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Crime
Kinds of Crime Terms modified by Crime Selected AbstractsTHE ROLE OF CRIME IN HOUSING UNIT RACIAL/ETHNIC TRANSITION,CRIMINOLOGY, Issue 3 2010JOHN R. HIPP Previous research frequently has observed a positive cross-sectional relationship between racial/ethnic minorities and crime and generally has posited that this relationship is entirely because of the effect of minorities on neighborhood crime rates. This study posits that at least some of this relationship might be a result of the opposite effect,neighborhood crime increases the number of racial/ethnic minorities. This study employs a unique sample (the American Housing Survey neighborhood sample) focusing on housing units nested in microneighborhoods across three waves from 1985 to 1993. This format allows one to test and find that such racial/ethnic transformation occurs because of the following effects: First, White households that perceive more crime in the neighborhood or that live in microneighborhoods with more commonly perceived crime are more likely to move out of such neighborhoods. Second, Whites are significantly less likely to move into a housing unit in a microneighborhood with more commonly perceived crime. And third, African American and Latino households are more likely to move into such units. [source] A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY TO CRIME: EFFECTS OF RESIDENTIAL HISTORY ON CRIME LOCATION CHOICE,CRIMINOLOGY, Issue 2 2010WIM BERNASCO Many offenses take place close to where the offender lives. Anecdotal evidence suggests that offenders also might commit crimes near their former homes. Building on crime pattern theory and combining information from police records and other sources, this study confirms that offenders who commit robberies, residential burglaries, thefts from vehicles, and assaults are more likely to target their current and former residential areas than similar areas they never lived in. In support of the argument that spatial awareness mediates the effects of past and current residence, it also is shown that areas of past and present residence are more likely to be targeted if the offender lived in the area for a long time instead of briefly and if the offender has moved away from the area only recently rather than a long time ago. The theoretical implications of these findings and their use for investigative purposes are discussed, and suggestions for future inquiry are made. [source] ESCAPING CRIME: THE EFFECTS OF DIRECT AND INDIRECT VICTIMIZATION ON MOVING,CRIMINOLOGY, Issue 4 2008MIN XIE This article investigates the impact of criminal victimization on household residential mobility. Existing research finds that direct experiences with crime influence mobility decisions, such that persons who suffer offenses near their homes are more likely to move. The current study extends this line of inquiry to consider whether indirect victimization that involves neighbors also stimulates moving. The analysis uses the National Crime Survey to estimate multilevel models that incorporate data from individual households and their spatially proximate neighbors. The results show that the link between direct victimization and moving continues to hold after controlling for neighborhood context. Indirect property victimization also leads to moving, with effects about equal in size to those of direct victimization. In contrast, no evidence is found that violent victimization that occurs in neighboring homes influences mobility, probably because most of these events are nonstranger violence that provokes less anxiety for neighbors. [source] POLICING CRIME AND DISORDER HOT SPOTS: A RANDOMIZED CONTROLLED TRIAL,CRIMINOLOGY, Issue 3 2008ANTHONY A. BRAGA Dealing with physical and social disorder to prevent serious crime has become a central strategy for policing. This study evaluates the effects of policing disorder, within a problem-oriented policing framework, at crime and disorder hot spots in Lowell, Massachusetts. Thirty-four hot spots were matched into 17 pairs, and one member of each pair was allocated to treatment conditions in a randomized block field experiment. The officers engaged "shallow" problem solving and implemented a strategy that more closely resembled a general policing disorder strategy rather than carefully designed problem-oriented policing responses. Nevertheless, the impact evaluation revealed significant reductions in crime and disorder calls for service, and systematic observations of social and physical disorder at the treatment places relative to the control places uncovered no evidence of significant crime displacement. A mediation analysis of the isolated and exhaustive causal mechanisms that comprised the strategy revealed that the strongest crime-prevention gains were generated by situational prevention strategies rather than by misdemeanor arrests or social service strategies. [source] THE CONTEXT OF MARRIAGE AND CRIME: GENDER, THE PROPENSITY TO MARRY, AND OFFENDING IN EARLY ADULTHOOD,CRIMINOLOGY, Issue 1 2007RYAN D. KING Marriage is central to theoretical debates over stability and change in criminal offending over the life course. Yet, unlike other social ties such as employment, marriage is distinct in that it cannot be randomly assigned in survey research to more definitively assess causal effects of marriage on offending. As a result, key questions remain as to whether different individual propensities toward marriage shape its salience as a deterrent institution. Building on these issues, the current research has three objectives. First, we use a propensity score matching approach to estimate causal effects of marriage on crime in early adulthood. Second, we assess sex differences in the effects of marriage on offending. Although both marriage and offending are highly gendered phenomena, prior work typically focuses on males. Third, we examine whether one's propensity to marry conditions the deterrent capacity of marriage. Results show that marriage suppresses offending for males, even when accounting for their likelihood to marry. Furthermore, males who are least likely to marry seem to benefit most from this institution. The influence of marriage on crime is less robust for females, where marriage reduces crime only for those with moderate propensities to marry. We discuss these findings in the context of recent debates concerning gender, criminal offending, and the life course. [source] DOES CRIME JUST MOVE AROUND THE CORNER?CRIMINOLOGY, Issue 3 2006A CONTROLLED STUDY OF SPATIAL DISPLACEMENT AND DIFFUSION OF CRIME CONTROL BENEFITS Recent studies point to the potential theoretical and practical benefits of focusing police resources on crime hot spots. However, many scholars have noted that such approaches risk displacing crime or disorder to other places where programs are not in place. Although much attention has been paid to the idea of displacement, methodological problems associated with measuring it have often been overlooked. We try to fill these gaps in measurement and understanding of displacement and the related phenomenon of diffusion of crime control benefits. Our main focus is on immediate spatial displacement or diffusion of crime to areas near the targeted sites of an intervention. Do focused crime prevention efforts at places simply result in a movement of offenders to areas nearby targeted sites,"do they simply move crime around the corner"? Or, conversely, will a crime prevention effort focusing on specific places lead to improvement in areas nearby,what has come to be termed a diffusion of crime control benefits? Our data are drawn from a controlled study of displacement and diffusion in Jersey City, New Jersey. Two sites with substantial street-level crime and disorder were targeted and carefully monitored during an experimental period. Two neighboring areas were selected as "catchment areas" from which to assess immediate spatial displacement or diffusion. Intensive police interventions were applied to each target site but not to the catchment areas. More than 6,000 20-minute social observations were conducted in the target and catchment areas. They were supplemented by interviews and ethnographic field observations. Our findings indicate that, at least for crime markets involving drugs and prostitution, crime does not simply move around the corner. Indeed, this study supports the position that the most likely outcome of such focused crime prevention efforts is a diffusion of crime control benefits to nearby areas. [source] RESISTING CRIME: THE EFFECTS OF VICTIM ACTION ON THE OUTCOMES OF CRIMESCRIMINOLOGY, Issue 4 2004JONGYEON TARK This study assessed the impact of sixteen types of victim self protection (SP) actions on three types of outcomes of criminal incidents: first, whether the incident resulted in property loss, second, whether it resulted in injury to the victim, and, third, whether it resulted in serious injury. Data on 27, 595 personal contact crime incidents recorded in the National Crime Victimization Survey for the 1992 to 2001 decade were used to estimate multivariate models of crime outcomes with logistic regression. Results indicated that self-protection in general, both forceful and nonforceful, reduced the likelihood of property loss and injury, compared to nonresistance. A variety of mostly forceful tactics, including resistance with a gun, appeared to have the strongest effects in reducing the risk of injury, though some of the findings were unstable due to the small numbers of sample cases. The appearance, in past research, of resistance contributing to injury was found to be largely attributable to confusion concerning the sequence of SP actions and injury. In crimes where both occurred, injury followed SP in only 10 percent of the incidents. Combined with the fact that injuries following resistance are almost always relatively minor, victim resistance appears to be generally a wise course of action. [source] TRAJECTORIES OF CRIME AT PLACES: A LONGITUDINAL STUDY OF STREET SEGMENTS IN THE CITY OF SEATTLE,CRIMINOLOGY, Issue 2 2004DAVID WEISBURD Studies of crime at micro places have generally relied on cross-sectional data and reported the distributions of crime statistics over short periods of time. In this paper we use official crime data to examine the distribution of crime at street segments in Seattle, Washington, over a 14-year period. We go beyond prior research in two ways. First, we view crime trends at places over a much longer period than other studies that have examined micro places. Second, we use group-based trajectory analysis to uncover distinctive developmental trends in our data. Our findings support the view that micro places generally have stable concentrations of crime events over time. However, we also find that a relatively small proportion of places belong to groups with steeply rising or declining crime trajectories and that these places are primarily responsible for overall city trends in crime. These findings are particularly important given the more general decline in crime rates observed in Seattle and many other American cities in the 1990s. Our study suggests that the crime drop can be understood not as a general process that occurred across the city landscape but one that was generated in a relatively small group of micro places with strong declining crime trajectories over time. [source] LOCAL POLITICS AND VIOLENT CRIME IN U.S. CITIES,CRIMINOLOGY, Issue 4 2003THOMAS D. STUCKYArticle first published online: 7 MAR 200 Recent research has begun to examine the effects of politics on crime. However, few studies have considered how local political variation is likely to affect crime. Using insights from urban politics research, this paper develops and tests hypotheses regarding direct and conditional effects of local politics on violent crime in 958 cities in 1991. Results from negative binomial regression analyses show that violent crime rates vary by local political structures and the race of the mayor. In addition, the effects of structural factors such as poverty, unemployment, and female-headed households on violent crime depend on local form of government and the number of unreformed local governmental structures. Implications for systemic social disorganization and institutional anomie theories are discussed. [source] CHANGES IN FRIENDSHIP RELATIONS OVER THE LIFE COURSE: IMPLICATIONS FOR DESISTANCE FROM CRIME,CRIMINOLOGY, Issue 2 2003PEGGY C. GIORDANO We analyze life history narratives and structured data derived from a study of serious female and male offenders interviewed when incarcerated as adolescents and followed up thirteen years later. We highlight shifts in the influence of friends and in the nature of friendship choices, and suggest how these changes can facilitate desistance processes. While key events (e.g., marriage) are important to an understanding of such changes, shifts in the actor's perspective and identity are also integral to the process of making successful network realignments. Similarities and differences by gender in the effects of adult social influence processes are also examined. [source] THE EFFECTS OF SOCIAL TIES ON CRIME VARY BY CRIMINAL PROPENSITY: A LIFE-COURSE MODEL OF INTERDEPENDENCE,CRIMINOLOGY, Issue 2 2001BRADLEY R. ENTNER WRIGHT Previous studies have explained the transition from criminal propensity in youth to criminal behavior in adulthood with hypotheses of enduring criminal propensity, unique social causation, and cumulative social disadvantage. In this article we develop an additional hypothesis derived from the life-course concept of interdependence: The effects of social ties on crime vary as a function of individuals' propsensity for crime. We tested these four hypotheses with data from the Dunedin Study. In support of life-course interdependence, prosocial ties, such as education, employment, family ties, and partnerships, deterred crime, and antisocial ties, such as delinquent peers, promoted crime, most strongly among low self-control individuals. Our findings bear implications for theories and policies of crime. [source] FEAR, TV NEWS, AND THE REALITY OF CRIME,CRIMINOLOGY, Issue 3 2000TED CHIRICOS Data from a 1997 survey of 2, 250 Florida residents are used to assess whether and how the reality of crime influences the relationship between watching TV news and fear of crime. Local crime rates, victim experience, and perceived realism of crime news operationalize the reality of crime and are included in ordinary least squares (OLS) estimates of the TV news and fear of crime relationship. These measures of reality are also used as contexts for disaggregating the analysis. Local and national news are related to fear of crime independent of the effects of the reality of crime and other controls. Local news effects are stronger, especially for people who live in high crime places or have recent victim experience. This contextual pattern of findings is consistent with a conclusion that TV news is most influential when it resonates the experience or crime reality of respondents. [source] GENDER, STRUCTURAL DISADVANTAGE, AND URBAN CRIME: DO MACROSOCIAL VARIABLES ALSO EXPLAIN FEMALE OFFENDING RATES?,CRIMINOLOGY, Issue 2 2000DARRELL STEFFENSMEIER Building on prior macrosocial-crime research that sought to explain either total crime rates or male rates, this study links female offending rates to structural characteristics of U.S. cities. Specifically, we go beyond previous research by: (1) gender disaggregating the Uniform Crime Report (UCR) index-crime rates (homicide, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, larceny-theft) across U.S. cities; (2) focusing explicitly on the effects of structural disadvantage variables on the index-offending rates of females; and (3) comparing the effects of the structural variables on female rates with those for male rates. Alternative measures of structural disadvantage are used to provide more theoretically appropriate indicators, such as gender-specific poverty and joblessness, and controls are included for age structure and structural variables related to offending. The main finding is consistent and powerful: The structural sources of high levels of female offending resemble closely those influencing male offending, but the effects tend to be stronger on male offending rates. [source] BUILD THE CAPACITY OF COMMUNITIES TO ADDRESS CRIME,CRIMINOLOGY AND PUBLIC POLICY, Issue 4 2007JOIE ACOSTA First page of article [source] DELIBERATING CRIME AND PUNISHMENT: A WAY OUT OF GET TOUGH JUSTICE?CRIMINOLOGY AND PUBLIC POLICY, Issue 1 2006VANESSA BARKER First page of article [source] BETTER GUN ENFORCEMENT, LESS CRIME,CRIMINOLOGY AND PUBLIC POLICY, Issue 4 2005JENS LUDWIG Research Summary: Project Safe Neighborhoods (PSN), which for the past several years has been the major federal initiative to combat gun violence, includes several elements (such as gun locks and other efforts to reduce gun availability) that research suggests are likely to have at best modest effects on gun crime. In general, enforcement activities targeted at the "demand side" of the underground gun market currently enjoy stronger empirical support. However much of PSN's budget has been devoted to increasing the severity of punishment, such as by federaliz-ing gun cases, which seems to be less effective than targeted street-level enforcement designed to increase the probability of punishment for gun carrying or use in crime. Policy Implications: PSN and other enforcement activities could be made more effective by redirecting resources toward activities such as targeted patrols against illegal gun carrying. Given the substantial social costs of gun violence, an efficiency argument can also be made for increasing funding beyond previous levels. [source] CRIME (CONTROL) IS A CHOICE: DIVERGENT PERSPECTIVES ON THE ROLE OF TREATMENT IN THE ADULT CORRECTIONS SYSTEMCRIMINOLOGY AND PUBLIC POLICY, Issue 2 2005JAMES M. BYRNE [source] RIGHT-TO-CARRY CONCEALED HANDGUNS AND VIOLENT CRIME: CRIME CONTROL THROUGH GUN DECONTROL?,CRIMINOLOGY AND PUBLIC POLICY, Issue 3 2003TOMISLAV V. KOVANDZIC Research Summary: "Right-to-Carry" (RTC) concealed-handgun laws mandate that authorities issue concealed handgun permits to qualified applicants. The supposition by those supporting the laws is that allowing private citizens to carry concealed handguns in public can reduce violent crime by deterring prospective criminals afraid of encountering armed civilians. Critics of the laws argue that violent altercations are more likely to turn deadly when more people carry guns. Whether the laws cause violent crime to increase or to decrease has become an important public policy question, as most states have now adopted such legislation. The present study evaluates Florida's 1987 RTC law, which prior research suggests plays a key role in the RTC debate. Specifically, we use panel data for 58 Florida counties from 1980 to 2000 to examine the effects on violent crime from increases in the number of people with concealed-carry permits, rather than before-after dummy and time-trend variables used in prior research. We also address many of the methodological problems encountered in earlier RTC studies. We present numerous model specifications, and we find little evidence that increases in the number of citizens with concealed-handgun permits reduce or increase rates of violent crime. Policy Implications: The main policy implication of this research is that there appears to be little gained in the way of crime prevention by converting restrictive gun carrying laws to "shall-issue" laws, although the laws might still prove beneficial by (1) eliminating arbitrary decisions on gun permit applications, (2) encouraging gun safety, (3) making permit holders feel safer when out in public, (4) providing permit holders with a more effective means of self-defense, and (5) reducing the costs to police departments of enforcing laws prohibiting unlicensed gun carrying. [source] FUNDING COMMUNITY POLICING TO REDUCE CRIME: HAVE COPS GRANTS MADE A DIFFERENCE?,CRIMINOLOGY AND PUBLIC POLICY, Issue 1 2002JIHONG "SOLOMON" ZHAO Research Summary: This research examines how funding from the U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS), has affected violent and property crime rates in the United States from 1995 to 1999. Drawing on six years of panel data, we examine the effects of three types of awards made by COPS to 6,100 law enforcement agencies serving more than 145 million citizens. We estimate their impact on crime reduction over time in jurisdictions receiving funding and controlling for baseline levels of crime, socioeconomic characteristics, city size, and population diversity and mobility. Our analyses suggest that COPS hiring and innovative grant programs have resulted in significant reductions in local crime rates in cities with populations greater than 10,000 for both violent and nonviolent offenses. Multivariate analysis shows that in cities with populations greater than 10,000, an increase in one dollar of hiring grant funding per resident contributed to a corresponding decline of 5.26 violent crimes and 21.63 property crimes per 100,000 residents. Similarly, an increase in one dollar of innovative grant funding per resident has contributed to a decline of 12.93 violent crimes and 45.53 property crimes per 100,000 persons. In addition, the findings suggest that COPS grants have had no significant negative effect on violent and property crime rates in cities with less than 10,000 population. Policy Implications: The findings of this study imply that COPS program funding to medium- and large-size cities has been an effective force in reducing both violent and property crime. Federal government grants made directly to law enforcement agencies to hire additional officers and promote innovations may be an effective way to reduce crime on a national scale. [source] FIGHTING FINANCIAL CRIME: A UK PERSPECTIVEECONOMIC AFFAIRS, Issue 1 2007Mike Bowron Financial crime has a devastating impact on individuals, companies and governments. Traditional methods of control, predominantly investigation and prosecution, have failed to abate the rise of both fraud and money laundering offences. Tackling financial crime is best approached from the perspective of prevention, an activity that requires co-operation between all those affected by this widespread and corrosive social problem. [source] FINANCIAL CRIME IN AUSTRALIAECONOMIC AFFAIRS, Issue 1 2007George Gilligan Financial crime is increasingly seen as a threat to the integrity of Australia's important financial sector. This paper examines the difficulties of evaluating the costs of financial crime and considers specific initiatives that have been undertaken in recent years to combat such activities. [source] WHY HAS CRIME FALLEN?ECONOMIC AFFAIRS, Issue 3 2002AN ECONOMIC PERSPECTIVE In this paper we consider the reasons why the general level of recorded crime has been falling in the United States and many European countries in the last ten years. We review the time-series statistical evidence on the determinants of crime, and investigate the extent to which these determinants are matched with survey evidence on the offending behaviour of young people. This survey evidence is particularly revealing on the perceptions of young people to various sorts of deterrents, and it also highlights a strong association between illicit drug use and involvement in crime. [source] DIGITAL MEDIA AND THE ECONOMICS OF CRIMEECONOMIC AFFAIRS, Issue 3 2002Samuel Cameron Digital crime is an area where the application of the economics of crime is complex. In a nutshell, the essential economic problem of digi-crime is the impact of technological progress making transactions costs of enforcement potentially too high, partly because of the low costs of copyright infringement due to technological advance, for there to be substantial amounts of deterrence from punishment. [source] HOW USEFUL IS THE ECONOMIC MODEL OF CRIME IN ASSISTING THE WAR AGAINST TERRORISM?ECONOMIC AFFAIRS, Issue 3 2002Dorothy Manning This article considers whether the economic model of crime can be applied to terrorist activity. It concludes that the model does explain both secular and religiously motivated terrorism: policy-makers wishing to reduce terrorist activity should aim at devising policies which increase costs and/or decrease benefits to change terrorist incentives. The ,war' should continue as long as the probable costs to society incurred by terrorist activity are greater than the costs of abatement. [source] AN ON-THE-JOB SEARCH MODEL OF CRIME, INEQUALITY, AND UNEMPLOYMENT*INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC REVIEW, Issue 3 2004Kenneth Burdett We extend simple search models of crime, unemployment, and inequality to incorporate on-the-job search. This is valuable because, although simple models are useful, on-the-job search models are more interesting theoretically and more relevant empirically. We characterize the wage distribution, unemployment rate, and crime rate theoretically, and use quantitative methods to illustrate key results. For example, we find that increasing the unemployment insurance replacement rate from 53 to 65 percent increases unemployment and crime rates from 10 and 2.7 percent to 14 and 5.2 percent. We show multiple equilibria arise for some fairly reasonable parameters; in one case, unemployment can be 6 or 23 percent, and crime 0 or 10 percent, depending on the equilibrium. [source] RESISTING CRIME: THE EFFECTS OF VICTIM ACTION ON THE OUTCOMES OF CRIMESCRIMINOLOGY, Issue 4 2004JONGYEON TARK This study assessed the impact of sixteen types of victim self protection (SP) actions on three types of outcomes of criminal incidents: first, whether the incident resulted in property loss, second, whether it resulted in injury to the victim, and, third, whether it resulted in serious injury. Data on 27, 595 personal contact crime incidents recorded in the National Crime Victimization Survey for the 1992 to 2001 decade were used to estimate multivariate models of crime outcomes with logistic regression. Results indicated that self-protection in general, both forceful and nonforceful, reduced the likelihood of property loss and injury, compared to nonresistance. A variety of mostly forceful tactics, including resistance with a gun, appeared to have the strongest effects in reducing the risk of injury, though some of the findings were unstable due to the small numbers of sample cases. The appearance, in past research, of resistance contributing to injury was found to be largely attributable to confusion concerning the sequence of SP actions and injury. In crimes where both occurred, injury followed SP in only 10 percent of the incidents. Combined with the fact that injuries following resistance are almost always relatively minor, victim resistance appears to be generally a wise course of action. [source] Rule Breaking in New Product Development , Crime or Necessity?CREATIVITY AND INNOVATION MANAGEMENT, Issue 1 2001Tommy Olin The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of applying general rules in organizations to govern multiple new product development projects. Data were collected in structured interviews with project managers and project members from seven successful projects within Swedish companies. Results show that projects either broke rules or that organizations had developed strategies to cope with the risk of rules preventing the progress of the projects. The project managers of the rule following projects reported lack of rule breaking to be the result of the rule design at each company, intending to minimize the risk of rules preventing the progress of projects. With the exception of the manager of the rule changing/removing project, project managers show a relaxed attitude to breaking general rules that hinder project progress. The study indicates that frameworks of common project management rules increase the risk of delay in new product development projects, unless strategies of rule breaking or dynamic rule modification are applied. Applications of emergent standard management philosophies and practices to innovation are discussed. [source] Reordering Society: Vigilantism and Expressions of Sovereignty in Port Elizabeth's TownshipsDEVELOPMENT AND CHANGE, Issue 4 2006Lars Buur ABSTRACT Crime and vigilantism in South Africa are generally seen as a reaction to the breakdown of formal law. Both are constituted outside the state and emerge when the new social contract has been broken , that is, when the state can no longer provide security. This article argues that there is often an intimate relationship between vigilante formations and state structures. It explores this apparent paradox through public discourses on crime and the emergence of twilight institutions such as vigilante groups. It suggests that vigilantism has to be analysed as an attempt to promulgate a new legal-political order, despite being constructed outside this order. This argument is explored in the context of the Amadlozi, a vigilante group operating in the townships of Port Elizabeth. The article situates this discussion within an examination of discourses on crime, as well as the production of township residents and their protection from crime. Finally, it proffers some ideas on sovereignty and its relationship to twilight institutions. [source] Colored Amazons: Crime, Violence, and Black Women in the City of Brotherly Love, 1880,1910 by Kali N. GrossGENDER & HISTORY, Issue 1 2008TIMOTHY J. GILFOYLE No abstract is available for this article. [source] Mumbai's Development Mafias: Globalization, Organized Crime and Land DevelopmentINTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF URBAN AND REGIONAL RESEARCH, Issue 1 2008LIZA WEINSTEIN Abstract For over a decade, researchers have analyzed the effects of liberalization and globalization on urban development, considering the local political implications of shifts at the national and global scales. Taking the case of Mumbai, this article examines how the past 15 years of political reforms in India have reshaped property markets and the politics of land development. Among the newly empowered actors, local criminal syndicates, often with global connections, have seized political opportunities created by these shifts to gain influence over land development. The rise of Mumbai's organized criminal activity in the 1950s was closely linked to India's macroeconomic policies, with strict regulation of imports fuelling the growth of black market smuggling. Liberalization and deregulation since the early 1990s have diminished demand for smuggled consumer goods and criminal syndicates have since diversified their operations. With skyrocketing real estate prices in the 1990s, bolstered by global land speculation, the mafia began investing in property development. Supported by an illicit nexus of politicians, bureaucrats and the police, the mafia has emerged as a central figure in Mumbai's land development politics. The article examines the structural shifts that facilitated the criminalization of land development and the implications of mafia involvement in local politics. Résumé Depuis plus d'une décennie, les chercheurs ont analysé les effets de la libéralisation et de la mondialisation sur l'aménagement urbain en étudiant les implications politiques locales de transformations effectuées à l'échelle nationale et planétaire. Prenant le cas de Mumbai, cet article examine comment les réformes politiques des quinze dernières années en Inde ont reconfiguré les marchés immobiliers et les politiques d'aménagement foncier. Parmi les nouveaux acteurs, les syndicats du crime locaux, opérant souvent dans des réseaux internationaux, ont saisi les occasions politiques créées par ces changements pour gagner en influence sur l'aménagement foncier. A Mumbai, l'activité accrue du crime organisé dans les années 1950 était étroitement liée aux politiques macroéconomiques de l'Inde, une réglementation stricte des importations alimentant l'essor de la contrebande sur le marché noir. Depuis le début des années 1990, libéralisation et déréglementation ont réduit la demande pour les biens de consommation de contrebande, poussant les syndicats du crime à diversifier leurs opérations. Face à la montée en flèche des prix de l'immobilier dans les années 1990, aidée par la spéculation foncière mondiale, la mafia a investi dans la promotion immobilière. Soutenue par un réseau illégal de politiciens, bureaucrates et policiers, elle est donc devenue un personnage central des politiques d'urbanisme à Mumbai. L'article étudie les transformations structurelles qui ont facilité la criminalisation du secteur foncier, et les implications de la présence de la mafia dans la politique locale. [source] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||