VIOLENT WHITE-COLLAR CRIME: AN EXTENDED ACCOUNT

VIOLENT W HITE-COLLAR CRIME
Andrew Verstein
I n t r o d u c t io n
It is orthodox to divide the universe of crimes according to their
violence. There are violent crimes, prototypically street crimes.
And there are nonviolent crimes of fraud, prototypically white-
collar
crimes. Although the implications of this distinction are
controversial, the distinction itself is not controversial. * 1 This
Essay
challenges this universal dichotomy by offering an account of
violence th a t adm its m any crimes of deception.
This Essay proceeds in four parts. In P a rt I, it m akes a catalog
of th e factors th a t assure th e violence of a given violent
crime. P a rt
II th en shows how those factors can apply to a great degree in
the
white-collar context. T hat is, properly understood, violence can
be
found in the fraudulent foreclosure, the embezzlement, and the
forged check.
It should be no surprise th a t in order to find an analogy
between street crime and white-collar crime, my account of
violence
is an extended one, which takes into account factors th a t are
not
always associated w ith violence. This approach may cause

some
critics to worry th a t I have smuggled fraud into violence only
semantically—th a t my account of violence does violence to the
word
“violence.” Alternatively, some may worry th a t my account—
if it
proves anything—proves too much. If fraud is violent, is not
everything violent? 2
P a rts III and IV seek to address those objections in a way th a
t
both mollifies and edifies. These objections are legitim ate, and
so
* Assistant Professor of Law, Wake Forest University School of
Law.
1. See Tony G. Poveda, White Collar Crime and the Justice
Department:
The Institutionalization of a Concept, 17 Crime L. & Soc.
Change 235, 241
(1992) (quoting U.S. Dep’t of J ustice, National P riorities for
White Collar
Crime 5 (1977)).
2. Part of the inspiration for this Essay comes from the distant
recollection that some scholars have argued that seemingly
benign acts can do
violence. See generally Serene J ones, F em inist Theory and
Christian
Theology: Cartographies of Grace 31-33 (2000) (describing a
feminist
constructivist approach). Some have even argued that reading to
one’s child can
be an act of violence. Cf. Bronwyn T. Williams, Boys May Be
Boys, but Do They

Have to Read and Write That Way?, 47 J. ADOLESCENT
ADULT LITERATURE 510,
512 (2004) (articulating the concern with potential
consequences of violent
readings).
873
874 WAKE F O R E S T LA W R E V IE W [Vol. 49
the process of accommodating them gives the theory of white-
collar
violent crime its best prospect for making a sustained
contribution.
P a rt III proposes a lim iting principal to the theory of extended
violence, which in tu rn m akes plausible the insight th a t
violence is a
norm ative and not merely descriptive property. P a rt IV shows
th a t
the implications of this account are neither trivial nor
cataclysmic
for theories of appropriate punishm ent.
I. Extending Violence
Consider the prototypical violent crime of robbery. Robbery is
the taking of property by force. In w hat ways and for w hat
reasons
is robbery violent? There are, perhaps, seven distinct ways,
though
they fit vaguely into three broad categories. Those categories
are as
follows: (A) the violence im m ediate to the bad act itself; (B)
the

reciprocal and re su ltan t violence invited of the victim and the
community; and (C) the S tate’s role in violently controlling the
foregoing.
A. Im m ediate Violence
Most obviously, robbery involves a violent process. Robbery is
the taking of property by force. The perpetrator stands in the
victim’s path. The perpetrator grasps the victim’s bag. The
p erp etrato r disables the victim’s defenses. Force, physicality,
and
contact are violent processes. Not every step need be violent.
Consider the mob boss who orders the m urder of a snitch.
Nothing
could be less violent th a n the order, but the la te r steps are
m anifestly violent.
The mobster’s orders also result in a person losing her life. An
act can be violent because of its causal relationship to
deprivation
and injury. For the mob boss, the chain is attenuated. For the
robber, the chain is immediate. Sometimes there is no
manifestly
violent step in the process, though the result is clearly a violent
one.
A pharm acist who lies about the contents of a ja r may m urder
but
w ithout any force or th re a t of force. The violent result for the
victim
is a second way in which an act may be violent, a p a rt from
the
relative violence of the process.
B. Reciprocal and Resultant Violence
A second category of violence a tte n d an t to an act results
from

the wrongdoer’s forceful taking: an act may be violent because
of its
tendency to cause and perhaps justify reciprocal violence. “It
will
have blood. They say, blood will have blood.”3
3. William Shakespeare, Macbeth act 3, sc. 4, 1. 125 (Yale
Univ. Press
2005).
2014] VIOLENT WHITE-COLLAR CRIME 875
The typical robbery victim is probably not ex ante disposed to
violence. Few people are very violent, and robbers likely try to
avoid
those individuals. And yet, it is probable that the robbed are ex
post
more likely to become violent. When people are the victims of
violence, they are invited to violence themselves.
First, the victim will be tempted to engage in self-defense in the
moment of violence. The victim may attempt to injure the
attacker
in order to protect herself or her property. The violence of the
mugging would be lessened if we knew that victims always do
as the
robber wishes. But we know they do not always capitulate, and
that
a robbery may result in a street brawl in which ordinary citizens
take, and perhaps are justified in taking, far more violent
measures
than they ever imagined.4 Perhaps we need to code our concern
for

this spillover result in terms of spillover—we worry that the
brawl
may injure a bystander—but we are nevertheless worried that
the
robber both enacts an immediate violence and then dares
another to
enact her own.5
Second, after the incident, the victim may engage in self-help to
recover her stolen chattels.6 She may seek out the wrongdoer
and
attempt to recover the goods. This self-help, too, puts the
normally
peaceful citizen in the role of robber herself.
Third, the victim may also pursue retribution, hoping to restore
her self-esteem, social standing, or the universe of justices. She
may
be violent to the wrongdoer in a way that is non-zero-sum and
morally charged. She, or perhaps, her friends and family, may
pursue extra compensatory punition. We may fear this for its
own
sake—the violence of robbery is that it makes vigilantes of
others7
—or because it tends to get out of control. The Hatfields killed
the
McCoy’s for their violence, and they were again killed by them.
The victim’s reciprocal violence may be proportional,
appropriate, and justified. In that case, it still will be violent.
Surely one part of the violence of the mugging is that it turns
regular people into violent people. Worse yet, the reciprocal
violence
may be excessive and unjustified. The desire for revenge can be
strong. Once the victim’s ordinary barriers to action are
overcome,

4. See, e.g., Tables Turn on Fontaine Avenue Robbery Suspects,
NBC29
(Sept. 12, 2013, 6:21 PM),
http://www.nbc29.com/story/23292478/tables-turn-on-
fontaine-avenue-robbery-suspects.
5. Where the violence creates substantial third-party effects, it
is clearly
an externality. But it is not ju st an externality, since the
victims may
themselves become authors of violence.
6. E.g., Justin Fenton, Man Shot by Police Friday Was Chasing
Robber,
Balt. Sun (June 9, 2014, 10:25 PM),
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news
/maryland/crime/blog/bs-md-ci-fremont-police-involved-
shooting-
20140609,0,7171685.story.
7. See id.; see also Bruce A. Jacobs & Richard Wright,
Moralistic Street
Robbery, 5 4 CRIME & DELINQ. 5 1 1 , 5 1 2 (2 0 0 8 )
(explaining how retaliation from
robberies is both expected and self-perpetuating).
WAKE F O R E S T LA W R E V IE W876 [Vol. 49
it is predictable th a t some portion of the victims will become
wrongdoers them selves.8
Indeed, th e robbery may unleash violence beyond the mere
dyad

of th e p erp etrato r and h er victim. The victim may lash out in
fru stratio n against others, or she may find th a t it is easier to
restore
her lost w ealth through violence against th ird parties th a n
against
the robber.9 Or someone, the victim, an onlooker, or a th ird
party,
may be more likely to resort to violence merely because the
robbery
normalizes violence in the community. Every tim e you h ear
about a
robbery in your neighborhood, you might be more likely to be
rough
w ith your neighbors. “T hat is w hat we do here.” And maybe it
is a
landlord speeding up eviction by physically removing a
scofflaw
ten an t. Or maybe it is a youth who finds less isolation and
opprobrium in a violent b u t profitable crim inal enterprise. In
any
case, th ere is a sense in which violence begets a culture of
violence,
which begets more violence.
This tendency can be viewed through m any windows, b u t one
is
the logic of collective action. A law-abiding and nonviolent
community is a good th a t all can share. Where people share in
a
collective good and believe th a t others are abiding by its rules,
they
tend to do so as well.10 B ut when others appear to defect,
defection
ra te begins to rise .* 11 Even misperceptions from highly
vocal
defections can have a significant effect and lead to a downward

sp iral.12 The injury to public norms is central to our
understanding
of why violent crime is a crime and not ju st a tort.
C. State Violence
There is another sense in which robbery is violent, and it is one
Robert Cover would have known well.13 The violent act
compels the
S tate to respond w ith violence. When a robber robs, she
invites and
dem ands the S tate to punitively suppress her violence. There
will
often be a prison sentence. In America this will involve
intended,
and unintended b u t tolerated, abuses of her safety and
wellbeing.
Prior to th a t, there will be a trial, in which the robber is
compelled
8. Lee Ellis et al. , Handbook of Crime Correlates (2009)
(finding th a t
crim inals are more likely to have been victims of crime).
9. Jacobs & Wright, supra note 7, at 517.
10. Dan M. Kahan, The Logic of Reciprocity: Trust, Collective
Action, and
Law, in Moral Sentiments and Material Interests: The F
oundations of
Cooperation in Economic Life 339, 357 (Herbert Gintis et al.
eds., 2006).
11. Cf. George L. Kelling & James Q. Wilson, Broken
Windows: The Police
and Neighborhood Safety, ATLANTIC (Mar. 1 1982, 12:00

PM),
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1982/03/broken-
windows
/304465/5/ (developing the theory of “broken windows” and
their contagious
effect on a community).
12. Kahan, supra note 10.
13. See generally Robert Cover, Violence and the Word, 95
Yale L.J. 1601
(1986) (explaining the violent implications of legal
interpretation).
to obediently enact h er defendant role, aw are th a t th e kabuki
play is
enforced by handcuffs and billy clubs.
In th is process, a panoply of state actors m ust live lives of
procedural and substantive violence. The prison guard. The
bailiff.
The judge. Each m ust become inured to her role in a violent
machinery.
Not only might th e S tate have to violently respond to the
robber, it may be compelled to violently m itigate the web of
violence—the reciprocal violence and the culture of violence. It
may
have to stop the private vengeance, self-help, self-defense, and
copycat crimes th a t the robber inspires. When private citizens
respond w ith unjustified b u t invited violence, the S tate m ust
suppress them —and th a t is a shame. The S tate could be a

justice-
bound entity. It could ju st solve collective action problems and
equalize problems of moral luck. Its agents could be
philosopher
kings and public servants. Instead, they m ust be prison guards,
executioners, and grim judges.
To summarize, a robbery is violent in two proxim ate senses,
procedural and substantive: the violent acts and th e violent
results
to the victim. But it is violent in several other senses as well. It
invites and causes a web of reciprocal violence, through the
self-
defense, self-help, and retribution of victims, and it underm ines
our
collective expectations of peacefulness, which may multiply
violence
even further. Finally, law is steeped in violence, b u t most
im m ediately and justifiably because law reacts to a w ash of
violence.
II. W h it e -Co lla r V io l e n c e
In w hat sense can a white-collar crime be violent? The answer
depends not only on our account of violence, elaborated above,
but
also on an account of white-collar crime. Early accounts, such
as the
one offered by Edwin Sutherland, defined white-collar crime as,
essentially, any crime committed by a respectable person. 14
So,
perhaps, if an executive menaces and coerces her underlings,
the
fact th a t this happens a t an office makes it white-collar
violence.
B ut th a t is not very in terestin g . 15

14. Edwin H. Sutherland, White Collar Crime 9 (1949) (“White
collar
crime may be defined approximately as a crime committed by a
person of
respectability and high social status in the course of his
occupation.” (footnote
omitted)).
15. Nor does it capture the working-class character of many
white-collar
crimes. Gilbert Geis, Doing Justice, 73 JUDICATURE 344, 344
(1990) (reviewing
Stanton Wheeler et al., Sitting in J udgment: The Sentencing of
White-
Collar Criminals (1988)) (“[T]he term white-collar crime has
been used to
embrace a large number of trivial offenses sometimes
committed by marginal
persons. In their sample of white-collar offenders, for example,
30 to more than
40 per cent of the women and about one-fourth of the men
convicted of postal
fraud, credit fraud],] and false statements and claims were
unemployed when
they committed their crimes.”).
878 WAKE F O R E S T L A W R E V IE W [Vol. 49
More recent and widely accepted accounts focus on fraud.16 For
example, the D epartm ent of Justice defines white-collar crimes
as
“those classes of non-violent illegal activities which principally
involve traditional notions of deceit, deception, concealment,

m anipulation, breach of tru st, subterfuge or illegal
circumvention.”17
Can fraud, which is so frequently contrasted to force, be
violent?
Can a forgery, a ponzi scheme, or an embezzlement be violent?
This
P a rt examines white-collar crime under the extended notion of
violence discussed in the first P art. Though white-collar crime
is
only barely violent in the procedural sense, all the other senses
of
violence can be realized in white-collar crime. The resu lt is th
at,
unless we care only about the procedural sense of violence as
involving force in its im m ediate perpetration, we should reject
as
false the dichotomy between white-collar crime and violent
crime.
Our principal case in th is P a rt will be one of a wrongful
mortgage foreclosure. The wrongdoer made a low
documentation
loan to the borrower. The wrongdoer unlawfully m isrepresented
its
term s as more favorable th a n they are, and th en la te r attem
pted to
foreclose on the document based on m isrepresentations to the
court
about the borrower’s paym ents and the wrongdoer’s own
efforts to
cure. The wrongdoer lies her way into the loan and lies h er way
out
through foreclosure.
A. Im m ediate Violence
Im m ediate violence, recall, concerns the violent process of the

wrongdoing and its unfortunate results for the victim. By
definition,
fraud involves no im m ediate force or th re a t of force,18
reducing the
prevalence of im m ediate violent processes. Yet th e mob
boss’s phone
call sets a h it m an in motion. We are comfortable finding
violent
processes where principals in stru ct violence in th e ir agents.
And
fraud can do th a t. O ur mortgage frau d ster forges the
borrower’s
nam e on documents or tricks her into signing things th a t she
should
not sign. And soon enough the sheriff or a private company will
arrive to foreclose upon th e house, lock the doors, remove the
property, and forcibly remove th e occupant.19
White-collar crime can easily lead to violent results. Wrongful
and fraudulent mortgage practices can leave people w ithout
shelter.
Any financial crime can leave its victims w ithout money they
need
to m aintain a reasonable quality of life. While fraud
contributed to
16. See Poveda, supra note 1.
17. See id.
18. See Ellen S. Podgor, Criminal Fraud, 48 Am. U. L. Rev.
729, 737-39
(1999) (discussing the concept of fraud with no indication
violence plays a role
in fraud).

19. See, e.g., Todd Ruger, Bank Changes Locks on Occupied,
Foreclosed
Homes, H erald-Trib. (Oct. 4, 2010, 1:00 AM),
http://www.heraldtribune.com
/article/20101004/ARTICLE/10041051?p=l&tc=pg.
2014] VIO LEN T WHITE-COLLAR CRIME 879
the glamour of Enron in its good days, the fruit of crime ruined
the
enterprise and its many constituents. More than 1400 employees
lost their retirement savings and 4000 lost their jobs, in addition
to
the nonemployee victims.20 This effect can propagate widely:
one
study found that a 1.4% increase in fraud “decreases
employment
growth by about 40 basis points, suggesting that local waves of
corruption can have a lasting material effect on the local
economy.”21
It is not just money and shelter that white-collar crime can
take. “[M]any white-collar offenses (environmental pollution,
Medicare fraud) result in much more extensive physical harm
than
street crimes.”22 To pollution-caused illness and deprivation of
medicine, we might add the injuries incurred by breach of safety
regulations, the sicknesses incurred by fraud as to product
safety.
These white-collar offenses may not involve force, but they
have a
result that is as physical and, well, as violent as any traditional
violent crime.

B. Reciprocal and Resultant Violence
Whatever advantage traditional street crime may have over
white-collar crime in immediate violence is likely altered once
we
widen our view to include reciprocal and resultant violence.
Although it is natural to think that violent crime tends to
multiply
violent crime, there are actually good reasons to suspect a
greater
relative impact resulting from white-collar crime.
First, victims of white-collar crime are, by definition, being
outfoxed or outmaneuvered in the nonphysical realm. Why
should it
not be rational, or at least tempting, for the victim to look
elsewhere
for an advantage in the realm of force?23 Stories of violent
home
defense, in the face of eviction, are legion.24 Efforts to defend
20. Kurt Eichenwald, Audacious Climb to Success Ended in a
Dizzying
Plunge, N.Y. T i m e s , Jan. 13, 2002, at A6. On the harms of
involuntary job loss,
see Mathis Schroder, Jobless Now, Sick Later? Investigating the
Long-Term
Consequences of Involuntary Job Loss on Health, 18
ADVANCES LIFE COURSE
RES. 5, 9 (2012); Christopher P. Yost, The Worker Adjustment
and Retraining
Notification Act of 1988: Advance Notice Required?, 38 Cath.
U. L. R e v . 675, 680
(1989) (discussing rationales for federal regulation of large
firings).

21. Christopher A. Parsons et al., Peer Effects and Corporate
Corruption 4
(Dec. 16, 2013) (unpublished manuscript), available at
http://sfs.org/wp-content
/uploads/2014/03/Peer-Effectsl.pdf.
22. Geis, supra note 15, at 350.
23. Indeed, as Professor Rebecca Morrow, Assistant Professor
of Law at
Wake Forest University School of Law, has suggested to me
about her family
law cases, it is often the putative victim who is the only one to
actually become
violent. Isolated and afraid, violence appears to be the victim’s
only remaining
tool.
24. One Modesto, California, man was evicted from his family’s
home for
generations because of a $15,000 home equity loan. He shot a
police officer and
a locksmith. Associated Press, Cops Find Charred Body in CA
Home After
Standoff, CBSNEWS (Apr. 13, 2012, 8:07 PM),
http://www.cbsnews.com/news
880 WAKE FOREST LA W REVIEW [Vol. 49
property may be deferred, precipitating violent recovery
efforts.25
Where recovery is impossible, the victim of foreclosure or
eviction
could undertake revenge.26 Victims of white-collar crime may

respond for reasons quite a p art from the m aterial deprivation
itself—the indignity of victimhood may lead to dangerous
instability.27
The societal effects of white-collar crime are surprisingly likely
to cause spillover. Continuing w ith wrongful or fraudulent
foreclosure processes, we know th a t foreclosures cause
widespread
social harm s. All foreclosures seem to have negative im pacts
on the
community too. Violent crimes go up by almost seven percent
for
every three foreclosures in an ordinary neighborhood.28
Perhaps
this is because these foreclosures motivate evictees to restore th
eir
security a t th eir neighbors’ expense, or perhaps because it
signals
th a t this is not a safe and cooperative place and th a t everyone
m ust
protect herself.29
One interesting fact is th a t th e spillover and societal effects
of
fraudulent behavior may be more likely to multiply widely th a
n are
the effects of violent crimes. First, we know some things about
how
stre et crime and ordinary violence propagate in communities.
Tracey M eares has shown th a t the channel by which crime
spreads
is social ra th e r th a n geographic.30 T hat is, if you know
someone who
is injured through physical violence, you are quite likely to
become a
victim yourself. B ut if you do not, th en you are not. T hat

holds true
/cops-find-charred-body-in-ca-home-after-standoff/; Matt
Stoller, Mark Ames:
Death by Foreclosure Killings and S taff Sgt. Roger Bales,
Naked CAPITALISM
(Apr. 17, 2012),
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2012/04/class-warfare-on-two-
fronts-from-afghanistan-to-middle-america-the-untold-story-of-
sgt-bales.html;
accord Titshaw v. State, 179 S.E. 641, 641 (Ga. Ct. App. 1935).
25. Occupy Homes M N to Rally Against Third Eviction
Attempt of Cruz
Home, OccupyOurHomes (May 27, 2012),
http://occupyourhomes.org/blog/2012
/may/27/mn-cruz-third- attempt/.
26. Evicted Tenant Kills for Revenge, Wilmington Morning
Star, Nov. 11,
1972, at 10, available at
http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1454&da
t=19721111&id=gLgsAAAAIBAJ&sjid=2wkEAAAAIBAJ&pg=
1276,2438281.
27. Richard McAdams describes how “Hobbes is keenly
interested in the
fact that [dishonoring someone] will predictably lead to the use
of force.”
Richard H. McAdams, Epstein on His Own Grounds, 31 San
Diego L. Rev 241
247 (1994).
28. Deborah Spence, Do Foreclosures Lead to Increased Violent
Crime? A
Look at the Research Behind the Headlines, Community

Oriented Policing
Services,
http://cops.usdoj.gov/html/dispatch/September_2008/violent
_crime.htm (last visited July 26, 2014).
29. We know that home foreclosures carried out under color of
law lead
occupants to violently resist eviction. And fraudulent
foreclosures may produce
even more resistance if homeowners are at all responsive to
claims of right.
30. Cf. Tracey L. Meares, Mass Incarceration: Who Pays the
Price for
Criminal Offending?, 3 CRIMINOLOGY & Pub. Pol’y 295, 296
(2004) (emphasizing
the impact of personal relationships and network connections
over the
geographical layout of a neighborhood).
even in “dangerous” communities. Though public housing
projects
are more dangerous than suburbs, and though black youths have
more dangerous lives than white adults, still, black youths in
housing projects who do not know someone who was killed are
likely
to live a relatively safe life. Indeed, Meares’s research shows
that in
one data set of killings in Chicago, every victim was socially
acquainted with one of a few dozen high-risk individuals.31
Avoid
the acquaintance of those individuals and you are unlikely to be

involved with violence. This is consistent with the propagation
of
violence from violence, but it suggests that killings are much
more
discretely channeled. Though it is certainly possible, there is no
research that indicates similar attributes of white-collar crime.
Indeed, we have some reason to expect that white-collar crime
propagates differently. There is some indication that those
white-
collar crimes committed in organizations—embezzlement, fraud,
ordinary hustling—are made more acceptable and common by
employees’ sense that everyone is up to the same thing.32 It is
intuitive that business crimes become more common once
people
assume that business is just a cutthroat game.33 This suggests a
broader path for the breakdown of the cooperative equilibrium.
Third, many white-collar crimes are partially composed of
behaviors that are otherwise lawful. It is only in light of some
other
normative context that they become wrongful. Where many acts
are
not malum in se (or are, but only subtly), community cues may
be
essential to demark the unacceptable from the competitive. So,
while there are no presumptively valid batteries, there are lots
of
presumptively valid sales of securities—it is only when
material,
nonpublic information is in the head of the seller that things
become
problematic.34 While there are no presumptively valid
robberies,
there are lots of presumptively valid foreclosures. It is only
through

the incorporation of additional unacceptable behaviors or facts
that
the latter becomes a crime, let alone a violent one. With
common
conscience less applicable and a contextual analysis more
important,
the culture of wrongdoing implicated in the white-collar context
is
perhaps more likely to take root.
31. Andrew V. Papachristos & Christopher Wildeman, Network
Exposure
and Homicide Victimization in an African American
Community, 104 Am. J.
Pub. Health 143, 147 (2014).
32. E.g., Stephen M. Cutler, Speech by SEC Staff: Second
Annual General
Counsel Roundtable: Tone at the Top: Getting It Right, SEC
(Dec. 3, 2004),
https://www.sec.gov/news/speech/spchl20304smc.htm
(discussing “tone at the
top”).
33. See id.
34. See Samuel W. Buell, Is the White Collar Offender
Privileged?, 63 DUKE
L.J. 823, 841 (2014).
882 WAKE F O R E S T LA W R E V IE W [Vol. 49
C. State Violence
Sometimes the bad guy wins, a t least for a while. When a

foreclosure is wrongful, it is still a foreclosure. And
foreclosures are
not often pretty. Where homeowners resist eviction, the State
may
be called upon to heap insult upon the now-violent victim’s
injury.
The news is replete w ith stories, b u t go to Westlaw for the
really sad
stuff.35 One crim inal trial in South D akota describes a m an
who
refused to leave his farm when the bank could not work out his
loan.36 After letting him m ake a series of th reats, the police
broke a
glass ketchup bottle across his face.37 Pictures of the injured
defendant are included in the tria l court opinion.
Of course, state violence will be called upon to suppress any
crim inal activity perp etrated by the victim or those who are
tem pted
to crime by observing its prevalence. In this respect, white-
collar
crime invokes state violence in th e same way, and to the same
degree, as traditional violent crime.
III. B o u n d in g V io l e n c e
The foregoing P a rt showed the ways in which white-collar
crime
can fit m any accounts of violence. This P a rt tre a ts an
objection th a t
m ight th re a ten this Essay’s exploration: while the wrongful
foreclosure multiplies violence, so too does the rightful
foreclosure.
If the forgery creates a risk th a t its victim will go w ithout
medicine

or housing, so too does ordinary and lawful debt collection.38 I
have
noticed th a t there is violence in everything we do, or a t least
in
much of w hat we do in a late-capitalist economy. For some,
this
macro thesis is attractive, and for them, this Essay’s flaw is th a
t it
fails to realize its fellow travelers.
B ut for most, the possibility th a t so much should be “violent”
would be a reductio ad absurdum. This Essay’s argum ent, if
true,
proves too much. If everything is violent, th en nothing is. This
objector will propose th a t we instead reserve the term
violence for
ju st procedural violence, or perhaps both sorts of im m ediate
violence. We can concede th a t m any acts tend to cause
violence
w ithout im puting to those acts the violence th a t follows. A
robbery
is bad in p a rt because it tends to multiply violence in the
world, but
th e m ultiplication does not thereby render it violent.
Although these are both powerful objections, they can be
plausibly rejected. And th e ir rejection points toward the first
insight gleaned from this Essay’s speculative account of
violence.
Kejection of these objections comes from recognizing the
absolving
35. See, e.g., State v. Dale, 379 N.W.2d 811 (S.D. 1985).
36. Id. at 812.
37. Id.
38. But see Tables Turn on Fontaine Avenue Robbery Suspects,

supra note
4 .
function of role-appropriate behavior within an ethically
justified
system. Put simply, the wrongfulness and violence of an act
normally are just the sum of their parts. We are normally
responsible for the evils we mete out upon the world. But the
calculus is different when we occupy an important role within
an
ethically justified system.
The most intuitive example of this, at least to many of us, is the
special moral stance of the attorney. While most of us are
morally
culpable for our silence if our silence leads to violent injustice,
the
lawyer need not be. If she knows her client A is guilty of X, and
so a
recently convicted third-party B cannot be guilty of X, our
attorney
cannot take the natural step of saving B. Her role as a lawyer
prevents her from divulging A’s secret. B’s blood is not on our
lawyer’s hands, though it would have been if our attorney were
just
a waiter that had overheard A’s confession. Likewise, the bailiff
or
prison guard may form the subjective belief that B is innocent,
but
she may not properly take steps to free B. Like the lawyer, she
occupies a role within a system and that role annuls the normal

implication that all are charged with the moral consequences of
their acts. The justice system would not work, or would not
work
well, or would not work as we have legitimately intended it,
without
widespread acceptance of otherwise immoral behaviors. The
morality of the system overrides the presumption that the
natural
and predicted consequences of a person’s actions are imputed to
her.
The same is often true in a business setting. 39 While it is
wrong
to assume that all is fair in capitalism, 40 an assumption that a
capitalist system like ours is broadly legitimate entails a role-
selective exemption from everyday moral inferences. Capitalism
licenses competitive behavior, regardless of whether it is unkind
or
leaves our competitors in terrifically bad shape, because it is
essential to a system that is generally justified.
Sporting exhibits a similar dynamic.41 Normally, if you take
actions that you hope will frustrate another person’s life-long
ambitions, we will say that you are a dream wrecker and that
your
actions were dream-wrecking actions. But we say no such things
of
an athlete who trains more rigorously, knowing and hoping that
it
will deprive some other competitor of her life’s dream. This is
because we know that sports are a social good, and they are
only
better if people train enough to beat one another. And so a
selective
exemption from the everyday moral implications of her actions
is

afforded to the athlete.
39. See generally Joseph Heath, An Adversarial Ethic for
Business, 72 J.
BUS. ETHICS 359 (2007), available at
http://homes.chass.utoronto.ca/~jheath
/Adversarial%20Ethic.pdf.
40. See generally David Gauthier, Morals By Agreem ent
(1986).
41. See generally James D. P h illip s & Linda DeLeon,
Adversarial Ethics:
Winning, Losing, and Playing the Game, 7 PUB. INTEGRITY
169, 170 (2005).
884 WAKE FOREST LA W REVIEW [Vol. 49
While business innovation and rigorous train in g may be
exempt
from ordinary m orality because they tend to support a socially
valuable activity, not all behaviors do. F rau d in business, like
cheating in sports, does not support the operation of a generally
legitim ate system. To the contrary, it underm ines it.42 While
there
may be only a small difference between m arketing and fraud,
one
who crosses th a t line leaves th e realm of role-related moral
license.
She is once again charged w ith th e n a tu ra l and expected
implications of h er choices.
This distinction is why it is appropriate to charge the fraudulent
foreclosure w ith the force used in eviction, th e deprivation of

the
victim, the reciprocal violence perp etrated by the victim, and
the
rise of violence in the community. The reason is th a t these
really
are the implications of the fraudulent foreclosure. The
nonfraudulent foreclosure may have the same actions, b u t its
consequences are not charged to the bank because lawful and
proper
foreclosures are an essential p a rt of a socially beneficial
enterprise
of residential lending.
An argum ent of th a t sort should be able to satisfy the concern
th a t everything becomes violent under th e lens of extended
violence
presented in this Essay. This analysis serves a purpose greater
th a n fencing off objections. It is the opportunity to notice
something
interesting about violence—it is a norm ative label, ra th e r th a
n a
descriptive one.
It is n a tu ra l to th in k th a t violence is a nonnorm ative fact
about
an act (“she gave him a black eye”), about which we th en
develop a
norm ative stance (“and, boy, did he have it coming!”). This
instinct
is seemingly incorporated into the extended notions of violence
discussed in this Essay—th e tendency to recrim ination and
state
violence is a b ru te fact or, anyway, a prediction of one. It is
not
obviously norm atively crafted. Yet to stop the slide down the
slippery slope, we have resorted to a norm ative evaluation.

W hether an act is violent depends on which consequences we
charge the act (and actor) with. If we approve of an act in the
context of a broader system, we may not charge the actor w ith
its
ordinary consequences; no such exemption is afforded bad
actors.
For example, I say “do it” and someone dies: were those words
violent? If I wrongfully sought to commission a m urder, th en
I am
charged w ith the violence. But if my instructions were to
authorize
a loan to a group of explorers—facilitating them th e ir dream
s, but
aw are th a t it is probable th a t the act of exploring will
probably
claim a t least one life th a t m ight instead be saved—th en my
act is a
morally n eu tral or laudable one. By conducing to a legitim ate
42. See Bahram Soltani, The Anatomy of Corporate Fraud: A
Comparative
Analysis of High Profile American and European Corporate
Scandals, 120 J.
Bus. Ethics 251, 251 (2014).
system of commerce and exploration, it absolves me of many of
its
consequences. We will call it neither a bad act nor a violent
one.
What began as an objection concludes with an insight: violence

is, at least outside of its immediate results and process, a
normative
opinion rather than an empirical observation.
IV. Sanctions and Considerations
We might reasonably ask what turns on this analysis. We
already know that white-collar crime is bad, so is its “badness”
magnified by the observation that it is violent?
There is a robust debate about whether white-collar criminals
should be punished more or less harshly than they now are, and
more or less harshly than are violent street criminals.43
Certainly,
white-collar criminals used to benefit from very light
sentences.44
Many suspected that street criminals are unfairly judged to be
more
blameworthy for their willingness to use force, while the truth
is
more that they simply lack access to the trust networks
necessary
for more civilized crimes.45 Those who would reduce the
disparities
between violent and nonviolent crime may find some attraction
in a
wide notion of violence.
Yet, white-collar sentences are stiffer now than they once
were46
and enjoy tougher pretrial procedures than street crime,47
leading a
growing voice in the academy to ask for lighter treatment for
white-
collar criminals than they currently get, drawing their points of
comparison from street crime. For example, Miriam Bair

expresses
exasperation that Bernie Madoff received, and that the public
43. See, e.g., J. Kelly Strader, White Collar Crime and
Punishment:
Reflections on Michael, Martha, and Milberg Weiss, 15 Geo.
Mason L. Rev. 45,
45-47 (2007) (presenting two sides of a contentious issue in
American society).
44. United States v. Davis, 458 F.3d 491, 492-93 (6th Cir.
2006), vacated,
552 U.S. 1088 (2008) (sentencing defendant to one day for each
conviction to be
served concurrently, after a two-count conviction of bank fraud
where the
recommended sentence was thirty-seven months); Buell, supra
note 34, at 833;
see also Matthew C. Ford, The Fourth Amendment Hearing:
Prompt Judicial
Review of All Fourth Amendment Conduct for an Imprisoned
Defendant, 55
Cath. U. L. Rev 473 (2006); Matthew A. Ford, White-Collar
Crime, Social Harm,
and Punishment: A Critique and Modification of the Sixth
Circuit’s Ruling in
United States v. Davis, 82 St. J ohn’s L. Rev. 383, 385 (2008).
45. Buell, supra note 34, at 831—32, 838, 840 (juxtaposing a
white-collar
criminal as a nonviolent, usually corporate offender who is
more invested in his
network with a violent, “street” criminal).
46. Guideline sentences for accounting fraud can, for a first-
time offender,

require a life sentence. Miriam H. Baer, Choosing Punishment,
92 B.U. L. Rev.
577, 626 (2012); cf. Christine Hurt, Of Breaches of the Peace,
Home Invasions,
and Securities Fraud, 44 Am. Crim. L. Rev. 1365, 1368 (2007)
(“These new
penalties reflect our society’s fears for our retirement castles
and peaceful
capital marketplaces.”).
47. Donna A. Balaguer, Venue, 30 Am. Crim. L. Rev. 1259,
1271 (1993).
WAKE FOREST LAW REVIEW886 [Vol. 49
accepted, a punishm ent for this con m an which was on the
order of
th a t imposed on “a violent gang leader.”48
An extended theory of violence probably cannot move th e
needle
on this debate by simply declaring th a t, because white-collar
crime
is violent, it is therefore w orthy of h arsh er penalties. Such a
conclusion would call for far more analysis th a n the semantic
footwork in th is Essay, particularly since white-collar crime
genuinely differs in its relationship to violent procedures, which
may be w hat m atters most to some observers anyway.
Still, an extended theory of violence, by noticing the violent
aspects of a crime other th a n its process, offers a new
perspective
from which to evaluate the wrongfulness of the act. It avoids
the

forced dichotomy between the victim’s perspective—in which
the
stre et crime involves a violent process and is presum ptively
more
blam eworthy—and the p erp etrato r’s perspective, in which
purported
revulsion a t “violent” crimes m asks intolerance for society’s
less
privileged.
Instead, we can take th e wider social point of view, noticing
the
web of interactions in the recrim ination and state-violence
branches
of an act’s violence. On these axes, some putatively nonviolent
acts
are actually ra th e r violent. These acts deserve opprobrium th a
t is
tinged by our sense of the violence th a t was enacted. For
example,
activities leading to wrongful foreclosure are not ju st sharp
business
practices—they are the lesser b u t parallel equivalents of the
m obster’s contract killing. The veneer of civility, because of
the
w eaker procedural sense of violence, conceals cascading waves
of
violence.
Conversely, some ra th e r n asty white-collar crimes are
relatively
nonviolent. For example, consider identity theft. A p erp etrato
r
im personates the victim in order to obtain credit. H er credit
record
is ruined, and after months of inconvenience, she is still never

made
financially or emotionally whole. This is an invasive and
damaging
act. But how violent is it? There is no use of force. The
deprivation
and alienation the victim suffers counts as some am ount of
im m ediate results violence. But the rest? It is unlikely th a t
the
victim will engage in self-defense since there is no in-tim e act
of self-
defense. Self-help is impossible since the victim cannot forcibly
recover h er identity;49 w hat would th a t even mean? She may
wish
for revenge but she will not get it. The perpetrator is
anonymous,
and she is likely far away. Will this crime m ake th e victim or
others
more likely to p erp etrate h er own crimes? Perhaps, b u t the
victim
48. Baer, supra note 46; cf. Hurt, supra note 46 (“These new
penalties
reflect our society’s fears for our retirement castles and
peaceful capital
marketplaces.”).
49. Contra F ed. Trade Comm’n, Guide for Assisting Identity
Theft
Victims (2013), available at
http://www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/pdf-0119-guide
-assisting-id-theft-victims.pdf.

certainly won’t respond in kind. Identity theft is technologically
difficult and requires an extensive criminal netw ork.50 For all
these
reasons, th e S tate is unlikely to be dragooned into violent
practices,
suppressing the victim or the perpetrator. For all of the evils of
identity theft, it is wise to notice the lim its on its violence. If
our
laws are m eant to be sensitive to the totality of violence, we
may
wish to check our anger against th e identity thief. The n a tu ra
l
contrast is against everyday scams, which can create turm oil in
a
community, sometimes involving the scammer too.
C o n c l u s i o n
This Essay sought to bridge th e gap between violent crime and
white-collar crime by offering a definition of violence
capacious
enough to include many crimes of fraud. Boundaries on this
principle involve norm ative judgm ents. If successful, this
inquiry
cannot bluntly resolve longstanding debates about th e
wrongfulness
of fraudulent activity, b u t it can lend some sophistication in
discrim inating among otherwise equivalent acts. Of course,
much
tu rn s on w hether this account of violence is informative
enough to
be useful w ithout “doing violence” to our everyday notion of
violence.
50. J erome P. Bjelopera & Kristin M. Finklea, Congressional
Research

Service, Organized Crime: An Evolving Challenge for U.S. Law
Enforcement 13-14 (2012), available at
http://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R41547.pdf.
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Available online at www.sciencedirect.com
ScienceDirect
International Journal of Law, Crime and Justice
42 (2014) 16e32
www.elsevier.com/locate/ijlcj
Types of organised crime in Italy. The multifaceted
spectrum of Italian criminal associations and their
different attitudes in the financial crisis and in the use of
Internet technologies
Anita Lavorgna

a
, Anna Sergi
b,*
a University of Trento, Doctoral School of International
Studies, via Tommaso Gar, 14, 38122 Trento, Italy
b
University of Essex, Centre for Criminology, Wivenhoe Park
CO43SQ, Colchester, UK
Abstract
This paper discusses the opportunity to differentiate four
different criminological types of organised
crime in Italy by drawing on a subset of case studies and
interviews to law enforcement officers and
experts collected for two on-going research projects. We
hypothesise that, since these types exploit
different social opportunity structures for their criminal
activities, they have different capacities of
adaptation and react differently when confronted with different
kinds of innovations and changes. We test
these four types against two significant phenomena that have
been deeply impacting Italian society, among
others, recently: the commercialization of the Internet and the
economic and financial crisis that has hit
Europe since late 2008. We conclude that these types offer a
valid help to guide our understanding of what
organised crime is today in Italy, as well as to assess the
capacity of the existing legal framework to
properly face all them. These criminological types could also
serve as lenses to filter the different ex-
periences of organised crime in other European countries, thus
facilitating comparative research.
� 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Organised crime; Mafia; Internet; Financial crisis;
Social opportunity structure; Criminal network; Mafia
migration; Criminal association
* Corresponding author. þ44 (0)7402957202.
E-mail addresses: [email protected] (A. Lavorgna),
[email protected] (A. Sergi).
1756-0616/$ - see front matter � 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights
reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijlcj.2013.11.002
Delta:1_given name
Delta:1_surname
mailto:[email protected]
mailto:[email protected]
http://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.1016/j.ijlcj.2013.1
1.002&domain=pdf
www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/17560616
http://www.elsevier.com/locate/ijlcj
17A. Lavorgna, A. Sergi / International Journal of Law, Crime
and Justice 42 (2014) 16e32
1. Introduction
Despite the fact that ‘organised crime’ has been a major policy
and research topic in many
European countries e and especially in Italy e for a number of
years, this ‘umbrella concept’
(Von Lampe, 2002 p. 191) appears insufficient to guarantee a
common level of understanding in

public and scientific debates. Indeed, an absolute consensus on
what constitutes organised
crime is still missing: the very nature of the criminal
phenomena described by this label makes
its definition problematic (Van Duyne and Van Dijck, 2007;
Wright, 2006), to the point that it
appears that there are ‘as many description of organised crime
as there are authors’ (Albanese,
2000 p. 410). First of all, as emphasized by Longo (2010),
several disciplines e such as
criminal and international law, criminology, sociology, and
international relations e deal with
(transnational) organised crime in their research agenda and
debate about its definition ac-
cording to their different scientific focus. Secondly, organised
crime is conceptualised around
the world in different ways (Albanese et al., 2003): as
underlined by Savona (2010 p. 133),
there is a real ‘cultural difficulty’ due to the dissimilar contexts
in which ‘the aggregate
paradigm of organised crime’ was born.
Debates on the opportunity to include in the notion of organised
crime phenomena such as
gangsterism or certain types of corporate crime are not new
(Wright, 2006). Furthermore, in the
last decades this label has evolved to include not only cyber
criminality (Choo and Smith, 2008;
McCusker, 2006) and international groups (Wheatley, 2010),
but also the interactions between
organised crime and terrorism have been increasingly
underlined (Makarenko, 2005). After all,
defining a group involved in illegal activities as organised
crime suggests the existence of a
whole mechanism to tackle, thus orienting the responses of law
enforcement (Cressey, 2008 p.

299) and allowing an ‘emotional kick’ that helps to get
resources and powers (Levi, 1998 p.
336).
In Italy the use of the wording ‘organised crime’ seems to be
especially problematic and
risks to be misleading: indeed, the same label may identify a
whole range of different crimes
and groups, ranging from ‘traditional’ mafias to new illegal
market players that often take the
form of looser gangs (Lavorgna et al., 2013). The main problem
seems to be caused by the fact
that for the expression ‘organised crime’ the ‘dilemma between
generalisation and specifica-
tion’ (Edwards and Gill, 2002 p. 204) has not yet been fully
solved, probably because it is not a
neutral and aseptic notion but one that is deeply soaked with
cultural elements of the country.
However, this ambiguity in using the term ‘organised crime’
might be misleading: the risk is
that to maintain its evocative capacity while its normative and
descriptive values are lost.
This article originates from some reflections over the
difficulties encountered in the course
of a number of interviews to key observers with expertise on
organised crime conducted in Italy
by the authors: indeed, depending on the interviewees’ areas of
specialization, setting the
ground on ‘what do we mean by organised crime’ was often
needed before starting with the
actual interview. By drawing on a subset of case studies and
interviews to law enforcement
officers and experts collected for two ongoing research projects,
this article discusses the
emergence of four different types of organised crime groups in

Italy, which explicate a more
complex narrative over concerns of what organised crime is. We
hypothesize that, since these
typologies exploit different social opportunity structures for
their criminal activities e i.e.,
social ties providing access to profitable criminal opportunities
(Kleemans and De Poot, 2008)
e they have different capacities of adaptation and behave
differently when confronted with
different kinds of innovations and changes. Thus, it is important
to keep them conceptually
separate in the rhetoric on organised crime.
18 A. Lavorgna, A. Sergi / International Journal of Law, Crime
The following section presents a brief overview on the notion of
organised crime in Italy
and beyond. In this context, the existing legal grounds to
identify organised crime are
examined in details. In the third section, the four criminological
types describing different
forms of organised crime in Italy are presented, and the capacity
of the existing legal
framework to properly frame all them is questioned. The fourth
section tests these models
against two significant phenomena that have been deeply
impacting Italian society: first
the use of the Internet and the advent of so called eSociety and
secondly the economic
and financial crisis that has hit Italy and Europe since late 2008.
Finally, conclusions are
presented on the capacity of these four types to guide our
understanding of the Italian
panorama.

Even if it is true that for its sad long tradition of mafias Italy is
a peculiar country for what
concerns organised crime, we believe that the criminological
types identified in this country can
serve also to other European countries as lenses to look at their
own experiences of organised
crime and to identify existing patterns as well as new trends.
2. Legal definitions of organised crime
2.1. International and European prospects
Legal definitions on organised crime are very different from one
other and heavily depend on
the criminal phenomena as experienced in each country and in
different historical moments.
However, since crime is by definition identified by law, how
organised crime or the partici-
pation in organised criminal groups are criminalized is of the
foremost importance in
combating serious criminal activities of this kind, and the
different baseline in determining
what is organised crime and what not orient differently the
practical work of the relevant
agencies (Sergi, 2011). Without lingering too long on these
aspects, which exceed the scope of
this article, it should however be underlined how both academic
literature as well as national
and regional institutions e influencing and influenced by
national legal definitions e also tend
to consider a whole range of different crimes and groups within
the same label of organised
crime (Calderoni, 2010; Finckenauer, 2005).
This heterogeneity is somehow reflected in the main
international and European legal in-
struments dealing with organised crime, which present a broad
definition of ‘organised crime’

or ‘criminal organisation’ and a relatively high threshold setting
a minimum sentence
requirement that has to be meet. As concerns the international
level, the reference frame is the
United Nations Convention against Transnational Organised
Crime, adopted by the General
Assembly resolution 55/25 in November 2000 according to
which an ‘organised criminal
group’ is simply
‘a structured group of three or more persons, existing for a
period of time and acting in
concert with the aim of committing one or more serious crimes
or offences established in
accordance with this Convention, in order to obtain, directly or
indirectly, a financial or
other material benefit’ (art. 2(a)),
a ‘structured group’ being
‘a group that is not randomly formed for the immediate
commission of an offence and that
does not need to have formally defined roles for its members,
continuity of its membership
or a developed structure’ (art. 2c)).
At the European level, the Framework Decision (2008/841/JHA)
defines ‘criminal organi-
sation’ any
‘structured association, established over a period of time, of
more than two persons
acting in concert with a view to committing offences which are
punishable by depri-
vation of liberty or a detention order of a maximum of at lest
four years or a more

serious penalty, to obtain, directly or indirectly, a financial or
other material benefit’
(art. 1.1),
a ‘structured association’ being
‘an association that is not randomly formed for the immediate
commission of an offence,
nor does it need to have formally defined roles for its members,
continuity of its mem-
bership, or a developed structure’ (art. 1.2).
Whereas on one side these definitions embrace a wide range of
phenomena through very
wide interpretations, they eventually allow to consider
organised crime as a phenomenon
defined through the seriousness of certain crimes. Focussing on
crimes rather than structures
allows practitioners to focus on the practical side of the fight
against organised crime, rather
than indulging in theories. In this sense, European and
International instruments might serve to
inform and complete legal notions of organised crime as
intended at the Italian level, which e
as we will see e mostly engages in evaluation of structures of
the groups, thus helping to
expand the range of case law for considerations (Sergi, 2013).
2.2. Italian legal framework against organised crime
The Italian approach to organised crime is thought to be
primarily an approach to mafia:
indeed, a tendency to consider organised crime law as
essentially anti-mafia law is confirmed
by authors who have maintained that ‘Italian organised crime
mirrors in the law’ (Mitsilegas,
2003 p.56) thus operating a de facto overlapping of the
concepts. Italian law has always
struggled to handle the legislation against organised crime and
mafia mainly because the
phenomena are constantly evolving and changing. Furthermore,

changes brought to the relevant
legal framework have always reflected the necessity to broaden
the limits of what could be
included in the tougher anti-mafia legislation, thus enhancing
the investigative capacities of
law-enforcement agencies by allowing them the use of more
intrusive forms of surveillance and
covert activities for certain crimes, or to persecute groups
posing significant threats but that
were not initially taken into consideration (as in the case of the
’Ndrangheta and foreign
criminal organisations, included in the anti-mafia legislation
only by Law 125/2008 and Law
50/2010).
Generally speaking e and differently from framework legislation
at the International and
European levels e the legislation in Italy focuses more on
targeting the structure of the various
organised crime groups, trying to understand networks and
changes in power roles; the actual
offences, the crimes are only of secondary interest in the
definition of organised crime
(Jamieson and Violante, 2000; Tranfaglia, 1991). Direct effect
or example of this focus on the
structure of organised crime rather than on actual crimes, is the
offence of membership/
belonging to a criminal organisation, which is quite dated in
Italian law. In fact, when the
Criminal Code was introduced in 1930 in the form we know it
today, article 416 already
criminalised this type of ‘simple’ organised crime by requiring
three elements for its com-
mission: an associative bond, an organised structure, and a
criminal program.

These elements have been further characterized in article 416-
bis e membership in mafia-
like criminal association e introduced in 1982 with Law 546 (so
called ‘La Torre’ Law).1
Fundamentally, until 1982 the idea of a mafia-like organisation
was not recognised by Ital-
ian Criminal law, meaning that judges and authorities were not
bound to prosecute mafia per se,
but only as long as they recognised it as a criminal organisation
under article 416. When article
416-bis was introduced, as emergency response to traumatic
events for the country, the crime
already carried a certain expectation and a certain degree of
definition referred specifically to
Cosa Nostra, its structure and its modus operandi (Farrell, 1997;
Lupo, 2011). In fact, article
416-bis not only requires an associative bond, but also needs for
this bond to be established
through intimidation, submission, and code of silence (omertà).
The criminal program,
moreover, may include crimes linked not only to the economic
field, but also the public sector
and the political one; again, mafia-like activities vary from a
wide range of criminal activities to
the legal businesses.
The necessity to introduce these specifications has been dictated
by the need to stigmatise
mafia-like conducts (Ardizzone, 2002 p. 2027) the illicit
character of the associations within
article 416 is indeed difficult to prove when it came to mafia-

like associations, given the high
degree of omertà, silence, always ruling people’s behaviours in
these situations. Besides, the
penalty provided by article 416-bis is harsher than the one
described by article 416. In general,
Ardizzone (2002) considers the crimes of membership in
criminal associations as a multi-
offensive crime of danger: such organisations, especially when
using mafia methods, repre-
sent a threat both for public order and for freedom of auto-
determination of people intimidated
by intimidation and violence.
The ‘La Torre Law’ (Law 646/1982) introducing the
membership offence in mafia-like
associations is the first and arguably more important of a
number of tools whose impact has
proven essential in targeting the establishment of a shadow
economy run both through the
profits of criminal activities (Arlacchi, 1986) and through
growing infiltration of mafia powers
in politics and social environments (Farrell, 1997).2
As the Former National Anti-mafia Prosecutor notices (Vigna,
2006) in the Italian Code of
Criminal Procedure and in other Italian laws there is more than
one reference to organised
crime, including both mafia-like crimes and crimes of simple
criminal organisations. Offences
more or less linked to mafia and organised crime virtually
permeates every piece of legislation
in Italy. Vigna (2006) starts his analysis from article 51(3)-bis
of the Criminal Procedure Code
(as modified by Law on security measures no.92/2009). Article
51(3)-bis of the Criminal
Procedure Code is crucial to understand the way the system

works, because it essentially es-
tablishes that in those cases where a link could be set with one
of the two forms of organised
1‘The illegal association is of mafia-type when the participants
take advantage of the intimidating power of the as-
sociation and of the resulting conditions of submission and
silence to commit criminal offences, to manage or control,
either directly or indirectly, economic activities, concessions,
authorisations, public contracts and services, or to obtain
unlawful profits or advantages for themselves or for others, or
with a view to prevent or limit the freedom to vote, or to
get votes for themselves or for others on the occasion of an
election’ (translation in Council of Europe, 2004: 181).
2
In the decade 1982e1992, 114 laws have been implemented in
Italy for anti-mafia purposes. It is well accepted by
Italian and foreign scholars that the great part of these measures
have always been emergency answers to a growing
mafia infiltration both in politics and in the social environment
(Farrell, 1997). A number of fundamental measures have
been enacted on the wave of traumatic historical events in those
years and especially with the killing of anti-mafia
judges Falcone and Borsellino in 1992. In particular, specific
anti-mafia laws have introduced the DIA (Direzione
Investigativa Antimafia), the Anti-Mafia Investigative
Administration and the DNA (Direzione Nazionale Antimafia),

the National Anti-Mafia Administration.
crime offences recognised by law, the criminal procedure
changes and the double-track system
begins. According to the majority of authors (Jamieson and
Violante, 2000; Smedovska, 2010;
Vigna, 2006) it is precisely this double-track system that
represents the winning card of the
Italian anti-mafia. In practice this means that offences linked to
organised crime activities, in
whatever form (both article 416 and article 416-bis of the
Criminal Code) will be deferred to
appropriate offices for investigations and prosecutions. Vigna
(2006) clarifies what the category
of mafia-like crimes according to art. 51(3)-bis encompasses in
the following list:
(i) membership in mafia-like associations;
(ii) membership in associations aimed at unlawful drug
trafficking;
(iii) kidnapping for ransom;
(iv) membership in criminal associations aimed at smuggling of
foreign cigarettes and other
tobacco products;
(v) enslavement or holding in slavery or servitude;
(vi) human trafficking, purchase or sale of slaves;
(vii) membership in criminal associations aimed at perpetrating
any of the three aforemen-
tioned crimes.

This reading of criminal law and criminal procedure confirms
that in Italy, whereas two main
typologies of organised crime offences are recognised by the
law in terms of structure of the
criminal groups, a tendency to expand and define which crimes
fall within those two main
categories never ceases to develop. Vigna (2006) also confirms
how mafia-like crimes are
mostly offences committed by using typical mafia methods,
such as intimidation or code of
silence, to smooth the activities of criminal associations aimed
at a variety of criminal activities.
In this sense, targeting the structure of the group more than the
actual crimes allows a wider and
more flexible understanding of the phenomenon as social rather
than just legal. What emerges is
that mafia-like crimes are more than just crimes: they are
‘styles’ in committing offences.
Eventually, this rational behind the analysis of mafia crimes is
what has allowed case law and
jurisprudence to coordinate various aspects and notions of the
criminal code and the code of
criminal procedure in order to try and cover phenomena which
were not directly found in the
written law, thus expanding the remit of the law itself beyond
its immediate interpretations.
An extremely important example of this evolution in the legal
fight against Italian mafias e
achieved through this expansion of interpretations e comes the
criminalisation of external
support to mafia association, i.e., the concorso esterno in
associazione mafiosa. Where article
418 of the Criminal Code provides a general incrimination for
those who support associates of
criminal groups, the Italian Supreme Court in 1994 (Corte di

Cassazione, Sentenza Demitry, 5
October 1994) has developed a new criminal category of
judicial offence, which covers those
cases where a person, usually a politician or a person of social
high status, free from any formal
subjection to the mafia organisation, effectively contributes to
its activities, helping to imple-
ment criminal plans, to reinforce the association itself and
obviously gaining substantial profits.
This new offence, still not received by statutory laws, draws
attention on a worrying vacatio
legis e a gap in the law e and has proven particularly effective
in prosecuting people from the
political and business sectors, often linked with mafia not as
members but as external sup-
porting people. This is the offence which allows Italy and Italy
only to fight those cases that
would normally remain in the so called ‘grey zone’ of organised
crime, the zone too close to
criminality and too close to legal spheres through corruption
and infiltration (Armao, 2003;
Sciarrone, 2009 p. 29).
3. Legal gaps and possible emerging types of organised crime in
Italy
In the previous section we have seen how Italian legislation
provides two types to frame
organised crime groups in the Italian Criminal Code: ‘simple’
belonging to a criminal orga-
nisation (art.416) and mafia membership (416-bis). We have
also seen how, despite the double-

track system, there is a tendency of the anti-mafia legislation to
pervade the discourse on the
countering of organised crime. This expansive capacity of the
notion of ‘mafia’ is not limited to
the law. Indeed, also in common language the world ‘mafia’ has
lost most of its value in
identifying a specific kind of organisation (Cosa Nostra) and in
public discourse it has become a
sort of umbrella term including not only mafia-like
organisations (namely the ’Ndrangheta, the
Sacra Corona Unita, and the Camorra or at least the Casalesi
clan, the most powerful group
within the Camorra), but also smaller organised criminal groups
with a local dimension e such
as the Mala del Brenta (Lavorgna et al., 2013) e and phenomena
of macro-criminality e such
as foreign criminal groups operating in Italy e whose internal
composition is significantly
different from that of southern Italian mafia families (Paoli,
2007: 870).
If in common language almost every type of organised criminal
group seems to fall within
the notion of mafia, it is clear that not all of them fit the
requisites to be taken into consid-
eration by the anti-mafia legislation as described above. Indeed,
whereas convictions and
charges for mafia membership (416-bis) are very popular and
very effective in theory and most
of all also in practice in certain territories mainly of the South
of Italy for traditional mafias
(Licata, 2012), the use of anti-mafia legislation seems
problematic when outside those terri-
tories. At the same time, the use of ‘simple’ membership
offence is not always as immediate as
it could be because in practice evidence requirements are not

easily met. Therefore, on one side
a question arises on what could be done and is actually done
when a criminal group does not
reach the levels of mafia-type organised crime but exceeds the
criteria of the simple organised
crime offence; on the other side it needs to be considered that
even though the law provides
two types to frame organised crime groups in the Italian
Criminal Code, some loose networks
of criminals might not reach the level of organisation and
sophistication required by those
laws, thus, in practice, creating a number of gaps in the law that
criminals might indeed
exploit.
The existence of these systemic problems, intensified in recent
years because of changes in
the criminal panorama, emerges both from interviews conducted
with national and district anti-
mafia prosecutors and from constant monitoring of criminal
activities on the Italian soil, either
from newspapers or from legal case laws. Whereas loose
network of criminals could be dealt
with through simple conspiracy charges when their
characteristics make them something less
than ‘organised crime’ in the legal sense3 e thus exceeding the
purpose of this paper not being
labelled ‘organised crime’ e for other types emerging from case
laws there seems to be
confusion in terms of boundaries and application of legal
provisions. These types are identified
as ‘organised crime’ in public and scientific debate, but are they
recognisable as such by the
Italian legal system? Such ‘emerging’ types could be placed
beside the ‘legal types’ along a
spectrum; at the two extremities we would find those with a

clear and proper frame of reference
in the law (as in articles 416 and 416-bis of the Criminal Code),
while the two intermediate
types are more problematic. Since we have already addressed
the main characteristics of
criminal groups as identified by the Italian legislation (which
correspond to our first and last
3Through articles 110 of the Italian Criminal Code, which
regulates conspiracy in crime (concorso di persone).
types a and d ), we will now introduce intermediate types b and
c, underlying potential gaps of
the existing legislation in covering them.
a) ‘Simple’ Criminal Organisation ex 416
This is a general type that could describe any type of criminal
association which occurs
when at least three persons join together with the aim of
committing an indefinite program of
felonies (delitti) if they have a permanent and structured
internal organisation. The re-
sponsibility of participants differs on the basis of their actions.
Article 416 specifies that, for
sentencing purposes, there is the need to differentiate
promoters, associates, members, con-
stituents, bosses and others if necessary. This is where the
judicial difficulty lies, as a thorough
investigation on the structures is always needed and not always
the roles within the organi-
sations are clear enough to be differentiated.

b) Mixed Criminal Networks
Some of the participants in the criminal network might have
connections with traditional
mafias, but this is not their identification element. Indeed, they
often do not need the mafia
‘style’ in committing offences, and the actual crime committed
e typically, a profit-driven
crime e is more connotative than the structure of the group
itself. In this type we can find
both Italian and ethnic groups, as well as mixed groups. They
tend not to invest in the territory
nor they do control it: they rather operate in the margins of
society and their opportunistic
presence in certain areas is basically linked to their illegal
trades (Pennisi, 2012). This type
seems very close to the notion of ‘transit crime’ (Kleemans,
2007), which beyond Italy is
considered the main activity of most organised crime groups.
Participants in these criminal
networks could be cells of bigger groups at the international
level, but they could also belong to
really small groups that are nonetheless potentially very
dangerous, for instance because they
have become very efficient through the use of ICTs.4 They
could not even meet the re-
quirements of article 416; they could not be part of a permanent
organisation but rather
cooperate with different parts of a criminal network according
to transient criminal opportu-
nities, or the trafficking flow they are carrying out could not be
covered by article 416 because it
is not considered a felony (delitto) but only a misdemeanor
(reato contravvenzionale), as in the
case of trafficking in endangered species or art trafficking. The
seriousness of these criminal

organisations and the profitability of their criminal activities
could sometimes justify anti-mafia
instruments such as the possibility to use seizure and
confiscation of the proceeds of crime.
4Indeed, as underlined by Wall (2007), thanks to new
technological developments it is likely that also individuals can
carry out complex and far-reaching activities, given their
possibility of a greater control over the criminal process.
Organised crime receives a special treatment because it is
considered potentially more dangerous: criminal actors work
together non only because in certain cases concertation is
necessary for a successful criminal outcome but also because
the organisational framework provides them with something
qualitatively different, that allows them to have a different
delinquent ambition and consequently a different scale of
activity compared to the individual offending (Harding, 2007).
Logically there are three modalities for criminal activity: ‘solo
commission’ collaboration by two people, and activity
conducted by three or more people’ (Brenner, 2002). According
to Brenner (and this view is coherent with most legal
definitions of organised crime), only the third alternative can
represent an organised criminal activity: a single individual
cannot involve organisation, and an organisation of only two
persons inherently implies a limited level of harm.
However, this theorization might be not necessarily true with
the use of new ICTs, when activities carried out by one or

two persons could potentially have global reach and cause long
range harm.
Furthermore, all these transit crimes could be hindered by the
possibility to use investigative
tools such as undercover operations or controlled delivery,
which are currently allowed only for
some of those criminal activities that are included in the anti-
mafia framework (for instance
drug trafficking and human trafficking) (Law 146/2006).
c) Migrated Mafia Groups
Mafia transplantation (Varese, 2006) and adaptation of
traditional mafia-like groups in new
territories are emerging theoretical issues in criminological
research (Kleemans, 2013). As
concerns Italy, the presence of southern Italian mafias has been
largely documented also in
central and northern regions: the presence of mafia groups in
the north-west and their colo-
nizing attitude has been reported at least since the 1970s, but
this phenomenon has received
significant attention in public discourse only in recent years,
when law enforcement operations
e such as ‘Crimine-Infinito’ in 2010 e have shown the degree
that mafia transplantation has
reached in the area (Direzione Nazionale Antimafia, 2011).
While in some administrative re-
gions of the north-west (as the cases of some municipalities of
the Milan and Turin hinterland

areas have shown) there have been also problem of political
infiltration (Chiavari, 2011; Paoli,
1994; Savatteri, 2012; Varese, 2006), the situation seems
different in other parts of Italy, for
instance in the north-east. The administrative region of Veneto,
in particular, is considered as
‘the area of the future’ for Italian mafias (Pennisi, 2012),
especially as concerns the ’Ndran-
gheta and some Camorra clans (Direzione Nazionale Antimafia,
2011). However, it seems that
the ’Ndrangheta in Veneto is not going to colonize and to invest
money as it has done in
Lombardia or Piemonte, but it is rather ‘delocalizing’ (which in
economics indicates the
transfer of industries in new areas which have competitive
advantages compared to the main
ones), while the main centre remains in the homeland Calabria.
The idea is to create wealth in
northern Italy to converge in the south. Similarly, Camorra
groups in Veneto have been reported
to make profits from usury and extortion to send money to their
homeland to help the families
of convicted mafia members. This is why mafia groups in some
parts of Italy seem to be more
interested in relationships with the professional and
entrepreneurial world than with politics,
and links to the latter exist to the point that they are functional
to the achievement of other goals
(Lavorgna et al., 2013; Pennisi, 2012). The novelty of this
phenomenon makes it difficult to
estimate reliable numbers regarding the presence of mafias in
the north-east. If in Lombardy a
minimum of 500 ’Ndrangheta members was estimated
(Direzione Nazionale Antimafia, 2011)
it is likely than in Veneto, where mafias are delocalizing rather
than colonizing, the numbers are

inferior.
d) Mafia-like Organised Crime ex 416-bis
Mafia-like associations e originating in regional specificities in
Southern Italy and
committed to a multiplicity of functions and goals e can be
described as ‘functionally diffused
entities, which claim to exercise a political dominion over their
areas of settlement’ (Paoli,
2003 p. 143): these mafias not only are players in criminal
markets but also exploit violence
and intimidation to obtain space in the legitimate economy,
moved by profit as well as by their
will to impose their presence to productive activities in their
territory (Paoli, 2003 p. 174).
Indeed, especially in traditional areas, for mafia groups the
control of the territory in compe-
tition with the State is an essential characteristic (Sciarrone,
2009 p. 10). Article 416-bis insists
more on the particular nature and intensity of the associative
bond at the basis of the mafia
group, indeed characterized by intimidation and condition of
subjugation and silence. Even
though the actual nature of the mafia-type associative bond is
not comprehensively defined by
the Criminal Code and has been indeed specified in the years by
the Corte di Cassazione
(Antolisei, 2008), we have already seen as the main focus of the
law and judicial procedures is
the modus agendi of mafia groups more than their specifications

in terms of crimes committed.
4. The four models in practice: examples and discussion
We believe that it is extremely important to keep these
criminological models conceptually
separate both in practice and in legal-criminological research.
The fact that organised crime
differs from other forms of crime because it necessarily relies
on peculiar social opportunity
structures (a net of social relations and personal contacts) has
already been discussed in the
literature (Kleemans and De Poot, 2008). What we argue is that
the opportunity structure is
extremely different in different models, or types, of organised
crime: indeed, each of these
models has different characteristics, different aims, a different
degree of sophistication and a
different relationship with the society it is part of. With
different social opportunity structures,
these models should have a different capacity of adaptation
when confronted with social changes:
do different types of organised crime take advantage of
potential new criminal opportunities in
the same way? The increasing usage of the Internet and the
current economical and financial
crisis are taken as example of significant events that are having
a deep impact on society and are
thus likely to impact as well the opportunity structure exploited
by organised crime groups.
4.1. Internet
The society we all are living in has been affected by major
changes in the ways in which we
interact with each other because of the advent of the Internet.
The term eSociety has emerged to
describe the appearance of different electronic services aimed at

easing everyday routines,
ranging from e-health and e-education to e-government and e-
business (Magoulas et al., 2007).
Crime is part of this society, and it is at least likely to think it
is not immune to these changes.
However, there is still lack of clear evidence concerning the
real presence of organised crime in
the eSociety and the extent to which organised criminal groups
use the Internet. McCusker
(2006 p. 257) has described this lack of clarity as ‘a tension
between logic and pragmatism’.
Logic suggests that the opportunities the Internet gives for high
profits with relatively low risks
should attract traditional organised criminal groups, which have
always shown significant
adaptive abilities in utilizing new technological opportunities.
On the other hand, however,
pragmatism implies that it is not clear yet whether these groups
have the capacity to exploit the
profitable opportunities offered by the Internet environment.
Has organised crime really
expanded in the new realm of eSociety? To what extent this is
true?
Assuming that our four types of organised crime depend on
different social opportunity
structures, each of them should adapt differently to the new
Internet environment. Thus, the
answers to the questions above will depend on the
criminological type of organised crime
considered.
Mixed criminal networks exploit the new Internet environment,
and cases linked to this
model were the easiest to identify. What is interesting to
underline is that in this case the

Internet does not seem to have only the significance of a
communication tool (e.g. through
Skype and emails) but it has at least the potentiality to affect
criminal markets in a much more
significant way. Some tendencies can be identified: first of all,
the Internet seems to be boosting
certain trafficking flows more than others. In particular,
criminal activities that were probably
once perceived as ‘lesser serious’ (and thus they do not reach
the level of delitti in order to be
considered under article 416 of the Criminal Code, such as the
wildlife trade) or that can more
easily play with gaps in legislation (such as smart drugs) seem
to have been impacted more by
the Internet. Similarly, the Internet has opened the way for
criminal niche markets, by acting as
a ‘convergence setting’ (Felson, 2006), a forum, where not only
persons with peculiar interests
(rare cactus, stamps, performance-enhancing drugs) can ‘meet’,
but also potential ‘sellers’ and
buyers can come across. In many cases criminals do not even
bother to move to the Deep Web
(i.e., the part of the Internet that cannot be reached through
standard search engines) for
advertising their products, but they rather stay in the Surface
Web: indeed, the risk for them to
be caught remains minimum given the enormity of the
environment that should be controlled,
and the impression is that law enforcement operations dealing
with these types of illicit trade
show only the tip of the iceberg. It is easier and less risky to get

in touch with potential cus-
tomers without having to meet them in person. Mixed criminal
networks do not need a strong
connection with the territory for their criminal activities: they
can take fully advantage from the
Internet anonymity, and their online reputation is thus unrelated
from their physical one.
Moreover, where a structured criminal association was once
needed because a minimum degree
of sophistication seemed necessary in order to commit certain
crimes, some organisational
layers now do not seem to be fundamental anymore: for
instance, both the payment and the
product delivery can be made from a safe distance, through
online banking and automated
postal services. Very loose organisations are implicated in these
transit crimes, and e at least
potentially e individuals or two co-offenders could be as
efficient as a criminal network.
However, a higher degree of sophistication is observed in mixed
criminal networks dealing
with more traditional organised criminal activities (such as
trafficking in traditional drugs) and
that are likely to meet the requisites of article 416. For them,
the Internet seems to be especially
useful as a communication and management tool to enhance
their efficiency and lower the risks
(for instance, to avoid wiretappings). In one case online
advertising was used to recruit e
through deceit e drug mules, but this looks like an isolated
event. Many of these criminal
groups seem to have moved to the Deep Web at least to sell
their products (the most notorious
example is Silk Road, an online black market operating through
TOR, a system that conceals its

users’ identities and their network activities), but so far the
characteristics of those criminal
groups are not clear yet, also because the monitoring of this
type of activities started only very
recently.5 A few cases were identified where participants in the
criminal network had con-
nections with traditional mafias, but these links were not the
central features.
A similar use of the Internet as a communication and
management tool can be found in
migrated mafia groups. As an experienced anti-mafia prosecutor
pointed out in one if the in-
terviews, this is a tendency that can be more easily observed in
relation to some Camorra clans
or ’Ndrangheta groups operating in northern regions or abroad:
indeed, these groups are less
hierarchically structured than Sicilian mafia and more prone to
interact with the entrepreneurial
world and with persons that do not belong to the mafia
association (and thus for them article
416-bis does not apply, at most the concorso esterno) but that
could have an expertise, for
instance, on Internet matters. Also in those cases, however, the
impression is that the Internet is
not significantly changing the social opportunity structure: even
if these criminals are mobile,
flexible and prompt to embrace new criminal opportunities (for
instance, in one case the
5
For instance, as concern drug trafficking, a dedicated
monitoring unit in the D.C.S.A. (Direzione Centrale per i
Servizi Antidroga, the Department of Anti-drug Policies in
Italy) is operative only since March 2012.

Internet was used to set up a fraudulent mechanism for money-
laundering thanks to the
connection with a broker operating abroad in the legal
economy), they need face-to-face in-
teractions to build trust.
As concern Italian mafia-type groups in their traditional
territories the situation appears
different. Indeed, these organisations depend on their strong
connections with the territory, and
for many of their activities (extortion is probably the most
blatant example) the physical
presence is what makes the difference. The social opportunity
structure they are resting on does
not match very well with the Internet usage and apparently it is
still working good enough that
they do not feel the need to make any relevant change. Even if
in certain cases the Internet is
used as a communication tool to avoid wiretappings, it seems
that traditional groups are quite
reluctant to go online. One of the interviewee has drowned an
interesting parallelism with the
entrance of the Sicilian mafia in the drug market: these types of
criminal groups seem to be
more cautious, they have to weight all the pros and the cons.
Moreover, the persons with higher
status are not digital native. From this point of view, it could be
that the situation will change in
the forthcoming years, as new generations are used to use
computer networks for all their
routines. It is not surprising that media news report a couple of
cases where online social

networks were used by members at the lower level of the
organisation to identify and study
victims’ habits before killing them. A completely different
aspect is instead the one concerning
the involvement of these criminal groups in Internet gambling
or in ‘offline’, traditional
gambling (and in particular horse racing and dog fighting) that
is nonetheless ‘advertised’ via
the Internet for instance with YouTube videos (Troiano, 2012).
For these uses, indeed, the
Internet offers a possibility to expand the criminal market
without affecting the network of
social relations at the core of the organisation.
4.2. Economic and financial crisis
An analysis of the relation between the economic recession and
organised criminal groups’
activities cannot be carried out by assessing how different
models of groups have reacted to the
new financial strains because the financial crisis needs to be
seen as an overarching condition
that has affected every sector and every single aspect of our
economy e and therefore also
crime e since 2008 (OECD, 2009). Therefore, where the Internet
is in itself an opportunity to
embrace or discard for criminal groups and has produced a
tangible, visible advancement in
society, the financial crisis only indirectly affects organised
crime after having altered demands
and offers for goods and services in the real economy. With this
in mind the analysis will
proceed by focussing on two types of criminal activities, usury
and counterfeiting, which have
increased because of the financial crisis.
The financial crisis that in the past five years has hit the
Western World, has provoked a

drastic reduction of cash flows and market value for a number
of businesses, which have
automatically become more easily targeted by criminal
phenomena. The crisis has deeply
impacted the way organised crime groups in Italy have changed
their operational system both in
terms of emerging activities e as in the case of renewable
energies or investments in gold e
and in terms of revival of traditional activities e such as the
‘ortomafia’ or those activities
related to the gambling industry (Sergi and Lavorgna, 2012).
The opportunistic behaviour and
the versatility of some criminal groups have allowed them to
twist the economic situation into
new possible sources of profit. The identification of new
opportunities exploited by established
organised criminal groups represents one of the effects of the
financial crisis, while, on the
other side, forms of micro-criminalities, says an anti-mafia
prosecutor in an interview, have
complicated the whole scenario of the criminal underworld.
Most of the time, the necessity to
increase profits in the easiest and quickest way has brought
more or less organised networks of
criminals (responding to logics of our models a or b) to claim
positions of powers and links
with mafia clans because the brand of the mafia acts as a
guarantee in Italian criminal markets.
The confused consequences of these kinds of behaviour make it
even more complicated to
assess the actual situation.

Whereas it seems quite logical that the financial crisis has
boosted opportunities for crime
and organised criminal activities, Italian traditional mafias have
been touched very little by the
lack of liquidity plaguing the rest of the world. The availability
of cash of traditional groups has
allowed them to act in various directions. First, the economic
crisis has caused an increase in
phenomena of usury, which, on one side has always been a
mafia business, and on the other side
has recently taken different forms and have been practiced more
and more even by mafia clans
who were once indifferent to these practices. The XIII Report
by SOS Impresa (2011) and the
Annual Relation of the DNA in December 2011 explain that new
forms of usury have been
recorded in recent years. It is the case of the daily usury
(mostly for small and medium
companies), which allows the whole process to be completed in
one day only: borrowing
money in the morning and giving it back with massive interests
in the evening. Victims are not
only the usual usury victims such as gamblers, retailers and
entrepreneurs; because of the
economic recession also members of the working class, clerical
workers and professionals have
turned to loan sharks.
Mafia-type usury in the south of Italy (typology d ) differs both
from usury carried out by
other criminal groups (typologies a and b) and from usury
carried out in non-traditional mafia
locations, (typology c). In fact, in their traditional homelands,
mafia clans are not interested in
high interest rates, but usury is rather used to serve two main

purposes, as confirmed by
prosecutors and by the SOS Impresa Report (2011) the first one
is offering a functional service,
which expands social consent; the second purpose is that, by
constantly increasing cash flows
and by keeping links with legal activities, usury represents a
valid alternative to usual tactics of
money laundering.
Migrated mafia groups, on the other side, follow different
rationales in the way they carry
out usury in non-traditional mafia location, mainly in response
to concerns of unemployment
and access to credit. In the central and northern areas of the
country, mafias have found a fertile
ground for usury, money laundering, real state investments, and
for taking over vulnerable
business activities. Indeed, traditional mafias seem to enjoy a
great appeal towards the entre-
preneurial system in northern Italy by offering entrepreneurs
with difficulties in accessing bank
credit what they need, i.e., credit, which eventually translates in
mafia members seen as reliable
and welcomed business partners (Pennisi, 2012).
Usury represents a very good example for our analysis because,
as confirmed by the DNA
National Report (2011), it is in this practice that the differences
among various types of
organised crime are mostly visible. In an overall assessment of
cases, four different types of
loan sharks have been recorded by SOS Impresa (2011 p. 204),
which are relevant to our
argument: a) occasional criminal organisation usually internal
to the workplace; b) local
criminal organisation; c) professional and specialist criminal

organisation; d) mafia-type
criminal organisation. Indeed, it is through these categories that
institutions tend to evaluate
and prevent risks of usury in different areas of the country.
Another area in expansion in this period of economic recession
has been the counterfeiting
market. Indeed, in a period of economic crisis, it is safe to say
that counterfeit products are
chosen and not just accepted by people who cannot afford top-
quality products. Whereas
traditional mafias, especially around the area of Naples, have
always been very dynamic in
counterfeiting as low-risk and very profitable activity,
especially in the area of fashion, mixed
criminal networks have been increasingly exploiting this
growingly profitable occasion,
especially in regions like Tuscany (Florence), Lazio (Rome) and
Lombardy (Milan), where
they have become predominant. Both prosecutors and
entrepreneurs have become aware of
groups of Chinese origins and networks with operational centres
in Eastern European
countries who, on one hand, are able to offer work forces at
extremely low salaries and, on the
other hand, operate indifferently inside or outside the Italian
borders. However, also mafia
clans have increasingly taken part to the counterfeiting business
in these regions, especially in
liaisons with Chinese groups, as demonstrated by a number of
investigations carried out since

2008 (Operation Grande Muraglia, 2008; Operation Cian Lui,
2009 etc). The participation of
mafia clans, especially of the ’Ndrangheta, in this type of
activities alongside foreign crim-
inals, has been often referred to as ‘assistance’ (SOS Impresa,
2011 p. 362), especially for
matters related to borders control and for tax evasion
techniques. Indeed, for counterfeiting
activities these mafia groups do not need to control the territory
or to appeal to the mafioso
‘style’. They rather act coherently to the mixed criminal
networks type, interacting oppor-
tunistically with other groups and the legitimate entrepreneurial
world to carry out their
business-like activities.
Overall, the economic crisis has weakened controls and
heightened opportunities of low-risk
but high-profit criminal activities. In this sense, all organised
crime types in our spectrum have
benefited from the crisis. In particular, activities of mafia-type
groups in our types c and d are
believed to run with different intents, as demonstrated in the
case of usury and will therefore act
in different ways accordingly. The economic crisis has shaped
and intensified needs and re-
actions of different social realities across the country, which
present diverging social oppor-
tunity structures eventually exploited by organised crime in
various ways. The four criminal
types are prone to react and adapt to these different social
realities according to a number of
evaluations e clearly not always in full awareness e of
opportunities, needs and structures of
the realities they find themselves in.

5. Conclusion and further discussion
A certain part of Italian scholarship seems still to think about
organised crime in terms of
Mafia (Bianchini and Sicurella, 2007; Santino, 2006), even if
some consider traditional Italian
mafia only as ‘a species of a broader genus, organised crime’
(Varese, 2001 p. 4). A broader
approach to organised crime in transnational settings cannot
avoid agreeing with the second
view. In fact, if mafia-like groups are considered a subset
within the superset ‘organised crime’,
other complementary subsets have to and need to be addressed
as well. We have identified a
total of 4 subsets, or types, in the Italian organised crime
scenario. We have shown how these
types rest on different social opportunity structures, essentially
because they stem from
different aims: for instance, while the maximization of profits is
the ultimate purpose of mixed
criminal networks, this is not always the first concern of mafia-
like groups, especially in their
homelands (Paoli, 2005). While mafia-like groups often assume
the role of underground po-
litical entities or directly challenge the social order by
competing with legal firms in legal
markets, this is not the case for criminal networks engaged in
illegal or illicit trade. If the
‘military’ force, the large number of members and the capability
to be flexible in political
arenas are what can still measure the power and the
dangerousness of traditional groups
exploiting strong ties with the territory, this is no longer true
for other types of organised crime

groups who increase their efficiency through other means, being
these new technologies or
strategic contacts in networks of influences.
It is common knowledge that organised crime groups operate as
opportunistic economic
agents that react and adapt to contingent drivers, ranging from
alliances or competitions among
organisations to political and economical conditions (Galeotti,
2005; Naim, 2006; Savona,
1998). However, the way in which various groups operate and
adapt directly depends on re-
lations with the broader society that differ for each type we
have identified. Suffice it to think
how the nexus linking economic sectors (or political power) and
organised crime completely
changes in different types, varying from cooperation to
antagonism. It follows that if different
types prosper differently according to the various substrata they
can exploit, also the measures
needed to counter these phenomena may differ.
A conceptual distinction between the four models identified has,
therefore, to be kept in
mind in the agenda to counter organised crime. In practice,
different organised crime groups
call for different measures both on the legal and the social
level. From a legal point of view, we
have introduced the debate on some of the gaps in the
legislation, which could be problematic
in addressing certain organised criminal groups and their
activities. In line with the approach
suggested by the European and the International instruments, a

VIOLENT WHITE-COLLAR CRIME: AN EXTENDED ACCOUNT

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