Combatting and analysing organized crime: the view from witnesses

Abstract

This special issue of Trends in Organized Crime begins with a tribute to Joseph Albini who died in 2013 written by his colleague Jeff McIllwain and ends with Matthew G. Yeager’s reexamination of the career of John Landesco, among the earliest pioneers in the study of organized crime. In between are interviews with eight people whose careers gave them unique insights into the workings of organized criminality and allowed them to witness the creation of organized crime control efforts in America, Europe and at international levels as well as the implementation of these efforts. Dwight Smith, Frederick Martens, Selwyn Raab, James Jacobs, Cyrille Fijnaut, Ernesto Savona, Petrus van Duyne and Alan Wright were asked questions about their career experiences and the evolution of their thinking on organized crime and organized crime control. We normally find out about historical processes second hand through sources that are often unreliable and suspect. The testimonies and analyses in this volume sometimes clash with each other but more often complement each other. Taken together they are all first-hand accounts of the creation and workings of organized crime control, written by people who have dedicated much of their working lives to the effort to researching, understanding and combatting organized crime.