The COVID-19 pandemic, Brexit and the US-China trade dispute have heightened interest in the geopolitics and security of modern ports. Ports are where contemporary societal dilemmas converge: the (de)regulation of international flows; the (in)visible impact of globalization; the perennial tension between trade and security; and the thin line between legitimate, illicit and illegal. Applying a multidisciplinary lens to the political economy of port security, this book presents a unique outlook on the social, economic and political factors that shape organized crime and governance. Advancing the research agenda, this text bridges the divide between global and local, and theory and practice.

This book is a policy-oriented report-style publication, within a criminological framework and stemming out of an academic research, on seaports and organised crime. It is the first of its kind, as research in ports and organised crime oriented to policy and practice is, to date, scarce. * Fresh primary data collected by the author in five different seaports (Genova, Melbourne, Montreal, New York and Liverpool) will offer a state-of-the-art outlook to the presence of organised crime in maritime ports.* A policy and practice-oriented text that will offer an approachable report on topics of organised crime, corruption and ports. *An easy-to-read text to consult that provides case studies and in-depth analysis of manifestations of organised crime in ports.

This book offers a unique and scholarly perspective on a little-studied subject: maritime crime and policing. The seas and oceans cover 70 percent of the earth’s surface and 90 percent of world trade by volume travels by sea. Furthermore, the refugee crisis has produced an inflow of people attempting to find a better life, particularly in Northwest Europe and the UK, which has had an impact on the maritime domains of European ports. While there has been attention paid to the role of maritime policing by scholars in maritime security studies, little attention has been paid by criminologists and policing studies scholars. This book aims to fill this gap. Bringing together a range of international scholars, this book covers a variety of topics pertinent to maritime crime and its policing, such as fraud, piracy and armed robbery at sea, illegal and unregulated fishing, smuggling, people trafficking, illegal immigration, illegal dumping and pollution, arms trafficking, terrorism, and cargo theft. It brings together new perspectives on several key criminological themes such as transnational organised crime, criminalisation, and securitisation and provides a bold new direction for the landlocked discipline of criminology and policing studies. An accessible and compelling read, this book will be of interest to students and scholars of criminology, policing, sociology, politics, migration studies, and all those interested in the policing of the sea.

This book contributes to the literature on organized crime by providing a detailed account of the various nuances of what happens when criminal organizations misuse or penetrate legitimate businesses. It advances the existing scholarship on attacks, infiltration, and capture of legal businesses by organized crime and sheds light on the important role the private sector can play to fight back. It considers a range of industries from bars and restaurants to labour-intensive enterprises such as construction and waste management, to sectors susceptible to illicit activities including transportation, wholesale and retail trade, and businesses controlled by fragmented legislation such as gambling. Organized criminal groups capitalize on legitimate businesses beleaguered by economic downturns, government regulations, natural disasters, societal conflict, and the COVID-19 pandemic. To survive, some private companies have even become the willing partners of criminal organizations. Thus, the relationships between licit businesses and organized crime are highly varied and can range from victimization of businesses to willing collusion and even exploitation of organized crime by the private sector – albeit with arrangements that typically allow plausible deniability. In other words, these relationships are highly diverse and create a complex reality which is the focus of the articles presented here. This book will appeal to students, academics, and policy practitioners with an interest in organized crime. It will also provide important supplementary reading for undergraduate and graduate courses on topics such as transnational security issues, transnational organized crime, international criminal justice, criminal finance, non-state actors, international affairs, comparative politics, and economics and business courses.

Presenting an original institutional approach, this book makes the case for an empirically based crime economics that aims to guide the fight against crime within a logic of reasonable capitalism and the common good. Historically, it was not until a seminal article by Gary Becker that mainstream economists showed any interest in the criminal economy. The new field of crime economics was, in reality, little more than an extension of rational choice theory and cost-benefit analysis to a new subject. However, reducing crime to a single profit perspective has proven reductive: it ignores, for example, crime that affects public order (e.g., vandalism), and the individualistic approach does not seem to be very relevant when dealing with criminal organizations. Criminal phenomena therefore call for a renewal of the analysis. Inspired, in particular, by the work of Veblen and Commons, this book calls for a renewal of the analysis. It argues for an institutional focus on the integration of individuals into organizational and institutional contexts which provides a richer analysis of criminal choices and reintroduces collective and power-seeking motivations. The study of illegal markets uses an evolutionary approach to highlight their dynamic, cooperative, and interconnected dimensions. The question of criminal infiltration of the legal economy is assessed beyond the issue of money laundering to include territorial control strategies. Finally, a review of the liberal economic discourse and the values it embodies raises questions about the responsibility of the legal economy and its players in the expansion of the criminal economy, as well as the risk of a blurring of the boundary between legality and illegality. This renewed global vision is useful both for those who study criminal issues (students and researchers in economics, criminology, law, sociology, and political science) and for practitioners.

The high-technology crime investigator's profession is one of the fastest growing professions in the world today, as information security issues and crimes related to them are growing in number and magnitude at an ever-increasing pace. High-Technology Crime Investigator's Handbook, Second Edition, informs professionals of the potential risks of computer crimes, and serves as a guide to establishing and managing a high-technology crime investigative program. Each chapter is updated with the latest information and guidance, including added coverage of computer forensics and additional metrics to measure organizational performance. In addition, nine new chapters cover emerging trends in the field, and offer invaluable guidance on becoming a successful high-technology crime investigator. - Provides an understanding of the global information environment and its threats - Explains how to establish a high-technology crime investigations unit and prevention program - Presents material in an engaging, easy-to-follow manner that will appeal to investigators, law enforcement professionals, corporate security and information systems security professionals; as well as corporate and government managers

This book responds to the call for more research on transnational environmental crime and its governance by investigating the illegal trade in electronic waste (e-waste) and tropical timber, major forms of transnational environmental crime. The book is based on a qualitative multi-method research combining document analysis, interviews with key informants and field visits. Bisschop focuses on the flows that pass through the research setting of the Port of Antwerp (Belgium) and those between Europe and West and Central Africa. The study examines the emergence and social organization of these transnational environmental flows, illustrating that although profit or lure play a very important role, a range of factors on individual, organizational and societal levels together provide the motivations and opportunities. Building on these insights, the book addresses the governance of these two cases. The responsive regulatory pyramid and networked governance are used as theoretical frameworks for this analysis. This book is essential reading for scholars and academics interested in transnational environmental crime and corporate crime, as well as governance studies.