Concept and Theory of Organized Crime
On this page I (Klaus von Lampe) provide access to some of my papers on conceptual and theoretical issues relating to organized crime and the study of organized crime.
A paper presented at the international conference "International Organized Crime: Myth, Power, Profit," sponsored by the University of Lausanne, Switzerland, in October 1999, explores the conceptual history of organized crime in the United States and Germany. A journal version of this paper was published in Forum on Crime and Society, 1(2), 2001, 99-116.
A short English summary of my 1999 book (published in German) on the concept and theory of organized crime in the U.S.
This chapter from the 2002 book Upperworld and Underworld in Cross-Border Crime outlines a research agenda for the study of organized crime.
This paper, originally presented at the 2003 conference of the European Consortium for Political Research (ECPR) in Marburg, Germany, and 2011 in a revised and expanded version included in the Festschrift for Petrus van Duyne, discusses what different models and what different types of models have been proposed in organized crime research, and outlines an analytical model of organized crime as an alternative to previous approaches.
This essay and review systematically charts the various influences from other areas of scientific research, including economy, psychology and neurobiology, on the study of organized crime. Drawing on an analysis of American and international literature, metaphorical and substantive references to other disciplines are highlighted on different levels of observation. Available in PDF is the manuscript of the paper which has been published in Trends in Organized Crime, 9(3), 2006.
An analysis of the perception and reality of organized crime in Germany. An earlier draft of this paper was presented at the annual meeting of the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences (ACJS) in Boston, March 1995. This paper is the first attempt of mine to conceptualize organized crime.
This chapter from one of the early Cross-Border-Crime-Colloquium books discusses two approaches to measuring organized crime, the "organized crime potential" of the annual BKA situation reports, and the "threat assessment" approach developed by Ghent University.
This paper discusses the possibilities and limits of a meaningful assessment of organized crime in Germany. It presents various types of data and critically reviews the annual situation reports on organized crime issued by the federal German police agency BKA.
An earlier draft of this paper was presented at the annual meeting of the European Society of Criminology (ESC) in Toledo, Spain, in September 2002. It has been published in the posted version in the eNewsletter Organised Crime. A journal version of this paper appeared in Crime, Law and Social Change, 42(4-5), 2004, 227-259.
This preliminary report of the 'Assessing Organised Crime' research project, funded by the EU under the 6th Framework Programme, proposes a new system for producing more valid and more up-to-date situation reports on organized crime in Europe.
This paper, published as a book chapter in 2003, introduces the concept of criminally exploitable ties. It argues that criminal micro and meso structures are defined, at any given point in time, by manifest and latent dyadic ties.
This paper (written in collaboration with Per Ole Johansen and presented at the ESC meeting 2003 in Helsinki) discusses the importance of trust in criminal relations. Examples are drawn from research on the illegal cigarette market in Germany and the illegal liquor market in Norway. A journal version of this paper was published in Global Crime, 6(2), 2004, 159-184.
A number of books on the study of organized crime are reviewed in the book review section.
An excerpt from the 2016 book Organized Crime: Analyzing illegal activities, criminal structures, and extra-legal governance discusses different views on the nature of organized crime.
A collection of definitions of organized crime from official and academic sources worldwide.
Links to organized-crime related web sites, including web sites of research institutions.
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