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22. Citizen-Oriented Policing: Effective Fight Against Serious and Organised Crime
- Author:
- Belgrade Centre for Security Policy (BCSP)
- Publication Date:
- 05-2023
- Content Type:
- Commentary and Analysis
- Institution:
- Belgrade Centre for Security Policy (BCSP)
- Abstract:
- On 24-25 February 2023, in cooperation with partner organisations, the Belgrade Centre for Security Policy (BCSP) organised a citizens’ assembly in Vrnjačka Banja. The topic of the assembly was how the police could better respond to the needs of citizens in the area of fighting serious and organised crime, while the immediate reason was the ongoing debate on the Draft Law on Internal Affairs. On this occasion, 36 citizens from all over Serbia were selected to discuss two topics from statutory solutions that have proven to be significant during the public debate. The first topic concerned biometric surveillance, i.e. the new powers of the police in the field of biometric data processing granted thereto in the new Draft Law, while the second related to police management, or, more precisely, to the relationship between the Minister of Internal Affairs, the Director of Police and the Public Prosecutor’s Office. The debate was structured in line with the best practice and, for the first time in the short history of the application of the citizens’ assembly as a model in Serbia, including the presence of decision-makers. Namely, the final plenary debate was attended by three representatives of the Ministry of the Interior who are members of the Working Group charged with drafting the relevant Law, two opposition MPs, one representative of the opposition political party and a public prosecutor.
- Topic:
- Surveillance, Police, and Organized Crime
- Political Geography:
- Europe and Serbia
23. The State of Exception: Gangs as a Neoliberal Scapegoat in El Salvador
- Author:
- Leisy Abrego and Steven Osuna
- Publication Date:
- 09-2022
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Brown Journal of World Affairs
- Institution:
- Brown Journal of World Affairs
- Abstract:
- On 26 March 2022, gangs in the small Central American country of El Salvador killed 62 people, making it the deadliest day in modern Salvadoran history.1 In the span of just three days, between 25 and 27 March, there were a total of 87 seemingly random murders of people laboring and commuting in El Salvador. In line with the common political practice since the 1990s, Salvadoran politi- cians zeroed in on punishing gangs, whom they have blamed for all social ills. Indeed, the brutal intercommunal violence of gangs is horrifying and dehuman- izing in ways that permeate everyday life for large swaths of Salvadoran society. 3ese realities make gangs particularly visible and therefore politically useful for the ruling elite, who can and frequently do turn to gangs as a distraction from their own corruption. 3e proliferation of gangs and violence, however, was not inevitable, and a political and media focus solely on gangs misses the larger picture. Gangs, and the social conditions surrounding them in El Salvador, are ultimately a symptom of a larger root problem: neoliberal capitalism. To best understand the conditions of the present moment, we trace how neoliberalism developed in El Salvador, why it has thrived across party lines, how it is fueling the actions of this particular Salvadoran administration, and how a growing grassroots cross-border movement is resisting it.
- Topic:
- Neoliberalism, Violence, Organized Crime, and Gangs
- Political Geography:
- Central America and El Salvador
24. Artists killed in Latin America for exercising their freedom of artistic expression
- Author:
- Cecilia Noce and Diana Arévalo
- Publication Date:
- 12-2022
- Content Type:
- Special Report
- Institution:
- Center for the Opening and Development of Latin America (CADAL)
- Abstract:
- This is an executive summary of the original report produced in Spanish that focuses only on violence against artists, like targeted killings related to the exercise of their right to freedom of expression and artistic creativity in Latin America. In 2021, CADAL recorded 378 attacks on freedom of artistic expression, of which 23 were murders. Artists and cultural workers who participated in protests in Colombia and Cuba were harassed, detained, and repressed. Musicians and cultural leaders were also involved in the violence between organized crime groups in countries such as Mexico and Brazil.
- Topic:
- Arts, Culture, Freedom of Expression, Protests, Targeted Killing, and Organized Crime
- Political Geography:
- Brazil, Colombia, Cuba, Latin America, and Mexico
25. Organized Crime on the Belt and Road
- Author:
- Martin Purbrick
- Publication Date:
- 03-2022
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- China Brief
- Institution:
- The Jamestown Foundation
- Abstract:
- The continued rapid economic growth of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in the past decade has brought greater commerce and investment to Asia through the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). However, as China’s overseas economic footprint has grown, Chinese organized crime groups have also expanded their activities to become a regional problem. President Xi Jinping first introduced the BRI in 2013 when he proposed to Asian leaders jointly building the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st-Century Maritime Silk Road, both of which PRC officials later commonly came to call the BRI. The expansion of Chinese organized crime across Asia encompasses multiple areas of activity: online fraud (including pyramid schemes), online gambling, human trafficking (for slavery and prostitution), animal or animal parts trafficking (for use in traditional Chinese medicine), and money laundering (of the proceeds of crime from the PRC).
- Topic:
- Infrastructure, Economic Growth, Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), and Organized Crime
- Political Geography:
- China, Malaysia, Asia, Philippines, Cambodia, and Myanmar
26. City of Vice: Macau, Gambling, and Organized Crime in China
- Author:
- Martin Purbrick
- Publication Date:
- 02-2022
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- China Brief
- Institution:
- The Jamestown Foundation
- Abstract:
- In November 2021 and January 2022, the Macau Special Administrative Region (SAR) Judiciary Police arrested 13 individuals involved in operating two separate casino VIP customer “junkets” for engaging in illegal gambling activities, running a criminal syndicate, and money laundering (Macau Judiciary Police, November 29, 2021; January 31). The criminal groups used their VIP junket business in Macau casinos to recruit mainland Chinese residents to engage in illegal online gambling on overseas platforms, and illicit side-betting. The proceeds of the syndicate were then laundered and transferred through the junket accounts of the casinos using underground banks. These developments underscore how gambling in Macau has grown from small beginnings, as tolerant Portuguese administrators did not want to unduly antagonize local Chinese, to a multi-billion dollar business that has been infiltrated by organized crime groups for much of its modern history. During Portuguese rule (1557–1999) Macau was described as the “city of the name God,” hosting the religious orders of St. Augustine, St. Dominic, and St. Francis, as well as convents and Catholic churches (Cultural Affairs Bureau, Macau Government). In the 20th century, Macau became a city of vice as casino gambling emerged as the dominant business, supported by related prostitution, money lending, and money laundering from mainland China. After the return of sovereignty and administration from Portugal to China in 1999, Macau has had extraordinary economic success and relative political stability compared to the neighboring Hong Kong SAR. Macau’s gross domestic product (GDP) rose from $6.458 billion in 1999 to $45,103 billion in 2016 at average annual growth rate of 12 percent. This economic growth, however, has been increasingly dominated by the gambling sector, which in 2013 accounted for over 60 percent of GDP. Casino “gross gambling revenue” in Macau has surpassed Las Vegas and the city is effectively the world’s largest gambling center. [1] However, as the gambling sector has grown, so has the organized crime long associated with that business that has become a domestic problem for China and has impacted other countries in Asia. A particular concern for Beijing is the Macau gambling industry’s role in facilitating capital flight.
- Topic:
- Law Enforcement, Borders, Gambling, and Organized Crime
- Political Geography:
- China, Asia, and Macau
27. Mexico Peace Index 2022: Identifying and measuring the factors that drive peace
- Author:
- Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP)
- Publication Date:
- 01-2022
- Content Type:
- Special Report
- Institution:
- Institute for Economics & Peace (IEP)
- Abstract:
- This is the ninth edition of the Mexico Peace Index (MPI), produced by the Institute for Economics & Peace (IEP). It provides a comprehensive measure of peacefulness in Mexico, including trends, analysis and estimates of the economic impact of violence in the country. The MPI is based on the Global Peace Index, the world’s leading measure of global peacefulness, produced by IEP every year since 2007. The MPI consists of 12 sub-indicators aggregated into five broader indicators.
- Topic:
- Corruption, Crime, Economics, Trafficking, Peace, Drugs, Data, and Organized Crime
- Political Geography:
- North America and Mexico
28. State Capture in Mexico: A Theoretical and Historical Review
- Author:
- Gerardo Rodríguez Sánchez Lara
- Publication Date:
- 06-2021
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal on International Security Studies (RESI)
- Institution:
- International Security Studies Group (GESI) at the University of Granada
- Abstract:
- The purpose of this article is to review the works of several academics specialized in the matter of security, which the authors will use as an analytical setting and revision their outcomes to define and understand the concept of state capture. Once the concept of state capture is defined, then the case of Mexico will be analysed. This article intends to discuss several indicators regarding state capture such as the rule of law, how political violence has also influenced the issues of corruption, impunity, and mentions how money laundering prevention serves as a tool for tackling corruption. In order to grasp an understanding what state capture is, we must first develop conceptualizations of corruption, impunity and its classifications, the rule of law, and the state apparatus. This article intends to analyse the implications that all of the above might have with regards to a state captured democracy, from an academic approach.
- Topic:
- Rule of Law, Financial Crimes, Impunity, Organized Crime, and State Capture
- Political Geography:
- Mexico
29. Deeply Rooted: Coca Eradication and Violence in Colombia
- Author:
- International Crisis Group
- Publication Date:
- 02-2021
- Content Type:
- Special Report
- Institution:
- International Crisis Group
- Abstract:
- Coca gives Colombian small farmers a stable livelihood but also endangers their lives, as criminals battle over the drug trade and authorities try to shut it down. Bogotá and Washington should abandon their heavy-handed elimination efforts and help growers find alternatives to the hardy plant.
- Topic:
- Natural Resources, Violence, Rural, Illegal Trade, Organized Crime, and Farming
- Political Geography:
- Colombia, South America, North America, and United States of America
30. Electoral Violence and Illicit Influence in Mexico’s Hot Land
- Author:
- International Crisis Group
- Publication Date:
- 06-2021
- Content Type:
- Special Report
- Institution:
- International Crisis Group
- Abstract:
- Campaign season in Mexico has seen a rash of murders, as organised crime seeks to cement its influence no matter which parties win. The government needs to keep trying to break bonds between criminals and authorities, beginning with efforts tailored to the country’s hardest-hit areas.
- Topic:
- Elections, Violence, Election Interference, and Organized Crime
- Political Geography:
- North America and Mexico