Cooperating defendant Abstract The cooperating defendant represents a relatively new instrument of Czech criminal law, it was introduced into the Czech legal system with effect from 1 January 2010. The main purpose of this legal instrument is to fight organized crime, which is characterized by its high social danger and is extremely difficult to combat for law enforcement agencies due to the considerable sophistication of the internal hierarchy of organized criminal groups. The legal instrument consists of the cooperation of the defendant with a public prosecutor, who designates them as a cooperating defendant in the indictment in exchange for information capable of making a significant contribution to the uncovering of organized criminal groups. The cooperating defendant is rewarded for their cooperation with a mitigation of their sentence and the sentence may even be dropped altogether. The first chapter of this thesis analyzes the terms of cooperating defendant and crown witness, describes the process of introducing the legal instrument of cooperating defendant into the Czech legal system and also mentions some similar legal instruments. The second chapter deals with the current legislation, some of its shortcomings and their possible solutions. The third chapter lists some of the most important benefits...

Cooperating defendant Abstract This thesis on Cooperating defendant is focused on the development of this institute, its connection to organized crime and relevant international and Czech legislation. The thesis consists of the introduction, five chapters, that each presents individual topics in detail, and the conclusion. The first chapter analyses historical development of the institute of crown witness and its connection to the institute of cooperating defendant, the context of adoption of this institute into the Czech legislation and the subsequent amendment of the relevant provisions. At the same time, it summarizes the planned changes concerning the institute of cooperating defendant within the framework of recodification of criminal procedure. The second chapter analyses organized crime in connection to the institute of cooperating defendant. It focuses on the occurrence of organized crime in the Czech Republic, its specific features and legislation, the purpose of which is to fight organized crime. The third chapter is focused on the international legislation of the institute of cooperating defendant, which is mainly defined by international organizations, such as the UN, the European Union and the Council of Europe. The current legal regulation of the institute of cooperating defendant is analysed...

Contains 400 of the most important and publicized scandals throughout the world since the beginning of the twentieth century. This title contains topics that include scandals that rocked the worlds of banking and finance, education, government and politics, health and medicine, publishing and journalism, and sports and entertainment.

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.

This final thesis attempts to provide a closer ovierview of specific features of the Italian political arena, which is a mutual penetration of one sphere of organized crime - mafia and politics. The first part of this thesis defines the theoretical structure of the mafia phenomenon and essays to contextualize it within organized crime. The second part begins with an excoursion into the history of the mafia in Sicily from its beginings in the 19th century until the 1970s. The deeper analysis is then devoted to the crucial period of the 1980s and 1990s. The final part of the thesis examines the period of bomb attacks (1992-1993) through the aspect of new investigations. Key words: mafia, Cosa Nostra, politics, Italy, Palermo, organized crime.

This diploma thesis deals with relation between good governance and organized crime. The aim of this thesis is to test a theory claiming that level of democracy directly influences level of organized crime and then to test a hypothesis claiming that key factor for successful fight against organized crime is presence of principles of good governance. Existence and strength of the relation between democracy, good governance and organized crime is tested by statistical analysis on a wide range of states. Results of this analysis are then verified within frame of instrumental case studies of the states with low level of democracy, low level of good governance and high level of organized crime (states of Central Asia) and a state with low level of democracy, high level of good governance and low level of organized crime (Singapore).

In my thesis I will show the case of Mexico, a country that is struggling hard to fulfill its principles of national security - one of the most characteristic features of Mexico's policies. Simultaneously, Mexico is making efforts to fulfill human rights' obligations of both its nationals and foreigners. Increasingly especially since the turn of the millennia, the United States has been fortifying its border with Mexico with the aim to prevent the Mexican and other immigrants reaching the United States illegally. Yet, hard-line border controls and migration-related policies have not been adopted solely by the United States, but also Mexico has played a dominant role in fortifying its border areas, especially along the southern border with Belize and Guatemala. My research questions would then focus on what is driving Mexico to adopt dual approach towards Central American migrants along Mexico's southern border, and why is Mexico balancing between realistic principles of national security and human rights' obligations, which has espoused by signing and ratifying international conventions?

[pt] Neste trabalho desenvolvemos e testamos um modelo para explicar a escolha entre diferentes atividades criminosas nas favelas. No modelo, os criminosos dessas comunidades escolhem uma ocupação entre ser assaltante, ser traficante de drogas, ser miliciano ou trabalhar honestamente. Mostramos que essa escolha depende da renda do indivíduo, bem como da riqueza média da comunidade e das comunidades vizinhas. Mostramos ainda que a transição do tráfico para a milícia é brusca, mesmo sem externalidades nas atividades criminosas, e essa mudança depende exclusivamente da razão entre a renda da favela e a renda dos bairros vizinhos. A segunda parte desse trabalho é empírica. Nas regressões básicas, o efeito dessa razão sobre probabilidade de uma favela ser dominada pela milícia em oposição ao tráfico é estimado como positivo e significante. Entretanto, quando controlamos para medidas de distância da favela a órgãos públicos o coeficiente associado a essa relação perde significância. / [en] In this article we develop a model to explain the choice between different criminal activities in favelas. Criminals in these communities may choose between being muggers, drug dealers, militiamen or working honestly. We show that this choice depends on the agent’s wealth, his community’s average wealth and the wealth of the communities near him. Also, we have shown that the transition from drug dealing to militia is abrupt, even in the absence of externalities across criminal activities and that furthermore this change depends exclusively of the ratio between the favela’s wealth and the wealth of its vicinity. This article’s second part is empirical. In the basic estimations, the effect of this ratio over the probability of a favela being ruled by a militia in opposition to drug dealers is estimated as positive and significant. However, when we control for measures of distance to public institutions, the coefficient associated to this ratio loses significance.

In this study we examine what frames there is to be found in the Swedish parliamentary debate on organized crime between 2015 and 2020. The study also describes the degree of influence that the different frames reach, this is measured through the degree of institutionalization of each frame. The specific questions we answer is “Which frames does organized crime get in the parliamentary debate from 2015 to 2020?” and “To what degree have the frames from the parliamentary debate on organized crime become institutionalized?”. When collecting the empirical data a textual analysis is used combined with a frame analysis. The empirical data in the study consists of documents from politicians and larger parliamentary debates relevant for the questions that the study seeks to answer. The analysis showed that there have been four different frames during this period but only two of them are frequently used. The two who have been most frequently used are called crime political and socio political in this essay. Although it may seem obvious that these two frames exist there are widely spread ideas about what to prioritize. That is because every actor in the parliament is arguing that both of them are needed to solve the issue of organized crime. The essay did however show that the crime political frame has been dominating the period of examination and the most legislative work has been done in that policy area.

This dissertation examines the relationship of political instability and economic failure to predatory organized crime in multiple nations. This is an important issue since each year the increase in predatory crime networks contributes to international economic failure, security risks, and the spread of organized crime. In an effort to understand the relationship between state failure and economic failure on the one hand, and organized crime on the other, this study will seek to address three goals. First, the study tests the degree to which variables that imply economic failure and state failure correlate with predatory organized crime. Second, the study determines the extent of the relationship between the social and economic indicators and predatory organized crime in multiple nations. Third, the study examines the future implications of predatory organized crime predictor variables in the context of national strategies to eradicate or reduce organized crime. This study investigates the relationship in failed states between predatory crime groups and various economic and state stability indicators. In particular, this study examines the impact of seven predictor variables on the variation in Predatory Organized Crime in 122 countries. The findings suggest that the state failure hypothesis correctly articulates the failure of the state to offer key social goods such as security, stability, and justice, thereby producing an environment where crime groups assume state responsibilities. The findings also support the economic failure hypothesis that poor economic outcomes such as high unemployment, low SES, and a dependency on an underground economy encourage the development of criminal groups. The ultimate goal of this study is to assist policy makers, policy analysts, scholars, and officials at donor agencies and international financial institutions in establishing effective tools for identifying and removing predatory organized crime units. Analytical results provide general support to all hypotheses. Moreover, policy implications for predatory organized crime control in developing countries are discussed. The author's objective is to increase understanding of this issue and show the need for further research.