Organised crime and criminal networks are an outcome of Africa’s weak systems of state reach and governance, and in turn they further undermine effective state-building. Defining “organized crime” is challenging in the African context. African policy discussions did not use this term until recently, and it is so broad that it covers an enormous range of activity. Nevertheless, it is arguably now generally used and accepted, denoting organized illegal activities by a group of people over time that generate a profit. Such terminology is also now widely referred to internationally and in a UN Convention (which defines an “organized criminal group” but not organized crime itself) to which almost all African states have subscribed. The term “criminal networks” is often also used in African debates, denoting the more flexible and dynamic criminal arrangements that characterize the continent. Organized crime and criminal networks in Africa appear in many different forms, shaped largely by the strength of the state, and the degree that political elites and state actors are themselves involved in them. Broadly, organized crime can be said to occur along a continuum on the continent. On one side are well-established and -organized mafia-style groups such as the hard-core gangs of the Western Cape in South Africa or militia style operations engaged in ‘taxing’ local populations and economic activities, both licit and illicit. In the middle of the continuum, are relatively loose, and often highly effective, criminal networks made up both of Africans (West African criminal networks being the most prominent) and a range of foreign criminal actors seeking opportunities. On the other end, are sets of criminal style entrepreneurs, often operating as companies (the Guptas in South Africa, for example) but with a variety of forms of state protection. Illicit financial outflows in particular are a serious concern, but governance and regulatory reforms will be far more critical than the suppression of illicit markets themselves by law enforcement agencies, given also evidence that suggests a high degree of collusion between some African police and criminals in several illicit markets. Violence too remains a key tool for criminal control and advancement at all points along the spectrum, with the strength of the state and the collusion between state actors and criminal groups often determining the form, intensity and targets of that violence. That is one reason why the link between organized crime and conflict on the continent remains a concern, with actors (who in many cases exhibit criminal or mafia-style attributes) seeking to enhance their resource accumulation by control or taxation of criminal markets. Given this and other factors, the impact of organized crime on Africa’s development is severe, and although in some key markets the illicit economy provides opportunities for livelihood and a source of resilience, these opportunities are negated by the extent of environmental damage, the growth of drug use among the poor and marginalized, human rights abuses of migrants and those being trafficked, the violence engendered, and the economic distortions introduced.
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Organized Crime and Criminal Networks in Africa
Mark Shaw and Tuesday Reitano
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Organized Crime in Asia
Narayanan Ganapathy
The significance of Asia’s rising economy and emergent foreign trade provides a conducive climate for the proliferation of organized crime. A reflexive exploration of organized crime in the Asian context ought to address two interrelated issues. The first relates to the ontological and epistemological effort to delineating Asia as a region that is not simply demarcated from the West, but one that houses diverse socio-political archetypes within itself. This issue of framing nuanced Asian perspectives within a normative Western-centric paradigm is linked to the second issue that is, evaluating the status of criminology as a “theoretical science” whose efficacy lies in its universal applicability. The corpus of existing Asia-centric research has been met with methodological challenges in the form of a reductive western orientalist lens that obscures larger economic and social complexities behind an exoticised “Asian uniqueness.”
Organized Crime (OC) in Asia is varied along the contours of geographical, sociological and cultural particularities, as well as the individual colonial legacies of the region’s societies. However, a particular commonality in the form of a symbiosis between syndicated criminals and state actors on either side of the law, the penetration of the underworld into seemingly aboveboard politics, and the consequent blurring of lines between licit and illicit markets has been identified. This is inextricably linked to the pernicious and prevalent problem of corruption and governance in many of the countries in Asia, a problem that has grown parallel to the exponential economic growth the continent has had witnessed since the 1990s.
Easy market access and rising consumer demand underline the prominence of drug production and trafficking as well as the global trade in counterfeit goods within Asian OC. The region’s defining feature of housing diversified nations lends itself to a transnationally proliferated and dynamic drug-related crime (DROC) and counterfeit trading syndicates, with different countries producing and trafficking different and newer drugs, and counterfeit goods for varied markets. The global interconnectivity, afforded by the internet through the digitalisation of contemporary OCs, has compounded the problem where access to anonymous borderless markets and cryptocurrency transactions has facilitated the displacement of lucrative drug and counterfeit crimes both spatially and tactically, leading to the circumvention of traditional forms of social control. The lack of collaboration and coordination among the Asian countries in tackling the illicit trade points to an urgent need to develop a more efficacious international legal framework and effective collaborative enforcement modalities to combat OC. One area of concern is how increasingly transnational OC groups and activities have become an important means of financially supporting terrorist operations that continue to proliferate Asia, prompting a rethink of the existing conceptual framework of the crime-terror nexus.
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Transnational Sex Trafficking of Women
Susan Dewey
The transnational sex trafficking of women is an enduring social concern across a strikingly vast array of policy realms, activisms, and academic disciplines, including criminology, sociology, criminal justice, social work, political science, psychology, medicine, gender studies, and anthropology, among others. There are five prevailing themes across this vast body of multidisciplinary work: (a) transnational law and policy responses, (b) antecedents, (c) social organization and politico-economic considerations, (d) representations, and (e) interventions and carceral logics. The analysis featured is keenly attuned to each cited study’s unique disciplinary frameworks and methods, and it concludes with recommendations for future research on this critical human rights issue.
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The Global Traffic in Looted Cultural Objects
Donna Yates
The looting, trafficking, and illicit sale of cultural objects is a form of transnational crime with significant social and legal dimensions that call into question competing ideas of ownership and value, as well as how we define organized crime, white collar crime, and crimes of the powerful. The looting of cultural objects from archaeological and heritage sites is inherently destructive and is almost always illegal. However, through a complex smuggling chain which depends on lack of import/export regulation standardization in transit and opaque business practices at market, stolen cultural objects are able to be passed onto the international market in large quantities and at little risk to market actors.
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Unfree Labor in Colonial South Asia
Andrea Major
Various forms of labor obligation, coercion, and oppression existed in colonial India, but the supposed dichotomy between “free” and “unfree” labor was rarely absolute. European slave-trafficking, internal trades in women and children, domestic slavery, caste-based obligations for agricultural and other labor, and capitalist systems such as indenture represented distinct but overlapping forms of “unfree” labor in the South Asian context. Enslaved Indians were exported to various European colonial possessions in the 17th and 18th century or provided domestic services within the homes of both the European and Indian elites. Meanwhile, various preexisting local labor relationships such as begar, caste-based obligation, and debt bondage involved elements of coercion, control, and ownership that mirrored some of the characteristics of slavery. These underwent significant changes in the colonial period, as the colonial state both tapped into and sought to reshape the Indian labor market to suit the needs of the imperial capitalist economy.
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Transnational Organized Crime and Terrorism
Katharine Petrich
A significant, policy-relevant relationship exists between terrorist groups and transnational organized crime. However, definitional challenges, disciplinary boundaries, and legal logistics all contribute to the mischaracterization of the relationship, leading to piecemeal responses and uneven academic attention. International studies research tends to focus on one or the other, with an emphasis on terrorist group dynamics and choices. Two enduring rationales for separating the study of terrorism from that of transnational organized crime exist: the “greed versus grievance” debate, which argues that organizations pursue either private (financial) goals or public (social or organizational change) goals and the “methods not motives” argument, which suggests groups may overlap in their tactics but diverge in their strategic goals. Terrorist violence by criminal groups is largely held separate from the “transnational crime and terrorism” literature, often categorized instead as “criminal governance” rather than terrorism studies. The reality is much more nuanced: both group types pursue a variety of objectives and engage with a spectrum of actors which may or may not share their aspirations. Members are diverse in their priorities, a fact that is often lost when analysis collapses the rank and file with leadership into a monolithic bloc. Additionally, globalization has increased opportunities for groups to pursue different activities in different theaters. In areas where terrorist groups are contesting for political control and seeking to present themselves as viable alternative governance actors, they may be less likely to work openly with illicit actors, but in areas (or countries) where they have little governance ambition, criminal networks may be important public partners.
These groups intersect in a spectrum of ways, from engaging in temporary ad hoc relationships designed to achieve a specific goal, to fully incorporating the opposite type’s motive into organizational priorities. Political ambitions largely center on power and control, but illicit activities are wide ranging, with the most prominent involving firearms, drugs, and people. Further, there are several important enabling factors that foster these relationships, including corruption, illicit financial flows, fragile states, and lootable resources. When these enabling factors are present, diversification and relationship building are more likely, increasing organizational resilience and making demobilization less likely. These factors, particularly corruption, also increase the chances of organized crime entering the political system.
Looking ahead, both policymakers and academics should consider transnational organized crime and terrorism more holistically. Work that engages with only one element will fall short in assessing the dynamics of irregular conflict, leading to incomplete analysis and weak policy recommendations. Observers should cultivate the flexibility to think in terms of networks and variety across geographic contexts—the way that a terrorist group behaves in one area or with one type of criminal group does not necessarily predict its behavior globally.
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Child Sexual Exploitation
Jonah R. Rimer
Child sexual exploitation (CSE) is a broad term that refers to a form of child sexual abuse (CSA) involving some combination of particular elements including power imbalance, grooming, manipulation, coercion, deception, fraud, force, threats, exchange, or status. Definitions, research, and resources are inconsistent and often conflate different kinds of CSE and CSA, making the concept difficult to generalize and questioning the utility of separating CSE from CSA. There are also persistent misunderstandings and myths that continue to pervade society, including “stranger danger” and the notion that CSE cannot happen in one’s own community, which have potential to negatively impact community protective behaviors. There are multiple kinds of CSE, both offline and online, and demarcating offline and online is not always possible or advisable. More than one type of CSE may be present in a single case because they are not mutually exclusive. These include child sexual exploitation material (CSEM), livestreaming, capping, online sexual solicitation and child luring, sextortion, commercial sexual exploitation, CSA tourism, human trafficking, and forced marriage. Common among these, although potentially in different forms, is a process of grooming.
Because CSE is diverse, it is difficult to generalize about offenders and victims. However, victims are more likely to be female, whereas offenders are more likely to be male. Also common across crime types are a host of social, emotional, personal, and physical effects on and consequences for victims, some of which may be exacerbated if there are online elements such as images or videos. Current best practice suggests that responding to victims should be done through a trauma-informed approach that avoids victim-blaming. For offenders, risk management is done through assessments, post-release laws, and treatment, all of which have their own limitations.
Because CSE is complex and includes a range of crimes, different theoretical and conceptual perspectives can be applied to the topic. Some of these focus on sexual offending against children generally, whereas others situate CSE within more macro structures. These theories and perspectives include Lanning’s situational versus preferential offender typology, the psychological concept of “cognitive distortions,” Finkelhor’s model of preconditions to CSA, the Good Lives Model of offending and rehabilitation, ecological systems theory, criminological perspectives that emphasize situational and environmental factors, and anthropological perspectives on the internet. Prevention of CSE victimization should be evidence-based and not founded on misconceptions or myths; however, not all prevention programs have engaged with realistic and accurate understandings of CSE. Overall, CSE is complex, and nuance is required in research, practice, and policy to reflect this complexity.
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Selling Sex in a Global Context
Aimee Wodda and Meghna Bhat
Commercial sex continues to be an object of debate in the realm of criminological and criminal justice. The regulation of commercial sex in a global context varies due to local law, culture, and custom. Global criminolegal responses to selling sex include criminalization, decriminalization, abolition, neo-abolition, and legalization. In recent decades, global public policymakers have become increasingly concerned with the public health aspects associated with negative outcomes related to the criminalization of the purchase, facilitation, and/or sale of sex. These concerns include violence against those who sell sex, stigma when attempting to access healthcare and social services, increased risk of sexually transmitted infections or diseases (STIs or STDs) including HIV/AIDS, and economic vulnerability that leaves many who sell sex unable to negotiate the use of condoms and at risk of police arrest for carrying condoms. Those most at risk of harm tend to be young people, LGBTQ populations, and people who are racial or ethnic minorities within their communities—these are often intersecting identities. Organizations such as Amnesty International, the Global Commission on HIV and the Law, Human Rights Watch, UN AIDS, and the World Health Organization recommend decriminalization of commercial sex in order to reduce stigma and increase positive health outcomes. Scholars have also examined the challenges faced by migrant sex workers and the problematic effects of being labeled a victim of trafficking. Contemporary strategies geared toward reducing harm for those who sell sex tend to focus on rights issues and how they affect the well-being of those who sell sex.
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Journalistic Depictions of Violence against Women in India
Meenakshi Gigi Durham
News narratives of violence against women in India are part of a larger discourse of Orientalism that began in the nascent years of the British Raj and continues into the present; these narratives also reflect documented patterns of reporting on gender violence that sustain intersectional hierarchies of race and class as well as gender.
In the years leading up to British Crown rule in India, newspapers were embroiled in debates around the rare practice of sati, or the self-immolation of widows. British and Indian newspapers carried articles and commentaries both decrying and defending the practice. Arguments about sati were predicated on contests over national autonomy rather than on the gender violence at the crux of the practice. Sati is conceptually related to “bride burning,” also dubbed “dowry death,” which is reported in the news media as an effect of Indian tradition and gender culture, in contrast to the reportage on domestic violence in “First World” settings, which is depicted in terms of isolated incidents and not interpreted as a consequence of the social milieu. Female infanticide and feticide follow similar patterns of journalistic framing. Human trafficking in India is reported narrowly in terms of sex trafficking and without reference to its connections with other forms of human rights violations.
The 2012 rape and murder of Jyoti Singh Pandey in New Delhi incited widespread international and domestic media coverage of violence against women India. Analyses of this coverage revealed repeated tropes of Orientalism in the foreign news. The journalism about this crime characterized India as a place of ungovernable violence against women, overlooking the occurrence of similar crimes in the global North and thus reasserting geopolitical hierarchies of “First” and “Third” worlds. Indian news about this crime reinforced middle-class positions and values, reflecting the changing social dynamics of 21st-century India. Violence against LGBT+ populations, aggravated after the Indian Supreme Court’s re-criminalization of non-heterosexual sex in 2013, is largely unreported in the mainstream news media, although specialized LGBT+ media channels report on it regularly. Neocolonial tropes continue to circulate in news depictions of violence against Indian women, but the rising numbers of women journalists in India seek to expand the scope and depth of reporting on gender issues.
