Through a novel data set comprising the criminal records of 11,138 convicted mafia offenders, we compute criminal career parameters and trajectories through group-based trajectory modeling. Mafia offenders report prolific and persistent careers (16.1 crimes over 16.5 years on average), with five distinct trajectories (low frequency, high frequency, early starter, moderate persistence, high persistence). While showing some similarities with general offenders, the trajectories of mafia offenders also exhibit significant differences, with several groups offending well into their middle and late adulthood, notwithstanding intense criminal justice sanctions. These patterns suggest that several mafia offenders are life-course persisters and career criminals and that the involvement in the mafias is a negative turning point extending the criminal careers beyond those observed in general offenders.

Previous systematic reviews have focused on youth gang membership and interventions (Hodgkinson et al. 2009;Klein and Maxson 2006). The Campbell Collaboration, for example, has published two systematic reviews on the involvement of young people in gangs (Fisher et al. 2008a, b), and more recently one on predictors of youth gang membership in low-and middleincome countries (Higginson et al. 2014). These reviews did not consider the factors relating to membership in other types of groups involved in crime, namely OCGs.'Organized criminal' group shall mean a structured group of three or more persons, existing for a period of time and acting in concert with the aim of committing one or more serious crimes or offences established in accordance with this Convention, in order to obtain, directly or indirectly, a financial or other material benefit.

This paper provides a narrative synthesis of the results of a systematic review of the social, psychological and economic factors leading to recruitment into organised crime. This is based on the analysis of evidence emerging from 47 qualitative, quantitative and mixed-method studies published in or before 2017. While the selected studies varied markedly in method and quality, several factors emerged as particularly important in understanding recruitment into organised criminal groups. These included the role of social relations (family, kinship, friendship and work-relations), criminal background and criminal skills.

This study relies on a new original dataset, the Proton Mafia Members dataset (PMM). The PMM originates from two datasets provided by the Italian Ministry of Justice: the Criminal Records Registry (Casellario dataset) and the Prison Administration Department dataset (henceforth DAP dataset). Formal agreements with the Ministry of Justice made the data available and guarantee the anonymity of all individuals in compliance with current data protection and privacy regulations. The Casellario dataset provided information on the criminal records for individuals convicted for mafia offenses between 1982 and March 2017. 1 The dataset included

No abstract