Who researches organised crime? A review of organised crime authorship trends (2004–2019)

Abstract

This article presents a review of organised crime authorship for all articles published in Trends in Organized Crime and Global Crime between 2004 and 2019 (N = 528 articles and 627 individual authors). The results of this review identify a field dominated by White men based in six countries, all in the Global North. Little collaboration occurs; few studies are funded, and few researchers specialise in the area. Organised crime research, however, does have a degree of variety in national origin, and therefore linguistic diversity, while the number of female researchers is growing. The article concludes that authorship trends are influenced by the challenges of data collection, funding availability, and more entrenched structural factors, which prevent some from entering into, and staying active within, the field.

There are too Many Christians Involved: Cosa Nostra and Professional Football in Palermo

“…Both ethics and reasons related to the danger of dealing with actors who engage in the use of violence, make it difficult to do field research on organized crime (Hosford et al, 2021). Moreover, other limitations such as the need of personal contacts and the knowledge and understanding of the cultural context can affect the research, as the participants need to trust the researcher and the latter needs to be sensitive enough not to ask inappropriate questions, as well as to give an accurate interpretation of the context.…”

Why Global North criminology fails to explain organized crime in Mexico

“…Or, phrased otherwise, this inability to explain facets of organized crime in Mexico does not mean that Mexico is simply an outlier. Rather, it underscores that these models are developed primarily by western scholars in order to explain organized crime in their communities (Hosford et al, 2021), that is, societies characterized by ‘a high level of internal peace, within what is assumed to be a stable nation-state system’ (Carrington et al, 2016: 3).…”

“…in the communities ‘that have been negatively impacted by contemporary capitalist globalization’) ranks among the world's most formidable obstacles to human security, democratic governance and economic development (Mahler, 2017: 1). From this standpoint, it is ill-advised to approach it as an outlier when it displays characteristics that diverge from prevailing manifestations of organized crime in the Global North, where most research on organized crime is produced (Hosford et al, 2021). My aim is not to reject traditional organized crime theories.…”

Five Areas Which Make the Irish Organized Crime Milieu Distinctive

“…First, criminology is a relatively new discipline in Ireland and, even within criminology, other topics have dominated, especially penology and desistance (Hamilton, 2022; Lynch et al, 2020). Second, researching organized crime takes planning, resources, and time, rendering it a difficult endeavor without funding (Hosford et al, 2022) and funding is scarce in Ireland. Third, An Garda Síochána (the Irish police) recorded offense data are somewhat unreliable (Windle, 2018a) and data that have been used in other countries (i.e., wiretaps, court proceedings) are unavailable for research purposes in Ireland.…”

“…While serious violence against researchers is rare, globally a small number of researchers have been intimidated, threatened, and even killed. Most of those who have been harmed had, however, focused their enquiries on political actors (Hosford et al, 2022).…”