UCOC · Understanding the Commitment in Organized Crime
Horizon 2020 — Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions
- Duration
- 2018-03-01 → 2021-02-28
- EU contribution
- €264,668
- Participants
- 2
- Scheme
- MSCA-IF-GF
Lines connect the coordinator with its partners.
Results in brief
Understanding the Commitment in Organized Crime
The UCOC project emerged from the observation that there was insufficient empirical knowledge of the experience and career paths of organized crime actors. The objective of this research was therefore twofold: to focus on individuals and their experiences and, by extension, to better understand the worlds they frequent.Given the diversity of criminal markets, we decided to focus on drug trafficking, one of the most profitable global industries, which crosses all social fields, from the local to the international and from the street to the financial system. The central question that served as a guiding thread is why and how does one join organized crime? This question led us to study the social conditions of engagement and promotion to the higher spheres of criminality, according to understand the subdivisions, hierarchies, cleavages and the structure of opportunities within the criminal world. This research, based on an in-depth study of the biographies and experiences of major offenders,make it possible to outline a theoretical framework that takes as its object the social stratification of criminal worlds. My main contribution is to provide new elements of knowledge on the stratification of criminal worlds, that is to say on the system of hierarchical positions according to the unequal access to opportunities, resources, power and prestige, but also according to the unequal exposure to the penal pressure of the authorities. This makes it possible to shift the focus on the role of repressive policies by taking into account their function of protecting societies but also their role as indirect arbiters of criminal underworlds. These results will be published in the coming months through scientific articles on methodology and presentation of new knowledge. In terms of dissemination the fellow has already participated in several academic conferences and seminars, been interviewed by several media outlets, and participated in a podcast on organized crime in New York, as well as hearings in public institutions and with local actors. Several international public events will also be organized in partnership with the Paris City Hall and the Ministry of Justice.
Data: CORDIS, © European Union
Project objective
This project is structured around a central question: how do individuals get involved in organized crime? To answer it, the analysis will focus on the social conditions of the criminal commitment and promotion towards superior spheres of drug trafficking. I will use the notion of “criminal career,” increasing and updating the existing knowledge on the steps that allow an upward social mobility. This problematic implies first to describe and analyze the universe of organized crime, its subdivisions, its hierarchies, its divides, and the structure of its opportunities. Then, it also necessary to put the framework of the biographical trajectories into a historical, social and political perspective. Behind this theme of criminal promotion, we raise more theoretical questions on the interpretative regimes of crime commitment: we postulate that the different positions that the same individual occupies in the criminal world imply different theoretical backings. Only the in-depth study of the biography, the criminal experience, and the judiciary career of the subjects will allow me to isolate and articulate the stages, the states, the different moments, and to understand their motivations and the changes throughout time and space. The corollary of this questioning on the stages of criminal careers is the joint study of the social spaces of criminality, understood as places, norms, and actors that structure and animate distinct and hierarchized domains that are linked to criminality. This is the second innovative aspect of this project: I want to contribute to a cartography of the worlds of crime, of their borders, and their porosities with the more conventional spaces of the social life. This is the reason why I chose the specific question of drug trafficking: by its triple dimension, local, national and international, and with regards to the multiplicity of the tasks and the operators that this trade implies, several social spaces of crime are mobilized.
Original text from CORDIS.
Participants
- CENTRE NATIONAL DE LA RECHERCHE SCIENTIFIQUE CNRS · ParisCoordinatorFrance
- THE CITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK CORPORATION · New YorkUnited States
Links
Data: CORDIS, © European Union