The insightful essays in this book shine a new light on the roles of women within criminal networks, roles that in reality are often less traditional than researchers used to think. The book seeks to answer questions from a wide range of academic disciplines and traces the portrait of women tied to organized crime in Italy and around the world. The book offers up accounts of mafia women, and also tales of severe abuse and violence against women.

This book contains a collection of essays in honor of Alan A. Block including his now classic study on the origins of IRAN-CONTRA. It brings together important contributions from Block's students and contemporaries to show the impact of his work on the field of global organized crime. Professor Alan A. Block of Penn State University has proven to be one of the most inspiring criminologists in the field.

Philadelphia's 'Black Mafia' could be used as primary reading in deviance and organized crime courses. Academicians in the fields of criminology, sociology, history, political science and African-American Studies will find the book compelling and important. This book provides the first sociological analysis to date of Philadelphia's infamous "Black Mafia" which has organized crime (with varying degrees of success) in predominantly African-American sections of the city dating back to the late 1960's.
Philadelphia's 'Black Mafia':

-is a first step in...

In the current processes of political, economic and cultural changes serious cross-border forms of organized crime receive unprecedented attention as spectacular global media events, as 'threats' of all sorts, and as priority targets of criminal policy and political agendas. Most books on 'global organized crime' focus on one particular region, topic or event, and are written from one specific theoretical and disciplinary framework.
The renowned scholars who have contributed to this volume present up-to-date expertise on regions as distant and different as Russia, Colombia, the...

In the current processes of political, economic and cultural changes serious cross-border forms of organized crime receive unprecedented attention as spectacular global media events, as 'threats' of all sorts, and as priority targets of criminal policy and political agendas. Most books on 'global organized crime' focus on one particular region, topic or event, and are written from one specific theoretical and disciplinary framework.
The renowned scholars who have contributed to this volume present up-to-date expertise on regions as distant and different as Russia, Colombia, the...

At the beginning of the 21^st century organised crime has become a 'hot' topic in public debate and on political agendas throughout Europe. To control organised crime, far-reaching legal and institutional reforms have been passed in all European states and ad hoc instruments have been adopted by all major international organisations. Despite its great media success and the flurry of national and international initiatives on the subject, comparative research has so far been limited.

This volume represents the first attempt to systematically compare organised crime concepts,...

This study is based on five years of ethnographic fieldwork with Colombian drug traffickers (traquetos) in The Netherlands and Colombia. The author has uncovered the social world of traquetos: how and why they get involved in illicit activities, the nature of their work, and how they organize their businesses. This book will be valued by criminologists, social scientists, drug researchers, policymakers, organized crime scholars, and by those interested in Colombia, Latino immigrants' issues, and the cocaine business.

At the beginning of the 21^st century organised crime has become a 'hot' topic in public debate and on political agendas throughout Europe. To control organised crime, far-reaching legal and institutional reforms have been passed in all European states and ad hoc instruments have been adopted by all major international organisations. Despite its great media success and the flurry of national and international initiatives on the subject, comparative research has so far been limited.

This volume represents the first attempt to systematically compare organised crime concepts,...

Murder and Politics in Mexico studies the causes of political killings in Mexico's liberalization-democratization within the larger context of political repression. Mexico's democratization process has entailed a little known but highly significant cost of human lives in pre- and post-election violence. The majority of these crimes remain in a state of impunity: in other words, no person had been charged with the crime and/or no investigation of it had occurred. This has several consequences for Mexican politics: when the level of violence is extreme and when political killings that are...

• This book is the first extensive study of criminal networks
  
• The case study designs and analytical paths are straightforward and can serve as a source for future research endeavours using a variety of data sources