When a Mafia Dies: the Criminogenic Effects of the Fight against Organised Crime

Description du projet

L’impact de la législation contre la criminalité organisée

Les mafias italiennes et les yakuzas japonais ont exercé un contrôle sur les communautés locales, fournissant une protection extra-légale et limitant le champ de la criminalité ordinaire. Pendant un demi-siècle, la lutte entre les mafias et l’État a menacé les institutions démocratiques et influencé les relations entre l’État et la société. Le projet JEOC, financé par l’UE, étudiera la législation contre la criminalité organisée qui a contribué à affaiblir ces groupes. Il se concentrera plus spécifiquement sur ce qui se passe lorsque ces politiques sont couronnées de succès. Il étudiera les effets criminogènes résultant du vide de pouvoir laissé par une mafia en déclin. Les résultats feront la lumière sur les incidences à long terme de la lutte contre le crime organisé et des politiques visant à autonomiser la société civile.

Objectif

This project addresses the question of what happens when mafias are weakened, focussing on Japan and Italy. According to Diego Gambetta’s protection framework, which was expanded by Federico Varese, mafias replace the state in the everyday life of the local communities in which they operate. Indeed, both the Italian mafias and the Japanese yakuza have exerted control over local communities, providing extra-legal protection and limiting the scope of ordinary criminality. Over the past fifty years, the struggle between mafias and the state has threatened democratic institutions and impacted the relationship between the state and society, prompting the state to introduce increasingly severe anti-organised crime (OC) legislation, which contributed to the weakening of these groups. While considerable efforts have been invested in this conflict, little research has addressed what happens when these policies are successful. The overall objective of the study is to identify the criminogenic effects resulting from the power vacuum left by a declining mafia, by: 1) analysing what determines the decline of a mafia in advanced liberal economies; 2) determining the socio-structural factors that favour the rise of new forms of criminality; 3) identifying the structure and modus operandi of the actors who take up the governing role in the markets previously monopolised by a mafia; 4) theorising an interdisciplinary approach to understand the long-term effects of the fight against OC; 5) suggesting anti-OC policies that empower civil society. JEOC will employ traditional archival, ethnographical, and visual research based on established research networks in Japan and Italy. The outputs will include a monograph on post-mafia governance and insurgent OCGs, a journal article on research methods, an open-access English database with a photo exhibition, and a photo book.