The diploma thesis is concerned with the topic of organized crime in the territory of the Czech Republic, in terms of both criminological and criminal law. Chapter One describes the problems with the terminological definition of the term "organized crime", defines the characteristics of this phenomenon and their specificity in relation to other forms of criminal activity. Chapter Two focuses on the causes and developmental changes of organized crime in the Czech Republic in order to highlight the seriousness of this phenomenon. The risks of organized crime are further elaborated in Chapter Three, which aims to familiarize readers with the most frequent organized crime groups operating within the territory of the Czech Republic. The specificity of the crime committed by the organized crime groups is pointed out by using real criminal cases. In order to complete a picture of the activities and structure of the organized criminal groups operating within our territory, this chapter is interleaved with the current statistical data obtained from the Criminal Statistics System of the Czech Republic. Chapter Four focuses on the main means and institutions in the field of the fight against organized crime, their development and the way how they affect the organized crime in our territory. To this end, this...

A comparative study of Norway and Scotland's effort to address and counter the threat of organized crime in a globalized world. Marte Skaatan Ramberg The concept of organized crime is a rather "fussy", with over two hundred definitions to its name. This master thesis aims to debate the concept of organized crime and utilizing the concept for an investigating look at Norway and Scotland`s effort to cut and combat the effect of organized crime. Whilst tackling the ambiguity of organized crime the thesis also share some light on the security aspect of organized crime for the state and for the individual, using the framework of human security and traditional state-centric approach when evaluating the impact of organized crime. Different polices and laws shared between Norway and Scotland along with their objectives is also discussed all centered around the research questions - How does Norway approach and counter the threat of organized crime compared to Scotland? - What are the successes and failures with these strategies?

The aim of terrorism is to influence a group of people or institutions - the psychological target or targets - by attacking the appropriate physical targets in order to prompt the desired response. Several factors influence the selection of physical targets by non-state terrorist groups. These include the ideology of the terrorist group concerned, the strategy adopted by the group and its capabilities, its need to take account of external opinion - including that of supporters, the measures adopted to protect likely targets, and the security environment within which the terrorist group operates. In addition, decision-making is affected by the dynamics within the group which are in turn affected by the psychological pressures of clandestinity and the frequent risk of death or capture which many terrorists run. The relationship between these factors varies from group to group, which is inevitable given the idiosyncratic nature of most terrorist groups, and the different circumstances in which they find themselves. However, it can generally be said that ideology sets out the moral framework within which terrorists operate - and which determines whether terrorists judge it to be legitimate to attack a range of target. After this, the determination of which targets it will actually be beneficial to attack depends upon the strategy which the group has adopted as a means of achieving its political objectives. The determination of their strategic objectives depends upon the effects which the terrorists hope their attacks will achieve. Thus, strategy further refines the range of targets initially delimited by the group's ideology. The other factors mentioned tend to act as constraints upon the group, partly - as with security measures - in restricting them from carrying out the types of attacks which they would desire but also in encouraging them to carry out attacks on certain targets in the hope of gaining benefits such as the approval of their supporters, or of gaining publicity for their cause. Underlying all of this is the human factor, whereby relations within the group, the impact of psychological pressure, and individual differences in moral judgements may influence the targets chosen by terrorists.

This dissertation addresses organized crime in post-Soviet Eurasia (Georgia, Ukraine, Kyrgyzstan) exploring the nexus between politics, business and crime. Based on extensive field research in the three countries the dissertation examines organized crime groups in the region and describes their inter-relationships with political and business elites, then discusses the impact of the three countries’ Coloured Revolutions on crime and corruption. The impacts of the revolutions on organized crime are situated in several variables, among them political opposition to incumbent regimes; the strength of civil society and the role of organized crime groups during the revolutionary processes; personal morals of the leaders and their views on cooperation with organized crime; and the presence and nature of the “pact” between outgoing and incoming elites. The dissertation also takes into account larger explanatory variables, such as geography, natural resources, industry, and regional wars and documents their role in shaping organized crime. In accounting for the diverging patterns of the three countries in terms of post-revolutionary effects on crime and corruption, the role of the West, defined as a “push” factor for democratization, and the experience of earlier statehood are also considered. The interaction between elites and criminals is regarded as a crucial part of state formation, and is characterized by shifting dominance between the actors of the underworld and upperworld. The thesis identifies points of cooperation and conflict between licit and illicit actors, and provides insight into the collusive nature of criminal networks in the post-Soviet context, arguing that the distinction between licit and illicit is frequently blurred and the representatives of the upperworld are sometimes key participants in organized criminal activity.

This thesis investigates several key aspects of warfare and its participants in the Viking Age insular world via a comparison of the image which warriors occupy in heroic literature to their concomitant depiction in sources which are primarily nonliterary in character, such as histories, annalistic records, and law codes. Through this method, the thesis seeks to add to the scholarship regarding organized violence in this era in two principle manners. First, this study will depart from nearly all previous studies of warriors by moving beyond a single cultural milieu and treating them in a ‘pan-insular’ context. Second and perhaps more importantly, in choosing to address the heroic literature as a genre distinct from other contemporary texts, this thesis will allow progress beyond the bulk of pre-existing ‘warfare scholarship’ for this era, which tends to utilize any and all manner of sources as a reflection of historical reality. In considering the context of heroic poetry and sagas, the thesis will allow one to make conclusion regarding its likely authorship and intended audience, as well as the goals of the former and expectations of the latter. Studies of warfare are always of particular relevance, due to their intersection with many areas of history long studied, such as constitutional and legal history, as well as those which have only recently received their due attention, such as questions of group cohesion, violence, and community. This thesis was largely inspired by the attempt by Stephen S. Evans to study the institution of the war-band in a crosscultural reference in his 1997 book Lords of Battle. Evans provided a good analysis of this body in its fifth- through eighth-century Anglo-Saxon and British manifestation but failed to achieve his primary stated goal – a comparison of the image and reality of the war-band. His decision to limit his research to the Anglo- Saxon and Welsh cultural spheres in the era predating the first Viking invasions led him to omit much relevant Irish and Insular Norse material, as well as a great deal of later heroic literature. It was with these two shortcomings in mind that I set out to write a more thorough treatment of the war-band. Yet, what began initially as an attempt to remedy the shortcomings of Lords of Battle soon grew into a slightly more wide-ranging study that has moved beyond focussing solely upon the war-band to look at attitudes about warfare and its participants amongst contemporary audiences and authors during the Viking age insular world.

As modern warfare moves towards the lower end of the intensity spectrum, conventional forces are placed in unconventional roles outside their traditional high intensity military specialty. By showing that there are analogies between organized crime and insurgencies, further studies can be conducted on the applicability of modern law enforcement tactics to military operations. This thesis shows that there are organizational and conceptual analogies between organized crime families and insurgencies. They both organize themselves as secret societies with similar hierarchical command structures for both survival and operational needs. Both organized crime families and insurgencies must remain hidden from authorities, whether from law enforcement agencies such as the FBI or the military. The similarity between organized crime and insurgent organizations provides a broad basis for further study in other areas. The FBI and other law enforcement agencies have been combating organized crime families for decades and have used proven techniques of infiltration, informants, wiretaps and electronic eavesdropping to expose organized crimeâ s largely invisible network. Based on the similarities between organized crime families and insurgent organizations, law enforcement tactics and their applicability to modern counterinsurgency doctrine are an area for further study.

What organized crime is and how it can be prevented are two of the key questions in both organized crime research and criminal policy. However, despite many attempts, organized crime research, the criminal justice system and criminal policy have failed to provide a shared and recognized conceptual definition of organized crime, which has opened the door to political interpretations. Organized crime is presented as an objective reality—mostly based on anecdotal empirical evidence and generic descriptions—and has been understood, as being intrinsically different from social organization, and this has been a justification for treating organized crime conceptually separately. In this dissertation, the concept of organized crime is deconstructed and analyzed. Based on five studies and an introductory chapter, I argue that organized crime is an overarching concept based on an abstraction of different underlying concepts, such as gang, mafia, and network, which are in turn semi-overarching and overlapping abstractions of different crime phenomena, such as syndicates, street-gangs, and drug networks. This combination of a generic concept based on underlying concepts, which are themselves subject to similar conceptual difficulties, has given rise to a conceptual confusion surrounding the term and the concept of organized crime. The consequences of this conceptual confusion are not only an issue of semantics, but have implications for our understanding of the nature of criminal collaboration as well as both legal and policy consequences. By combining different observers, methods and empirical materials relating to dimensions of criminal collaboration, I illustrate the strong analogies that exist between forms of criminal collaboration and the theory of social organization. I argue in this dissertation that criminal organizing is not intrinsically different from social organizing. In fact, the dissertation illustrates the existence of strong analogies between patterns of criminal organizing and the elements of social organizations. But depending on time and context, some actions and forms of organizing are defined as criminal, and are then, intentionally or unintentionally, presumed to be intrinsically different from social organizing. Since the basis of my argument is that criminal organizing is not intrinsically different from social organizing, I advocate that the study of organized crime needs to return to the basic principles of social organization in order to understand the emergence of, and the underlying mechanism that gives rise to, the forms of criminal collaboration that we seek to explain. To this end, a new general analytical framework, “criminal organizing”, that brings the different forms of criminal organizations and their dimensions together under a single analytical tool, is proposed as an example of how organizational sociology can advance organized crime research and clarify the chaotic concept of organized crime. / <p>At the time of the doctoral defense, the following paper was unpublished and had a status as follows: Paper 5: Manuscript.</p><p> </p>

This thesis explores the relationship between sports, academics, and youth development, in 5th- 9th grade boys and girls from low-income families. This exploration includes an analysis of a non-profit organization called “Rainier Athletes.” This program underwrites the cost of organized sports for low-income children with the belief that sports help empower students so that they make positive choices inside the classroom and in the future. Rainier Athletes uses a token economy design in the classroom where students earn points by fulfilling academic expectations and displaying positive behavior. Researchers concluded that sports participation had a beneficial effect on academic achievement in middle school and junior high school. Implementing sports at an early age is beneficial because middle childhood is viewed as an essential developmental and transitional period for children and experiences at this time impact children’s behavior during adolescence. The literature also suggested that the benefits of sports participation may be most important for children from low-income families because organized sports provide structure and help reduce risk factors associated with living in poverty. Based on the research, Rainier Athletes demonstrates the potential to foster the development of at-risk students by helping the students gain useful skills and display positive social behaviors. The program utilizes an effective design and has built a foundation to benefit youth development.

Experimentos têm revelado que redes de neurônios, tanto in vitro como in vivo, mantêm atividade descrita por avalanches e se organizam em um estado crítico no qual essas avalanches são distribuídas de acordo com leis de potência. Mostramos no presente trabalho que um modelo de rede de elementos excitáveis com sinapses dinâ- micas é capaz de exibir criticalidade auto-organizada para ampla região do espaço de parâmetros. Nossos resultados estão de acordo com outros estudos que indicam que a depressão sináptica de curto prazo constitui mecanismo suciente para produzir criticalidade em avalanches neuronais. No entanto, segundo diversos pesquisadores, embora o ajuste de parâmetros seja grosso para que haja criticalidade no modelo, é mais preciso dizer que o sistema não apresenta criticalidade auto-organizada genu ína, mas sim quasi-criticalidade auto-organizada, como os demais modelos não conservativos presentes na literatura. / Experiments have shown that neuronal networks, both in vitro and in vivo, maintain activity described by avalanches and they are organized into a critical state in which these avalanches are distributed according to power laws. We have demonstrated that a model based on a network of excitable elements with dynamical synapses is able to exhibit self-organized criticality for a wide range of the parameter\'s space. Our results are consistent with other studies that suggest short-term synaptic depression is enough to produce criticality in neuronal avalanches. However, according to several researchers, in spite of the tuning to be gross to ensure that there is criticality in the model, it is more accurate do not say that the system presents genuine self-organized criticality, but self-organized quasi-criticality as the other non-conservative models in the literature.

Thesis advisor: Jennie Purnell / Thesis advisor: Gerald Easter / This thesis seeks to explore how drug cartels achieved de facto sovereign control over the favelas of Rio de Janeiro between 2000 and 2010, effectively preventing the Brazilian state from guaranteeing the rule of law uniformly throughout national territory. It also investigates the extent to which Brazilian citizens have suffered human rights abuses as a result. Drawing on both primary and secondary evidence, I argue that drug cartels gained sovereignty over these enclaves as a combined result of state weakness and cartel strength. The Brazilian state forfeited these territories a century ago, because it was infrastructurally weak to such an extent that it was unable to systematically penetrate them in order to monopolize violence, enforce laws, and provide public services. The cartels, in turn, exploited the favelas as ideal locations for the transport, repackaging, and sale of drugs. Benefiting from the profits of illicit activities, the gangs transformed into well-armed, bellicose organizations that maintained authority over the communities by performing state-like duties. In due course, organized crime amassed sufficient control over the favelas to thwart most state encroachments. Examining the exceptions, I found that the limited police encroachments were largely rights abusive--save those made by the Pacifying Police Units. State weakness and cartel strength have disjointed the rule of law and undermined democracy in Brazil. / Thesis (MA) — Boston College, 2013. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Political Science.