Making Sense of the Literature on Criminal Mobility

• In Event: Roundtable: The Global Dimension of Mafia-Type Organized Crime

Abstract

Organized crime mobility has become an important topic, particularly after 2010. The purpose of this meta-analysis is to chronologicaly analyze publications on organized crime mobility. How have scholars described and interpreted the movements of mafias and other organized crime groups within countries or across territories? Are there overlaps in the description of movements; do we use different terms to describe the same mobility? What are some common push and pull factors for criminal mobility and how they vary across groups and territories? Finally, based on interviews with ethnic Albanian organized crime offenders in US Federal Prisons, we study the mobility of Albanian organized crime groups in order to examine if this case study fits into the broader criminal mobility frameworks identified in the existing literature on the topic.

Author

• Jana Arsovska, John Jay College of Criminal Justice