This paper focuses on how organized crime in Bulgaria uses political corruption to achieve its goals. It focuses, though, on one specific type of criminal structures, the ones controlled by former security officers. More specifically it analyzes the criminal careers of two well known Bulgarian crime figures and former security officers. The way they use the instrument of corruption changes though the years when they evolve from relatively unimportant racketeers into powerful local oligarchs.

The Act introducing the Institution for Persistent Offenders Committal Order (ISD Order) took effect on 1 October 2004. The origins of the ISD Order are in safety policy. The order had a strong focus on imprisonment of persistent offenders. It can be seen as an exponent of the risk-oriented attitude towards safety, which has been predominant in recent years. At the start treatment of persistent offenders was of secundary importance and was only available for those who were motivated. But the ISD measure has had to deal with major problems in practice. The imprisoned ISD population proved to be one with complex problems like addiction, psychiatric illnesses and sometimes low intellectual abilities. The ISD institutions are ill-equipped for handling these people. The problems led to a slightly different attitude which is more oriented towards resocialization. Improvements are going on now, a process facilitated by a considerably improved co-operation between agencies around the ISD.

In the years 2000-2003 crime on Curaçao seemed to be going out of control and the economy was virtually stagnant with low growth and high unemployment. This situation has changed significantly since 2005. The author shows that a targeted approach by the authorities pushed back major crime problems like the smuggling of cocaine on passenger flights, armed robberies and homicides. However only a permanent effort can guarantee the continuation of this success. Corruption and nepotism are still vibrant, but mainly concern individuals, not institutions as a whole, while the judiciary actively prosecutes corrupt officials. In the long run not only repression, but preventive measures are needed as well. A major cause of corruption and nepotism is the small scale of island life, in combination with economic protectionism and state ownership of companies. Structural adjustments in economic institutions and policy in recent years heralded the return of economic growth and employment. More adjustments in economic policy and institutions could further reduce incentives for corruption; these might also lead to the opening up of Curaçao's rigid labour markets for the many unemployed youngsters. A more autonomous Curaçao faces serious challenges, but the island's record so far gives no reason for despondency.

This article analyzes the development of maritime piracy in the last decennium. Various sources show that piracy in Southeast Asia has declined, probably due to a better cooperation between coastal states in this region in promoting maritime security and increasing surveillance of coast guards and navy vessels. Also a gradual improvement of the social economic situation seems to have contributed to the diminution of piracy as a source of income for the inhabitants of coastal regions. The dramatic rise of piracy incidents in recent years is mainly caused by the increasing activities of pirates in the Somali waters and the Indian Ocean. Extreme poverty, internal conflicts and the collapse of state authority in Somalia seem to have contributed to this development. The author discusses various types of piracy and differences in operating between Somali and Asian pirates.

In Dutch history five cases are known of animals that received the death penalty after ‘committing a crime’. Nowadays it sounds rather strange to present animals as offenders. Does that mean that no contemporary examples can be found of animals being presented as offenders? Before answering that question some outlooks on judicial and criminological ideas are presented on offending by human and other animals. Next the debate on invasive exotic species and the threats to biodiversity, health and other risks, and the discussion about the dangers regarding pit bulls is described in order to illustrate that in this day and age there still seems to be a risky anthropomorphic and anthropocentric tendency to present animals as offenders.

How to understand the disintegration of the Dutch Caribbean? The Kingdom of the Netherlands comprising three countries - the Netherlands, the Netherlands Antilles, and Aruba - will be reordered. The Netherlands Antilles will cease to exist as a separate country. Curaçao and Sint Maarten will acquire country status within the Kingdom of the Netherlands, just as Aruba did in 1986, though theirs will be of a different status and with less autonomy. The islands Bonaire, Sint Eustatius and Saba, the so-called BES islands, will be integrated into the Netherlands as public authorities (openbare lichamen); as such the BES islands will be administered by the Netherlands while retaining local government functions (just as municipalities in the Netherlands).
This article outlines the history behind these changes and the factors that are at play. However improbable the Dutch Caribbean hypothesis, the Kingdom facilitates a connection of these islands with the international world. Against all odds and populist opponents, the Dutch Caribbean is a challenge to square the circle, a complex pact, impossible to balance, which will never come to a definitive conclusion.

This article focuses on the current measure for persistent offenders (ISD-measure), by taking into account three equivalent penal sanctions that have been developed in the Netherlands from 1886 onwards. First, the penalty of a labour colony for vagrants and the like for three years at most. Second, the measure to keep the habitual offenders in additional, preventive custody for five to ten years. Finally, the measure of two-year detention for drug addicted offenders. In the article it is argued that in spite of the differences in (judicial) elaboration, all three former existing sanctions have the same legitimating fundamental principle as the ISD-measure. That is, the notion that certain offenders are a danger to society, due to their persistent criminality and nuisance causing lifestyle. The primary objective of all these penal sanctions is therefore a long term protection of society from this danger. In this sense, the ISD-measure makes clear that present state-policy is above all one of sheer deprivation of freedom.

Safety and security are increasingly provided by public-private partnerships. In this respect, commentators claim that we are witnessing a shift from ‘government’ (a hierarchically organized state) to ‘governance’ (a hybrid network of organizations) in the fight against crime and disorder. Criminologist Clifford Shearing interprets interactions within hybrid - public and private - networks in terms of nodal governance, implying that state coordination of partnerships is not given a priori significance. The state is but one actor among many. Ian Loader and Neil Walker criticize his position, taking the diametrically opposed view that the state is indispensable for the democratic regulation of public-private networks (anchored pluralism). Despite this fundamental disagreement, the perspectives of Shearing and Loader and Walker share an appreciation of citizen participation in local safety networks. However, at least for the Netherlands, it is hardly imaginable how such participation could flourish without any state interference.

This paper advances a ‘nodal governance’ perspective, which understands the delivery of security as being accomplished through the thinking and practices of various ‘nodes’ or entities characterized by ways of thinking about problems and influencing events. In this light, policing should be understood sociologically as involving the activities of state and non-state entities (e.g. corporations and well-resourced communities) as well as the public police. The authors argue that it is essential for police to recognize the nodal world within which they live and to locate themselves within ‘nodal assemblages’ for the delivery of security. As illustrations, the paper discusses two practical projects devoted to exploring nodal security governance arrangements in the country contexts of South Africa and Australia. The authors add that the question of what precisely nodal policing can or should look like in concrete terms is an empirical matter to be resolved within site-specific contexts.

In recent years it has become popular in political discourse and academic literature to talk about the blurring boundaries between transnational terrorism and organized crime. In addition, the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001 have instigated a debate on the link between transnational terrorism and state failure. This article scrutinizes this so-called ‘black hole’ thesis and its relationship to the crime-terror nexus by addressing the political significance of such conceptual blurring within an international context that is increasingly characterized by uncertainty and uncontrollable risks.

Traditionally there was a lot of admiration in Russia for the social bandits in the sixteenth en seventeenth centuries. Later, under the Soviets, other brave political bandits, better known as revolutionaries, were praised. In addition, there were vory v zakone and the prisoners of Gulag. In this article the link between politics and crime in the Soviet and post-Soviet Russia is analyzed. In order to understand the emergence of old and new criminals it is necessary to follow the historical development of this interrelationship.

This article analyzes the so-called political-criminal nexus in Italy, that is, the relationships of exchange and collusion between politicians and civil servants, on the one hand, and members of organised crime - and specifically Southern Italian mafia - groups on the other. Its main thesis is that the political-criminal nexus in Italy finds nowadays no parallel in any other Western, developed nation, with the possible exception of Japan. The extraordinary intensity of Italy's political-criminal nexus is related to the specificity of Italy's organised crime. This is discussed in the first section of the article. The following ones briefly sketch the evolution of the political-criminal nexus since Italy's Unification in 1861 and then focus on the last thirty years. The recognition of the recent law enforcement successes is complemented by a discussion of the factors that favour the perpetuation of mafia organisations and the political-criminal nexus in the future.

The writings of Cesare Lombroso reflect to a high degree the crime problems being discussed in his time. This is certainly true for the phenomenon of the Italian mafia. Inspired by others writers, press reports and his own observations he came to the conclusion that criminal associations belonging to the Sicilian mafia and the ‘Ndrangheta, in particular consisted of professional criminals and were quite often headed by an intelligent born criminal. In a quite detailed manner he described the ways in which these organizations were structured and the initiation rites that were applied to youngsters who wanted to join them. Lombroso made no secret of the political role the mafia groupings played in Italy, but he warned at the same time that one should take into account that these groupings also disguised themselves as political organizations in order to cover up their true nature: nothing else than criminal organisations. This warning gives room for the idea that - like in the United States - the Italian mafia could also take root in other European countries than Italy itself and not only use them as places to hide from the Italian police and judicial authorities or as market places to trade in illegal goods and services.

The upsurge in the use of economic sanctions in the post-Cold War era has prompted much scholarly and policy debate over their effectiveness and humanitarian consequences. Remarkably little attention, however, has been devoted to their criminalizing consequences and legacy for the post-sanctions period. In this article, the author develops an analytical framework identifying and categorizing the potential criminalizing effects of sanctions across place (within and around the targeted country) and time (during and after the sanctions period). This framework is applied and evaluated through an in-depth examination of the case of Yugoslavia. For comparative leverage and to assess the applicability of the argument beyond the Yugoslavia case, the analysis is briefly extended to Croatia. The article suggests that sanctions can unintentionally contribute to the criminalization of the state, economy, and civil society of both the targeted country and its immediate neighbors, fostering a symbiosis between political leaders, organized crime, and transnational smuggling networks. This symbiosis, in turn, can persist beyond the lifting of sanctions, contributing to corruption and crime and undermining the rule of law.

This article describes the relation between the murder on the Walloon social-democratic politician André Cools on 18^th July 1991 at Liege and the corruption case Agusta - dealing with the purchase of army helicopters - in order to reflect on typical Belgian criminological issues in this political organized crime topic. The murder committed by Tunisian hit-men was ordered through the influence of the personal cabinet of Van der Biest, a former minister. During the murder investigation a link with the Agusta corruption case was discovered and would tear down several ministers as well as the former NATO Secretary-General Willy Claes. Due to the existence of especially journalistic sources and a lack of scientific criminological material, the conclusions of this article are strictly personal. The murder and the corruption prove the fact that political organized crime was a reality in Belgium. This case can stand as a scholarly example in the study of political organized crime in Belgium.

In this article four possible relations of the credit crunch and corporate crime are examined. A first relation is that cases of accounting fraud have contributed to the causation of the crisis. Due to these scandals the trust in large corporations and the financial sector would have been eroded. A second possible relation is the reverse: the crisis will lead to more corporate crime. Because of the crisis companies run into financial difficulties. In their despair they could try to cut costs by not complying with regulations or they could try to gain illegal profits through fraud. The third relation is the criminalization of more unethical corporate behavior. The moral outrage on the behavior of banks and insurance companies that contributed to the crisis might lead to an increased labeling of risky or greedy of corporate executives as crime. This will result in more regulation. The fourth and final relation is that these amplification effects will lead to the discovery of more corporate crime.

This article aims to explain where, when, how and why piratical activity has taken off in Nigeria and Somalia since the 1970s. The geographical and historical conditions of the continent are compared with those of the other main region of piratical activity in the world during recent decades, Southeast Asia. A critical evaluation is then made of the available information concerning the problem and the different possible, local and global, explanations for the recent surge in African piracy, including opportunity, inequality and the proliferation of small and light weapons. The widespread notion that contemporary piracy can be explained with reference to state failure is challenged, and the rise of organized piratical activity, particularly in the Niger Delta and off the Somali coast, is instead understood as a result of the interaction of local social and political dynamics with transnational and global influences.

This study revolves around the broad question: can religion prevent crime? In the first part the (possible) impact of religious faith on social behaviour (or the prevention of certain behaviours) is discussed. Respectively the following aspects are dealt with: religion as a source of activism, religion as protective factor to keep people from crime, and the impact of crime on tolerant or intolerant and forgiving or punitive attitudes. The second part deals with deliberately organized faith-based-interventions, intended to support and help inmates. The role of identity change via redemption narratives is examined, as well as the question how professionals and volunteers may stimulate rehabilitation and reintegration of (ex-)prisoners.