The most challenging and spoken criminal phenomenon today is indisputably organised crime. It is a crime that both the general public, business community, commentators, researchers, scholars, journalists, writers, politicians, prosecutors, jurists and presiding officials debate with different interpretation and understanding of the concept as well as the manifestation of the phenomena. Debates on the subject have seen the dawn of rival terminologies of organised crime and crimes that are organised. While the United Nations has not assisted the nations in finding a definition of what organised crime is, the confusion has spread throughout the globe and South Africa has not been spared the pandemonium. The objective of this study is to comparatively assess the present understanding and setup in South Africa in comparison with Italy, Tanzania and the United States of America, identify the root causes of the confusion and find possible remedies to liberate the situation. The research concludes with the findings and recommendations. / Criminal and Procedural Law / LL.D.

Orientador: Shiguenoli Miyamoto / Tese (doutorado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Instituto de Filosofia e Ciências Humanas / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-18T01:17:46Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Pereira_PauloJosedosReis_D.pdf: 1227497 bytes, checksum: d281da57cc7a47b8bc7b81c8685848fe (MD5) Previous issue date: 2011 / Resumo: O crime organizado transnacional (COT), apesar de seu papel crescente nas agendas de segurança nacional e internacional dos Estados desde a década de 1990, teve pouca atenção nos estudos de relações internacionais. As referências teóricas tradicionais desta área (particularmente da subárea de segurança internacional), bem como a noção estreita de criminalidade como um assunto doméstico e essencialmente jurídico, dificultaram a avaliação adequada deste novo papel assumido pelas atividades ilícitas transnacionais. Dado o pioneirismo estadunidense em tal processo, o objetivo do trabalho é analisar a alocação do COT na agenda de segurança nacional estadunidense durante o governo Clinton e alguns dos seus resultados, especialmente para a distinção entre as noções de segurança doméstica e internacional. Para tanto, fazemos uma análise documental e histórica, pautada no conceito de securitização da Escola de Copenhagen. A securitização pela qual o COT passou nos Estados Unidos pautou-se na percepção de ameaça existencial que este fenômeno criminal colocava a vários aspectos da nação, tanto sociais quanto econômicos. O "ato de fala" realizado pelo Executivo do país a partir de 1995, com a diretiva presidencial 42, foi aceito extensamente pelo público em geral e por várias elites sociais, uma audiência que conferiu legitimidade a tal processo. Três grupos de apoiadores foram particularmente importantes: a mídia, os especialistas e o Congresso estadunidense. O primeiro ajudou na disseminação da percepção de ameaça entre a população; o segundo auxiliou na quantificação e qualificação desta ameaça, fornecendo um conhecimento "cientificamente" embasado; o terceiro conferiu suporte político às iniciativas próprias do Executivo, bem como foi, ele mesmo, agente de propostas. O contexto histórico de liberalização política e econômica, o avanço tecnológico nas comunicações e transporte, bem como o fim do conflito bipolar, compôs um quadro favorável ao aumento do COT e à sua percepção como ameaça aos países e à ordem internacional nascente. No entanto, esse processo também deve ser creditado aos interesses de agências de Inteligência e aplicação da Lei estadunidenses, que, com o fim da Guerra Fria, buscaram redefinir seus papéis de proteção à nação. São expressões concretas da securitização o aumento de recursos, bem como a ênfase na ação militar e na internacionalização de atividades policiais que ocorreu com os programas de combate à criminalidade transnacional na América Latina, uma região que já era foco, desde a década de 1980, de políticas de combate ao tráfico de drogas, uma das mais importantes expressões do COT contemporâneo / Abstract: Transnational organized crime (TOC), despite its increasing role in the national and international security agendas of States since the 1990s, got little attention in studies of international relations. The traditional theoretical references in this area (particularly on international security subfield), and the narrow notion of crime as a domestic and essentially legal matter, hampered the proper assessment of this new role played by illicit transnational activities. The objective of this work is to analyze the allocation of TOC in the U.S. national security agenda during the Clinton administration, as well as to check some of its results, especially for the distinction between the notions of domestic and international security. To this end, a historical and documentary analysis, based on the Copenhagen's School concept of securitization, was done. The securitization process in which TOC has passed in the United States was based on the perception of existential threat that this criminal phenomenon posed to various aspects of the nation, both social and economic. The "speech act" carried out by the Executive of the country since 1995, with the PDD-42, was widely accepted by the general public and various social elites, an audience that gave legitimacy to this process. Three supporters groups were particularly important: the media, the experts and the U.S. Congress. The first helped the spread of threat perception among the population; the second helped to quantify and qualify this threat by providing a "scientifically" grounded knowledge; the third gave political support to the Executive initiatives and was, itself, an agent of proposals. The historical context of political and economic liberalization, technological advances in communications and transportation, as well as the end of bipolar conflict, wrote a favorable framework for the increase of TOC and its perception as a threat to countries and to the emerging international order. However, this process must also be credited to the interests of intelligence agencies and U.S. law enforcement, which, with the end of the Cold War, sought to redefine their roles in protecting the nation. The increasing of resources adressed to fight crime, the growth of military action and the internationalization of police activities that occurred in programs to combat transnational crime in Latin America are concrete expressions of securitization. In this scenery Latin America can be considereda region that was already the focus, since the 1980s, of policies to combat drug trafficking, one of the most important expressions of contemporary COT / Doutorado / Relações Internacionais / Doutor em Ciência Política

Recently, empirical attention has been directed toward understanding public opinion about gun control laws. Despite this focus, three gaps are evident in extant scholarship. First, few current examinations have relied on recently collected, national data to explore predictors of public attitudes. Second, relatively little work systematically investigates whether type of weapon bans (e.g. handgun versus semi-automatic weapon) affects public support for a given gun control initiative. Third, and importantly, the general focus in prediction support for gun control measures has been on social and demographic factors. Little is known from a theoretical perspective about how other variables - such as knowledge of Constitutinal issues or perceptions of the U.S. Supreme Court - affect public attitudes toward gun control. Using national poll data collected in 2011 by Time magazine, this study addresses these research gaps by estimating several logistic regression analyses. Research and policy implications are discussed. / by Elizabeth Borkowski. / Thesis (M.S.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2012. / Includes bibliography. / Mode of access: World Wide Web. / System requirements: Adobe Reader.