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?

Drug trafficking is popularly associated with high-levels of violence; however, this relationship does not hold across all cases. This dissertation asks: why do traffickers sometimes decide to use violence, but other times demonstrate restraint? Building on recent work on criminal politics and patterns of drug violence, this dissertation explores how criminal organizations’ choices of strategy impacts drug-related violence in the areas where they operate. I specifically focus on a certain type of trafficker that has received less attention in the academic literature to-date: Central American transportistas. I argue that politics and institutions incentivize drug traffickers to use different strategies in different locations. Specifically, traffickers’ strategies are determined first by whether or not the country where they are operating has institutionalized corruption. In countries where there is institutionalized corruption, the centralization of political power and electoral competition are important in determining whether traffickers will pursue collusion strategies or attempt to co-opt politics. In the absence of institutionalized corruption, I argue traffickers are left with evasion as their only means of operation. These strategies lead to different levels of narco-related violence: collusion results in the lowest levels of violence, evasion yields moderate levels of violence, and co-optation produces the highest levels of violence. In addition, I explore how traffickers’ relationships to communities at the local level further impacts their modus operandi and levels of violence. I show how narcos have assumed roles traditionally associated with the state and gained support and legitimacy within some communities in Central America. I argue that support for illicit economies occurs when (1) traffickers are operating in their own communities, (2) in rural spaces, (3) in highly marginalized areas, and (4) are not reliant on evasive strategies. Communities where narcos have greater levels of support experience lower levels of violence, all else being equal. Moreover, narcos’ strategies vis-à-vis both states and communities have implications not just for the overall level of violence, but also for the visibility, geography, and nature of the violence. I explore this theory with comparative ethnographic methods, drawing on over two years of fieldwork in several drug trafficking hubs along the Caribbean coast of Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica. During this time, I conducted participant observation and spoke with over 200 individuals, including politicians, residents, police, drug dealers, and both former and current traffickers ranging from low to relatively high-level. Ultimately, there are policy lessons evident in the differences in violence related to narco strategies vis-à-vis both states and communities. Illicit economies do not have to be violent. Policy priorities should shift away from intercepting drug shipments and arresting transportistas and instead focus on limiting violence related to the drug trade. / 2025-02-28T00:00:00Z

[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.