifying organized crime in Europe. He argues that
how it manages to interfere with society, the econ- five different constellations of groups are active in
omy, and politics. Italy might be its home but it Europe: from a simple and isolated uncoordinated
has now moved in with the neighbours. This is why network to a highly organized and integrated al-
cooperation among academic communities and law liance between upper and underworld and believes
enforcement agencies is vital. Planning this issue, that the media focuses on the uncoordinated net-
3
This is very much one of the objectives of the ECPRs standing group on organized crime to bring disciplines together to
study organized crime. See http://www.essex.ac.uk/ecpr/standinggroups/crime/
4
See also the Von Lampe website: http://www.organized-crime.de/index.html
Editorial Editorial Policing 5
ity. Surely, they must have some similarities? Nick the global system. It is active in all sectors from
Ridley, a former intelligence analyst at New Scotland extortion to money laundering and corrupting
Yards anti-terrorist unit and EUROPOL, analyses politicians. The Camorra is a warning to us all. And
the relationship between organized crime, money the Albanian Mafia has learnt well from their Italian
laundering, and terrorism in the UK. He explains counterparts.
this relationship in terms of the re-evaluated model. Jana Arsorska, a young Ph.D. student from the
The relationship between organized crime and ter- Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium, maps
rorism has always been a contentious one but is out the changing role of Albanian organized crime
now being revisited in order to understand whether groups and criminal markets: human trafficking
there is common convergence between both orga- and prostitution in the Balkan Triangle (Albania
nized crime and terrorist groups. His findings and KosovoMacedonia) has decreased in the last
case studies (for example, the use of offshore en- 10 years. She seeks to understand whether this is
experience as a police officer and liaison officer in mafiosi have been very successful both in the United
the Netherlands to offer an interesting contribution States and Italy as they have provided alternatives to
on the state of police cooperation in the EU, in other a life in prison in exchange for information about
words, cooperation between forces across borders. their criminal associates and activities. In this article,
He provides some concrete examples to show what we look at the Italian experience in an international
is happening. He draws three conclusions: firstly, perspective to see what lessons can be learned
although there is room for improvement, there is especially as the EU seeks to develop some form of
significant cooperation between police in Europe common witness programme. We argue that there
which continuously takes place; secondly, coopera- are three main lessons that can be learned from
tion is difficult because of the logistic dynamics of Italy:
international cooperation (influenced by many dif- 1. it is important to have an independent state wit-
ferent factors such as different police cultures, legal ness protection programme