I am sharing some plans for how I introduce topics to students. I would like other teachers to use them freely.
From my course ‘Illicit Markets, Criminal Organizations’
Crime is fundamentally an instance of human insecurity. We need to know what systems create security and insecurity, how and for whom, and the way in which harms are made and distributed.
Crime is increasingly carried out by organised groupings, and like social and economic life generally, is mediated through markets and by digital means. Developments in social media, micro-work platforms, cryptocurrencies, AI and anonymising technology have produced new opportunities for illegal activity and new ways of studying it. These developments challenge criminology and sociology. We need to change our understanding of what a criminal activity or deviant identity is. The existing template used to understand organised crime is becoming out of date.
This course is a critical investigation of criminal markets and organisations that can link their organisation and functioning to developments in digitally driven, capitalist societies. It draws on insights and data from sociology, economics, criminology, computer sciences, organisational studies and other disciplines.
The course invites you investigate questions relevant to this topic. You will join a research seminar and focus on various topical problems and live, real world research scenarios related to global crime. You will have the opportunity to apply your own thinking to real world data and cases. We will examine the management structure used by the American Mafia, problems of redundant Yakuza members, how cybercrime groups make their business models and how drug gangs establish competition and moderate risk. We will study how they recruit, control and manage members. We will explore the problems people running online illicit markets have in trusting the individuals they need to interact with. We will put crime in a global context and critically examine the divide between the West and the rest of the world.
1 – The social and economic organisation of crime
We will discuss contrasting material on the technologies, politics, ethics and social structure of illegal markets and organisations. The session addresses the following questions:
- What is crime’s social and economic organisation and why does it matter?
- What can sociology, economics, computer sciences and criminology add to the discussion of crime?
- What are illicit markets and organisations?
- How should we define organised crime?
- How has the development of globalised, turbo charged capitalism changed crime and the motivations of criminals?
- What explains recent changes in the pattern of criminal activity?
Tasks:
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- To prepare for the first half of the seminar write down your answers to the following:
- What do you look forward to learning about/what do you hope to get out of the class?
- What will/or does help you and your friends learn in and outside the class?
- Is there anything that gets in the way of your learning?
- We will use your answers to discuss in the seminar how best to learn effectively about these topics.
- To prepare for the second half of the seminar, read chapter 2 from Allum F and Gilmour S (2021) The Routledge Handbook of Transnational Organized Crime. 2nd ed. London: Routledge. DOI: 10.4324/9781003044703 and also pick out a case or theme from it using any chapter from 5 onwards.
- Prepare answers to these questions:
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- Selection: what interested you in this particular chapter?
- Taxonomy: what is organised crime? What are its characteristics?
- Type: What kinds of crime are discussed in the chapter and how are they carried out?
- Trends: what trends and changes are discusses in the reading?
Hypothesise: what might explain the observed trends?
2 – The social evolution of drug crime and gang organisation
In this session we examine how criminal organisations govern, control and support their members. We ask:
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- To prepare for the first half of the seminar write down your answers to the following:
- How does criminal organisation regulate crime and participants in crime?
- How do illicit markets regulate risk?
- How is risk and harm distributed by criminal organisations and public institutions?
- To do this we use the key case of County Lines operations and gang identifiers
- This Week…
We will undertake a critical reading of this documentary on the Yakuza so read one or both of:
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Alkemade R (2014) ‘Outsiders amongst outsiders’: A cultural criminological perspective on the sub-subcultural world of women in the yakuza underworld. Geneva: United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. Available at: https://sherloc.unodc.org/cld/uploads/res/bibliography/outsiders_amongst_outsiders_a_cultural_criminological_perspective_on_the_sub-subcultural_world_of_women_in_the_yakuza_underworld_html/AlkemadeYakuza.pdf.
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Hill P (2004) The Changing Face of the Yakuza. Global Crime 6(1). Routledge: 97–116. DOI: 10.1080/1744057042000297007.
and watch this:
Consider:- What is the Yakuza? What does it do?
- How did it emerge as a group historically?
- Why might it have or have had legitimacy in Japanese society?
- What concepts of honour and status are used in it?
- How are members bound into the Yakuza?
- What other features matter? Consider the relationship between Japanese society and the Yakuza’s structure and operation
- Using the Alkemade reading to comment on themes are missing or not stated in this documentary
3 – Deviant Global Flows
Sociologically, we are interested in both how common or rare some kinds of crime are within a population, what we can say about the population and what elements of social structure explain vulnerabilities, victimisation, harms and propensity to engage in crime. Beyond that we examine the concepts used to explain global crime patterns such as ‘flow’ and ‘blackspots’. These all imply a relationship between nation-state borders, global trade and the movement of people, and geopolitics.
We examine:
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- Does deviant globalisation follow or lead formal globalisation?
- What is the intersection between nation states, borders and illicit flows of people and goods?
- Is crime a political choice?
Task
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- What is a drug mule? Referring back to the lecture, how does the drug mule fit into the wider global flow of illicit drugs?
- What status do they have in the global drug trade? What characteristics shape their involvement – geographical, economic and so on?
- What are the motives for involvment in it? How are mules attracted into it?
- What trajectory do the two women follow?
- What ‘push’ and ‘pull’ factors draw them in?
- Can you identify any contasts between the men (Frank, Graham, Michael) and women (Marta, Angela, Sharon, Anika, Amanda, Mandalina, Tanya)?
4 – The Crime Career and the Deviant Entrepreneur
We examine the paradigm of the crime career and professional criminal and its application in the digital crime era.
- What attributes make for a professional criminal?
- Is there professionalisation in criminal activity? What forms does it take?
- Why do some criminals specialise?
In the seminar we examine criminal careers as lived and embedded.We will discuss the below prison writing excerpts by Vance Phillips and Raymond James Hoslett, kindly shared by them through the American Prison Writing Archive
- Describe the criminal career the writers follow
- What is the ‘hustle’ in the prison? How do they learn it?
- What personal relationships matter to them and why?
- What kind of skills and aptitudes do they use?
- For Raymond, what keeps him in the crime lifestyle?
For your reading I want us to discuss the methods used to research the topic, so read- Brotherton DC (2022) Studying the Gang through Critical Ethnography. In: Bucerius SM, Haggerty KD, and Berardi L (eds.) The Oxford Handbook of Ethnographies of Crime and Criminal Justice. Oxford University Press, pp. 227–245. DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190904500.013.11&.
More info on the American Prison Writing Archive5 – Crime scripts, crime contexts and routine activities theory
This session introduces you to two forensic methods: crime script analysis and routine activities theory and assesses how useful they are in understanding criminal activity. We take up the theme of rationality in crime and the benefits and limits of understanding crime as rational and to some extent normal and expected. The session invites you to create your own crime script from existing data.
(All links will open in a new window)Review the process of creating a crime script used in:- Chiu Y-N, Leclerc B and Townsley M (2011) Crime Script Analysis of Drug Manufacturing In Clandestine Laboratories Implications for Prevention. British Journal of Criminology 51(2): 355–374. DOI: 10.1093/bjc/azr005.
Review the data posted . In class we will assemble these into a script for counterfeit currency operators.6 – Digital organised crime and platform criminality
Introduction – From cybercrime to digital crime
This week introduces the context of cybercrime and global illicit markets. We discuss key concepts in the field, such as what cybercrime is and the history of cybercrime. We ask whether digital crime is a better frame for capturing what we are interested in. We look at some key areas of crime and crime control, from the darknet to white collar fraud.
This week…
For this session I would like us to think critically about technology and risk in relation to crime, how that is understood societally through a Europol report, and the ways in which cybercrime groups are evolving using research from Lusthaus and Varese.
To start, read:
To start, read: Europol (2021) Internet Organised Crime Threat Assessment The Hague.
and also
Lusthaus J and Varese F (2018) Offline and Local: The Hidden Face of Cybercrime. Policing: A Journal of Policy and Practice.
Focus around these questions:
Drawing on Europol and your own experience, what are the greatest risks from cybercrime? What qualities does cybercrime have that matter?
What kind of imagery is Europol using to represent a) crime and b) criminals?
What are Europol’s priorites, in terms of what crimes does it regard with the greatest seriousness?
What does Europol have to say about people’s motives for being involved, and why they end up being victims?
What do they understand by ‘technology’? What kind of technologies would be used by crime groups?
Using the Lusthaus and Varese article in what senses is cybercrime ‘offline’ and ‘local’?
In what ways do their findings contrast with the Europol document?
7 – Trust, social ties and market rationality
Introduction
We examine how some kinds of criminal activity are legitimised and normalised, and how trust between people involved in criminal activity is made and broken. We ask:
What is the relationship between trust and economic instruments such as credit and exchange?
What are the difficulties in forming trust in criminal markets and online settings?
What kind of criminal organisations rely more on trust?
What legitimates criminal activity?
What is the relationship between technology and trust?
Task
The aim of this seminar is to examine trust as an interactional quality and consider how it manifests and is manipulated in various settings, digital and real world and the vulnerabilities involved.
To start, read Gambetta’s theory of trust signalling
Gambetta D (2009) Signaling. In: The Oxford Handbook of Analytical Sociology. Oxford University Press Oxford, pp. 168–194.
https://academic-oup-com.ezproxy.is.ed.ac.uk/edited-volume/38173/chapter/333032955
Prepare around the following questions
Thinking about your own use of digital systems, how is trust signalled between yourself and others, and by the platforms being used?
In what ways is trust needed in: darknet cryptomarkets, street drug exchanges, and ransomware outfits?
What technologies and techniques support trust?
Using Gambetta, what methods do cybercriminal operators and others use to establish trust?
How might trust be used to undermine or attack cryptomarkets or other criminal operations? Should it be?
8 – Business and cultural models in organised crime economies
Introduction
This session looks in more depth at the kinds of cooperation and performance by people involved in organised crime and illicit economies. What princples of organisation are used, what codes of practice and honour are deployed, and how do people stabilise their organisations and networks? We look at how these understandings are shared and gain force culturally, and also what the limits of that are. We look at emotional performance as one way of structuring and regulating interaction in these environments.
Task
This seminar will examine performance, codes of the street and the gentrification hypothesis, using Curtis R, Wendel T and Spunt B (2002) We Deliver: The Gentrification of Drug Markets on Manhattan’s Lower East Side: Rockville, MD: National Institute of Justice. Though quote old this report prefigures themes that have become much more common in illicit market research now.
Reading the report we will discuss:
What does gentrification mean in the context of drug markets?
How does gentrification manifest? What signals are used? What kinds of performance are involved?
What technological and organisational innovations support it?
Critically link the hypothesis to themes of surveillance, racialisation, and displacement. Is gentrification simply a one-way street? What assumptions are made in the hypothesis about ethnicity and social class for example?
Could you apply the same hypothesis to other types of organised and market crime we have discussed, for example, sex work?
For a more up to date example see
Martin J (2018) Cryptomarkets, systemic violence and the’gentrification hypothesis’. Addiction 113(5). Wiley-Blackwell, Wiley: 797–798.
9 – Community Impacts and Crimes of Power
This session examines the community impacts of organised crime and illicit markets. It discusses the interplay of racialisation, state violence, and corruption in different settings. It asks if theoretical constructs and concepts have centred the West in a way that has limited our analysis and understanding.
Task
We will be discussing how studying the community impact of organised crime and illicit markets would benefit from a de-centred perspective.
Is Europe and North America ‘centred’ in the cases we have discussed in the course? What are the implications of that?
How might it be de-centred? What could a Southern criminology perspective show about globalisation and crime organisation?
Can we move past methodological and theoretical nationalism in crime research?
For the seminar, use:
Winton A (2014) Gangs in global perspective. Environment and Urbanization 26(2). SAGE Publications Ltd: 401–416. DOI: 10.1177/0956247814544572.
and Panfil VR (2017) The Gang’s All Queer: The Lives of Gay Gang Members. NYU Press. DOI: 10.2307/j.ctt1ggjjrn. Chapter 3 ‘Gay Gangs Becoming “Known”: Respect, Violence, and Chosen Family’ and Chapter 7 ‘Tired of Being Stereotyped” Urban Gay Men in Underground Economies’
There is quite lot of homophobic language in the Panfil reading.
10 – Control and Simulation Exercise
We discuss enforcement activity against illicit markets and organisations.
We ask:
What are the politics of crime control?
How can we evaluate the success of disruption efforts?
How do law enforcement and other agencies set their priorities for targeting criminal activity?
How should they?
The class will be divided into two teams. One will design an organised crime group, the other will try and disrupt it at each stage.
Both teams can use the UK Police College’s Disrupting Serious and Organised Criminals Menu of Tactics (edited version below)
The simulation will follow these stages:
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Organised crime team Disruption team 1. Choose a crime activity, aim or method. For example, if you were importing something, how would you do that? Select a disruption priority – prevention, pursuit, or protection. What will the focus of disruption be? 2. Outline your organisation and where/how it will be operating. How will you coordinate, for example? How would you replace your leader, if there is one? Outline your response tactics and how effective you think it would be 3 Say how you would change in response to interventions. Discuss the principles involved and what you have leaned
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