SpringerBriefs in Criminology present concise summaries of cutting edge research across the fields of Criminology and Criminal Justice. It publishes small but impactful volumes of between 50 and 125 pages, with a clearly defined focus. The series covers a broad range of Criminology research from experimental design and methods, to brief reports and regional studies, to policy-related applications.The scope of the series spans the whole field of Criminology and Criminal Justice, with an aim to be on the leading edge and continue to advance research. The series will be international and cross-disciplinary, including a broad array of topics, including juvenile delinquency, policing, crime prevention, terrorism research, crime and place, quantitative methods, experimental research in criminology, research design and analysis, forensic science, crime prevention, victimology, criminal justice systems, psychology of law, and explanations for criminal behavior.SpringerBriefs in Criminology will be of interest to a broad range of researchers and practitioners working in Criminology and Criminal Justice Research and in related academic fields such as Sociology, Psychology, Public Health, Economics and Political Science.

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Extortion is a predatory crime similar to other practices such as blackmail, bribery, coercion, and robbery. Extortion practices have been classified according to their degree of complexity and the professional occupation of the perpetrator. Simplest forms are related to episodic incidents, where a single offender receives a one-time benefit from one victim. Systematic extortion is usually perpetrated by organized crime groups that exact payments from multiple victims. Such well-rooted extortion practices over a certain territory have long been associated with Mafia-type organizations and denoted as protection racketeering. The scholarly debate on the genesis and nature of Mafia extortion practices continues to this date. While one of the influential theories contends that racketeering is an economic activity—provision of (extralegal) protection services—others postulate that it is rather an imposition of illegal taxation by quasi-political groups. Some scholars have also focused on “extortion under the color of office,” or, in other words, extortion perpetrated by public servants or politicians in their official capacity. However, the biggest challenge in conceptualizing and studying extortion perpetrated by public officials remains its distinction from bribery. Although in theory the two crimes can be distinguished by the degree of coercion involved in the crime and the role (or modus operandi) of public officials in the bribery and extortive scheme, it appears that in practice it is usually not possible to establish a difference.

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