effects of globalization to law enforcement essay

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How Globalization Affects Transnational Crime

Transnational Crime

With drug legalization increasingly debated by world leaders, the Internationalist talks to Phil Williams about the explosion of transnational crime in a globalized world.

• “Transnational criminals have been one of the biggest beneficiaries of globalization.” Globalization facilitates international trade but also increases the difficulty of regulating global trade; traffickers and smugglers have exploited this. Williams adds that globalization has increased inequality around the globe, and that “its disruptive effect has actually caused people to have to go into organized crime and operate in illicit markets as coping mechanisms.”
• The global financial system has undergone widespread deregulation since the 1970s. This has allowed illicit actors to launder the proceeds of crime more easily. “We’ve got some reregulation to try to deal with money laundering…but it’s not particularly effective,” says Williams.

http://youtu.be/Ipmpv0R1D0s

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• Terrorists, insurgents, and warlords all rely on illegal activities as a funding mechanism, says Williams. “Sometimes, when they engage in a criminal activity, they come into contact with criminal organizations, but for the most part, the direct group-to-group link is not that important. It’s just a market activity or a supplier relationship,” he notes, disputing the idea of a “crime-terror nexus.”
•  “There’s no single model of a criminal organization.” The conventional wisdom that criminal networks have abandoned their hierarchical structure, Williams says, obscures the fact that criminals adopt myriad distinct structures depending on their circumstances—and some of them remain hierarchical.
•  Illicit networks are challenging to states, because states are military and diplomatically organized to deal with other states. Governments around the world “have found it very hard to adapt to nonstate or sovereignty-free actors.”

This video is part of The Internationalist, a series dedicated to in-depth discussions about leveraging multilateral cooperation to meet today’s transnational challenges.

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Journal of Money Laundering Control

ISSN : 1368-5201

Article publication date: 1 February 2001

In the past decade the incidence of international crime has increased. As Louis Freeh, director of the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has stated, ‘grave crime is no longer bound by the constraints of borders’. As such crimes are not limited by state boundaries — approaching them on an international level is crucial. Thus, there has been an increased demand for the globalisation of efforts by law enforcement agencies to halt the rise in business and financially related crimes such as money laundering, tax fraud, securities fraud, intellectual property thefts, extortion, anti‐trust violations, computer crime, corrupt business practices and racketeering and combat violent crimes, terrorism, alien smuggling and drug trafficking.

Aronica, J.J. , Mukhtyar, M. and Coon, J.E. (2001), "Globalisation of Law Enforcement Efforts", Journal of Money Laundering Control , Vol. 4 No. 4, pp. 320-332. https://doi.org/10.1108/eb027282

Copyright © 2001, MCB UP Limited

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Globalization and Organized Crime: Challenges for International Cooperation

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Gachúz, Juan Carlos. 2016. Globalization and Organized Crime: Challenges for International Cooperation . Issue brief no. 07.06.16. Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy, Houston, Texas.

Introduction

The concept of transnational organized crime is not clear-cut or straightforward. There is no standard definition for it in criminological or criminal law theories. Moreover, transnational criminal organizations differ substantially from each other—in organizational structure, types of activities, or size, for example. Despite this lack of consensus on the definition of transnational organized crime, several crucial elements are evident in all cases.

First, such organizations conduct criminal acts, violating legal frameworks and carrying out punishment outside the legitimate procedures of law enforcement. Individuals who intentionally join the groups operate under the direction of established leaders and execute their activities efficiently. And although they are well organized, their structure is more or less permanent, even when they are not composed of rigidly subordinated groups. Sometimes, transnational organized crime in fact occurs through a network of homogeneous groups linked to one another across borders by various forms of solidarity, complicity, and a hierarchical order. 1

Additionally, transnational criminal organizations are active in a variety of fields. Their full spectrum of activities includes bank fraud, cyber crime, and the illegal trafficking of goods or people. Moreover, in order to achieve their goals and protect their interests, transnational criminal organizations are willing to use violence, bribery, and other such instruments to carry out their business activities. And, of course, a main characteristic of these groups is that their criminal practices are not limited to national boundaries. 2 In the Convention against Transnational Organized Crime (CATOC), the United Nations stated that an offense is transnational in nature if: (a) it is committed in more than one State; (b) it is committed in one State but a substantial part of its preparation, planning, direction, or control takes place in another State; (c) it is committed in one State but involves an organized criminal group that engages in criminal activities in more than one State; or (d) it is committed in one State but has substantial effects in another State. 3

In an earlier document, the United Nations also listed several categories of transnational organized crime: money laundering, terrorist activities, theft of art and cultural objects, intellectual property theft, illicit arms trafficking, aircraft hijacking, sea piracy, land hijacking, insurance fraud, cyber crime, environmental crimes, trafficking of persons, trade of human body parts, illicit drug trafficking, fraudulent bankruptcy, infiltration of legal business, corruption and bribery of public officials as defined in national legislation, corruption and bribery of party officials and elected representatives as defined in national legislation, and other offenses committed by organized criminal groups. 4

Global Crime: A Negative Externality of Globalization

There has been some discussion on the relationship between globalization and organized crime. According to professor Phil Williams, globalization has been beneficial to transnational organized crime. He argues that, while globalization facilitates international trade and the exchange of goods, it also increases the difficulty of regulating other activities such as the trade of illegal goods and the enforcement of laws that intend to stop them. In the same context, the global financial system has undergone widespread deregulation since the 1980s, facilitating money laundering to hide the ill-gotten profits of organized crime. In other words, financial deregulation benefits criminal actors because it allows them to launder money through placement, layering, and ultimately integration into the legitimate financial system. Moreover, the negative externalities of globalization may have contributed to engrossing the ranks of organized crime. As Williams (2012) put it:

In terms of sociological impacts, globalization has also brought about some negative effects...The process of globalization generated not just winners, but also losers. Its disruptive effect, causing higher inequality and poverty for many across the globe, led some people into engaging in organized crime and criminal activities, mainly as the result of a lack of opportunities and an extreme unequal income distribution. 5

Broude and Teichman argue that in taking advantage of globalization processes, transnational crime organizations also expanded their networks not only at regional levels but also globally as well. Broude and Teichman draw particular attention to technological developments. They state that illicit activities flourished, just as legal international business transactions have, due to technological advances in transportation and telecommunications that facilitate the freer movement of goods, services, money, and people. Just as there are direct links between technological progress and economic liberalization, the removal of barriers to the international trade of goods and the free flow of funds have just as easily facilitated cross-border illicit trade. 6 There is, in other words, no reason to believe that these developments would one-sidedly benefit only legal activities and not become instruments for illegal transactions as well. Thus, transnational networks now have access to state of the art technologies (planes, submarines, drones, etc.) to transport illicit drugs and also use complex cyber operations for money laundering and financial operations. The power of transnational crime has grown dramatically in recent years. Based on available academic research, organized crime now accounts for perhaps as much as 15 percent of the world’s GDP. 7

Drug Trafficking in Globalized Markets

One of the main transnational criminal activities under aggressive expansion is illegal drug trafficking. For illegal drugs, modern transportation and telecommunications act as a conveyor belt. It is estimated, for example, that almost 90 percent of the cocaine transported to the United States by plane is loaded onto aircrafts in Honduras. The cocaine itself originates in Colombia and can make several stops at various hubs for further transport to North America or Europe. In the United States, Mexican dealers and their American counterparts distribute drugs in several parts of the country, with well-heeled business models, markets organized into territories, and profit-sharing arrangements. Networks are often organized in cells involving at least four countries, all of which are well coordinated in their operations. Regional coordination and cooperation mechanisms expand from South to Central to North America and all along the U.S.-Mexico border. Production, transportation, retail, financial, and enforcement wings work in tandem. Units specialized in coopting law enforcement and political actors are in place along the Mexican border, and U.S.-trained special police forces have been deployed in addition to existing units, as is the case in Honduras. 8

Another point to revisit is the fact that the drug cartels have been able to grow to a global scale thanks to the similarities they share with legal multinational companies. International business professor Peter Enderwick detected four crucial similarities:

First, both appear to pursue similar objectives, with profit assumed to be the key driver. For legitimate businesses, this assumption is endemic, and the same applies for the transnational criminal organizations. Second, both types of businesses establish worldwide facilities to maximize the production, marketing, and distribution of products and services. Third, output and growth are led by market demand. Fourth, the level of analysis generally adopted in examining both the legitimate and illegitimate sectors are comparable. 9

In this context, drug cartels are able to expand not only at the regional level but also into other continents, taking advantage of the technological, commercial, and financial frameworks that carry other globalization processes. All the similarities multinational companies share with transnational crime organizations have in many ways been the byproduct of globalization, a link not yet made very clear in the literature in general.

Paradoxically, increasing cross-border global trade flows, pushing economic liberalization reforms, and weakening the power of the nation-state have all also facilitated opportunities for transnational organized crime by providing gray spaces where these “dark” corporations can flourish and offering the incentives to profit from the trade of illicit goods and services, expand their networks, and ultimately prosper. 10

Insufficient Cooperative Mechanisms to Face Globalized Criminal Networks

The growing problem of transnational organized criminal networks has stimulated countries to cooperate in joint approaches to tackle the issue. However, these mechanisms are no longer enough and need to be reformed to face the new challenges of globalized crime. The State itself needs to reformulate its institutions and the way they work bilaterally and in a global context. As Williams argues, “States and the communities of states are still bureaucratic, hierarchical, slow to operate, slow to respond to groups that are very agile, very networked, very flexible, and able to respond very quickly both to opportunities and dangers.” 11

Governments from the United States and Mexico seem to understand the growing global scope of organized crime and have started to develop a combined approach toward combatting it. Implicit in this approach is the fact that isolated nation-based law enforcement or even traditional cooperation among countries is no longer an efficient mechanism to fight organized crime. Organized crime, however, is ahead of governments, given that most anti-organized crime is still largely based on traditional methods of policing, bilateral cooperation, and country-based law enforcement.

Final Remarks

The process of globalization has brought about the need to reform the way in which institutions are structured and how they operate in different contexts. International cooperation among domestic institutions is not enough anymore to face international challenges such as global crime. New institutional structures involving participation from states and non-state actors has become a requirement to overcome global problems. There is a need for the domestic institutions to become more “global” and work where overall good is desired instead of aspiring for national advantages or looking for media attention. 12 The State faces enormous challenges due to global crime, and the current institutions and legal systems are sometimes isolated or work only within a national scope. These imperfections are used by the organized crime groups, which freely exploit the loopholes of state-based legal systems to extend their reach. 13

Globalization processes have provided opportunities for the worldwide expansion of legal businesses, but also illegal businesses. The traditional mechanisms to control organized crime on a global scale are not enough. Nation-states must now look for new and improved ways of combatting illegal businesses, much as they seek new and innovative ways to regulate world corporations. Academic research shows that one of the greatest challenges of international collaboration are differing national penal laws. 14 Globalization calls for nations to set common law principles in order to fight crime. Just like transnational organized crime groups use a horizontal hierarchal system in order to do business, nations should establish similar systems in fighting them. States are called to evolve, look beyond their borders, and act against the grand, negative impact of organized crime through mutual collaboration. The harmonization of national legislations is one of the main challenges in the fight against transnational organized crime within the context of globalization.

1. See Fulvio Attina, “Globalization and crime. The emerging role of international institutions,” University of Catania, 1997. http://aei.pitt.edu/389/1/jmwp07.htm.

2. Yuriy A. Voronin, “Measures to Control Transnational Organized Crime, Summary,” National Institute of Justice, October 5, 2000. https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/184773.pdf.

3. United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, “Convention against Transnational Organized Crime and the Protocols Thereto,” 2004. https://www.unodc.org/documents/middleeastandnorthafrica/organised-crime/ UNITED_NATIONS_CONVENTION_AGAINST_TRANSNATIONAL_ORGANIZED_CRIME_AND_ THE_PROTOCOLS_THERETO.pdf.

4. United Nations General Assembly, “Ninth United Nations Congress on the Prevention of Crime and the Treatment of Offenders,” 1995. http://www.un.org/documents/ecosoc/res/1995/eres1995-8.htm.

5. See Phil Williams, interview with Stewart M. Patrick, “How Globalization Affects Transnational Crime,” Council on Foreign Relations, May 30, 2012. http://www.cfr.org/transnational-crime/globalization-affects-transnational-crime/p28403.

6. See Tomer Broude and Doron Teichman, “Outsourcing and Insourcing Crime: The Political Economy of Globalized Criminal Activity,” The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 2008. http://ssrn.com/abstract=1111399.

7. Misha Glenny, “How Global Crime Networks Grow,” filmed July 2009, TED video, 19:30. https://www.ted.com/talks/misha_glenny_investigates_global_crime_networks?language=en#t-972495.

8. Alexander Nicoll and Jessica Delaney, “New Approaches to Central American Organised Crime,” The International Institute for Strategic Studies, 2014.

9. Peter Enderwick, “…of Globalized Criminal Activity,” Vanderbilt Law Review 62.3, 2009. Print.

10. See Mark Hanna, “Chapter 3: Transnational Organized Crime in an Era of Accelerating Change,” SOF Role in Combating Transnational Organized Crime, U.S. Department of Defense, 2016. http://cco.ndu.edu/Portals/96/Documents/books/JSOU%20SOF/JSOU16_MendelMcCabe_ CTOC_final.pdf.

11. Williams, interview with Stewart M. Patrick.

12. Attina, “Globalization and crime. The emerging role of international institutions.”

13. See Louise Shelley, “The Globalization of Crime and Terrorism,” IIP Digital U.S. Embassy, February 2006. http://iipdigital.usembassy.gov/st/english/publication/2008/06/20080608103639xjyrrep4. 218692e-02.html#axzz4AM8WPVwS.

14. Attina, “Globalization and crime. The emerging role of international institutions.”

This material may be quoted or reproduced without prior permission, provided appropriate credit is given to the author and Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy. The views expressed herein are those of the individual author(s), and do not necessarily represent the views of Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy.

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Home — Essay Samples — Sociology — Globalization — Globalization in Law Enforcement: Cybercrime

Globalization in Law Enforcement: Cybercrime

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Introduction, works cited.

• Agnew, R. (2008). The Causes of Terrorism. Annual Review of Sociology, 33, 59-81.
• Barak, G. (Ed.). (2011). Crimes by the Capitalist State: An Introduction to State Criminality. State Crime Journal, 1(1), 3-13.
• Denning, D. E. (2010). Cyberterrorism: A Framework for Addressing the Legal and Policy Challenges. Journal of Information Warfare , 9(2), 17-30.
• Hagan, J. (2010). Who Are the Terrorists? Criminology, 48(2), 379-406.
• Keohane, R. O., & Nye, J. S. (2001). Globalization: What's New? What's Not? (And So What?). Foreign Policy, 118, 104-119.
• LaFree, G., & Dugan, L. (2007). Introducing the Global Terrorism Database. Terrorism and Political Violence, 19(2), 181-204.
• Muncie, J., Talbot, D., & Walters, R. (Eds.). (2008). Crime: Local and Global. Routledge.
• Reuter, P., & Truman, R. (Eds.). (2004). Chasing Dirty Money: The Fight Against Money Laundering. Institute for International Economics.
• Schmid, A. P., & Jongman, A. J. (Eds.). (2005). The Routledge Handbook of Terrorism Research. Routledge.
• Walker, N. (2011). Terrorism and Globalization: The Vulnerability of Industrialized Societies and the New Security Dilemma. Routledge.

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Article Contents

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Transforming Police Reform: Global Experiences through a Multidisciplinary Lens

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Tessa Diphoorn, Brianne McGonigle Leyh, Luuk Slooter, Transforming Police Reform: Global Experiences through a Multidisciplinary Lens, Policing: A Journal of Policy and Practice , Volume 15, Issue 1, March 2021, Pages 340–347, https://doi.org/10.1093/police/paab009

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‘We demand real transformation now. Transformation that will hold law enforcement accountable for the violence they inflict, transformation of this racist system that breeds corruption, and transformation that ensures our people are not left behind’ ( Black Lives Matter, 2020 ).

Weekly news reports from around the world tell of unrest between individuals, communities, and police officers. Although such hostile interactions are not a new phenomenon, recent events have heightened their public awareness and global presence. This is largely due to the scope and impact of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement, a social movement founded in 2013 as a response to the death of Trayvon Martin, an unarmed African American teenager ( Bonilla and Jonathan, 2015 ; Chernega, 2016 ; Crusto, 2020 ; Parsons et al. , 2021 ). The BLM-protests gained further momentum after George Floyd’s death in May 2020, yet another unarmed Black male killed by the police. A video showed four police officers detaining him, while he was handcuffed and pinned on the ground, face down and begging for his life and telling the cops: ‘I can’t breathe’. The footage went viral and resulted in (non)violent protests across the USA and spread to cities around the world, making it the most broad-based civil rights movement in US history ( Ralph, 2020 ; Parsons et al. , 2021 ).

In addition to shining a light on the disproportionate use of force against people of colour, the BLM movement has highlighted the institutional and structural racism shaping such acts, thereby reaffirming existing understandings that police behaviour and practices are shaped mainly by larger societal structures and conditions. As the quote above demonstrates, this has prompted a rethinking of the role of the police in society from the ground up and has resulted in many demands to defund, dismantle, or abolish police departments (see McDowell and Fernandez, 2018 ; Ralph, 2020 ; Rushin and Roger, 2020 ). For some, abolitionism entails the literal end of traditional police institutions—with its funding withdrawn and infrastructures dissolved. For others, it serves as an aspirational vision, involving a possibility to think of public safety outside of punitive security logics and apparatuses. Instead of technocratic fixes of policy experts, ‘defund’ and ‘abolish’ calls centre on demands of grassroots activists and social movements, and essentially, are about devolving responsibility for public safety to local communities. Calls for ‘de-funding’ have been further problematized by counter-voices, such as grassroots activists and social movements” ( Akarsu 2020 ), and essentially, are about devolving responsibility for public safety to local communities. Calls for ‘defunding’ have been further problematized by counter-voices, such as ‘Blue Lives Matter’ and ‘All Lives Matter’ (see Lynch, 2018 ; Solomon and Martin, 2019 ; Mason, 2020 ), further testifying the multiplicity of perspectives on what policing should and can be.

In this special issue, which draws on papers largely written before the 2020 events, we argue that policing practices should be studied critically and that reform needs to be considered through a transformative lens that employs a multi-agency and long-term approach. As the global experiences touched upon in this special issue show, the quest towards better policing (and whatever that may be) is a difficult and confrontational challenge, but one that needs to be faced. Although demands for transformative police reform has grown, the responses aimed at true transformation remain limited.

The urgent need to better understand and address policing is further evidenced by the wide array of academic disciplines and fields of scholarship tackling the subject. From anthropology to conflict studies to law and beyond, scholars and practitioners are continuously trying to analyse and bring about positive change in relationships between police and citizens. Yet despite the diversity of interdisciplinary insights into police reform initiatives across the globe, the question of how to establish effective, legitimate, and accountable, policing remains elusive. It is this question that this issue primarily addresses.

In many police reform initiatives, the emphasis is often placed upon top-down institutional changes. This is particularly so for post-conflict settings, where institutional changes are prioritized, often through revamping former institutions or creating entirely new ones, as a way of breaking with the ‘old’ and creating something ‘new’ ( Bayley, 2005 ; Goldsmith, 2005 ; Glebbeek, 2009 ; Hornberger, 2011 ; Ellison and Nathan, 2012 ; Brunger, 2012 ; Parsons et al. , 2021 ). Although such efforts are crucial, research also validates that institutional reform is not sufficient in transforming particular structural dimensions and that many efforts implemented ‘from above’ do not necessarily trickle down into the communities that are policed. Rather, a combined approach, which aims to fuse both top-down and bottom-up efforts, is now considered important in transforming mind-sets. Yet, this dual approach is much more difficult to implement and translate into tangible policies ( Marks and Sklansky, 2012 ).

A similar concern has been identified in the fields of peacebuilding and transitional justice, where research has shown that judicial and legal changes at the state level do not suffice in bringing about justice to victims of violence, facilitating sustainable reform, or ensuring guarantees of non-recurrence of violence ( Mihr, 2014 ). As a result, several scholars from these fields begun arguing for transformative justice following a conflict, emphasizing a combined approach that is more inclusive, community-based, and that aims to address the causes and structures of violence and not just the symptoms ( Lambourne, 2008 ; Gready and Robins, 2014 ). While these underlying principles of transformation have been broadly embraced within the fields of peacebuilding and transitional justice ( Special Rapporteur Report, 2017 ), more empirical research on specific areas of transformative reform are needed.

We therefore decided to align these two rather distinctive strands of research—police reform and transformative justice—and investigate whether and how the underlying notions of transformative justice can help to analyse police reform efforts more generally. Intrigued by the developments taking part in each other’s fields, we set about bringing together experts from around the world who work on issues of police violence, transformation, guarantees of non-repetition, and police reform, from both a theoretical and more practical, case-based approach. In November 2018, we organized an expert seminar in Utrecht (the Netherlands) on these topics and this special issue is the result of the discussions held.

Combined, all of the papers in this special issue highlight the problematic nature of police reform, both conceptually and practically. They discuss and reveal the disturbing relationships between citizens and the police across the globe. Empirically, they draw on a very diverse set of case-studies, including France, Kenya, South Africa, the South Pacific, Trinidad and Tobago, and the USA. Our objective for this special issue, however, is not to arrive at a global model or a universal blueprint for transformative police reform. We are well aware of the fact that policing in one society may be very different from policing in another society; and that transformative police reform in one context may require a radically different approach from police reforms in another context. In fact, as argued by some of the authors, the portability of concepts and the exporting of ‘models of policing’ from the ‘Global North’ to the ‘South’ may be one of the fundamental problems in our thinking about and implementation of police reforms. Nevertheless, by combining and integrating theoretical perspectives from various disciplines (on transformative justice and police reforms) and by comparing and contrasting a wide range of empirical case studies across the globe, we argue that we can identify a number of analytical and practical insights to arrive at a better understanding and ways to improve the troubled relationship between police and citizens.

Transforming our understanding of reform

We have identified three important and interrelated shifts that define our transformative police reform agenda. The first two are analytical shifts. The first concerns a focus from police to policing , thereby foregrounding police practices as well as the multiplicity of involved actors and the power relations between them. In relation to this, the second analytical shift entails moving towards a more holistic/systemic approach, paying attention to the interplay between structural forms of violence, police violence, and (violent) contestation by individuals. The third shift is more normative of nature and involves moving towards longer term transformative policing goals. This shift includes the main aspects of transformative theories more generally, namely a combined top-down/bottom-up approach, that is more inclusive and community-oriented, and that focuses on eradicating the structural causes of violence.

The first shift from police to policing entails incorporating a processual and multiagency approach to policing. Within the policing literature (largely criminology and sociology-based and driven), a sort of consensus has established that policing is ‘a social process that is executed by a range of actors in order to maintain a particular social order’ ( Diphoorn, 2016 , p. 13). This entails that policing consists of a range of everyday practices: it is thus not a static or isolated event, but is performed habitually and shaped by a range of social forces. Moreover, policing is not an activity reserved for the state police, as has often traditionally been defined. Rather, a range of actors are engaged in maintaining social order and policing is thus best analysed as a myriad of actors that constitute a ‘policing web’ ( Brodeur, 2010 ). In fact, in many parts of the world, non-state actors, such as citizen-based groups, private security firms, and NGOs, play a more decisive role in shaping everyday security, whether by choice or by force (see Jones and Newburn, 2006 ; Baker, 2010 ; Albrecht and Kyed, 2015 ; Diphoorn and Grassiani, 2019 ).

For police reform efforts, this shift explicitly employs a multiagency approach that includes these various actors, rather than exclude them. Although this has been identified in many reform efforts, police reform programmes tend to rely or fall back on state-centric approaches ( Albrecht and Buur, 2009 ). As a result, complex power dynamics among security providers are overlooked or disregarded and this obstructs any meaningful discussion of policing transformation, and this clearly emerges in this issue’s contributions provided by Julie Berg and Tessa Diphoorn and Naomi van Stapele.

The second shift centres around the importance of employing a holistic approach that addresses larger structures of violence. In thinking about transformative police reform, it is crucial not only to focus on a variety of policing actors and their practices, but also to zoom out and critically study how problematic policing actors and practices are ingrained in larger undemocratic, unequal, or violent structures in society. It means to take account of the context in which policing unfolds, to analyse how these contexts contribute to the (re)production of certain forms of policing, and enable certain roles for both police officers and victims of police brutality. It would be too simplistic to ‘just’ blame a police officer (or the police in general) for what happened to Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, George Floyd, and many others in the USA. The foundations of the problematic, hostile, and sometimes violent relationship between citizens and police across the globe are multi-layered and are deeply rooted within societies. They go beyond a single ‘sadist’ police officer and idea of the ‘rotten apple’ and the structures of a malfunctioning police organization or security sector alone. Such a holistic approach also reveals why certain political, socio-economic, and cultural contexts hamper, obstruct, or limit well-intended police reform initiatives. This may also mean that some of the transformations that are needed for more effective, legitimate, and accountable policing are well beyond the scope of reformers within police organizations. Nevertheless, it is important to study how their efforts fit in a larger diagnosis of the problem. While all of the contributions in this special issue, in one way or another, share this holistic and context-sensitive approach, it is most explicitly addressed in the contributions by Sinclair Dinnen and Danielle Watson, Padraig McAuliffe, and Luuk Slooter.

Importantly, the first two shifts predominantly focus on the analysis of the phenomenon (diagnosis: what is the problem? why is reform needed?) and contribute to new analytical vocabularies to understand and explain the troubled relationships between citizens and policing actors across the globe. The third shift has a more normative character and contributes to effective, accountable, and context-sensitive models of policing (solutions: what needs to be done/changed and how should this be done?). It centres around a long-term approach, one that emphasizes that transformative policing requires a shift towards longer term goals and objectives, rather than small incremental positive changes (which can easily go backward). Reform policies are not static, but are constantly in flux and need to consistently be revisited. Practically, this may mean that a short-term reform programme, with no follow up, will not suffice to ensure effective, legitimate, and accountable policing. This means that a one-off training programme or one-time accountability process will not meet the demands that transformative policing requires. Rather, efforts must be much more long-term focused and emphasize sustainable initiatives and this clearly surfaces in the contributions by Kami Chavis, Brianne McGonigle Leyh, and Nathan Pino.

However, as the articles in this special issue show, immediate and short-term prevention strategies and reforms are often not only demanded by local communities, but they are regularly the only types of actions that get political support. This is because, politically, longer-term planning remains problematic, yet are crucial in order to address structural forms of violence, injustice, and inequalities. The challenge lies with finding a balance between the implementation of instantaneous strategies to enhance (perceptions of) safety for individuals, and to simultaneously tackle societal, political, and economic structures that set the foundation for conflict and contestation between police officers and individuals. The authors in this special issue all note the challenges of sustaining political will to support transformative reforms and working together with affected communities to implement shared visions of reform.

Combined, this special issue aims to posit a perspective that rather than solely thinking about transformative policing, we perhaps need to transform our ideas of police reform and policing more broadly. This supports much of the thinking proposed by Alex Vitale (2017) in his provocative book The End of Policing , wherein he argues that police trainings, methods, or formations are not the problem, but that, ‘the problem is policing itself’ and that we need to reconfigure our ideas of what policing actually is and who is responsible for it. The author calls for a change of culture of the police: ‘so that it is no longer obsessed with the use of threats and violence to control the poor and socially marginal’ (p. 205).

We concur with the need to both conceptually think differently about what policing is, and practically, to further discuss how this can shape police reform efforts. In this issue, we do not promise to provide final answers to this fundamental shift in how we see policing, yet each of the contributions does highlight how and where we need to transform our ideas on police reform.

The first two articles included in this special edition are written by legal scholars from the peacebuilding and transitional justice fields. They examine how the theories behind transformative justice/reform and actions seen as guarantees of non-repetition can be useful, or not, when approaching police and security sector reform.

Despite the compelling call of transformative police reform, Padraig McAuliffe emphasizes the ‘tremendous idealism’ reflected in scholarship around transformative theories. McAuliffe outlines a conceptual–contextual gap in policebuilding, pin-pointing three main barriers to transformation: (i) the necessary preoccupation with and diversion of resources to technical reform, (ii) the need to deal with immediate post-conflict security needs, and (iii) a political economy that does not support the type of responsive, socially democratic culture where transformative policebuilding becomes feasible. Each of these barriers touch upon the shifts mentioned above and combined, he calls for a much-needed realistic understanding that takes political considerations into account.

Primarily focusing on the third-shift above, Brianne McGonigle Leyh provides a normative and theoretical framework through which police and other actors can view and carry out reform efforts. She demonstrates how the frame of ‘guarantees of non-repetition’ could offer the possibility of shifting the rhetoric to focus on state obligations to victims and society. Because guarantees of non-repetition are based on international human rights standards and designed, operationally, to promote and protect human rights, states are seen as duty-bearers obliged to ensure that individual rights are respected and remedied if there is a violation. Under this framework, states must exercise their due diligence to respect, protect, and fulfil human rights. The due diligence obligations require states to take actions to address specific risk factors associated with police violence identified through cooperative networks. This frame of attaching obligations with actions to states has the potential to underpin transformative reforms; ones that address structural causes of police violence or inaction.

The remaining articles in the special issue each tackle an empirical case study, exploring the three shifts identified above. The first case-study takes us to Trinidad and Tobago, where Nathan Pino explores the numerous challenges the Trinidad and Tobago Police Service face, despite multiple evaluations and efforts at reform. In addition to economic and political problems, the police service, in some ways, maintains its traditional colonial style and is rife with systemic corruption, excessive use of force, and resistance to oversight. Local NGOs have been largely left out of police reform processes, in spite of their local knowledge and social capital. Pino portrays that transformative police reforms will only sustain with long-term and serious commitment to reform that is led by local actors that initiate local solutions democratically while ensuring the genuine involvement of local CBOs, women, and other traditionally marginalized groups.

Making similar claims based on a different region, Sinclair Dinnen and Danielle Watson show how the dialogue on reform in Pacific island countries (PICs) centres around organizational transformation, capacity development, and contextual appropriation. Through their analysis of police reform in various PICs, the authors highlight the realities specific to small island territories that are often overlooked when transposing first-world policy philosophies and solutions. They identify various misbalances between internal and external transformation agendas and thereby stress that the contrasting views often held between those who are being policed versus those who design and create policing agendas and programmes. In doing so, they highlight that all police reform efforts need to demonstrate flexibility, reflexivity, and adaptability and recognize that there are different understandings and expectations of what policing is.

The existence of various understandings of policing also clearly emerges in the case study of Kenya provided by Tessa Diphoorn and Naomi van Stapele. In this contribution, they focus on the Kenyan state’s attempts to transform towards ‘people-centred policing’ in order to (re)establish confidence and legitimacy in policing and foster relationships of trust between police and communities. The authors discuss the prevalence of community policing practices in Kenya and argue that many of these initiatives have largely failed to act as a vehicle for transformation due to three interconnected problems of diversity, representation, and ownership. By drawing from a case in Likoni, Mombasa, the authors show how community policing, and other efforts at reform, operates within a state-centric framework that hinders any progress towards transforming the police.

This state-centric framework is also addressed in Julie Berg’s critical analysis of the challenges of police reform in South Africa. Berg explores how legitimacy is constituted among state and non-state actors in a highly pluralized context of limited statehood and the implications that this has for policing reform. In particular, Berg explores the means by which the legitimacy of the state and non-state is relational, co-produced, and co-dependent by focusing on two components of legitimacy: effectiveness and accountability. By doing so, she urges for an alternative framing that takes on a more pluralized approach.

In addition to recognizing plurality, the following article by Kami Chavis focuses on the role of technological advancements in law enforcement in the USA. Chavis discusses the implementation of various technological advances, such as predictive policing, gunshot fire detection systems (ShotSpotter), and body-worn police cameras, and how they were intended to enhance police accountability and public safety. Yet, despite these good intentions, many of these technological tools have created a new set of issues and unintended consequences, such as communities experiencing this as increased surveillance and control, thereby furthering deteriorating trust between police officers and citizens and the legitimacy of the state police. Taken together, her paper highlights that changes, whether based on the introduction of new tools or the implementation of new programmes, must be centred around both community consent and participation.

The centrality of community consent is also imperative to Luuk Slooter’s analysis of urban uprisings in Paris (2005), London (2011), and Ferguson (2014). While these episodes are often portrayed as ‘apolitical’ and ‘criminal’ in media and political debates, they are in the academic literature predominantly seen as (unarticulated) forms of political protests against structural inequalities. Building on this political perspective, Slooter argues that the interplay between structural, police, and ‘private’ violence is at the core of these urban uprisings. Moreover, Slooter identifies four ingredients that, when combined, often lead to the eruption of collective urban violence. These include (1) an emotive and symbolically significant incident, often with a young inhabitant of a marginalized neighbourhood as protagonist; (2) police involvement; (3) unclarity and pre-violence rumours; and (4) pre-existing us-them divides. In the conclusion, he points to some of the crucial aspects in police reforms and important steps on the pathway towards guarantees of non-recurrence.

Through both theoretical and empirical contributions, we hope that this special issue triggers important conversations about transforming the problematic relationship between citizens and policing actors around the globe. In these times, full of insecurities, it is important to look ahead, whatever the future holds. The need to better understand the troubled relationship between police and individuals will contribute to the ongoing process of police reform. Perhaps it is useful to remember that the institutionalized idea of a police body, as we currently know it, is a recent development ( Chazkel et al. , 2020 , p. 3). Yet for many of us, it is nearly unthinkable to imagine a world without police. However, the recent developments call for the need to re-look at police reform projects, which are more pressing than ever. As the recent debates highlight: it is not only imperative that we transform policing, but that we ourselves need to transform some of our assumptions about what and who the police are.

We would like to thank Utrecht University’s Culture, Citizenship, and Human Rights (CCHR) Focus Area and Centre for Global Challenges for their financial support. This funding allowed us to organise an expert seminar on transformative policing in Utrecht in November 2018. This seminar set the foundation for this Special Issue. We are grateful to all of the participants for their contributions. We also want to thank our research assistant Javina Bijl for her work on this introduction.

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Article contents

Transnational organized crime and terrorism.

• Katharine Petrich Katharine Petrich Rockefeller College of Public Affairs and Policy, University at Albany, SUNY
• https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190846626.013.705
• Published online: 19 October 2022

A significant, policy-relevant relationship exists between terrorist groups and transnational organized crime. However, definitional challenges, disciplinary boundaries, and legal logistics all contribute to the mischaracterization of the relationship, leading to piecemeal responses and uneven academic attention. International studies research tends to focus on one or the other, with an emphasis on terrorist group dynamics and choices. Two enduring rationales for separating the study of terrorism from that of transnational organized crime exist: the “greed versus grievance” debate, which argues that organizations pursue either private (financial) goals or public (social or organizational change) goals and the “methods not motives” argument, which suggests groups may overlap in their tactics but diverge in their strategic goals. Terrorist violence by criminal groups is largely held separate from the “transnational crime and terrorism” literature, often categorized instead as “criminal governance” rather than terrorism studies. The reality is much more nuanced: both group types pursue a variety of objectives and engage with a spectrum of actors which may or may not share their aspirations. Members are diverse in their priorities, a fact that is often lost when analysis collapses the rank and file with leadership into a monolithic bloc. Additionally, globalization has increased opportunities for groups to pursue different activities in different theaters. In areas where terrorist groups are contesting for political control and seeking to present themselves as viable alternative governance actors, they may be less likely to work openly with illicit actors, but in areas (or countries) where they have little governance ambition, criminal networks may be important public partners.

These groups intersect in a spectrum of ways, from engaging in temporary ad hoc relationships designed to achieve a specific goal, to fully incorporating the opposite type’s motive into organizational priorities. Political ambitions largely center on power and control, but illicit activities are wide ranging, with the most prominent involving firearms, drugs, and people. Further, there are several important enabling factors that foster these relationships, including corruption, illicit financial flows, fragile states, and lootable resources. When these enabling factors are present, diversification and relationship building are more likely, increasing organizational resilience and making demobilization less likely. These factors, particularly corruption, also increase the chances of organized crime entering the political system.

Looking ahead, both policymakers and academics should consider transnational organized crime and terrorism more holistically. Work that engages with only one element will fall short in assessing the dynamics of irregular conflict, leading to incomplete analysis and weak policy recommendations. Observers should cultivate the flexibility to think in terms of networks and variety across geographic contexts—the way that a terrorist group behaves in one area or with one type of criminal group does not necessarily predict its behavior globally.

• transnational organized crime
• irregular conflict
• illicit economies
• trafficking
• black market
• law enforcement

Introduction

Globalization has brought many benefits for the world in the 21st century : global interdependence means a richer, more peaceful world where people, goods, and ideas move quickly and easily beyond their places of origin. But alongside the benefits, disruptive actors have also capitalized on the shift. Products of “deviant globalization,” these challengers include transnational organized crime groups and terrorist organizations. Powerful on their own, together their impact could be devastating, especially for developing states. Thus, a key question for policymakers is whether the “crime-terror nexus” is an overblown fear or a legitimate relationship. From there, other important questions follow. If it does occur, what are the contours of the interaction? Do criminal terrorists represent a greater or lesser threat than their politically oriented counterparts? Are organized crime groups poised to topple governments? Where is it most likely to occur? How best can governments, organizations, and individuals respond to it?

The history of transnational crime and terrorism relationships can largely be split into before and after the September 11 attacks. Before 2001 , transnational criminal groups and terrorist organizations interacted in a largely transactional manner ( Schmid, 2018 ). For example, terrorist groups might seek out “specialist” organized criminals for help securing counterfeit passports or smuggling members across borders, and transnational organized crime groups might negotiate with terrorists for the right to operate within their sphere of influence ( Shelley & Picarelli, 2002 ). Some groups did rely on crime to support their operational efforts, like extortion and “tiger kidnapping” campaigns run by the Provisional Irish Republican Army and the Ulster Defense Forces during the 1990s ( Silke, 1998 ). During the 1980s and 1990s, these sorts of piecemeal interactions flourished due to increasing economic interdependence outstripping international regulation; further, nonstate actors did not warrant the same type of attention as states did in the international rebalancing after the Cold War. Terrorist group excursions into criminality during this period were generally focused on domestic populations closely situated to the group—this was the era of the petty and domestic offense, not sophisticated international networks. In the post-9/11 security environment, terrorism remains one of the most significant security concerns among policymakers. Such groups’ convergence with or diversification into sophisticated criminal activity represents a major force multiplier, augmenting their ability to disrupt and undermine legitimate governance, resist demobilization, and continue to carry out attacks against civilian populations. In reaction to the upswing in attention, some authors have argued that the relationship is overhyped and represents a much smaller set of interactions than what is portrayed in the discourse. Nexus naysayers argue that the two group types can be differentiated by a bright line due to their dramatically different goals: for terrorist groups, having a politically violent operational goal means that the need to spend money actually outweighs the imperative to earn money ( Aliu et al., 2017 ).

After the attacks on the World Trade Center in 2001 , the United States dramatically increased scrutiny of terrorist financial networks—a move that was followed by other states as attacks struck India ( 2002 ), Russia ( 2004 ), Spain ( 2004 ), and the United Kingdom ( 2005 ). Such attention, in the form of sanctions, asset seizure, account freezes, international arrest and apprehension, and military operations targeting group leadership led terrorist groups to diversify their sources of funding as well as their operational capabilities and recruiting pools. No longer could groups consistently rely on financial support from sympathetic state actors or wealthy individuals, as al-Qaeda and Hezbollah did during the 1990s.

Cut off from “angel investors” after 2001 , terrorist groups have become significantly more likely to rely on illicit or “grey market” financing schemes to support their work. At a minimum, counterterrorism financing measures require terrorist groups to become at least partially competent money launderers because these laws criminalized the movement of money to terrorist groups. Following the money also became a critical component in counterterrorism operations, making groups that did not or were unable to launder funds well particularly vulnerable to disruption.

Interactions between transnational organized crime and terrorism are deeply nuanced and context specific and can be broadly separated into four nodes: ad hoc, continuing, diversified, and converging relationships. Understanding the enabling and demand factors that provide oxygen to terrorist criminal opportunities is key to both understanding the interwoven dynamics as well as developing effective policy responses. Particular attention should be paid to the role of corruption, illicit flows, and lootable resources.

Researching transnational organized crime and terrorism is challenging. Both actor types are incentivized to hide their activities, scope of influence, organizational relationships, and financial assets. Because of this active concealment, quantitative scholars generally rely on government and law enforcement reporting or externally observable actions like attacks. Criminal activity is often overlooked in these studies because it serves logistical or financial purposes for a terrorist group, as opposed to directly contributing to kinetic attacks. Relying on official figures is not without its challenges: what gets counted and how is an inherently political act ( Andreas & Greenhill, 2010 ). States have their own incentives to misrepresent levels of both violence and criminality, and the same accessibility issues that hinder independent researchers can hinder official sources as well. Qualitative scholars struggle with issues of access, data triangulation, and generalizability, resulting in an oversaturation of particular cases and sources. Existing scholarship focuses primarily on developing states, particularly those with weak institutions, preexisting criminal economies, and high levels of corruption ( Shelley, 2014 ). In truth, however, transnational organized crime touches every corner of the world, including the WEIRD countries ( Henrich et al., 2010 ). 1 In fact, many of the most problematic and durable linkages are situated in the Global North ( Makarenko & Mesquita, 2014 ).

What Is Terrorism?

Terrorism has a long history, appearing in nearly every asymmetric conflict. One of the earliest accounts of terrorism centers on nonstate actor resistance to the Roman Empire in the Judea Province in the 1st century ce ( Chaliand & Blin, 2016 ). Groups of all religions, national origins, political aims, and ideological creeds have used violence or the threat of violence against civilian targets to seek political or social change. In the 21st century , there is an unfortunate tendency to associate terrorism with fundamentalist Islamist groups and to assume al-Qaeda “invented” terrorism in September 2001 ( Laqueur, 2001 ). In reality, in 2019 , 265 distinct terrorist groups were active across six continents and carried out attacks in more than 70 countries ( National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START), 2019 ).

Terrorism is a tactic, commonly understood to mean the use of violence (or threat of violence) by a nonstate actor against a civilian or other nonlegitimate target, with the intent of achieving a political, social, economic, or ideological goal ( Ganor, 2002 ; National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START), 2019 ; Saul, 2019 ). Generally, the true targets of terrorism extend beyond the immediate victims of violence to include the broader community. The purpose of terrorist attacks is to generate fear due to indiscriminate violence. Because terrorism is a tactic and may be used as part of a suite of activities, deciding exactly who is a terrorist is a fraught political endeavor. For nonspecialists and the media, terrorist groups can be difficult to differentiate from rebel, insurgent, criminal, or guerrilla groups, despite variations in their technical definitions.

Why Is Terrorism Problematic?

Terrorism generates far more consternation among policymakers and fear among the public than other forms of violence, particularly in WEIRD countries. This is true for terrorist attacks of all types and ideologies and has spurred major counterterrorism initiatives both domestically and internationally. Most terrorist attacks and associated deaths occur in areas experiencing high levels of violence in general, up to the level of civil war; geographically, this maps onto the Middle East and Africa ( Ritchie et al., 2019 ). By the numbers, crime kills and harms far more individuals than terrorist groups do, in all areas of the world. Indeed, in the United States, driving a car or taking a bath are more likely to kill you than a terrorist attack ( Mueller & Stewart, 2018 ). However, despite the large divergence between perceived and actual danger, terrorism occupies far more media and policymaker attention than statistically more risky activities.

This gap between real danger and perceived threat is one of the reasons terrorism is so problematic: the effects of an attack are exponentially greater than the direct harm caused by the violence. Terrorism creates trauma and uncertainty among observers, due in part to the apparently random nature of victims, attack patterns, or attack locations ( Mueller & Stewart, 2018 ). In response, individuals are less likely to invest in long term, durable activities, businesses, or communities. Further, terrorism erodes the social contract enacted between the citizen and state, undermining confidence in governance institutions with negative follow-on effects, particularly in democracies. To prevent and respond to terrorist attacks, governments often turn to draconian counterterrorism measures, creating cures that are worse than the disease. At best, they may resort to “security theater”—measures that may make citizens feel safer but have little functional purpose ( Schneier, 2008 ). Both types of response do little to reduce the risk of terrorism or the feeling of insecurity terrorism provokes.

Transnational Organized Crime

What is transnational organized crime.

Like terrorism, transnational organized crime is an activity (or tactic). Thus, there is controversy over the specific dimensions of transnational organized crime—every legal jurisdiction defines the concept a little differently ( Allum & Gilmour, 2022 ). Practitioners and academics understand it differently too, with variations appearing depending on whether the writer is a political scientist, economist, or criminologist. Some of the debate and controversy over the relationship between transnational organized crime and terrorism is simply a function of researchers and commentators using terms interchangeably when they in fact vary in their definition, making it challenging to range the relationship ( Picarelli, 2012 ).

International conventions represent the broadest definitional category. Under the United Nations Convention Against Transnational Organized Crime (UNTOC), transnational organized crime are serious crimes carried out by organized criminal groups of more than three individuals, “in order to obtain, directly or indirectly, a financial or other material benefit” ( UNTOC, 2000 , p. 5). To be transnational, criminal activity must occur across interstate borders; this can happen in several ways and is not simply confined to physically moving across an international border. A crime is transnational if a substantial amount of the preparation, planning, or direction took place in a state other than the one in which the crime actually took place, or if the group that committed the crime is active in multiple states ( UNTOC, 2000 ). A crime can also be transnational if it has significant follow-on effects in a second state. This scope is wide enough to compensate for the jurisdictional challenges created by Westphalian sovereignty, and this framing is regularly used by academics as a starting point for their own definitions.

Academic definitions of transnational organized crime vary according to study scope and are largely concentrated on organized crime, tacking on the transnational element as appropriate. Some exceptions exist: Allum and Gilmour (2022) , for example, offered that transnational organized crime is “the passing of illegal goods and/or services over national borders and/or rendering criminal support to criminal activities or related persons in more than one country” (p. 8). Van Dijk and Spapens (2013) viewed transnational organized crime as “a group of actors moving from one country to another to execute illegal activities” (p. 17). More often, authors offer a survey of common organized crime elements. Shelley (2005) identified several themes, including the ongoing nature of the criminal activity, the fact that multiple (at least two) people are involved, and that groups pursue “profit and power” goals through the use of violence or threat of violence ( Shelley 2005 , p. 14). In general agreement, Albanese (2011) also highlighted the literature’s attention to the rational orientation of criminal groups, which propagate themselves through “use of force, threats, monopoly control, and corruption” (p. 4).

One of the most significant mistakes in the discussion of crime and terrorism is the conflation of different types of criminal sophistication. While some definitional debates appear pedantic, this one has real relevance. The misuse of petty, organized, and transnational organized crime creates interventions that are grossly inappropriate for the type and intensity of criminal behavior. In essence, by using the “wrong” term and overestimating the level of criminality, academics and policymakers alike can recommend surgery with a chainsaw over a scalpel. Underestimating the level of sophistication has its own drawbacks, as it can open the door for institutional capture and endemic corruption. In addition, conflation erases the important variations in how terrorist groups engage with different types of crime—for example, those seeking legitimacy are less likely to engage in petty crime but may well involve themselves in organized and transnational crime ( Asal et al., 2019 ). These mistakes can be made from actors as wide ranging as individual academics writing an editorial to intergovernmental organizations drafting policy.

Why Is Transnational Organized Crime a Problem?

The idea that transnational organized crime, and organized crime more generally, represents a national and international security challenge is not new ( Williams, 1994 ). However, following the end of the Cold War and the shift toward globalization, the scale and reach of transnational criminal organizations has grown exponentially. At the individual level, criminal syndicates exploit, extort, and harm people—creating fear and trauma that makes it difficult to invest in the future, trust one’s neighbors, or pursue legitimate enterprise. At the community level, high levels of crime divert public resources into increased law enforcement, drug treatment and deradicalization programs, and safeguarding public officials. Crime also effects communities by decreasing travel and tourism, along with investment from both external and internal entrepreneurs, and skimming off government revenue that should be reinvested into the community. At the state level, crime impacts the workings and reach of institutions, eroding the legitimacy critical for their missions. It undercuts the social contract by demonstrating that the state cannot effectively provide security to its citizens, making the state more vulnerable to overthrow or capture by illegitimate actors ( Williams, 1994 ). The associated corruption (or perceived corruption) of governance actors makes it difficult for the state to act in the international arena, to advance foreign policy interests, and to defend itself against predatory state competitors. Finally, at the international level, a high level of criminality makes other states less like to invest, trade, or engage with a state. A state characterized by powerful criminal actors, particularly transnational ones, can act as a “safe haven” for those groups to avoid disruption and prosecution. This can lead to sanctions, isolation, or even intervention in an attempt to disrupt criminal networks based there. These actions have negative consequences for the civilian population of the state, cause significant amounts of collateral damage, and can result in cyclical violence as power vacuums created by intervention generate increased competition among the remaining actors.

Sophisticated, large scale criminal organizations can outstrip the capabilities of the state they inhabit, creating a dynamic in which legitimate institutions are crowded out and criminality is effectively institutionalized ( Coggins, 2015 ). The World Atlas of Illicit Flows ( Nellemann et al., 2018 ) assessed that 38% of worldwide conflict financing comes from environmental crime alone—suggesting that the true impact of crime on conflict is much broader. Conflict economies centered on criminality, particularly those crimes involving the transportation of goods and people across borders, are key enablers of violence. Even short of war, transnational organized crime creates and sustains violent dynamics that harm the communities in which they are embedded in a multitude of ways.

Types of Transnational Organized Crime

Transnational organized crime is usually organized either by the type of activity or the type of target. The so called “big three” most prevalent and profitable crimes are drugs, arms, and people, followed by cybercrime and environmental crime. Boister and Currie (2014) used three “buckets” to understand transnational crime: substantive crimes (those involving people as products), commodity crimes (those broadly involving the movement or production of illicit goods), and facilitative and organizational crimes (those that allow other forms of criminal activity to occur or be successful). Another way to conceptualize transnational organized crime is to differentiate between origin, transit, and market countries, or where illicit materials begin, move through, and end up. Most illicit goods and profits flow from the developing to the developed world, with the major exception being firearms. Differentiating between these types of crime is important because they have different enabling conditions, spillover effects, and solutions.

Drug trafficking is perhaps the most notorious of all transnational organized crime and has been the target of innumerable domestic and international disruption initiatives. Drugs are a major source of revenue for many types of nonstate (and state) actors. According to the annual World Drug Report produced by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (2021) , drugs can be categorized into five broad categories: cannabis, opioids, cocaine, amphetamine-type stimulants, and new psychoactive substances. The scale of drug usage, markets, and trafficking is staggering: in 2020 , approximately 275 million people used drugs globally ( United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, 2021 ). Assessing the market is a complicated task, because of the large quantity of drugs as well as the concerted efforts of buyers and sellers to hide their activities, but best-guess estimates place the market at over $1 billion annually ( United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, 2021 ). Large-scale trafficking requires both organizational sophistication and enabling conditions like weak state institutions, corruption, and relevant labor populations. Because of these factors, states with significant drug production economies are often also home to violent nonstate political actors, or see drug trafficking organizations enter the political realm, resulting in the so-called narco-terrorism phenomenon.

Firearms trafficking, or the illicit movement and sale of guns, is both a form of transnational crime and a key driver of nonstate actor violence. Gun trafficking is a complicated issue in part because the traditional origin and market countries are reversed. Most firearms on the black market are produced licitly in the Global North and then diverted into illicit marketplaces and transactions in the Global South, though markets vary significantly across time and space ( Marsh & Pinson, 2021 ). States are often the merchants or brokers of firearms transactions, making interdiction difficult. As a durable good, large quantities of available illicit guns are those remaining from interstate or civil conflicts, creating an opportunity window for terrorist groups operating in weak (or weakened) states to divert, use, and sell firearms in support of their continued activities. Terrorist groups and transnational organized criminals use firearms both as a tool of violence and as a form of currency, making the buying and selling of weapons a key issue.

Crimes involving people as goods generally fall into two categories: human trafficking and smuggling. While the activities are similar and may overlap, they are distinct. Human smuggling involves individuals paying for covert or illicit transportation, across one or more borders. They are free to leave at their destination or may be able to part ways with the smugglers en route if they wish. Individuals who participate in smuggling are usually migrants seeking to enter a new country without documentation, or people seeking to avoid official attention or a record of their entry into (or exit from) another country ( McAdam & Baumeister, 2010 ).

Human trafficking involves

the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons, by means of threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation ( United Nations General Assembly, 2000 ).

In essence, trafficked individuals are not free to leave, even if they entered into the arrangement voluntarily ( McAdam & Baumeister, 2010 ). While the majority of trafficking occurs across borders, domestic human trafficking—for the purposes of sex, domestic, and other forms of labor—represents approximately 25% of human trafficking ( United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, 2012 ). Humans are “durable goods” and represent consistent revenue for illicit organizations. Forced prostitution and sex work are the most widely known aspects of trafficked labor, but sectors like childcare, household cleaning, construction, fishing, or farming are all major destinations for trafficked persons. In addition to producing a profit through their labor or sale, they may also be used as fighters or support staff for terrorist groups. Beyond their labor, trafficked people may be used as “rewards” for loyalty or bravery from terrorist group members. One high-profile example of this dynamic was the enslavement of Yazidi women by ISIS beginning in 2014 ( Vale, 2020 ). Further complicating the issue, smuggled and trafficked people may move along the same routes, by the same facilitators, even in the same shipment.

Intersections Between Transnational Organized Crime and Terrorism

In some contexts, diversifying into transnational crime contributes to a terrorist group’s overall mission. The operational emphasis largely centers on charity groups being used to funnel monies to terrorist groups, a weight that continues today to the exclusion of other sources. It is important to differentiate monies that begin from licit sources and are diverted into terrorist control from funds that originate from illicit activities, because the policy implications and community impacts are significantly different. Terrorist group funding supports direct financial benefitsdistribution to constituent populations, as well as the provision of jobs or social services. Groups can further their goal of political disruption by diverting funds that would otherwise go to the government, particularly in the cases of natural resource theft and tax extortion. By capturing these funds, the terrorist organization effectively reduces the governmental means to fund counterterrorism efforts or fulfill the social contract. Resource diversion in fragile states is particularly harmful: Rai found that the most vulnerable countries to terrorism operate at a $3 trillion to $5 trillion infrastructure deficit, a gap that terrorist groups and disruptive actors actively exploit and increase ( 2017 ). Terrorist groups that disrupt state capacity also reduce legitimacy, worsening the degree of fragility and making the state more vulnerable to illicit capture.

Funding source diversification has become exponentially more important to terrorist groups in the post–9/11 strategic environment, as both international law and financial regulators catch up to “traditional” methods of financing ( Brisard & Martinez, 2014 ). Illicit activity is a huge potential revenue stream, and it makes intuitive sense that terrorist groups would explore existing criminal opportunities in their area of operation. In 2018 , the largest portion of terrorist illicit funds came from the drug trade, followed closely by oil, gasoline, and diesel smuggling ( Nellemann et al., 2018 ). Regional differences alter the proportion of funding streams, but in addition to drugs and fuel, terrorist groups also earn money through taxation/extortion, kidnapping for ransom, human trafficking, arms smuggling, commodities smuggling, and antiquities trafficking. Beyond the direct harm caused by transnational crime, such criminal economies can create an economic incentive for terrorist groups to continue hostilities and resist demobilization ( Cornell, 2007 ).

Greed Versus Grievance Debate

One of the primary justifications for separating transnational organized crime and terrorism linkages is the theorized tension between “greed” (profit motive) and “grievance” (social or ideological motives), a concept borrowed from work by Collier and Hoeffler on civil wars ( 2004 ). In this greed-grievance debate, criminal groups are assumed to be “greedy” actors: largely rational, cost-benefit motivated groups who make operational and organizational choices based on financial considerations. In Hoeffler’s words, criminal groups are “private” actors, interested in personal gain rather than the public good created by government transition ( 2011 ). Terrorist groups, in contrast, are understood as “grievance” actors, who pursue actions based on their ideological or social visions and are ultimately interested in the “public good” of their desired social and political system. Based on these apparently conflicting motivations, it seems unlikely that the two types of groups would work effectively together over the long term.

This presumed divergence undergirds most work conducted before 2001 , and a good deal of the policy literature produced in the early years of the 21st century . However, as the field of terrorism studies attracted more attention in the years following September 11, 2001 , the academic community began to challenge this assumption. In 2004 , Makarenko (2004) argued that the relationship between criminals and terrorists should be more appropriately understood as a spectrum, in which both types of groups learn and adapt based on lessons learned from each other and incorporate the other’s behaviors into their organization. The supposed greed versus grievance debate breaks down further when logistical constraints imposed by stringent terrorism financing measures are considered: some terrorist groups quite literally cannot afford to have moralistic views on illicit activities. Finally, the greed versus grievance cleavage overlooks the human ability to balance competing aims. Criminals can hold political and social views and work to shape their communities like citizens with licit employment, just as terrorist organizations can seek both personal enrichment and political change ( Hutchinson & O’Malley, 2007 ).

Political Activities by Criminal Groups

Political scientists have historically focused on the terrorism side of the crime-terror equation. This imbalance is due to several factors. First, disciplinary boundaries and security studies frameworks steer researchers toward actors with explicitly political goals. Second, it has seemed far less common for criminal groups to diversify into sustained political violence, particularly at an organizational level. Finally, disagreements about “methods or motives” classifications have siloed some of the research, among both academics and policymakers ( Shelley & Picarelli, 2002 ). However, a growing body of scholarship is seeking to address the use of political violence by criminal groups gap ( Phillips, 2018 ). Crime-terror and criminal governance researchers are coming together to build a broader understanding of the political diversification of criminal groups, with a strong emphasis on drug trafficking organizations, particularly those in Latin America ( Blume, 2017 ; Longmire & Longmire, 2008 ; Phillips, 2018 ; Trejo & Ley, 2020 , 2021 ). As a result, criminal political violence is most commonly characterized as a function of “narco-terrorism,” a term first applied to Peru’s Sendero Luminoso in the 1980s ( Shelley, 2014 ). Criminal groups actively seek to influence the political context in which they operate, and some criminal groups do use terrorist tactics to advance their organizational interests. A small number develop broader political ambitions. However, while criminal groups may leverage terrorist tactics, they do not seem to seek wholesale control of the state as terrorist groups do and show willingness to rely on indirect means like corruption and intimidation to coopt state actors.

Violence against political systems and representatives by criminal groups is usually understood as a method to incentivize the state to “leave [them] alone” and allow them to carry out profit seeking activities ( Phillips, 2018 ). Less central is the desire to provide governance benefits, though in some instances criminal groups enforce both formal and informal institutions within their areas of operation ( Feldmann & Mantilla, 2021 ). In keeping with the desire for the state to stay out of their way, political contestation may be violent, but the scope is narrow. Thus, the most common terrorist tactic employed by criminal groups is targeted violence against highly visible individuals. Trejo and Ley (2021) argued that terroristic political assassination is an avenue for criminal groups to consolidate the territorial control necessary for licit and illicit market control, resource extraction through extortion, and establishing a criminal monopoly. They suggested that organized crime (specifically Mexican drug cartels) uses targeted attacks to establish governance regimes, with limited territorial aims.

Types of Relationships

Relationships between criminal and terrorist groups vary greatly across time, space, and organization. They range from transitory to deep enmeshment. Just as there are a range of relationships, so too are there a range of disruption responses, ways to study group interactions, and opportunities to engage with involved actors. Relationships can be conceptualized on a spectrum ( Makarenko, 2004 ), beginning with “ad hoc” before moving to continuing, diversified, and converging dynamics.

Ad Hoc Relationships

The lowest level of interaction between transnational organized crime and terrorism can be characterized as “ad hoc” relationships: interactions or exchanges of goods and services designed to fulfill a specific need. This may be purchasing a falsified passport for a terrorist operative from a counterfeiting ring or paying a terrorist group for the right to transit goods through their area of influence in the same way legitimate businesses pay customs dues to state governments. Examples of this type of relationship abound, but one of the most consistent is the purchase and use of counterfeit documents, as exemplified by Ahmed Ressam, the “Millennium Bomber,” who used both fake French and Canadian passports at various points in his activities ( Hewitt, 2008 ). Hutchinson and O’Malley (2007) argued that ad hoc relationships are the most common because while groups do cooperate based on need, interactions are generally limited for several reasons. Firstly, transnational organized crime groups would rationally perceive terrorist organizations as either a rival or a liability. Further, participating in political violence would be risky business for organized crime, as introducing grievance logics into a “greedy” organization would make the group less profitable and make leadership vulnerable to internal dissent and betrayal. In the same way, incorporating profit motivations into a group with “pure” grievance causes would increase vulnerability to ideological erosion, corruption, and loss of moral legitimacy. For terrorist groups, the loss of externally perceived legitimacy could be particularly devastating—insurgency requires a significant popular support for fighters to remain ahead of government prosecution, a concern shared by terrorist groups ( Tse-tung, 2005 ). Further, the centrality of profit motivation could make it more likely that criminals would betray their terrorist counterparts to the authorities in exchange for a payout. Therefore, terrorist groups may seek out the assistance of criminal groups for specific benefits or in situations where criminal groups dominate the relevant illicit market, but only in situations where cooperation will not compromise political aims ( Hutchinson & O’Malley, 2007 ).

Continuing Relationships

Continuing relationships are often built on ad hoc foundations, where organizations find they need the services of the other group type more consistently than a one-off exchange. Examples of these types of interactions include terrorists paying off powerful criminal groups for the right to create a “safe haven” in their territory or regularly buying guns for their fighters from a trafficking ring. Alternatively, continuing relationships may involve criminal groups paying “taxes” for the right to operate within an area controlled by a terrorist group, as Colombian cocaine cartels did to the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia in the 1990s and early 2000s ( Freeman, 2016 ). Finally, continuing relationships include those where the two network types “exchange” criminal assistance, as Italian organized crime did by trafficking arms for North African terrorist groups, in exchange for help for their narcotics trafficking enterprise ( Makarenko & Mesquita, 2014 ). Shelley and Picarelli (2002) argued that both criminal and terrorist groups operate using a network of “loosely organized cells” to maximize operational security and flexibility (p. 307), a format that lends itself to both ad hoc and continuing relationships as individual cells can cooperate based on their specific operational needs. Unsurprisingly, ad hoc and continuing relationships are the most common type of the crime-terrorism nexus in states with developed and sophisticated law enforcement capabilities because they are the most resilient to disruption ( Makarenko & Mesquita, 2014 ).

Diversification

Diversification seems to be most commonly an evolutionary response for terrorist groups squeezed by resource constraints. Pursuing criminal activity can be a reaction to a loss of revenue from another source and so may result from factors like more stringent government counterterrorist financing measures, or the loss of a major sponsor (both private individuals and states). An example of this need-based diversification can be seen in the 1970s Northern Ireland conflict, when the Irish Republican Army (IRA) began “smuggling livestock, cars, and weapons; running protection and extortion rackets; managing underground brothels; orchestrating prison breaks; bank robbery, tax evasion, and construction fraud” in response to losing diaspora funding from increased U.S. law enforcement ( Hamm, 2007 , p. 6). Diversification may also be prompted by the recognition of the benefits of bringing certain criminal capabilities “in house,” thereby eliminating the need for (and vulnerability posed by) relationships with external criminal organizations. Finally, it may also be a result of the increased recruitment of individuals with criminal histories and skills; rank-and-file members may continue to “freelance” while participating in terrorist activities, or leadership may recognize that new recruits represent a new resource and incorporate criminal activities at the organizational level ( Basra & Neumann, 2017 ).

Diversification is similar to continuing relationships in that it involves a more consistent incorporation of opposite-type activities but differs because skills are developed within an organization, rather than presenting as a relationship between two groups. It is distinct from convergence because the diversifying group does not try to balance criminal and political goals; rather, it remains primarily interested in its original mission set. Often diversification for terrorist groups involves seeking the financial benefit of low-priority crimes like cigarette smuggling or intellectual property theft ( Shelley, 2014 ). For example, Boko Haram fighters might traffic and consume tramadol or trade illicitly mined gold, but the group is uninterested in balancing these activities with its larger political aims at the organizational level ( Ogbonnaya, 2020 ; Santacroce et al., 2018 ). For criminal groups, diversification may be prompted by increased competition, either between other criminal groups or from the state. Continued political violence may serve to create or maintain the operational space needed to carry out illicit activities.

Convergence

The merger of criminal groups with terrorist organizations is something of an ahistorical policy bogeyman—much discussed, greatly feared, but (so far) mythical. However, there have been instances of terrorist organizations broadening their strategic interests so completely as to become a transnational criminal enterprise ( Makarenko & Mesquita, 2014 ). Often, convergence is a criminal or terrorist group and may be more appropriately understood as an organization shifting toward governance rather than disruption. Asal et al. (2019) found that insurgent groups that are older and control territory are more likely to diversify into crime, particularly those activities that require building and maintaining physical and administrative infrastructure (like extortion and drugs), as compared to newer organizations. Thus, convergence may be an indicator of a terrorist group “ending” by transitioning to insurgency or devolving into another violence type ( Cronin, 2011 ).

Both diversification and convergence are most common in states experiencing endemic conflict, with weak or nonexistent institutions. It may be more helpful to conceptualize convergence as the relationship moving from distinct organizations into interwoven networks, where individuals are characterized less by in-group identity and more by specific skill sets. One recent example of convergence is the Islamic State (IS). The size and scope of the Islamic State’s area of territorial control made it the wealthiest terrorist group in world history; the group controlled around 34,000 square miles (an area the size of Maine) and earned an estimated $2.9 billion annually, allowing it to be effectively self-sustaining ( Brisard & Martinez, 2014 ; Carter Center Syria Project, 2019 ). IS earns its money through kidnap and ransom, protection money, forced taxation/extortion, oil smuggling, political corruption, and the seizure of existing banks and financial institutions in its area of control ( Brisard & Martinez, 2014 ; Warrick, 2018 ). IS benefits from having a strong organizational structure and experience managing logistics and financial issues that make the group well suited to “converge.”

Enabling Conditions

Often the broader contexts that allow transnational crime and terrorism to flourish are underappreciated in both the academic literature and policy solutions. In part, this is due to scale—Where does one stop when assigning causality? Solving endemic poverty and exclusionary political systems would undoubtably stabilize vulnerable regions and sectors, but such initiatives are often outside the scope of the agencies tasked with disrupting crime-terror intersections. However, there are some variables that significantly increase potential vulnerabilities, expansions, or evolutions because of their enabling capacity and that should be included in any solution or analysis of crime-terror linkages. These include corruption, global illicit flows, state fragility, and lootable resources.

Corruption—the misuse of public office through the giving or withholding of an advantage by a public official—facilitates a variety of disruptive activities, including transnational organized crime and terrorism ( UNTOC, 2000 ). Corruption enables both profit and logistical support activities for illicit groups, even in geographic areas that are not operational targets. For terrorist groups, corruption can create a “policy window” through which they can position themselves as a legitimate alternative to existing institutions, a way to circumvent investigations or prosecutions, and an opportunity for kinetic attacks ( Shelley, 2014 ). Purely criminal groups also benefit from corruption. This connection is more widely acknowledged; under the UNTOC for example, corruption is recognized as a key condition of transnational organized crime, and signatories to the accord must adopt domestic legislation criminalizing corruption ( UNTOC, 2000 ). For groups that combine profit-motivated illicit activities with political disruption, corrupt officials and institutions are key enablers of their continued success.

Illicit Financial Flows

Illicit financial flows, defined as “money that is illegally earned, transferred, or utilized” (Issues: Illicit Financial Flows), inhibit a state’s ability to raise, retain, and invest domestic resources ( Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development [OECD] and United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime [UNODC], 2016 ). Examples of these kinds of flows include funds with criminal origins (such as the proceeds of a crime), funds with a criminal destination (such as bribery, terrorist financing, or conflict financing), commercial tax evasion, mis-invoicing of consumer goods, and the trafficking of humans or goods. Illicit flows are also transfers to, by, or for entities subject to financial sanctions under UN Security Council Resolutions and transfers that seek to evade anti–money laundering or counterterrorism financing measures ( OECD and UNODC, 2016 ). 2 Monies that should have been invested into local populations are diverted, bypassing currency controls, tax regulations, and law enforcement oversight. While illicit flows have a clear relationship with criminal groups, they also directly intersect with terrorist group capability: illicit flows gift terrorist groups with improved “freedom of action” and widen the scope of both tactical and strategic considerations ( Comolli, 2018 ). Tracking and limiting illicit financial flows is challenging because they occur within the larger global financial system.

Fragile States

Fragile states are countries with low capacity and legitimacy, poor provision of public goods, weak institutions, uneven governance, and an anemic social contract between the state and citizen ( Miraglia et al., 2012 ; USAID, 2005 ). Some are caught in cycles of internal violence and all experience high levels of criminality, making them vulnerable to penetration by illicit actors. Fragile states cannot project power throughout their whole territory, creating governance vacuums transnational organized crime and terrorist groups can exploit. Thus, fragile states act as safe havens and areas of cooperation, even for groups that are not permanently located there. They also serve the important function of logistical nodes that allow shipments of illicit goods to be “laundered” during their movement from origin to market country ( Miraglia et al., 2012 ). Fragile states often are collocated with other enabling conditions such as corruption and lootable resources.

Lootable Resources

Beyond “traditional” illicit goods like firearms and people, terrorist and criminal groups also exploit natural resources. Lootable resources, or natural assets that are highly profitable and easy to sell, have been extensively linked to nonstate actor violence and civil conflicts ( Cheng, 2018 ; Findley & Marineau, 2015 ; Fortna et al., 2018 ). They may even act as direct drivers for terrorist activity: Fortna et al. found that because such funding sources reduce the need for violent nonstate actors to rely on domestic populations for support, groups are more likely to turn to terrorism ( 2018 ). Examples of such goods include diamonds, timber, oil, and drugs. Lootable resources extend conflict duration, increase other enabling factors like corruption, and make it more likely that third-party states will intervene in the conflict ( Fearon, 2004 ; Findley & Marineau, 2015 ). While entering the market for these goods is “easy” for illicit actors because of the high level of demand and unevenly regulated international marketplaces, it still requires criminal knowledge and capability, making lootable resources a major intersection point for transnational crime and terrorism.

Responding to Terrorism and Transnational Organized Crime

Responses to transnational crime and terrorism have historically been uneven, both geographically and politically. Most interventions have focused on the developing world and been executed through state and military actors. This pattern occurs because Global North countries generally prefer to disrupt illicit networks “over there,” without applying equivalent effort to their own role as facilitators, perpetrators, and markets. By externalizing the threat, and by consistently framing themselves as “markets” where problematic products and political activity are sent, they reduce the need to examine domestic policies and dynamics. However, demand is key, and responses must account for underlying and enabling conditions that allow crime-terror relationships to emerge and evolve.

There are some actionable steps both domestic governments and international institutions can pursue that would make the escalation of the relationship less successful. Any efforts to respond to terrorist-crime linkages must be a “whole government” approach that includes actors and departments that are not traditionally understood to have a counterterrorism mission because they have unique strengths and leverage over a multifaceted problem. Further, states can treat large terrorist groups with major financial assets like states by sanctioning linked businesses and pushing them out of the international monetary system. Terrorist groups are less successful at illicit activity than professional criminals, which provides an opportunity for interdiction and disruption ( Irwin et al., 2012 ). Continued cooperation and government oversight of anti–money laundering efforts increases the likelihood that illicit financial activity would be detected. Effective, high-profile prosecution of corruption would also pay significant dividends by making the operational environment less hospitable to illicit actors.

Part of the policy challenge is that international law enforcement does not functionally exist. While there are many cooperative agreements between individual states, and WEIRD countries can pursue unilateral intervention in developing countries, sovereignty dictates there is no independent global police force. Investigation, prosecution, and disruption efforts are centered on the tails of the criminal-terrorist bell curve: high profile leaders like Pablo Escobar or Osama Bin Ladin, or on rank-and-file members who may have sought to traffic illicit arms across the Sahel or travel to join al-Nusra in Syria. The heart of the relationship, however, is the middle management of both group types. Challenging some of the precepts of Westphalian sovereignty by developing a more robust structure for international investigation and prosecution may be an effective response to disincentivizing crime-terror relationships. This would also help to mitigate the “safe haven” challenge of uneven state capabilities.

Disrupting trafficking routes serves to inhibit both operational and logistical aims of violent nonstate actors. States, professional bodies, and international organizations have the power to require consistent documentation requirements for goods, or at least the most abused commodities like precious minerals, oil, or timber. Another avenue of disruption is in the increased scrutiny of nonintuitive shipments, specifically a closer examination of goods being shipped by companies with no history or logical need to trade in such goods or using inappropriate methods of transport ( Delston & Walls, 2009 ).

Looking Ahead

Both transnational criminals and terrorist networks are innovative, adaptive types of organizations, and it makes intuitive sense that they would pioneer new ways of circumventing obstacles. However, while the intersection may be inevitable, integration is not. Not all terrorist groups will have the opportunity or inclination to diversify or ally with transnational criminal networks. As proto-state actors seeking to demonstrate their “qualifications” as governance actors, some groups will eschew or even attack criminal groups. Others lack a criminal infrastructure in their area of operation to link up with; this is particularly true for areas characterized by illicit activities with low labor requirements. Finally, still others will determine that such associations would bring unnecessary scrutiny by domestic and international law enforcement. From the criminal side, many of the same logics apply: some transnational criminal groups avoid significant or lasting relationships with terrorist groups because of concerns regarding official scrutiny. Others may be engaged in breaking domestic and international laws but have strong political preferences or affiliations and do not want the existing government overthrown ( Hutchinson & O’Malley, 2007 ). A desire for governmental stability may also be a function of logistical concerns—if you have already bought the judge (or customs officials, border guards, prison staff, etc.), shooting them is counterproductive and bad business.

To effectively develop workable solutions, policymakers, academics, and law enforcement must confront the reality that globalization is not an unmitigated good. Greater international integration, increased technology, and the dramatically increased flows of goods and people makes everything move more easily, which includes criminality and political violence. WEIRD countries must acknowledge their role as demand markets and financial havens that “pull” illicit flows of criminal funds and goods out of the developing world, creating an unintentional revenue stream for violent nonstate actors.

As avenues for terrorism financing continue to constrict and state governments in the developing world gain capacity, intersections between transnational criminal groups and terrorist organizations will persist. Those interested in disruption need to think long and hard about how to address the challenges of sovereignty in a world that currently (and necessarily) extends the protections of borders to actors who circumvent them with ease.

Further Reading

• Ahmad, A. (2017). Jihad & Co.: Black markets and Islamist power . Oxford University Press.
• Dishman, C. (2005). The leaderless nexus: When crime and terror converge . Studies in Conflict and Terrorism , 28 (3), 237–252.
• Felbab-Brown, V. (2019). The crime–terror nexus and its fallacies . In E. Chenoweth , R. English , A. Gofas , & S. Kalyvas (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of terrorism (pp. 365–382). Oxford University Press.
• Lessing, B. (2018). Making peace in drug wars: Crackdowns and cartels in Latin America . Cambridge University Press.
• Petrich, K. (2019). Cows, charcoal, and cocaine: Al-Shabaab’s criminal activities in the Horn of Africa . Studies in Conflict & Terrorism , 45 (5–6), 479–500.
• Sanderson, T. (2004). Transnational terror and organized crime: Blurring the lines . SAIS Review of International Affairs , 24 (1), 49–61.
• Traughber, C. (2007). Terror-crime nexus? Terrorism and arms, drug, and human trafficking in Georgia . Connections , 6 (1), 47–64.
• Wang, P. (2010). The crime-terror nexus: Transformation, alliance, convergence . Asian Social Science , 6 (6), 11–20.
• Albanese, J. (2011). Organized crime in our times . Elsevier.
• Aliu, M. , Bektashi, M. , Sahiti, A. , & Sahiti, A. (2017). A review of sources on terrorist financing. Juridica , 13 (1), 97–108.
• Allum, F. , & S. Gilmour , (Eds.). (2022). The Routledge handbook of transnational organized crime . Routledge.
• Andreas, P. , & Greenhill, K. (2010). Sex, drugs, and body counts: The politics of numbers in global crime and conflict . Cornell University Press.
• Asal, A. , Rethemeyer, R. , & Schoon, E. (2019). Crime, conflict and the legitimacy trade-off: Explaining variation in insurgents’ Participation in Crime . Journal of Politics , 81 (2), 399–410.
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1. WEIRD stands for Western, Educated, Industrial, Rich, and Democratic states and has been suggested as an alternative to problematic terms like “First World” or “developed,” which suggest some countries are more evolved or have reached a completed stage, rather than remaining dynamic entities.

2. It is important to note that illicit flows are distinct from informal flows, which include legitimate international monetary transfers (usually remittances from workers abroad to families at home) which may not transit through a formal bank ( Reed & Fontana, 2011 ). Informal flows can be made illicit, however, by the involvement of terrorist or criminal actors. For example, one of the ways ISIS both makes and integrates money is by transforming informal flows into illicit flows. The group reportedly manages millions of dollars in hawala transactions every week ( Kenner, 2019 ). In the case of ISIS, participation in hawala allows it to circumvent international sanctions, Syria’s collapsed formal banking industry, and external scrutiny, in addition to serving as a revenue stream.

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Policing Across Borders

Law Enforcement Networks and the Challenges of Crime Control

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• George Andreopoulos 0

John Jay College of Criminal Justice, City University of New York, New York, USA

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• Examines international security issues at a global and local level
• Combines law enforcement research with practitioner experience
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Transnational Organized Crime

Criminology and Transnational Crime

Governing the underworld: how organized crime governs other criminals in Colombian cities

• Globalization
• Law Enforcement
• National Security
• Trafficking

Table of contents (9 chapters)

Front matter, policing across borders: transnational threats and law enforcement responses.

George Andreopoulos

Democratic Policing and State Capacity in an Integrated World

• Aaron Fichtelberg

Legal Reform and Institution Building (in the Context of National and International Security)

• Zoran Pajic

The Role of International Assistance for Building the Capacity of National Law Enforcement Institutions: Lessons Learned from the Bulgarian Experience

• Dimitar Markov

European Supranational Monitoring of Intelligence Agency Collaboration in Counterterrorism in the Balkans and Eastern Europe

• Henry F. Carey

Combating Human Trafficking Through Transnational Law Enforcement Cooperation: The Case of South Eastern Europe

Defining and combating terrorism: international and european legislative efforts.

• Nikolaos Petropoulos

International Legislative Initiatives to Combat Human Trafficking

• Vassilios Grizis

Aspects of Accountability in Law Enforcement: A Case Study of Bosnia and Herzegovina

• Selma Zekovic

Back Matter

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Book Title : Policing Across Borders

Book Subtitle : Law Enforcement Networks and the Challenges of Crime Control

Editors : George Andreopoulos

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-9545-2

Publisher : Springer New York, NY

eBook Packages : Humanities, Social Sciences and Law , Social Sciences (R0)

Copyright Information : Springer Science+Business Media New York 2013

Hardcover ISBN : 978-1-4419-9544-5 Published: 07 December 2012

Softcover ISBN : 978-1-4899-8889-8 Published: 28 January 2015

eBook ISBN : 978-1-4419-9545-2 Published: 09 December 2012

Edition Number : 1

Number of Pages : X, 186

Topics : Criminology and Criminal Justice, general , Private International Law, International & Foreign Law, Comparative Law

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Transnational organized crime: A threat to global public goods

In September 2021 United Nations Secretary-General Ant ó nio Guterres warned that the world stands at an ‘inflection point’, facing a stark choice between ‘breakdown’ and ‘breakthrough’. Societies and the planet are at risk from the compounding effects of climate change, increasing armed conflict, pandemics, and rising hunger, poverty, injustice and exclusion.  

Our Common Agenda is the secretary-general’s response—a major initiative to reinvigorate multilateralism to benefit all people by advancing the global public goods of peace, a healthy environment, healthy populations and economic stability.

Guterres appointed a High-Level Advisory Board on Effective Multilateralism , co-chaired by former Swedish prime minister and new SIPRI Governing Board Chair Stefan Löfven and former Liberian president Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, to develop an independent report on how to strengthen governance arrangements that can deliver on the core global public goods.

While Our Common Agenda is focused on positive principles and norms, we must also seek to mitigate the risks that could undermine progress. One of the most significant and neglected of these risks is transnational organized crime.

Transnational organized crime

Organized crime has been defined as ‘illegal activities, conducted by groups or networks acting in concert, by engaging in violence, corruption or related activities in order to obtain, directly or indirectly, a financial or material benefit’. Transnational organized crime occurs when these activities, or these groups or networks, operate in two or more countries.

Transnational organized crime can take many forms and is constantly evolving. The groups and networks involved are fluid, and channels for trafficking one commodity are often used for others. Some of the typical activities carried out by transnational criminal organizations are trafficking in humans, arms, drugs, minerals and wildlife; production and trade of counterfeit goods; fraud and extortion; money laundering and cybercrime.

Globalization, digitization and other advances in technology are further changing the nature of illicit markets and the modi operandi of transnational organized crime, recently including the emerging use of cryptocurrencies that make illicit financial flows harder to trace .  

Transnational organized crime and global public goods

Global public goods benefit all countries and all citizens of the world; no one can be excluded from enjoying them, and they cannot be adequately provided by any one state acting alone. Clean air, biodiversity and healthy oceans are prime examples of global public goods. Recent years have demonstrated all too clearly how seemingly local environmental issues such as deforestation and plastic pollution can have cross-border or global ramifications, and the same is true across other domains as well.

The transnational dimension of much organized crime helps it to evade law enforcement, which is primarily set up to operate within national borders. Transnational crime actors systematically exploit jurisdictional gaps and differences in the law enforcement approaches and capacities of different countries. Combating transnational organized crime successfully therefore demands international cooperation.

Transnational organized crime is a significant barrier to progress on at least four global public goods identified in Our Common Agenda , as explored below.

Global public health

Transnational organized crime can negatively impact global public health through the widespread and increasing production and trafficking of counterfeit medicines. The problem especially afflicts low- and middle-income countries, where according to the World Health Organization an estimated one in ten medical products is either substandard or falsified. In 2015 the prevalence was estimated to be as high as 70 per cent in some parts of Africa and Asia . The trade in counterfeit medicines often has a transnational element, as the drugs are manufactured in one country (China, India and Singapore being major source countries ) and then distributed to many others, and inserted into legitimate global medicine supply chains .

Counterfeit medicines may be ineffective at treating the targeted disease, and at worst may seriously harm or kill those who take them. The WHO estimates that over 1 million deaths per year worldwide result from substandard or falsified medicines, the largest number of cases (200 000) occurring in Africa.

Counterfeit antibiotics are the leading type of counterfeit medicine, and have been directly linked to the rise in acquired bacterial resistance to antibiotics, including the global rise in drug-resistant tuberculosis .  

A resilient and inclusive global economy

Another global public good identified in Our Common Agenda is a ‘more sustainable, inclusive and resilient global economy’. Financial integrity and combating tax evasion are key here. Transnational organized crime directly affects the public financing capacities of states and can obstruct economic development through tax evasion and illicit financial flows . This is especially corrosive for developing countries, depriving state treasuries of finances badly needed for investment in public goods like health, education and infrastructure. Transnational organized crime can also undermine the economic stability of a country by draining foreign exchange reserves and affecting asset prices.

Money laundering involves a diverse range of financial, legal and commercial actors deliberately helping criminals to convert the proceeds of criminal income into assets that cannot be traced back to the underlying crime, and channeling illicit funds into the legitimate economy.

Illicit financial flows involve the movement of money across borders that is illegal in its source, transfer or use, according to the International Monetary Fund. These flows can have consequences for local markets and societies. For example, several advanced economies have seen illicit financial flows distorting their property markets, as in Germany and the United Kingdom , exacerbating housing problems for local residents. As the Panama Papers and subsequent Pandora Papers document leaks showed , a vast global offshore economy operates alongside the legitimate international economy, with an estimated 10 per cent of the world’s wealth concealed in offshore financial assets by many of the world’s richest and most powerful individuals and entities, including former heads of state, heads of government and public officials, and members of the business elite.

A healthy planet

Transnational organized crime has also undermined conservation of the environment and sustainable management of natural resources. Organized environmental crime is a broad field stretching from illegal logging, illegal natural resource extraction, and trade in protected species to the dumping of banned chemicals and waste. While the immediate impacts are often localized, with devastating effects on communities and ecosystems, the consequences can also be global. For example, organized environmental crime is reportedly a primary driver of deforestation in Central and South America, harming biodiversity and releasing vast amounts of carbon that contributes to global climate change.

Another example is the illicit production and smuggling of synthetic refrigerants, hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), which is undermining the achievements of the Montreal Protocol in reducing the production and use of ozone-depleting substances. HFCs are considered ‘ super pollutants ’ because they can be hundreds to thousands of times more potent than carbon dioxide in contributing to climate change, per unit of mass. Europe has seen significant smuggling of HFC refrigerants, an unintended consequence of the agreed 2016 phase-down in their production, skyrocketing prices and the low risk of serious penalties for smuggling.

Organized environmental crime has grown rapidly as a result of being highly lucrative yet coming with low risk. For example, one study of a small sample of 27 cases of illicit dumping of waste and toxic materials found them to have generated proceeds ranging from US$175 000 to $58 million. The lack of consensus on what constitutes organized environmental crimes; countries’ differing approaches to criminalization and enforcement; and ‘ forum shopping ’ by criminals have enabled many of them to evade enforcement efforts.

International peace and security

Organized crime undermines international peace and security by sustaining violence and armed conflict . The illicit arms trade is ranked as the third most pervasive illicit market globally. The illicit flow of arms escalates conflict and heightens conflict risk, and facilitates violent crime and other organized criminal activities. In conflict zones, non-state armed groups engage in illicit markets as a means of support, including illicit extraction and trade in natural resources and various forms of smuggling. Nevertheless, the involvement of non-state armed groups in transnational criminal markets is often eclipsed by the role of state actors , underscoring the close links between transnational organized crime, political power and public institutions, and corruption in many parts of the world.

Annual casualty rates from organized crime often far exceed those from armed conflicts. Organized crime-related violence particularly afflicts several countries in Central and South America. The corrosive transnational effects of organized crime-related violence are increasingly visible in Central and South America, as destabilization and violence are spreading into some of the region’s smaller, formerly peaceful countries.

The challenge now confronting the international community is how to address transnational organized crime as an obstacle to development, and at international level, how to stop it undermining global public goods.

The scale of transnational organized crime

Estimates of the scale of transnational organized crime are difficult to arrive at due to the secretive nature of the activities and under-reporting by victims, but also due to the different, overlapping definitions and indicators used. Nevertheless, the UN has found that an estimated $1.6 trillion, or 2.7 per cent of global GDP , is laundered annually. And according to the World Bank , $1 trillion per year is used to bribe public officials.

To put these figures in context, the total official development assistance going to developing countries in 2020 was only $194 billion . This demands a rethink of what today are the main threats to societal well-being and global public goods.

Multilateral responses to transnational organized crime

The 2000 UN Convention Against Transnational Organized Crime (UNTOC) is the main legal instrument to combat transnational organized crime and establishes legislative standards for states. UNTOC and its protocols are currently under review by states parties. The UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) is the secretariat for UNTOC and other major international legal instruments to address transnational organized crime, including the 2003 UN Convention Against Corruption . The UNODC’s two governing bodies are the UN Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice and the Commission on Narcotic Drugs . Both have mandates that include aspects of transnational organized crime.

The International Criminal Police Organization ( INTERPOL ), an intergovernmental organization , provides support to national law enforcement efforts against organized crime, including transnational organized crime. Within the European Union (EU), Europol , conducts analysis on crime and terrorism and supports the law enforcement efforts of member states, as well as cooperating with non-EU partner states and international organizations.

Unfortunately, multilateral efforts to develop collective responses to transnational organized crime have been weak and fragmented , and the current cooperation regime has been described by the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime as ineffective and antiquated. A 2019 report by the Global Initiative finds that 79 of the 102 UN entities, bodies and agencies have mandates that address some dimension of organized crime, and several other multilateral organizations are also engaged in efforts to combat the problem. Despite the UN’s broad coverage, the report says, it has no coherent strategy on tackling transnational organized crime and instead takes a piecemeal approach.

UNTOC has struggled to remain relevant in a context of rapid adaptation to change by criminal groups and states parties’ lack of enthusiasm for using the convention as a basis for cooperation. Certain powerful states prefer informal, unilateral solutions to dealing with transnational organized crime over using complex and slow formal international channels; however, these approaches often lack oversight and pose challenges to the rule of law and human rights.

Reinvigorating multilateralism

Responding to transnational organized crime and corruption should inform the process to reinvigorate multilateralism launched by Our Common Agenda , and which will culminate in the 2023 Summit of the Future . There are two key tasks for strengthening multilateral responses to transnational organized crime. First, efforts should be made to develop a more comprehensive understanding of how transnational organized crime and corruption undermine essential global public goods. Second, political will needs to be built to work through effective instruments for international cooperation.

In addition, a joined-up response and strategy to combat transnational organized crime in conflict prevention, peace operations and peacebuilding must be addressed in the New Agenda for Peace , a report that Guterres has promised will respond to the profound changes in the global environment, and will set out collective mechanisms and responses to traditional and emerging threats to peace and security. A more holistic vision and approach are needed that goes beyond purely criminal justice responses, and address the developmental, human rights and security implications of transnational organized crime and corruption for some of the world’s most vulnerable populations.

This commentary is the product of a research project on the role of peace operations in countering organized crime. SIPRI acknowledges the generous support of the Swedish Police Authority.

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