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Key research themes
1. How do organized criminal groups politically govern and negotiate power within states?
This theme investigates the political nature of organized crime, challenging the traditional separation of criminal violence from political violence. It examines how criminal organizations engage with state actors, oversee other criminal and non-criminal actors, and exercise authority and governance in urban and rural contexts. Understanding these dynamics is crucial because criminal groups not only accumulate resources but also shape political authority, order, and violence in many regions worldwide.
Key finding: The paper argues that organized criminal violence should be incorporated into the political violence literature, proposing a typology of crime-state relationships from confrontation to integration. It shows, with examples... Read more
Key finding: Through an original database, press reports, and interviews, the study reveals that organized criminal organizations in Barranquilla, Colombia, govern other criminals using lethal violence, reputation-building via public... Read more
Key finding: This article challenges the strict sociological distinctions between criminal and political violence, highlighting that the classification of violence often depends on power dynamics and legitimacy. Using cases from Colombia,... Read more
Key finding: This critical examination deconstructs the concept of organized crime, emphasizing its diverse forms and the challenges in defining and addressing it. The paper highlights that harms from organized crime can range from local... Read more
2. How does violent crime influence the expansion of executive and state power, particularly in Latin America?
This theme explores the interrelation between violent crime crises and the centralization and expansion of executive power, especially addressing states' use of exceptional legal measures and militarization of public security as justifications for power consolidation. It emphasizes the impact of violent crime beyond criminal justice, including democratic governance and civil liberties, highlighting how crime-related emergencies shape political authority and institutional relations.
Key finding: The article provides longitudinal evidence from Mexico showing that crises of violent crime have been instrumentalized by presidents to expand executive authority via states of exception, suspension of civil liberties, and... Read more
3. How do power, inequality, and social structures shape the conceptualization and differential treatment of crimes committed by the powerful versus ordinary crimes?
This theme addresses theoretical and empirical debates on how societal power relations influence the definitions, perceptions, and regulatory responses to different types of crime, specifically contrasting 'crimes of the powerful' (e.g., white-collar and corporate crime) with common street crimes. It explores sociological and normative frameworks that explain how power shapes what is criminalized, why crimes by elites are often less sanctioned, and the broader social harms arising from inequality and humiliation in both domains.
Key finding: The paper theorizes inequality as a central explanatory variable affecting both poverty-driven crime and greed-driven crimes by the powerful. It proposes moving beyond positivist needs to socially constructed wants,... Read more
Key finding: This study critically contrasts how legislatures and society differentially define and sanction crimes committed by the powerful (corporate and white-collar crimes) versus ordinary crimes like theft and violence. It argues... Read more
Key finding: The article develops a sociological theory of power and crime, contending that crime is a social construct varying according to legitimacy and forms of power (coercive vs. authority-based). It distinguishes normative and... Read more
Key finding: This comprehensive introduction outlines the conceptual and methodological challenges in studying crimes of the powerful. It emphasizes symbiotic relationships among corporations, states, and other elite actors and discusses... Read more
4. What role do regulatory approaches and legal classifications play in addressing or enabling crimes of the powerful, including corporate and white-collar crime?
This theme examines the effectiveness and limitations of legal and regulatory tools in controlling crimes committed by powerful actors, discussing how criminalization, civil penalties, negotiated justice, and regulatory enforcement interact. It also analyzes symbolic functions of criminal law, the challenges posed by corporate power in prosecution, and the use of mixed regulatory strategies to empower reform and prevent corporate harm.
Key finding: The article argues that neither abolitionism nor excessive criminalization alone effectively prevents corporate crime. Instead, combining criminal law with diverse regulatory tools creates environments supporting reform... Read more
Key finding: Through analysis of civil recovery orders and deferred prosecution agreements in the UK, this work finds that negotiated justice often allows corporations to avoid full criminal prosecution, with self-reporting enabling firms... Read more
Key finding: This paper outlines the substantive and procedural components of criminal law, highlighting how legal frameworks define crime, procedural protections, and punishments. Using Zambia as a case study, it underscores how criminal... Read more
5. How do structural economic and social inequalities manifest as forms of crime and social harm through deregulation, corruption, and financial practices?
This theme investigates the impact of economic deregulation, corruption, and financial mechanisms, such as predatory lending and tax exploitation, on social inequality and harm, especially in marginalized regions like the Global South. It explores how structural violence, maldevelopment, and institutional corruption facilitate systemic exclusion, economic stagnation, and the normalization of harmful practices producing widespread social damage and crime.
Key finding: The book introduces 'crimes of maldevelopment' as a conceptual criminological category to capture structural and invisible violences linked to economic deregulation and neoliberal policies in Latin America, demonstrating... Read more
Key finding: This paper reviews complex and mixed empirical evidence on how corruption and crime impact economic growth, arguing that corruption can both hinder and spur growth by circumventing inefficient bureaucracy. It highlights the... Read more
Key finding: The paper discusses how housing finance, particularly mortgage redlining and predatory lending, acts as a mechanism of social exclusion and harm. It documents how discriminatory lending practices exclude vulnerable social... Read more
6. What are the lived experiences of insecurity and harm among marginalized populations facing state power and border securitization?
This theme focuses on the structural and direct harms experienced by marginalized groups, especially refugee and asylum-seeking mothers, in the context of border securitization, state practices, and social inequalities. It emphasizes everyday (rather than crisis) insecurities, the impact of gendered and racialized power relations, and the ways in which carework and agency negotiate these precarities, challenging traditional security frameworks that overlook gendered and quotidian dimensions of harm.
Key finding: Using qualitative feminist research with refugee and asylum-seeking mothers in Melbourne, the study finds that border securitization creates direct and structural harms that exacerbate gendered precarity. It argues for... Read more