Standing Group Organised Crime

ECPR Standing Group On Organised Crime Newsletter | Volume 8, Special Issue November 2009 I page [1]

VOLUME 8, SPECIAL ISSUE In This Issue Editorial Note The first ISSOC: an overview Page 2 Paper: The construction of evidence in organised crime cases Page 2-4 The first ISSOC: an overview Page 3 Paper: The historical development of security concerns in the Caribbean Basin Region: The Emergence of Organized Crime as a regional security threat Page 5-11 The first ISSOC: an overview Page 8, 10, 11 Paper: Czeck Organised crime and Social Opportunities Page 12-15 The first ISSOC: an overview Page 14, 15 The ISSOC in practice: some photograps Page 16 Anouncement: The next Summer School on Organised crime in Leuven, 2010 Page 17-19 Mail the guest editor of this special issue at: [email protected] Mail the editors at: [email protected] Visit the SGOC blog at: http://www.sgoc.blogspot.com The SGOC is a standing group of the European Consortium for Political Research. http://www.essex.ac.uk/ECPR

Special Issue, November 2009, Volume 8

Standing Group Organised Crime ENewsletter

EEEdddiiitttooorrriiiaaalll NNNooottteee As the heading already reveals, this is not a regular version of the SGOC newsletter. Instead, this is a ‘special edition’, totally dedicated to the International Summer Schools on Organised Crime (ISSOC). In 2007, the SGOC decided to organise a series of three specialised summer schools, each taking place in a different European city, hosted by well established higher education institutions in the field of organised crime. The objectives set at the beginning were very ambitious. By bringing young researchers together with senior scholars and specialised practitioners during an intensive two week academic program, the organisers wanted to provide the opportunity to introduce them into the international community of organized crime scholars and practitioners. This would enable not only the expansion of a concrete network or community of people working in this area, the course was also meant to encourage in-depth discussion across disciplines and nationalities in order to produce some new ideas about the fight against organised crime, which could maybe even result in original and cross border research projects. From June 29 to July 11, 2009, the first ISSOC took place in Catania, Sicily. 22 participants with very different backgrounds and different levels of experience with the organized crime phenomenon – going from academics to practitioners and graduate students – were selected to take part in an intensive two week program entitled “Analysing and tackling organized crime: Theories, Practice and Policies”. The University of Catania, being the host, provided the necessary support and logistics. During the first week, a number of high level academics gave lectures on several aspects of organized crime. For the second week, practitioners engaged in the fight against organized crime were invited to present the institutions they work for, or to share their experiences on the phenomenon. On several spots throughout this newsletter, we will give short summaries of these two weeks of

lectures. Besides listening and learning from lectures, the students also participated in some very interesting discussions. Furthermore, they each developed a research question, wrote a paper and gave a presentation on an organized crime related topic of their own choice, mostly closely related to their own work or research. In this newsletter, three of these participant’s papers are published. Although we could only take in three papers in this issue, the chosen topics already reflect the hard work and broad variety of interests of the summer school participants. This summer school for sure was not a holiday in Sicily… In the first paper, Denis Clark from the University of Coventry briefly reflects on the problems concerning the construction of evidence in organized crime cases in the United Kingdom. The aim of his paper is to critique literature, in order to get a better understanding on the ways in which evidence is assembled in cases of serious organised crime. However, because it is crucial to have a clear vision on the meaning of the concept of organised crime before any meaningful research can be conducted, Clark first gives an overview of some definitions of organised crime. Furthermore he provides us with an understanding of the reasons for confusion in the process of constituting a shared definition of the phenomenon in the United Kingdom. As there is still no official definition of organized crime in criminal law, constructing evidence in organized crime cases seems to be a very difficult and questionable undertaking. Gail Verasammy, Ph.D researcher at Keele University, wrote a paper on the historical development of security concerns in the Caribbean Basin Region, thereby focusing more specifically on the emergence of organised crime as a regional security threat. Drs. Verasammy argues that in the post Cold-War period, the Caribbean region is faced with new, non-traditional security threats, initiated by globalization, liberalization, regionalization, information

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technology and an expanding and active transnational civil society. Among these new threats, the growth of organized crime has been identified as the most important one. Criminal activities such human trafficking, illegal drug trafficking, money laundering, racketeering or kidnapping for ransom, often fuelled by the support of official corruption and accompanied by other violent crimes ranging from homicides, gang-styled executions and arson disturb the region on a daily basis. Despite the region’s efforts to combat this menace, crime and violence continue to spiral out of control. As Mrs. Verasammy describes, over the last decade this situation generated widespread concern both at regional and international levels. The third paper is written by Petr Kupka from Masaryk University in Brno. He provides us with a very interesting overview on the growth and characteristics of organised crime in the Czeck Republic from the 1980s onwards. For several reasons, he argues, Czech organised crime was always more territorially-organised, than ethnically. For example, it has never been important wether the participant was ethnic Czech, Slovak or Rome. This characteristic however, was much more of a coincidence than a deliberate intention, caused by several underlying historical and political reasons. Furthermore, in Kupka’s view certain continuity in Czech organized crime can be noticed, over time as well as with regard to the persons involved. Nevertheless, it is not the kind of continuity usually seen in classic hierarchically-organised criminal groups with self-identification, reputation and subculture features. In stead, Kupka argues that the characteristics of Czech organised crime fit very well into the representation of organized crime as being structured by social opportunities provided by the social environment surrounding the criminal groups. With the description and overview of the first ISSOC in Catania, we hope to have wakened your curiousity, and maybe even now you feel like participating yourself next year. If this is the case, at the end of this newsletter you will find all usefull information about the next Summer School (which will be held in Leuven in July 2010). As you will see, the program and list of speakers are again very promising. But even if you don’t feel like joining us in Leuven, I still hope you will find this newsletter interesting and inspiring. Guest editor, Kelly Verbist, KU Leuven

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The aim of this paper is to critique literature relevant to the following research question: “How is evidence constructed in cases of serious organised crime?” Before any meaningful research can be conducted into the phenomenon of organised crime in the United Kingdom we must be clear about its meaning and have an understanding of the reasons for confusion in arriving at a definition of it. The question of how organised crime is “organised” and an understanding of its development is essential in order to define the parameters of the research. The paper will focus on these questions but before engaging with them in greater detail, I shall briefly introduce the disciplinary perspectives which underpin the research. It ought to be the case that the intellectual concerns of criminology and criminal law should be intertwined. In practice this is not as simple as the statement suggests. Criminology as a discipline has always been contested and its status as a social science stems from its reliance on methods and insights from the social sciences (Rock 2007). We must turn to the criminal law to establish how we can identify crime whilst recognising the links between legal and social constructions of crime (Lacey 2007). Only then is it possible to frame research on the operation of particular laws. In this paper it will be argued that a pragmatic approach to the construction of the research question will be necessary because it is not defined in law. Organised crime is under researched for many of the reasons associated with research into the criminal justice system generally (King and Whincup 2000) but also due to the understandable reluctance of those who participate in serious crime to engage in issues of social policy. This is to be applied criminal justice or socio-legal research which intends to examine the operation of powers available for the

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With “Analysing and Tackling Organised Crime: Theories, Practice, and Policies” as its central theme, the first summer school covered a broad perspective of organized crime related topics. To structure the content, the lectures were clustered into three modules. The first two were covered by academics during the first week; the third module was dealt with by practitioners throughout the second week. Before starting with the first module, Professor Dina Siegel gave the opening lecture (the Falcon Lecture). In “Organised crime: Culture and Markets”, professor Siegel departed from the framework of cultural criminology to point out some general features on organised crime – such as the import and export of organised crime in an enlarged Europe, the connection between organised crime, business and politics and the role of gender in organised crime groups – while taking into account the impact of different cultural contexts on the characteristics of the phenomenon. This opening lecture was the perfect introduction for the first module: “Analyses, theories and methods”. In his lirst lecture, Professor Claus Von Lampe presented an overview of the most important theories on organised crime. He offered a very clear and interesting outline of different perspectives on the organisation of crime, criminals and the ‘underworld’. This way, the students obtained some very important general knowledge at the beginning of the summer course, which enabled them to better understand and reflect on the content of the following lectures. For example, they got to know the basics of the theory of organized crime as ‘networks of criminal exploitable ties’, a point of view that was new for a lot of the participants, but played an important role in a number of lectures to come. Besides theory, the first module also made room for methodology. Dr. Diana Schmidt-Pfister provided the participants with insights in some problems concerning academic research on organised crime today. As data collection and interpretation are not always easy in this field of research, students were provided with some helpful techniques to improve their research methodology. The first module ended with a session on how to develop a research question, and how to properly further elaborate this in a research paper. (continue p. 4)

Denis CLARK University of Coventry

School of Law [email protected]


investigation of serious organised crime in order to develop knowledge as to how evidence is constructed. Despite the obvious methodological difficulties, because of the harm caused, it must be subjected to critical research. The evidence that its consequences are harmful to society is incontrovertible and gives an indication of the areas of criminality regarded as being influenced by organised crime. The Home Office White Paper, “One Step Ahead: A 21st Century Strategy to Defeat Organised Crime (2004)” contains the following statistics:

• Global profits from people smuggling are estimated to be $10 billion annually.

• 280,000 problem drug users cause around half of all crime.

• Every £1 spent on heroin is estimated to generate about £4 of damage to the national economy.

• There are around 400 organised crime bosses in the UK with an amassed criminal wealth of approximately £440 million.

• So called ‘dirty money’ - or assets derived from crime - represents around 2% of the UK’s GDP, or £18 billion – up to half of which is derived from illegal drug transactions.

• The economic and social costs of organised crime are estimated to be at least £20-£40 billion per year.

Although there are examples of organised crime in antiquity and, it has a long and distinguished history (Galeotti 2008), the concept first became the subject of professional and academic study in the 1920’s and 1930’s when it became synonymous with the racketeering associated with the prohibition era in the United States (Woodiwiss 2003:13 ). In the USA organised crime was defined in terms of an approach based on breaking up criminal conspiracies that ignored the role of “respectable society”, as a conspiracy of Italians known as the “Mafia”. As such the Mafia became a threat to America’s political, economic and legal systems and had to be countered by any means (Woodiwiss 2003:13-17). By the end of the 1960’s organised crime had come to be understood as a hierarchical, centrally organised criminal conspiracy which threatened the integrity of politics and business. The noun ‘organised crime’

took on a meaning far removed from its earlier use and with it new and sinister connotations which have had an enduring literary and cinematic fascination. Although there are variations between interpretations of organised crime across the world and the pace of its development (Fijnaut and Paoli 2004), there is now clear evidence of its existence in the United Kingdom (O’Neill 2008). Furthermore the establishment of the phenomenon in the United Kingdom (Home Affairs Select Committee, 1995, Home Office, 2004) has resulted in a range of symbolic legislation in crime control terms, with the emphasis on money laundering legislation (Alldridge 2003:15). Different definitions of organised crime are proffered by politicians, policy makers, law enforcement officers and academics, the latter being divided in accordance with the disciplinary standpoint that is taken. Its study has been approached from a number of disciplines, including analysis from historians, economists, international relations experts, criminologists and lawyers. An often quoted starting point is Abadinsky’s (1994:6) definition, “Organized crime is a non-ideological enterprise involving a number of persons in close social interaction, organized on a hierarchical basis for the purpose of securing profit and power by engaging in illegal and legal activities”. There are very many derivatives of this definition and Lynch (1987:687) makes a valuable contribution to the literature with his “organised crime is as organised crime does” assessment. For Lynch, “organised crime is defined not by its membership, nor even by its crimes, but by the way it operates as a criminal conspiracy with some kind of formalised structure, engaging in illegal activity primarily for profit.” Any definition must be clear about the structure of activities and the structure of association (Cohen 1977), so too there must be no confusion between the offence and the offender and there must be clarity as to whether “organise crime” refers to an act or a group. An act could relate to particular crimes such as drug or people trafficking, a group might mean the “Mafia” or “Yardies”. If we take the term to correspond to an act it has the potential to become a species of criminal offence,

whereas to take it to correspond to a group might lead to criminalisation of its members. Malz (1976: 339) makes the very useful point that the semantics lead to circular reasoning, “….. organized crime runs the narcotics industry in New York City: the distribution of narcotics is an organized crime and whoever runs it is ipso facto in organized crime”. He proposed that 'organised crime', “was identifiable by means of a list of distinguishing features, of which four were considered essential characteristics: violence, corruption, continuity, and variety in types of crime engaged in”. The difficulty with such a proposal is that it is possible for dangerous criminals to be outside the definition because one or more of those characteristics is missing. The solution for Levi (1998:37) is to adopt what he sees as a true social definition, namely, “A set of people whom the police and other agencies of the State, regard or wish us to regard as 'really dangerous' to its essential integrity.” A limited examination of other jurisdictions demonstrates application of the logic of Levi’s position. It can be seen in the US approach both to racketeering and in terms of legislation to authorise the confiscation of the profits of criminal enterprise and also, in the Italian Ant-Mafia legislation. The US Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organisations (RICO) statutes aim to penalise persons who engage in a ‘pattern of racketeering activity’ or ‘collection of an unlawful debt’ that has a specified relationship to an ‘enterprise’. According to the legislation, a ‘pattern’ “consists of two or more predicate offences from a list including extortion, theft, drugs, mail fraud and securities fraud within a statutorily defined period.” ‘Enterprise’ is defined “to include any individual, partnership, corporate entity, and any group of individuals associated in fact although not a legal entity” (Levi and Smith, 2002:5). This includes wholly illegal as well as legal businesses. Given the dynamic nature of criminal associations, the definition of the term ‘enterprise’ has been widely construed. The Italian approach has been to prohibit association between delinquents for criminal purposes, Article 416 of the Criminal Code deals with Mafia-type associations as follows, “A conspiracy is of a Mafia type when whoever belongs to it uses the power of intimidation which arises from Association membership and uses the system of subordination and the omerta (code of


silence) that arises from this in order to commit crimes or to obtain – directly or indirectly – control over economic activities, over activities contracted out to the private sector by the State or to obtain unfair profit for himself or for other people” (Levi and Smith, 2002:10). Organised crime is not defined in English law, although it will be covered by the law of conspiracy in many cases. In its most recent policy initiative to deal with organised crime, the government adopted the following definition,” those involved, normally working with others, in continuing serious criminal activities for substantial profit, whether based in the UK or elsewhere.” Arguing that this construction, “ ….captures the essential point that many organised crime groups are, at root, businesses and often sophisticated ones.” The report also recognised, “that there is no clear cut off point at which any group should be categorised as being involved in organised crime”. The Serious Organised Crime and Police Act, 2005 implemented many of the proposals in the White Paper including the establishment of the Serious Organised Crime Agency whose remit it is to, “ prevent and detect serious organised crime and to contribute to the reduction of such crime in other ways and to mitigate its circumstances”. Significantly, the Act deliberately avoided defining ‘organised crime’ and by doing so allows SOCA to decide for itself which areas of criminal activity warrants its attention, whether or not the conduct in question would ordinarily be regarded as organised. The SOCA Annual Plan 2008 sets outs its priorities as follows: “Class A drugs and organised immigration crime in that order, and effort should continue to be devoted to the other organised crime threats including fraud against individuals and the private sector, hi –tech crime, counterfeiting and the use of firearms and serious robbery” and “ emphasis should be placed on recovering the proceeds of crime.” The Serious Organised Crime and Police Act (ss 60-70) created a scheme of compulsory powers available to the Director of Public Prosecutions and other senior prosecutors. These include powers to require any person whether

suspected or not, to answer questions relevant to the investigation, to provide information or to produce documents specified in a notice previously served upon them. Section 61 details the offences to which the compulsory powers apply, these include “lifestyle offences “(defined in the Proceeds of Crime Act, 2002 which deals with the confiscation of criminal profit). The standard about which criminal acts are organised crime or the point at which a criminal group is considered “organised” may never be developed, arguably because the intellectual technology of the law is inadequate to the task (Baker 2003: 183). Statutory definitions of organised crime are likely to fail because of their complexity and are likely to create their own difficulties. Those who engage in organised crime must be the subject of penal sanctions but it is clear that this can be done without a legal definition and the characteristics of the phenomenon may prove to be sufficient for enforcement purposes. It is submitted that section 61 of SOCPA came very close to defining ‘organised crime’, although the government prefers a pragmatic approach most closely linked to the views of Lynch. Its predominant strategy is to focus on making maximum use of confiscation legislation which does not require organised crime to be legislatively defined. In order to conduct research into organised crime it will be necessary to place value judgments on particular enterprise-based crimes and to accept that these types of crimes are in fact “organised". REFERENCES Abadinsky, H (1994) Organised Crime 4th edition Chicago: Nelson Hall Act of Parliament (2002) Great Britain Parliament. Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 Chapter 29.London: HMSO Act of Parliament (2005) Great Britain Parliament. Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005 Chapter 15.London: HMSO Alldridge, P (2003) Money Laundering Law.Oxford: Hart Publishing Baker,E (2003) The legal regulation of transnational organised crime: opportunities and limitations in Edwards, A and Gill, P (2003) Transnational Organised Crime. Routledge: London Cohen, A.K. (1977) The concept of criminal organisation. British Journal of Criminology 17(2), 97-111

Fijnaut, C and Paoli, L (2004) Organised Crime in Europe Springer: Holland Galeotti, M (2008) Criminal Histories: an introduction. Global Crime 9 (1), 1-7 Halpin, A (2004) Definition in the Criminal Law. Oxford: Hart Publishing Hobbs, D (1998) Going down the glocal: the local context of crime. The Howard Journal 37(4) 407-422 Home Office (2004) One Step Ahead: A 21st Century Strategy to Defeat Organised Crime. London: Home Office House of Commons (1995) Great Britain Parliament Select Committee: Minutes of Evidence and Memoranda Organised Crime.London: HMSO Session 1994-95 King, R and Wincup, E (2000) Doing Research on Crime and Justice Oxford: Oxford University Press Lacey, N (2007) Legal Constructions of Crime in Maguire et al (2007). The Oxford Handbook of Criminology Oxford: Oxford University Press Levi, M (1998) Reflections on Organised Crime: Patterns and Control. Oxford: Blackwell Levi,M and Smith, A (2002) A comparative analysis of organised crime conspiracy legislation and practice and their relevance to England and Wales. London: Home Office Lynch,G (1987) The Crime of Being a Criminal, Parts I and II, Columbia Law Review 87, no. 4 Maltz, M.D (1976) On defining organised crime: the development of a definition and a typology. Crime and Delinquency 22 338-346 O’Neill, S (2008) “British crime lords rule £40 billion underworld.” The Times 8 August 2008:1 Rock, P (2007) Sociological Theories of Crime in Maguire et al (2007). The Oxford Handbook of Criminology Oxford: Oxford University Press Ruggerio,V (2000) Crime and Markets: Essays in Anti-Criminology.Oxford:Clarendon Serious Organised Crime Agency (2008) Action Plan. London: SOCA Woodiwiss, M (2003) The global reach of an American concept in Edwards, A and Gill, P (2003) Transnational Organised Crime. Routledge: London

The second module – Organised crime in Practice: empirical case studies – dealt with the characteristic of organised crime in different countries or settings. In the first lecture of this module, Professor Giap Parini talked about the Italian mafia, more specifically Ndranghetta. He described the local dimension as well as the global extension of this multifaced criminal phenomenon, stressing the necessity for the mafia to bridge the gap between the local and the global level. Therefore, support from ‘the outside’, from criminal exploitable ties, is needed. Parini concluded that Ndranghetta is not just a criminal phenomenon. (continue p. 8)

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Part 2


The Caribbean Region - geopolitical context and significance Throughout history there have been different interpretations as to what constitutes the Caribbean Region or Greater Caribbean to which it is also referred. One writer states that it is often a matter of perspective and of context (Girvan, 1978). The Anglophones in the region, for example, usually speak and think of the Caribbean as meaning the English-speaking islands. In the Hispanic literature, El Caribe refers either to the Spanish-speaking islands only or to Las Antillas - the entire island chain. For the purpose of this study the geographic definition of the Caribbean, as a distinct region, would be used to mean that part of the world which is located in the Caribbean Sea, bounded by the United States in the north from the tip of the Florida Peninsula, Central America in the west, South America in the south and the Atlantic Ocean in the east. In other words, all the countries whose shores are washed by the Caribbean Sea (Girvan, 1978). I find this a convenient definition for my study because it embraces the concept of the USA’s ‘backyard’ or the ‘American Mediterranean’- the main ‘hot spot’ of America’s security concerns, in both Cold War and post-Cold War eras (Smith, 1994). It must be noted, however, that the Caribbean Basin is by no means homogenous, and the territories within the region reflect some differences based on language, history and culture, geopolitics and geoeconomics (Griffith, 2004). The presence of both Europe and the US in the Caribbean has been a product of a long and eventful history (Griffith, 2004). The beginning of European involvement in the Caribbean can be traced as far back as 1492 when Europe had its first encounter with the Americas. Since that time, nearly all major European powers have had some Caribbean interest, to the extent that more than any other region of the world, it bears the impress of European colonialism (Sutton, 2001). The history of the US has also been characterized by territorial and economic expansion which also fits within the wider context of the growth of colonialism in this region, beginning with the 1823 Monroe Doctrine (Grant-Wisdom, 2004). The geopolitical significance of the Caribbean Basin resided in its possession of strategic materials, in the location of vital Sea Lanes of Communication (SLOC), and in the security networks of powerful states in the area (Griffith, 2004). It is within this context that great powers throughout every corner of the globe considered the Caribbean Basin strategically important. This is the region where

contestation for regional supremacy between the USA and Russia was fought. As such the geopolitical and geo-strategic significance of the Caribbean Basin became the decisive factor in shaping the context through which the region’s security concerns were defined during the Cold War. Security concerns in the Cold-War Caribbean Basin During the post-World War II period there was a general consensus among political scientists that the Realist framework provided the conceptual architecture to examine the issue of security. This framework, among other things, focused on the highly militarized and polarized ideological confrontation between the superpowers. This confrontation divided the industrialized North into the First World and the Second World (Buzan, 1991). Because of the intense nature of the rivalry between these two superpowers, war as a phenomenon was intense and therefore political/military concerns came to dominate the security agenda. This political-military emphasis was transmitted into the Caribbean Basin by the use of arms transfers by both superpowers as a means of exploiting already existing hostilities within the region, and as a vehicle for pursuing their own rivalry (Buzan, 1991). The Realist framework focused on the sovereign state as the exclusive unit of analysis, primarily concerned with ‘traditional threats’ or those related to an ‘enemy. As such, security was conceptualized as ‘high politics,’ characterized as power-based and state-centered, with its orientation towards the international arena. It postulated that states are rational actors whose goal is to pursue their own national interests, and that the use of military force was the most effective tool to deal with threats (Griffith, Nef and Dominguez, 1993). Having thus assumed the role of the dominant power in the Caribbean Basin, the United States under the newly appointed President Harry Truman in 1945 relegated the region to that of a US ‘backyard’ or an ‘American Mediterranean’. Such was the label given to this region because those states were – and still are to a significant degree – considered vulnerable by virtue of geographic, political, economic or other factors that cause their security to be compromised (Harden, 1985). As part of an all embracing foreign policy of the US, President Truman announced in his March 12, 1947 speech that “it must be the policy of the United States to support free peoples who are resisting subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures” (Keylor, 2001). Within this Truman Doctrine, a precedent was set for establishing US economic and military aid programs throughout the world, and its commitment to oppose the spread of communism on a global scale, even if it meant intervention by force. Containment of communism therefore became a major preoccupation in this region and was facilitated by the Marshall Plan. What this meant for Caribbean Basin countries is that they had little or no control over their own security, since the US rise to regional dominance required the subordination of the region’s sensibilities to its preferences (Gilderhus, 2000). The region’s vulnerability therefore provided

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Gail D. VERASAMMY Keele University, UK

Institute for Law, Politics and Justice

[email protected]


the US with the leverage to influence the agenda of security issues that it faced, as well as shape the context and contours for their governments’ choices and decisions. The traditional concept of national security that evolved in the Cold War therefore came to be viewed as a function of the successful pursuit of interstate power competition (Porter, 1995). With the intensification of the Cold War in the 1950s, US-Caribbean Basin relations continued to be dictated by predominant concerns with anti-communism in what was considered the US ‘sphere of influence.’ One of the boldest military maneuvers of US interference in the internal affairs of a Caribbean Basin country is the notable case of British Guyana in 1953, even while that country was still under British colonial rule. Such invasion, undertaken with full British approval, could be traced directly or indirectly to the US fear that a communist benchhead was about to be established there under the Marxist-oriented People’s Progressive Party (PPP), led by Cheddi Jagan. However, US apprehensions in the Western hemisphere during the Cold War were mainly centered on events in the Hispanic Caribbean Basin, in countries like Guatemala (1954), Columbia (1957) and Venezuela (1958) (Smith, 1994). Such concerns regarding these countries were fuelled by growing fears that Communist-directed revolutions had the potential for producing allies for the Soviet Union. Nevertheless, in spite of those few instances of communist threats, US hegemony in the Caribbean Basin remained unchallenged since the late nineteenth century until a series of developments ensued following the 1959 Cuban Revolution. These included the 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion and the Cuban missile crisis in 1962. Such developments led to a US policy of political and economic isolation of Cuba. In an effort to stem any further radicalization in the hemisphere, the US proposed a non-Marxist alternative to the demand for change in the region in 1961 in the form of the Alliance for Progress, a multibillion dollar program of financial aid to support economic and social reforms (Langley, 1989).

The ensuing decades continued to witness sporadic episodes of communist operations in the Caribbean Basin which prompted the US to respond decisively. Such interventions include the Dominican Republic in 1965 (Sullivan, 1993), the Nicaraguan Revolution in 1979, the presence of a Soviet brigade in Cuba in 1979, and the overthrow of Grenada’s Prime Minister in 1979 by the Leader of the New Jewel Movement, Maurice Bishop (Valenta and Valenta, 1984). For it was well-established that the Soviet Union and Cuba were actively engaged in supporting revolutions throughout the Caribbean Basin. Even though the US had forced the USSR to withdraw its missiles in the 1960s, during the 1970s and 1980s the Soviets were successful in developing the island into a Soviet base, and the Cuban military into one of the most powerful in Latin America (Langley, 1989). From this perspective intervention in the 1980s became a major security preoccupation for the US. However, this security environment persisted only for a few years more until the occurrence of major international developments in 1989 that eventually led to the end of superpower rivalry and the demise of communism. This subsequently marked the beginning of a new discourse on Caribbean Basin security among regional leaders in the hemisphere. The end of bipolarity and the new global security discourse The end of bipolarity resulted in a new international order that witnessed a dramatic change in the pattern of relations between the great powers, and a reconfiguration of the global security order, with the US being the sole remaining hegemon (Buzan, 1991). Global tensions were relaxed as the threat of nuclear war between the two military camps was removed. Such changes in the international environment ushered in a new thinking on security that has been influenced by factors such as globalisation, liberalization, regionalization, information technology, and an expanding and active transnational civil society. This new security thinking is grounded in the Globalist approach, the core of which is two-dimensional (Collier, 2005). This approach argues for the widening as well as the deepening of the concept of security, both of which are embedded in

the Copenhagen School and Welsh School of security studies respectively. The Copenhagen School pioneered by Barry Buzan explored the widening aspect of security in terms of identifying a number of new domains that are appropriate to think about in terms of security such as the economic, environmental and societal domains. The Copenhagen School focuses on the understanding of security as the result of speech acts through which perceived problems become national security threats, and emphasizes that what is deemed a security issue is always the result of a political and social discourse (Buzan, 1991; Buzan, Waever and deWilde, 1998; Krause and Williams, 1996). This novel security paradigm became evident in several scholarly works including McSweeney (1999) who argued that “there are also other threats to the security of states which constitute the economic, natural resource and ecological dimensions of security, as well as challenges of terrorism and drug trafficking.” The Welsh School associated with Ken Booth explored the deepening aspect, that is, the epistemological and ontological implications of an extended security concept. Its origin lies in a 1991 publication by Booth entitled ‘Security and Emancipation’ and owes its intellectual debt to the Frankfurt School. This approach embraces the issues of actors and levels of analysis as essential variables in the examination of security by moving either down to the level of individual or human security or up to the level of the state or international or global security with regional and societal security as possible intermediate points (Krause and Williams, 1996). It privileges the individuals as the reference object of security over other forms of political communities (Booth, 1997). Leading advocates are the UN and its various Human Development Reports from 1994 onwards, as well as Wynn-Jones (1999) and Krause and Williams (1997) all of whom give primacy in their work to the individual over other forms of political entities. Focusing on the human dimension, a 1995 UNDP report stated that the concept of security has been interpreted too narrowly for too long, “as security of territory from


external aggression, or as protection of national interests in foreign policy, or as global security from the threat of a nuclear holocaust…..it has been related more to nation-states than to people.…Human security is not a concern with weapons, it is a concern with human life and dignity….and is likely to revolutionize society in the twenty-first century.” The post-Cold War Caribbean Basin context The end of the Cold war had important implications, not just for the world at large, but also for the Caribbean Basin. It removed the primary security concerns of the US in the region. It aborted the structural and ideological underpinnings of the superpower rivalry that had reigned for almost five decades (Buzan, 1991). Such a transformed environment also led to the creation of a geopolitical and geostrategic vacuum in the Caribbean which resulted in the weakening of the strategic relevance and importance of the region to the US (Griffith, 2004). By implication, it also meant more leverage for Caribbean Basin statesmen and scholars to become more authoritatively involved in the region’s security concerns than in the past, and presented them with a greater opportunity to redefine the concept of Caribbean security. Moreover, as the end of the Cold War reduced the threats of military security in the world and geopolitical rivalries between the two superpowers, it also led to changes in the Caribbean Basin’s national security discourse and towards a reconceptualization of the region’s security, and a series of official speeches and addresses by regional leaders in the Caribbean Basin, among other things, has helped to push the process forward. In 1991 Minister of Defence in Barbuda and Antigua stated that “security can no longer be achieved by merely building walls or forts…... security in an age of globalization should be extended to encompass non-traditional aspects which pose a far greater threat to the region’s security than does the loss of national territory to an enemy.” This line of reasoning was in concert with the Copenhagen School and Welsh School’s concept of security which was gaining currency in the Caribbean Basin at the end of the Cold War and projected itself as a powerful challenge to the traditional Realist paradigm which had defined the region’s security throughout that period (Collier, 2005). A decade later Prime Minister of Barbados (2002) emphasized that “it would be a fundamental error on our part to limit security concerns to any one area while the scourge of HIV/AIDS, illegal arms and drug trafficking, transnational crime, ecological disasters and poverty continue to stare us in the face.” Non-traditional security challenges in the post-cold War Caribbean Basin However, it must be noted that although the post-Cold War period witnessed a measurable reduction in US strategic interest in the Caribbean Basin, it did not mean an end to traditional security threats. Neither has it meant that US involvement in Caribbean Basin security is significantly less dominant in the past or less determinative in the handling and outcome of issues (Ferguson, 2002). However, it has become increasingly evident that in this dramatically transformed environment, even as traditional security threats remain important, a range of non-traditional security concerns has emerged as threats and glaring vulnerabilities that pose real dangers to Caribbean Basin states and their populations. These threats and vulnerabilities relate to the economic,

environmental and societal domains of their existence, and extend beyond the protection of the state to include their populations’ safety and welfare (Ferguson, 2001). Moreover, even as state-directed actions contribute to the severity of the threats, non-state actors are key sources of the dangers that they are required to manage (Strange, 1996). In a 2002 Official Address to the OAS, Guyana’s Ambassador to the UN, Ishmael Odeen, identified some of the critical security challenges facing the Caribbean Basin as including those of drug trafficking, money laundering, HIV/AIDS pandemic, poverty, illegal migration, political instability, illicit arms trafficking, environmental problems, natural disasters, terrorism and criminal deportees from the developed countries. He stated that those challenges existed alongside their traditional counterparts as non-traditional security threats. This was followed by a 2007 Address by OAS Assistant Secretary General, Albert Ramdin, in which he stated that among the various challenges the region faced, organized crime posed the most serious security threat to the region. He identified the manifestations of organized crime specific to the Caribbean Basin as human trafficking, illegal drug trafficking, illicit trafficking in firearms and weaponry, money laundering, racketeering, kidnapping for ransom and proliferation of criminal gangs, and argued that they were often fuelled by the support of official corruption (Ramdin, 2007). In a wider sense, these non-traditional post-Cold War Caribbean security challenges fit into the Copenhagen and Welsh Schools’ broader concepts of securitization. Commenting upon the gravity of organized crime in the Caribbean Basin, Jamaica’s Minister of National Security, in a July 2009 Address to Caribbean law-enforcement officers at a Conference held in Jamaica, stated that all independent states within the hemisphere have been severely affected by an infusion of organized criminal activities which threaten the sovereignty of these nations, and that the wealth amassed by drug cartels is larger than the national budget of many Caribbean states (South Florida Caribbean News, July 2009). While these threats are not new to the post-Cold War Caribbean Basin environment, their unique quality has to do as much with the potentially expansive nature of the instabilities that they bring in their wake as with the range of the emergent security concerns (Ferguson, 2001). These are not security threats and vulnerabilities that can be isolated within a particular territorial boundary, nor are their consequences isolatable within such boundaries. Rather, they have potentially serious cross-border consequences which make it difficult for the state to control, and are in the final analysis, disruptive of regional and wider hemispheric stability (Ferguson, 2002). It could be argued then from a Caribbean Basin perspective that the issue of state security exceeds the traditional concept of national security as simply a factor of unilateral territorial protection. Thus, the traditional Realist approach which was used to analyze Caribbean Basin security during the Cold War, and the assumptions and institutions that governed international relations in the postwar era could hardly be considered an appropriate fit with these new post-Cold War Caribbean realities. It is on this basis that the paper would use


the Copenhagen School’s broader concept of securitization as articulated by Buzan (1991) to analyze the extended definition of Caribbean Basin security. This School of Thought on security would allow for these new post-Cold War challenges to be embraced within the wider ambit of security so that they could be treated with the same sense of urgency afforded national security threats. Moreover, since this paper proposes that in the contemporary Caribbean Basin there is a measurable expansion of the type of actors involved in security, specifically non-state actors, the Welsh School’s concept of security as advocated by Booth (1991) would allow the study to incorporate this sub-state level. As such non-state actors would include law-enforcement officers, members of the criminal justice system and judiciary, civil society, NGOs and transnational organized groups whose fundamental purpose is to affect and decisively influence the handling of the new security concerns. Discussion and analysis It is evident that the dynamic transformations occurring at the global and regional levels no longer make geopolitics a factor of tremendous concern in the Caribbean Basin. Globalization, liberalization, regionalization, information technology and an expanding and active transnational civil society, together have severe consequences for the region’s security. Moreover, the strategic and ideological conflicts that were dominant during the Cold War have now given way to a broad array of problems of a social nature in the succeeding era, and it is the combination of these factors that help to explain the shifts in Caribbean Basin security concerns in the post-Cold War era. The same can be said of the US, without the presence of the Cold War to claim pride of place as the security threat, external challenges formerly considered of low importance have now been raised in the minds of Americans to the level of threats to national security (Bloomfield, 1998). It should be emphasized, however, that the non-traditional concerns that emerge in the post-Cold War Caribbean Basin as security challenges are not necessarily new. During the Cold War the traditional perspective had marginalized these special concerns and confined them into

the traditional analytical prism as East-West struggles between the USA and Russia absorbed these concerns (Collier, 2005). As such these special security concerns of the Caribbean Basin were situated at the lower end of the security spectrum and treated as social problems that could be dealt with by local civilian law-enforcement. And although the impact of the Caribbean Basin’s new security threats and their importance vary from country to country within the region, a comparison of the two categories - traditional and non-traditional - reveals that many Caribbean Basin countries tend to place a higher premium on the non-traditional area (Dillon, 2004). Bloomfield (1998) argues that even though these newly-emergent post-Cold War challenges do not fit the traditional concept of security threats is no justification for denying them that status. In the discourse on security and securitization, Ullman (1983) emphasized that not all threats can be treated as security threats, while Waltz (1991) argued that broadening definitions of security should be resisted since the intellectual coherence of the field would be destroyed and that the line should be drawn at some point. It is within this context that the paper argues that any attempt at understanding the reality of post-Cold War Caribbean security must go beyond the discourse about its expansion or what counts as a security issue as advocated by the Copenhagen School, to include questions relating to a) whose security are we talking about? b) how is security conceptualized in the Caribbean Basin? These are questions which are given primacy in the Welsh School. Ullman (1983) defines a threat to national security as “an action or sequence of events that (i) threatens drastically and over a relatively brief span of time to degrade the quality of life for the inhabitants of a state, or (ii) threatens significantly to narrow the range of policy choices available to the government of a state or to private nongovernmental entities within the state.” In an effort to accommodate the new post-Cold War realities of the Caribbean Basin several elements have been explicitly incorporated into the region’s concept of national security.

Also social, political and economic spheres play a very important role in the continuance of the mafia. Therefore, to fight Ndranghetta, a real strong will to break the surrounding poltical and social structures of power is needed. This determination however, according to Parini, is still lacking. Next on the program was William Chambliss. This eminent organised crime researcher and professor presented the case of organised crime in the U.S. As a starting point, he argued that organised crime is a politicised form of crime. Based on his own empirical research, Chambliss pointed out the importance of connections between the ‘illegal’ and ‘legal’ sphere for the development and maintenance of organised crime activities. Political corruption and investment of illegal money in the legal economy thereby play a very important role. Furthermore, Chambliss argued that the problem of organised crime cannot be narrowed down to a problem of mafia. Taking the drugs trade as an example, Chambliss showed that thousands of small networks are involved in the drugs trade, working together in certain cases to get deals done. No bloodbands or family honour in these networks: It is all about making as much money as possible, by carrying out illegal activities. One possible answer to the problem of organised crime according to Chambliss is to open the debate on legalisation of drugs, in order to reduce the trading possibilities on the black market. Professor Michael Woodiwiss also started from organised crime in the U.S., to look at the lessons Europe learned from the U.S. experience in dealing with the phenomenon. He introduced the concept of moral panic, and drew some parallels between the development of the concept of organised crime as a ‘serious threat to the state’ in the U.S as well as in the U.K. When organised crime is perceived as an external threat to the state, Woodiwiss argued, this has consequences for anti-organised crime policies. The real organized crime problems however, are not caused by ‘hostile or external state enemies’. On the contrary, organised crime is part of our society, and according to Woodiwiss, it takes a lot more than a repressive top-down policy to deal with the phenomenon. However, by creating a moral panic about the concept of organised crime and by making it a case of national security, a serious debate on how to deal with the proper problems of organised crime that actually appear, becomes increasingly difficult. (continue p 10)


Part 3


The Instituto De Altos Estudios De La Defensa Nacional (1998) noted that “security is currently based on democratic stability, observance of human rights, environmental protection, the promotion of development and peace, collective coexistence, regional integration, the resolution of domestic socioeconomic problems and the reduction of domestic social conflict.” Sharing a similar view on the concept of security is Ivelaw Griffith, US-based Caribbean scholar on security studies, who emphasized its necessary ingredients as those of “protection and preservation of a people’s freedom from external military attack and coercion, from internal subversion and from the erosion of cherished political, economic and social value……those values include democratic choice and political stability in the political area, sustainable development and free enterprise in the economic domain, and social equality and respect for human rights in the social arena” (Griffith, 2004). Based on the above, it is evident that the current view on Caribbean Basin security does not focus on the state as the sole unit of analysis. There is in fact a noticeable shift in emphasis from the State as the object of security to the security of other political communities such as individuals and groups - in other words from state security to human security, founded on the principles of human solidarity and emancipation. For regional leaders and scholars in the Caribbean Basin, security is not exclusively concerned with external orientations, the internal arena forms the platform from which the region’s major security concerns emanate. Assistant Secretary General of the OAS stated that in the post-Cold War we are faced with a new concept of security which requires a holistic approach to public security in order to protect individuals and communities from violence (OAS, 2007). This new concept of Caribbean Basin security is consistent with the traditions of the Welsh School and the Copenhagen Schools respectively on two grounds. First, it includes both the levels of the individual and the state as referent objects of security rather than the state as the sole unit of analysis. Second, it encompasses a wider range of non-traditional issues which could be counted as security threats in the post-Cold War Caribbean. The above discussion raises the following two questions 1) what challenges are eligible for elevation to regional security threats in the Caribbean Basin? and 2) what criteria have been used in this process? Since it is established by the Copenhagen School that it is a political and normative act to choose which issues should be prioritized as security threats, this paper would make an attempt to show how some of the region’s challenges have been accorded the status of security threats. This would be done by utilizing the Discrete Multidimensional Security Framework (DMSF) which was developed by Ivelaw Griffith for the purpose of assessing security threats to the region (Griffith, 2004b). It provides a conceptual framework to facilitate explanation and interpretation of structures, patterns and dynamics involved in the security issue area. Drawing on the work of Barry Buzan (1991), the major feature of Griffith’s Framework is the Salience Factor. Griffith argues that the extent to which a threat is salient is influenced by the number of states affected, elites’ definition and perceptions of the threats, what type of threat it is, that is, whether it is a core threat or a peripheral threat, the magnitude of resources invested by state and non-state actors, and the

intensity of the threat in terms of how often it occurs, what are its consequences, how it impacts upon the population and how it impacts upon the state. So that the more intense a threat, the more legitimate is the invoking of national security as a response to it (Griffith, 2004). Based on the criteria outlined in the DMSF, this paper would briefly examine the issue of organized crime to provide some justification as to how and why it has been elevated to the status of regional security threat. Organized crime in the Caribbean Basin Despite the relative economic stability throughout most of the Caribbean Basin the national security posture of several of these states is weak. The region faces a very explicit enemy of an internal origin, notably non-state actors who are involved in a range of organized crime operations. Described as the most serious threat to Caribbean security, Assistant Secretary General of the OAS, Albert Ramdin, stated that organized crime acts as a catalyst for several other forms of violence and crime, and that it affects directly or indirectly all sectors of Caribbean society and undermines the linkages between governments and their citizens (OAS, 2007). More recently, Jamaica's Minister of National Security emphasized that all independent states within this hemisphere have been severely affected by an infusion of organized criminal activities which threaten the sovereignty of these nations. He pointed out that Caribbean states are the major transshipment points for drugs produced in South America destined for the USA, Europe, UK and Canada, and that the wealth amassed by drug cartels is larger than the national budget of many Caribbean Basin States (South Florida News, July 6, 2009). It must be noted, however, that organized crime is not a new phenomenon in the post-Cold War Caribbean. It became known to these governments during the mid-1960s (Figueira, 2004). Originally conceived of in terms of drug-trafficking during the Cold War, (Monroe, 2004; Bryan, 2000; Griffith, 1997), research has shown that there is no criminal network in the Caribbean Basin that specializes solely in drug trafficking, and that organized crime takes advantage of a group of illicit activities, including among others, smuggling in firearms and weaponry, human trafficking, export of dangerous and toxic items, organized prostitution and organized car theft (South Florida Caribbean News, July 6, 2009). These criminal operations are often accompanied by a disproportionate number of serious crimes ranging from homicides, gang-styled executions and reprisal killings, shootings, woundings and arson (Figueira, 2006; Deosaran, 2008) on a daily basis. Despite the region’s efforts to combat this menace, crime and violence continue to spiral out of control and has generated widespread concern over the last decade both at the regional and international levels. Because organized crime in the Caribbean Basin is perceived to emanate from the operations of international criminal networks operating within the Caribbean (The Economist, 2008), the emphasis has been on the strengthening of intra-regional and international cooperation to counteract this threat. As such, over the past two decades, Caribbean states have developed strong collaborative ties and treaties with a network of players from the wider Caribbean Basin, and international governments including the US, the region’s main pillar of support, as well as the UK and Canada. Organized crime has thus become a high priority issue on the security


agenda of Caribbean Basin states, especially targeted by policy-makers, statesmen, regional leaders and scholars, and a perusal of one of its constitutive elements namely, drug trafficking, would demonstrate why this has come to be so. The trade in narcotic drugs is considered of the most corrosive threats to human society (UNDP, 1995), and one of the foremost non-traditional security threats in the Caribbean Basin (OAS, 2007). During the past two decades, the narcotics industry has expanded from a miniscule enterprise to a highly transnational and organized multinational business which creates employment for hundreds of thousands of people and generates billions of dollars in profits (Figueira, 2006; Griffith, 1993/94). Identified as a serious force to be reckoned with, drug traffickers in some Caribbean Basin countries have been known to own larger and more sophisticated military resources than even the police or the military, and in some parts of Latin America they rely on sophisticated communication systems to maintain secure communications with their organizations and monitor law-enforcement counter-measures (CARICOM Regional Task Force on Crime and Security, 2002). Before and after 9/11, the Caribbean Basin has been at the centre of the world of drugs, generating anxiety from Caribbean Basin leaders and the US, UK and Canada governments about the magnitude of the problem. The extent of this dangerous trade was widely catapulted as early as 1992 in a West Indian Commission Report which concluded that ‘Caricom countries are threatened today by an onslaught of illegal drugs as crushing as any military excursion, and nothing poses a greater threat to civil society in Caricom countries than the drug problem….nothing exemplifies the powerlessness of regional governments more” (WIC, 1992). Moreover, in a 2006 Address at the Heads of Government Conference in Barbados it was stated that “Narco-trafficking and its associated evils of money laundering, gun smuggling, corruption of public officials, criminality and drug abuse, constitute the major security threats to the Caribbean Basin today” (Caricom Communique 2006). An examination of the drug trade has

revealed that it is a multidimensional as well as a global threat. Its scope extends into the realm of drug production, consumption and abuse, trafficking and money laundering (Griffith,1993/4). Facilitating this illegal trade is the existence of several offshore financial centers throughout the Caribbean Basin which are utilized by organized criminals and terrorist groups as financial havens for their money laundering activities (US Department of State, 2002). Implicit in this is the serious transnational consequences of the drug trade which not only threatens the security and sovereignty of states in the Caribbean Basin Region (South Florida Caribbean News, July 6, 2009) but is disruptive of regional and wider hemispheric stability. Moreover, the economic effects of drug trafficking and in a larger sense of organized crime have been described as ” frightening" by Jamaica’s Minister of National Security, Dwight Nelson (South Florida Caribbean News, Ibid). Apart from being a major production zone for illicit drugs, the Caribbean Basin is also a major trans-shipment zone from South to North for such drugs, particularly the US, UK and Europe, a situation that has evoked a high level of consternation in these countries. In 2000, a little over one-third of the global supply of cocaine was intercepted in the region, and the Caribbean Basin ranked number four in the world in terms of cocaine seizures (Munroe, 2004). For it is estimated that close to 50% of the cocaine introduced into the US$35 B United States cocaine market in 2001 passed through the Caribbean Basin corridor (UN 2003). Moreover, in July 2008, the Portsmouth-based frigate, HMS Iron Duke, in joint operation with the US Coast Guard, intercepted a boat hundreds of miles off the coast of Barbados and seized £40 million pounds worth of cocaine, one of the largest seizures of drugs in the Caribbean Basin which was destined for Europe and Africa (The Portsmouth News, July 2008). It is clear then that in the contemporary global order the strategic value of the region is not only located in its geopolitical significance from the perspective of state actors, but from the perspective of non-state actors as well, “with conflict and cooperation in mind, not in terms of geopolitics, but geonarcotics (Griffith, 1993/4).


Part 4

Dr. Jana Arsovska gave the last presentation of the second module, by discussing the politics of organised crime in the Balkans. Although there is much to do about Balkan organised crime, Arsovska argued there is very little scientific research to support the alarming statements put forward by different media. Dr. Arsovska carried out a broad empirical research on Balkan organised crime herself. In her lecture, as opposed to the rather recent media attention on the phenomenon, she argued that Balkan organized crime is not a new phenomenon, nor an isolated structure or sinister entity. She provided the audience with a lot of very interesting cases to support her theory. Although it is not a new phenomenon, some changes have occurred in Balkan organised crime groups since the beginning of the new millennium. As such, they became more sophisticated, heterogenous and international in scope. Because they found their way into the legal economy, they hide more behind legal companies and are more difficult to detect. Contacts with politicians remain very important, but become less visible. Also corruption of public administration goes on. Therefore, Arsovska argued that organized crime in the Balkan is not an external threat, but it has to be seen as a socio-political and economic problem, that is part of the social fabric in the Balkan region. To finish the second module, all professors and most of the students took part in a very interesting round table discussion. During the last day of the first week, all students had to present an abstract of their paper. Dr. Arsovska, Prof. Woodiwiss and Professor Bill Tupman gave feedback and helped them resolve some problems concerning content and methodology. After a revitalizing weekend and a group trip to Taormina, the second Summer School week took off. As already stated, during the second week, practitioners shared their experiences with the participants. The third module, entitled “Tackling organised crime in practice” started with a lecture by Dr. Peter Klerks. Based on many years of experience in the Dutch police department and academy, Klerks presented some operational and methodological aspects of tackling organized crime. First he outlined a conceptual framework. (Continue p 11)


The illicit trafficking in drugs is also of deep concern to the United States since a majority of illegal drugs destined for the USA are transshipped through the Caribbean Basin and the illegal firearms and weapons destined for the Caribbean Basin are smuggled out of the USA (Figueira, 2006; Trinidad& Tobago Guardian, May 2009). The gravity of drugs and arms trafficking affecting both the Caribbean Basin and the USA was given resonance in a recent speech by US President Barack Obama at the Summit of the Americas in Trinidad/Tobago in April 2009. He described the situation as destroying lives and distorting economies in the Western hemisphere (WW4 Report, April 2009). Thus, it can be surmised that drug trafficking is a serious cause for concern since it seems to pose a far greater threat to human security and the stability of Caribbean Basin societies than any traditional threats (South Florida Caribbean News, July 6, 2009). Efforts to deal with the threat of narcotics trafficking unilaterally have taxed law-enforcement officers beyond capacity, forcing some governments to commit or contemplate using military forces in anti-drug measures. This in itself has the tendency to jeopardize political stability and revive the militarization that some countries in the Caribbean Basin experienced in the 1970s and 1980s. If in the context of the Caribbean Basin security means protection and governability, then the drug problem in the region seriously undermines the ability of states to provide security to their populations. Conclusion In summary, it is evident that the nature and sources of the security problematic have changed drastically for Caribbean Basin countries in the post-Cold War. But while the end of bipolarity may have meant the demise of the global nuclear threat and communism, for the Caribbean Basin it meant a preoccupation with a range of new non-traditional security challenges alongside the existence of a few traditional ones relating to territorial and border disputes. The characteristics of these non-traditional threats have expanded to the extent that they pose an even far greater risk and could therefore be more destabilizing to states than traditional concerns (Ramdin, 2007). The

case of organized crime presents compelling evidence that this non-traditional issue is not simply an important question of social policy for Caribbean Basin societies, rather, it presents serious security threats, not just for a few states within the region, but undoubtedly, for the Caribbean Basin region as a whole. And this is easy to comprehend when one considers the definition of security and the nature and scope of the threat, including the threat intensity levels which is high for most of the affected states, their multidimensional nature, regional salience factors, their serious cross-border consequences, and the inadequacy of unilateral level management. However, while the new security challenges in the Caribbean Basin represent a significant departure from the traditional notions of security, traditional security concerns have not lost their salience. Significant geopolitical shifts occurring in the region within the last two years are indicative of this. For example, since 2008 Venezuela has emerged a key player in Caribbean Basin affairs. This is demonstrated in its growing relations with several member states of Caricom with respect to the ALBA and Petrocaribe initiatives. Such initiative has been described by the Washington-based Council on Foreign Affairs as one of the most the most significant recent developments in regional affairs that demonstrates a reconfiguration in the global political economy (CFR Task Force, 2008). The effect of this is the waning ability of the US to decisively influence and control the regional affairs in Latin America and the Caribbean which suggests that the era of US hegemony in the Caribbean Basin is over, (CFR Task Force, 2008). Moreover, in December 2008 a fleet of Russian navy ships headed by the nuclear-powered Peter the Great cruiser arrived in Venezuela, South America to participate in joint manoeuvres with that country. This development has been viewed as a rebuff to the United States which is facing increasingly deteriorating relationships with the two nations. Russian Deputy Prime Minister, Igor Sechin, in a 2008 speech in Latin America stated that it would be wrong to talk about one nation having exclusive rights to Latin America (BBC News,

2008). As such, the presence of Russia, as well as China and Iran, in the 21st Century Caribbean Basin may very well place the issues of geopolitics and geopolitical rivalry once again on the security landscape of the region. This is something worth thinking about. REFERENCES The references of this paper can be found at the end of this newsletter, on pp 19-20


Part 5

To describe the structure and functioning of organised crime in The Netherlands (that serves as an important transit country) he combined the enterprise model with the network approach on organised crime. Accoreding to Klerks, markets as well as networks are very important to understand organised crime. Criminal networks, although variable in structure, have some interesting common characteristics. They expand by making use of criminal exploitable ties that can be found in all kinds of meeting places. Moreover, trust and loyalty are very important. At the same time, these are also the network’s weaknesses, so they can be exploited in tackling organised crime. Klerks stressed the importance of intelligence-led police work, by focusing on transit nodes and criminal infrastructure in the fight against organised ‘transit’ crime. Francisco Badenes, member of the federal police department of Brazil, and in 2006 honoured as ‘best cop of the world’, described in his lecture an organised crime investigation that took place in the 1990’s in the state of Espirito Santo, Brazil. Badenes told a true story of a criminal organisation involved in high level political and police corruption and strategic killings, responsible for the executions of minors and also engaged in multiple other organised crime activities. The case started as an investigation of numerous (continue p. 14)


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CCZZEECCHH OORRGGAANNIISSEEDD CCRRIIMMEE AANNDD SSOOCCIIAALL OOPPPPOORRTTUUNNIITTIIEESS The topic of Czech ethno-territorial organised crime has not been thoroughly examined yet. One of the main reasons is the fact that ethnic Czech organised crime, for many reasons, has never been a highly visible and easily definable phenomenon. The first and foremost reason is the fact that ethnic Czech organized crime has never built up any significant international reputation in the global underworld. Moreover, ethnic origin of members has not been an important issue for Czech organised criminal groups. Czech criminal communities did not have a traditional hierarchical structure and organised criminal activities in the Czech lands did not have a strictly group character. Furthermore, they weren’t rooted in any deeper historical tradition of criminal subcultures. It is also important to note that after the break-up of the Eastern block the Czech space was filled with organised criminal groups coming from other geographic and ethno cultural areas. The fact this was possible, is partly due to the relatively weak tradition of solid, aggressive and united criminal structures in the Czech environment which could act as a rival to foreign criminal groups. Moreover, it is important to mention that in the Czech environment many illegal activities that are usually referred to as organised crime are rather a crime that is organised – especially so-called white-collar criminality, which is a phenomenon different from organised crime. This article focuses on the Czech ethno-territorial organised crime from the point of view of the social opportunities concept, which best reflects the character of Czech organised crime.1 Application of this concept by Kleemans and De Poot (2008; Kleemans and Van De Bunt

2008) specifies the theory of social netw1ork and its utilisation in security studies or criminology (Granovetter 1974, Boissevain 1974, Lin 1990, Burt 1992, Keller 2008). As will be illustrated in this case study, this concept is necessary for further research on organised crime in Eastern Europe. The Era of 1980´s The continuity of the Czech organised crime is not deeply rooted in comparison with other ethno territorial types of organised crime. Nevertheless, the era of the 80´s can be considered as the early years of the new type of organised criminal activities. The main reason for the rise of such activities was the inability of centrally-planned economy to fulfil the demand of the population for some types of goods, such as textile, electronics, cosmetics or Western currency. In this respect, we can find some similarities with the establishment of the caste of shadow businessmen (so-called teneviki) in the U.S.S.R., who reacted in a similar way to the inability of the Brezhnev economy on the brink of the seventies. Teneviki, although they were of course breaking the Soviet law, did not display typical features of organised crime till they were taken over by traditional Soviet criminal structures, especially so called vory v zakone. In contrast, the shadow businessmen in Czechoslovakia – so-called veksláci (foreign currency speculators) – formed the basis of the Czech organised crime. Another truly criminal structure did not exist at that time. Therefore, the era of eighties and veksláci can be considered as the starting point of the whole later development of the Czech organised crime. Nevertheless, a somewhat older continuity can be traced as well, especially in the environment of so-called Prague galerka.2 Popular mottos of those times (such as “Those who do not steal rob their family”, “Steal potatoes one by one, soon you have a minivan”), illustrating the character of the period as well as the whole Czech society, are more pertinent than we are sometimes willing to admit. The above outlined situation can be further elaborated in two dimensions – a group dimension and a space one. The isolation of the Communist regime on both the horizontal and

Petr KUPKA Department of Political Science, Faculty

of Social studies Masaryk University, Brno [email protected]


vertical scale did not allow much space for larger organised groups of black marketeers. Therefore, deals were done either on an individual level or – more often – on a small-group level (2-3 persons). On the other hand, the limited space for movement resulted in a good knowledge of the environment of the specific “black marketeers” subculture; on the local as well as on the regional level, everybody usually knew each other. The space dimension was not faced with difficulties arising from globalisation and telecommunication, since the Czech Republic was divided into several autonomous markets corresponding with the largest regional cities, where almost anything could be a trade article – clothing, electronics, discs, audio tapes, antiquities, coins, military equipments, etc. These goods were either of Western origin or less quality, but even less legal Eastern origin (especially frequent was import from Poland, Bulgaria, Romania, Yugoslavia or Turkey). In Czechoslovakia, the world of veksláci and other criminals got in touch especially with discotheques, where the first generation of new-time metropolitan galerka emerged. Within this group, veksláci held the position of intellectual elite. Dirty violent work was usually done by discotheque bouncers (their role, although they were usually boxers, bodybuilders, wrestlers or karatists, was not as important as in Bulgaria or in some parts of the Soviet underworld) and service and contacts were provided by waiters, hotel receptionists, taxi drivers, managers of greengrocer’s, butchers´ and Tuzex shops and so on.3 The most talented veksláci already had some contacts within the state and Communist party administration. Police corruption was obvious, as well as corruption of border guards, customs officers and other prosecuting and adjudicating bodies. Some veksláci were also registered as National Security collaborators. Apart from the Czech underworld corresponding with this description, one more specific group could be identified at that time. This group was formed by people who officially worked for the government and agreed with the regime, however, their unofficial activities were more or less in accordance with the above mentioned then popular mottos.

These people were usually employees of cultural centres, Socialist Youth Organizations, Association of Restaurants and Cafeterias, Coal Stores or Revolutionary Union Movement (ROH). Their social status allowed them to enter the “black market” by other means. Their “way in” was usually based either on the fragmented clientelism of lower officials or common fractionalism of higher officials or members of the National Police Force, who provided full service to anybody who wanted to establish on the black market and was willing to pay. As outlined before, the closeness of the society to a great extent determined mutual relations and established contacts of both positive (later transformed into mutually profitable cooperation) and negative character (activities of that era serving as a reason for later blackmailing). The Era of the First Half of the 1990´s Following the fall of Communism, the metropolitan galerka adapted their behaviour to the new liberal environment which displayed some anarchistic features in its beginnings and with varying degrees of success they tried to turn into profit the economic and social capital acquired in the eighties. Several different ways of development of activities of the so-called galerka could be observed: 1) a part of them fully accepted rules of democratic market economy, established a legal business and stayed within it, 2) a part of them tried to follow the same scenario, however either did not succeed and deliberately returned to the illegal sphere or penetrated the legal economy with illegal business activities and thus combined both sources, 3) a part of them let themselves be hired by new-comer international criminal groups to function as the Czech element on newly-born international illegal markets,4 4) some of them remained within the sphere of illegal activities and the only change was adopting the all-encompassing term „businessman“. Various forms of criminal conduct could be identified among the illegal activities (nowadays called organised crime), mainly illegal import and export of cigarettes or alcohol, operation of carrousels (especially by Roma clans), weapon trade, fencing with everything “foreign” (e.g. the phenomenon of

Californian earthworms, or so-called pyramid-scheme business) as well as probably the biggest fraud of the mid-nineties in the Czech Republic, the tax evasion on light fuel oil – the so-called LTO case. At first glance, it is possible to call these activities “economic criminality“. However, it is important to realize that many of the future members of the Czech organised crime (but not only them) participated in it with the sole aim of generating capital for further activities of a different kind. Nevertheless, organised economic crime was not the only point of interest of local “businessmen” – on the regional level as well as in the capital of Prague the first organised criminal groups emerged, engaged mainly in burglary, blackmailing or racketeering. The “business” model beginning with black-marketeering and later developing into drug business was rather common. The process usually went through the following stages: The black-marketeering brought significant earnings to certain persons. This fact attracted the attention of the opposite gender. This attraction was later transformed into the form of organised prostitution, by means of which the fences (black marketeers) acquired important contacts. Some of them led to contacts with foreign-language criminal groups operating in the Czech Republic and to drug business. The organisation was not based on strongly hierarchical structures – for the majority of the 90´s, groups maintained mutual contact but their active cooperation was not possible. These groups were centralized around one or more leaders who started their career already in the 80´s. The leaders were searching and managing persons less able, less charismatic or younger, for whom we can use the term “confederates/soldiers”. Nevertheless, these persons were not designed to all or long-term activities and they frequently fluctuated among gangs. An interesting thing is that cooperation with another criminal group was not always a secret; contacts with rival gangs or a direct “recruitment” took place in well-known nightclubs and discotheques. Furthermore, we have to mention that the organised crime flourished partly thanks to insufficient wording of several laws (e. g. lengthy development of the Customs Act), low wages of both police and army


or the inability (or reluctance?) of some politicians to establish effective measures or at least admit political responsibility for the critical development of the situation. Second Half of the 90´s The second half of the nineties cannot be described as the pioneering era of the Czech organised crime anymore. We should rather talk about an era during which several important, until then not very clear, phenomena emerged: 1) mutual relations established in the eighties were fulfilled and fully adopted to capitalism at all levels, including the political one, 2) the capital accumulated in the 80´s and in the first half of the 90´s was given a unique opportunity to become legal by means of privatisation of public property, establishment of gambling-houses, casinos and betting offices, fictitious companies and international bank institutions. As a result, the former veksláci and fences (black marketeers) seemingly turned into successful businessmen, 3) a closer connection of Czech organised criminal groups to the foreign-language ones and more important role of Czech citizens in the international organised crime in general, 4) capitalisation of education in favour of organised crime. The first of these phenomena was revealed thanks to the disclosure of information about suspicious financing of political parties, which appeared to have received illegally earned money from persons connected to both home and international organised crime. Furthermore, information about the strange handling with the Russian debt revealed that the Czech Republic was virtually in the hands of organised crime during its unblocking. Another clear example of such a situation was the Opposition Accord of two leading political parties - ČSSD (social democrats) and ODS (conservatives), which de facto institutionalised the cover-up of corruption practises and clientelism. As a part of this trend one can consider also the infiltration from the first half of the nineties of advisors and lobbyists with direct contacts to organised crime into the high levels of politics. The second point refers to the so-called money laundering, which is not only a business on its own, but also an irreplaceable mechanism for every other illegal business and in some respect also the mirror of grey economy. In general,

money laundering profited from four global financial reforms – the abandonment of currency control, easier access to local capital markets, and competitive strength of capital and information revolution. In the Czech environment a sweeping statement responding to any question or suspicion – also thanks to the strength of then public newspeak – was very simple: the letter of law was not infringed (without mentioning that it was the infringement of the soul of the law). The third point deals with Czech citizens participating in activities of international organised crime (besides their activities in the frame of ethnic Czech organised crime), especially as intermediaries who established fictitious companies, contracted fictitious marriages or took part in all forms of human trafficking. Socially disadvantaged or unsuspicious persons were often exploited as so-called white horses.5 Fourth, another form of criminality appeared besides traditional organised-crime activities such as blackmailing, kidnapping, racketeering and prostitution. In the second half of the 90´s, we can notice the emergence of a new generation of educated and foreign language speaking criminals accustomed not only to travel, but also to build complex networks of further criminal procedures (e.g. so-called tender mafia). This trend has been on rise since 2000. Nevertheless, it is difficult to label this kind of activity organised crime in its basic definition sense, as similar activities are likely to belong to the category of crime that is organised or so-called white-collar criminality. The Era after the Year 2000 The planned admission of the Czech Republic to the European Union supported stabilisation at all political levels. Simultaneously, a public interest in underworld activities grew and police operations stopped several important Czech organised criminal groups (Prague, Plzeň, Ostrava), which was a signal to the Czech organised crime to undergo some changes. It can be said that a wide influential network of contacts is still maintained in the Central Bohemia Region. The northern parts of both Bohemia and Moravia have been distinctive by the entrance of persons connected to underworld to regional politics and business. This combination of functions made any legal steps against


Part 6

executions of children in the favella’s in the beginning of the 1990’s. A special investigative unit was established. However, the team experienced great political pressure and even received dead threats. Some police officers quit, others were placed out of the unit. A lot of courage was needed, together with the support of human rights organizations and the mobilization of the public, to go on with this investigation.

Mrs. Carmela Giuffrida is an International Public Prosecutor in Kosovo. To give the participants an example of how organised crime cases at international levels are prosecuted and dealth with, she focused in her lecture on the phenomenon of women trafficking and the criminal justice response to this problem. Often there are many difficulties in constructing evidence in cases related to women trafficking. Therefore, there is a great need to work together and develop information exchange through a network of police and judiciary cooperation. But only prosecution is not enough, Giuffrida argued. In the future, the prevention of women trafficking, by awareness campagnes, training of law enforcement officers and stimulation of the public debate, should become equally important. The last two lectures of the third module were given by Massimiliano Calgagni from Europol, and Filippo Spiezia from Eurojust. They each gave an overview of their respective organizations, focusing specifically on their tasks, responsibilities and added value in the fight against organized crime. Again, the third module ended with a round table, where the students could ask questions and discuss topics with the expert practitioners. At the end of the second week, all students gave a presentation of their own work. As all participants had various interests and different cultural or professional backgrounds, the presentations covered a wide range of organized crime related topics, dealt with from various points of view. It was an interesting mix of subjects, the more because each of the participants put in a lot of effort. (Continue p 15)


these persons almost impossible. Shortly after 2000 the capital acquired in the nineties was legalised and compromising information about important persons of the Czech political and business sphere was used to get access to lucrative government contracts. This “data business” has not been sufficiently researched yet, nevertheless, we can assume that it is used as compromising material, opening wide opportunities for compromising, threats against one’s life and intimidation. Besides, we can observe two distinct lines of emancipation of the Czech underworld. Firstly, it strengthens its position in some regions, and distributes areas of influence between the Czech and foreign organised crime in some regions. Secondly, supranational activities of the Czech organised crime and foreign groups start to fully exploit the possibilities of the European duty-free zone. Moreover, acquired capital together with compromising data serve as a passport to the world of business and high-profile corruption, which enables the underworld to legalise its profits and improve its public image. Conclusion To conclude, certain continuity – in time as well as in regard to the persons involved – can be identified between the current era of the Czech organised crime and the early years of the organised crime growth in the Czech Republic. In the Czech organised crime it has never been important if the participant is ethnic Czech, Slovak or Rome. It was always more territorially-organised, however, this characteristic was more of a coincidence than a deliberate intention. To enter some group or network one did not have to be an inhabitant of one particular city. From this point of view, Czech organised crime and its groups are typical representatives of the “criminals – acquaintance” type of organised crime. Nevertheless, it is not the kind of continuity usually seen in classic hierarchically-organised criminal groups with self-identification, reputation and subculture features. We rather (but without doubt) talk about the continuity of contact groups, their mutual contacts and relations. Generalizing, we could conclude Czech organised crime fits into the ‘social opportunities principle’. Thereby, organised crime is partly explained as structured around and based upon available and utilizable social opportunities. For further scientific research (and policing too) it is necessary to perceive this concept as of future development of Czech organised crime. REFERENCES Boissevain, J. – Mitchell, J.C. (1973): Network analysis, Hague: Mouton Burt, R.S. (1992): Structural Holes: The Sorganised crimeial Structure of Competition, Cambridge, London: Harvard University Press Granovetter, M. (1973): The Strength of Weak Ties, American Journal of Sorganised crimeiology, 1978, 6, 1360-138 Keller, J. (2009): Nejistota a důvěra aneb K čemu je modernitě dobrá tradice, Praha: SLON Kleemans, E. - De Poot, J. (2008): Criminal careers in organized crime and Sorganised crimeial Opportunity Structure, European Journal of Criminology 2008, 1, 69-98 Kleemans, E. - Van de Bunt, H. (2008): Organized crime, organised crimecupations and opportunity, Global Crime 2008, 185-197 Lin, N. (1990): Sorganised crimeial rsources and sorganised crimeial mobility: a structural theory of status attainment, in Breiger, R. (ed., 1990): Sorganised crimeial mobility and Sorganised crimeial structure, Cambridge: Cambridge University press, 247-261 McIllwain, J.S. (1999): Organized crime: a sorganised crimeial network approach, Crime, Law and Sorganised crimeial Change 1999, 301-323.

ENDNOTES 1 This text is based on the strucuture of the article: Kupka, P. – Smid, T. (2009): Czech organised crime for the point of view of its continuity; (still unpublished). For the occasion of ISSOC „homework“ this article was revised, adopted and aimed to the concept of social opportunity. 2 „Galerka“ means above mentioned traffickers, veksláci, taxi drivers, waiters, discotheque bouncers, thieves and their mutual relations. 3 Tuzex shops were selling Western goods for convertible currency before 1989. 4 These people worked especially for Russian-speaking or Vietnamese criminal groups as drivers, security, intermediaries or traffickers of illegal migrants. 5 This term became a dominant characteristic of the whole Czech organised crime of the 90´s. “The term “white horses“ was established by Roma criminals, who usually found a homeless “gadžo“ (i. e. a person of not Roma ethnicity), washed him, brought him to a hair-dresser and bought him a decent suit. Then they took him to appropriate authorities and helped him to fill in a notification of business and a subject of enterprise. The “white horse” was receiving a small salary. In return he was signing invoices for high amounts of money until he got caught by the police. In the end, the Roma criminals tried to get their “white horse“ out of the country (in one case as far as to the South Africa) or killed him so that he does not reveal anything. In some cases, they let him be imprisoned as they hoped that there is no evidence against them. “White horses” were also used at a higher level; they knew exactly to whom and how they serve, but the principle as well as the end of the “white horse” was the same. If the dams were emptied in the Czech Republic, bones on their grounds could tell stories. Some well-established Czech organised groups launched co-operation with foreign groups as well, especially in drug trafficking.

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Besides their own knowledge, the lectures worked inspiring and the participants also used the theories and cases presented during the summer school to complete their own work. As such, they all more than deserved the ISSOC Certificate they received during the closing ceremony. The closing lecture was given by Mr. Antonio Laudati, Director of the General Management of Criminal Justice in Italy. As this overview may show, the first ISSOC was a very intensive, yet interesting experience. The students as well as the lecturers and the organizing committee were very enthusiastic about their ‘Catania-experience’. The possibilities to meet people who work in the same field, exchange information, establish contacts with experts all over the world, learn from different approaches in other cultures, discuss shared problems with others either formally in the classroom, or informally later on in a nice bar or restaurant, all these things made the first ISSOC in Catania a memorable two weeks for everyone involved.


SSUUMMMMEERR SSCCHHOOOOLL IINN AACCTTIIOONN:: SSOOMMEE PPHHOOTTOOGGRRAAPPHHSS…… Opening lecture (Falcone Lecture) by Professor Dina Siegel The ever highly concentrated audience…

The closing ceremony

Students present their research abstracts and receive feedback from a panel of professors

All students received their well deserved certificate

The social program: time to enjoy the great Sicilian food in Taormina


With the support of the ECPR-SGOC and the European Commission, the

LLEEUUVVEENN IINNSSTTIITTUUTTEE OOFF CCRRIIMMIINNOOLLOOGGYY

is organising the second edition of the International Summer School on Organised Crime:

“Understanding and Fighting against Organised Crime

in the New Europe”

From June 28 to July 9, 2010

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During a two-week period, you will have an exceptional chance

to enrich your knowledge, discuss and critically reflect about the challenges of organised crime and its control in

contemporary Europe.

Following the example of the first summer school in Catania, the Leuven Summer School is also intended to enhance

interaction between practice and academic research. As a result, the selected participants will be part of a group of

researchers and participants with very different backgrounds, bonded together by there mutual interest

in organised crime.

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Part I: Organised Crime Actors and Activities in the “New” Europe

Part II: National Approaches in Tackling Organised Crime

Today

Part III: After the Enlargement: The Role of European Institutions in the Fight against Organised Crime

For one day, during the third part, we will go to Brussels, visit the European Parliament and other EU institutions and

closely interact with high-ranking EU policy-makers and practitioners.

An international team of prominent scholars and high-ranking practitioners will give cutting-edge lectures on

organised crime patterns and control policies across Europe and beyond. Among the already confirmed speakers are:

Prof. Dr. Cyrille Fijnaut, Tilburg University

Dr. Philip Gounev, Center for the Study of Democracy, Bulgaria and London School of Economics

Prof. Dr. Dick Hobbs, London School of Economics Prof. Dr. Jörz Kinzig, Tübingen University

Prof. Dr. Edward Kleemans, Free University Amsterdam and Research and Documentation Centre (WODC) of the

The Netherlands Ministry of Justice Prof. Dr. Krzysztof Krajewski, Jagiellonian University

Prof. Dr. Mike Levi, Cardiff University Prof. Dr. Letizia Paoli, K.U. Leuven Prof. Dr. Dirk Van Daele, K.U. Leuven

Prof. Dr. Henk van de Bunt, Erasmus University Prof. Dr. Frank Verbruggen, K.U. Leuven

HHOOWW TTOO AAPPPPLLYY??

The Summer School on Organized Crime admits postgraduate students, as well as advanced researchers and practitioners.

Although admissions decisions are made on a rolling basis,

the final application deadline is March 15, 2010. No application will be considered after this deadline.

Because only 25 students will be admitted to the School, we

encourage all participants to register as soon as possible.

Application form and additional information: http://www.law.kuleuven.be/linc/english/ssoc


Apart from lectures, visits and discussions, we also offer a rich social programme to get to know your lecturers and

fellow students.

Leuven’s wonderful collection of historic buildings and lively bar scene will make this summer school an unforgettable

experience.

If you are interested in expanding your knowledge by spending two weeks among high level organised crime experts, do not

hesitate and visit our website! http://www.law.kuleuven.be/linc/english/ssoc

The SGOC and the Leuven institute of Criminology

are looking forward to welcome you in Leuven!

TTHHEE HHIISSTTOORRIICCAALL DDEEVVEELLOOPPMMEENNTT OOFF SSEECCUURRIITTYY CCOONNCCEERRNNSS IINN TTHHEE CCAARRIIBBBBEEAANN BBAASSIINN RREEGGIIOONN:: TTHHEE EEMMEERRGGEENNCCEE OOFF OORRGGAANNIIZZEEDD CCRRIIMMEE AASS AA RREEGGIIOONNAALL SSEECCUURRIITTYY TTHHRREEAATT ((GG..DD.. VVEERRAASSAAMMMMYY –– PP 55--1111)) REFERENCES Abrams, E. (1997) ‘The Shiprider Solution: Policing the Caribbean – US Interests in the Caribbean’, National Interest, Spring. Available: www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2751is_n43/ai_18298483.html. Barrow-Giles, C. and Marshall, D. (2003). Living at the borderlines. Kingston, Jamaica: Ian Randle Publishers. BBC News (2008) Russian Navy Sails to Venezuela. December 20. Available: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7747793.stm Bloomfield, R. (1998) ‘Security in the Greater Caribbean Basin: What Role For Collective Security Mechanisms,’ in M. Desch, J. Dominguez and A.Serbin (eds.), From Pirates to Drug Lords : The Post-Cold War Caribbean Basin Security Environment, Albany: State University of New York Press Booth, K. (1997) ‘Security and Emancipation,’ Review of International Studies 17 (4). Bryan, A. (2000) ‘Transnational Organized Crime: The Caribbean Context’ The Dante B. Fascell Nort-South Center Working Paper Series. University of Miami. Available: www.ciaonet.org/wps/bry01 Buzan, B. (1991) ‘New Patterns of Global Security in the Twenty First Century,’ International Affairs, 67 (3) 431-451 Buzan, B., Waever, O. and de Wilde, J. (1998) Security: A New Framework For Analysis, Boulder, Colorado: Lynne Rienner Campbell, D. (1998) Writing Security: United States Foreign Policy and the Politics of Identity,Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. CBC News (2004) ‘Hurricane Ivan Demolishes Grenada,’ Available: www.cbc.ca/story/world/natural/2004/09/10/grenada/van040910.html. CFR Task Force (2008) “Era of U.S. hegemony in Latin America is over”. US Council on Foreign Relations Press Release. Available: http:www.cfr.org/publication/16245/era_of_us_hegemony_in_latin_america_over.html

Collier, M. (2005) “Rethinking Latin America and Caribbean Security: A Transtate Security Approach.” Paper presented at the Caribbean Studies Association Annual Conference. Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic (May 30-June 4). Collymore, J. and Riley, E. (2004) ‘The Environmental Security Challenge,’ in Ivelaw Griffith (ed.), Caribbean Basin Security in the Age of Terror: Challenge and Change. Kingston: Ian Randle Publishers. Conway, H. (1998) ‘After Baby Doc: Haiti Today’, Contemporary Review, August. Available: www.findarticles.com Deosaran, R. (2008) Crime, Delinquency and Justice: A Caribbean Reader. Kingston, Jamaica: Ian Randle Publishers. Dillon, E. (2004) ‘Regional Security Cooperation: Traditional and Non-traditional Areas,’ in Ivelaw Griffith (ed.), Caribbean Security in the Age of Terror: Challenge and Chang: Kingston: Ian Randle publishers. Dookhan, I. (1985) The United States in the Caribbean Basin, St. Thomas: Collins Caribbean Basin. Druitt, H. and Kokelaar, B. (2003) The eruption of Soufriere Hills Volcano, Montserrat, from 1995 to 1999. London. Geological Society of London. Economist Intelligence Unit Views Wire (2008) ‘Caribbean Crime Wave: Crime damages society and the economy’ The Economist, March 20th Ferguson, T. (2002), ‘Caribbean Basin Security in the Contemporary Period.’ Paper presented at the Conference on Governance and Security in the Caribbean Basin. The University of the West Indies, Trinidad. Ferguson, T. (2001), ‘A Security Management Model for Small States.’ Keynote presentation delivered to the Committee on Hemispheric Security Meeting on the Special Security Concerns of Small Island States, (March 30, 2001), Rapporteur’s Report.vailable: Available: www.oas.org/Assembly2001/assembly/eng/documents/284.htm Figueira, D. (2004) Cocaine and Heroin Trafficking in the Caribbean: The Case of Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica and Guyana. USA:iUniverse.com Figueira, D (2006). Cocaine and Heroin Trafficking in the Caribbean (Vol 2). USA: iUniverse.com Gilderhus, M. (2000) The Second Century: US-Latin American Relations since 1889. Wilmington, Delaware: Scholarly Resources Inc.


At the end of this special issue, the organising committee would like to thank all participants, lecturers and

the organising staff for their hard work and enthusiasm during the first summer school. This way, all together you’ve created the opportunity to get the most out of it.

We hope you’ve enjoyed it as much as we have!

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Standing Group Organised Crime

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