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The crime against businesses in Europe: A pilot survey
Abstract
The project “EU Survey to assess the level and impact of crimes against business - Stage 2: Piloting the survey module” aims at carrying out a pilot survey on the victimisation of businesses across twenty selected European countries.
The main objectives of this project are:
• Implementing a business victimisation pilot survey in unexplored countries of the EU
• Developing a common methodology
• Collecting comparable data
• Analysing data in order to produce comparable results
• Reporting the results in order to produce policy implications
The pilot survey method implements a phased multi-mode approach, first of all by conducting a representative interviewer-facilitated telephone survey (PHASE I) and secondly by redirecting these enterprises to fill in the rest of the questionnaire in a dedicated CAWI interface (PHASE II).
The statistical unit was the local unit or the branch of the enterprises, and the entire universe of the survey was defined as companies having at least one employee, with market or for-profit activities and with available telephone numbers in the sampling frames used.
The pilot survey was implemented in 20 selected Member States of the European Union and each country sample had a minimum of 500 interviews and a maximum of 2,000 interviews, depending on the number of active enterprises in the given country. The survey was conducted on the field between 23rd of May and 3rd of September 2012.
This study has been carried out for the Directorate-General Home Affairs in the European Commission as result of a procurement procedure
... Oikeuspoliittisen tutkimuslaitoksen (nykyinen Kriminologian ja oikeuspolitiikan instituutti, KRIMO) vuonna 2010 tekemän tutkimuksen kohdetoimialoina olivat kauppa ja teollisuus. Lisäksi Suomi osallistui Euroopan unionin toimeksiannosta tehtyyn kuusi toimialaa kattaneeseen yritysuhritutkimukseen vuonna 2012 (Dugato 2013). Pienimuotoisempia alueellisia tutkimuksia oli tehty jo aikaisemmin 1990-luvulla: Varsinais-Suomessa vuosikymmenen alussa (Aromaa & Laitinen 1994;Laitinen ym. ...
... Aiemman tutkimuksen perusteella tiedetään, että yrityksiin ja niiden työntekijöihin kohdistuva rikollisuus on merkittävä yhteiskunnallinen ongelma, joka aiheuttaa huomattavia kustannuksia ja vääristää kilpailua (Salmi ym. 2011;Dugato 2013;Mugellini 2013;Isenring ym. 2013). ...
... Kuluvan vuosikymmenen laajin yritysuhritutkimus on ollut Euroopan unionissa kesällä 2012 toteutettu, johon osallistui 20 unionin jäsenmaata (Dugato 2013). Euroopan unionin rahoittama ja Transcrimen yhdessä Gallupin kanssa toteuttama tutkimus käsitti kuusi toimialaa (teollisuuden, rakennusalan, kaupan alan, majoitus-ja ravintola-alan, kuljetus-ja huolintaalan sekä vakuutus-ja rahoitusalan) ja toteutettiin samanaikaisesti Belgiassa, Bulgariassa, Espanjassa, Irlannissa, Itävallassa, Kreikassa, Kyproksella, Latviassa, Liettuassa, Portugalissa, Ranskassa, Romaniassa, Ruotsissa, Saksassa, Slovakiassa, Sloveniassa, Suomessa, Unkarissa, Virossa ja Yhdistyneissä kuningaskunnissa. ...
... The drawback of survey-based corruption measures is that mis-or non-reporting by firms may be a serious issue (Jensen, Li and Rahman 2010). Indeed there is evidence that corruption is amongst the least reported crimes in surveys in that they imply an active involvement of the firms themselves in the illegal activity (Dugato et al. 2013). However, careful interview techniques and an accurate design of survey questions help building trust towards the interviewer and avoid implicating the respondent of wrongdoing, thereby encouraging accurate reporting. ...
... 13 There are indeed significant differences in terms of corruption across sectors ( Figure 5), which are broadly consistent with an indicator of sectorial 12 On average over the whole period and across all countries and sectors, 1.8 per cent of total sale revenues were allocated to pay bribes (the median is instead lower, standing at 0.7 per cent). 13 On sectorial evidence of bribery see also Beck, Demirgüc-Kunt and Maksimovic (2005); Reinikka and Svensson (2006); Dugato et al. (2013); European Commission (2014). dependence on the public sector constructed by Pellegrino and Zingales (2014). ...
We investigate the role of firm-level bribes in explaining the efficiency of within-sector production factor allocation across firms in nine Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries in 2003-2012. We find a positive association between corruption and both labour and capital misallocation dynamics, once country framework conditions are controlled for. The link is larger the smaller the country, the lower the degree of political stability and of civil liberties, and the weaker regulatory quality. Results hold when instrumenting corruption with female representation in Parliament and the freedom of the press. Targeted action against corruption in the CEE region would thus enhance within-sector allocative efficiency, in turn a determinant of sectorial, and aggregate, TFP growth. JEL codes: D24, D73, O47
... Per esempio, un rapporto recente sull'indagine promossa dalla UE per valutare il livello e l'impatto dei reati contro le imprese ha affermato che «i servizi extralegali di protezione a pagamento, unitamente alla concussione e alla corruzione, l'estorsione e l'usura, rientrano in un gruppo di reati che hanno meno probabilità di essere rivelati o dichiarati dai partecipanti. Per tale motivo è possibile che le informazioni ottenute su questa tipologia di reati ne sottostimino la reale portata» (Dugato et al. 2013). Ciò indica la necessità di altri approcci più affidabili, focalizzati sulle vittime, per valutare i fattori di rischio e di vulnerabilità delle imprese nei confronti dell'estorsione organizzata. ...
... L'ospitalità è un settore economico vulnerabile nei confronti dell'infiltrazione dei GCO, a causa delle caratteristiche delle imprese coinvolte e di vari fattori legati alla località in cui sono situate (Mugellini 2013;Transcrime 2009). Dopo l'industria della costruzione, l'ospitalità è il settore più vittimizzato in termini di estorsioni nei confronti delle imprese (Dugato et al. 2013 ...
Il rapporto «Estorsione organizzata nell’Unione Europea: fattori di vulnerabilità» analizza le forme di estorsione a opera della criminalità organizzata in sei Stati membri dell’Unione Europea. L’analisi chiarisce i fattori di rischio e di vulnerabilità per le imprese in due settori dell’economia, quello agricolo e quello dell’ospitalità, e all’interno delle comunità cinesi. Basandosi sui risultati dell’analisi, il rapporto suggerisce nuove politiche per far fronte all’estorsione organizzata nella UE. Questo rapporto è stato realizzato grazie al lavoro congiunto del Center for the Study of Democracy, l’Instituto de Ciencias Forenses y de la Seguridad dell’Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, il centro di ricerca Transcrime dell’Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore di Milano e il Vitosha Research, e con il supporto della Guardia Civil in Spagna.
... 6 The drawback of survey-based corruption measures is that mis-or non-reporting by firms may be a serious issue (Jensen, Li and Rahman 2010). Indeed there is evidence that corruption is amongst the least reported crimes in surveys in that they imply an active involvement of the businesses themselves in the illegal activity (Dugato et al. 2013). However, careful interview techniques and an accurate design of survey questions help building trust towards the interviewer and avoid implicating the respondent of wrongdoing, thereby encouraging accurate reporting. ...
... On the other end of the spectrum, firms in hotels and restaurants, trade and "other" service sectors are, on average, amongst the least affected by bribery. The country-wide decline in corruption is 12 On sectorial evidence of bribery see also Beck, Demirgüc-Kunt and Maksimovic (2005); Reinikka and Svensson (2006); Dugato et al. (2013); European Commission (2014). Finally, BEEPS provides bribe data disaggregated also by firm size. ...
We investigate the role of corruption in the business environment in explaining the efficiency of within-sector production factor allocation across firms in nine Central and Eastern European countries in the period 2003-2012. Using a conditional convergence model, we find evidence of a positive relationship between corruption growth and both labour and capital misallocation dynamics, once country framework conditions are controlled for: the link between corruption and input misallocation dynamics is larger the smaller the country, the lower the degree of political stability and of civil liberties, and the weaker the quality of its regulations. As input misallocation is one of the determinants of productivity growth, we further show that the relationship between changes in corruption and TFP growth is indeed negative. Our results hold when we tackle a possible omitted variable bias by instrumenting corruption with two instrumental variables (the percentage of women in Parliament and freedom of the press).
... The drawback of this kind of corruption measure is that mis-or non-reporting may be a serious issue (Jensen, Li and Rahman 2010). Indeed there is evidence that corruption and bribery are amongst the least reported crimes in surveys in that they imply an active involvement of the businesses themselves in the illegal activity (Dugato et al. 2013). However, careful interview techniques and an accurate design of survey questions help in building trust towards the interviewer and avoid implicating the respondent of wrongdoing, thereby encouraging accurate reporting. ...
... In addition to the total-economy developments described thus far, firms operating in different industries interact with public officials in different ways, as they require different amounts and types of licenses and permits due to the specific characteristics of their production processes which could result in sector differences in terms of corruption (on sectorial evidence of bribery see also Beck, Demirgüc-Kunt and Maksimovic 2005;Reinikka and Svensson 2006;Dugato et al. 2013;European Commission 2014). BEEPS data show that there are indeed significant differences in terms of corruption across sectors, which are broadly consistent with the indicator of sectorial dependence on the public sector constructed by Pellegrino and Zingales (2014), reported in Appendix B. Construction is the sector with both the highest government dependence ( Figure B4) and the highest frequency of bribe payments ( Figure 6). ...
We investigate the role of corruption in the business environment in explaining the
efficiency of within-sector production factor allocation across firms in nine Central and Eastern
European (CEE) countries in 2003-2012. Using a conditional convergence model, we find
evidence of a positive relationship between corruption growth and both labour and capital
misallocation dynamics, once country framework conditions are controlled for: this link is larger
the smaller the country, the lower the degree of political stability and civil liberties, and the
weaker the quality of its regulations. As input misallocation is one of the determinants of
productivity growth, we further show that the correlation between changes in corruption and
TFP growth is indeed negative. Our results also hold when we tackle a possible omitted variable
bias by instrumenting corruption with two instrumental variables (the percentage of women in
Parliament and freedom of the press). In conclusion, targeted action against corruption in the
CEE region would be efficiency-enhancing.
... By "vulnerable targets" he referred to businesses that could easily lose their clients or would have difficulties in guarding their property against physical damage . Recent studies show that with regard to protection racketeering, the most frequently victimized companies in the EU are construction, wholesale, retail, hotel and restaurant, leisure activity, and waste disposal organizations (Dugato et al., 2013;Frazzica et al., 2016). ...
Extortion as a crime has long attracted the interest of scholars, and much effort has been put into coining a precise definition that would allow distinguishing it from other similar predatory practices such as blackmail, bribery, coercion, and robbery. Academic literature classifies extortive practices according to their degree of complexity and involvement of organized crime. In this sense, the simplest form of extortion displays one offender who receives a one-time benefit from one victim, while the most sophisticated form is illustrated by racketeering, whereby an organized crime group systematically extorts money from multiple victims. Extortion as an organized crime activity can involve both episodic extortion practices and well-rooted systemic practices over a certain territory, where the latter is usually regarded as perpetrated by Mafia-type criminal organizations. Some scholars argue that extortion racketeering as a Mafia crime should be defined as sale and provision of extralegal protection services—protection of property rights, dispute resolution, and enforcement of contracts. However, others contend that extortion by Mafia-type organizations should not be counted as an economic activity but instead be considered a kind of illegal taxation that is imposed by quasi-political groups. Hence, they argue that it is a form of illegal governance and is a transfer of value that creates no economic output.
In contrast with the traditional understanding of extortion racketeering as “defining activity of organized crime,” some scholars have also focused on “extortion under color of office,” or, in other words, extortion perpetrated by public servants or politicians in their official capacity. Extortion has often been compared with bribery, since both crimes can be defined as an unlawful conversion of properties and goods belonging to someone else for one’s own personal use and benefit. The debate on the differences between bribery and extortion, however, is a contested one, and has followed two lines of argument: respectively, the degree of coercion involved in the crime and the role (or modus operandi) of public officials in the bribery and extortive scheme. The common element of both crimes is the fact that representatives of the state abuse their power and official position for their own benefit.
This chapter provides an overview of the situation of the research of organised crime
in its different dimensions. We first provide a debate on the definition of organised crime
as a reference framework to delimit the scope of this crime as complex criminological phenomena. We also provide some other key issues in organised research: the measurement of organised crime
as non-conventional crime; explanations on organised crime from three levels of analysis: macro-social, organisational and individual perspective. Finally, we explore individual differences with common crimes and a typology of organised crime members.
In recent years, the theft of medicines from Italian hospitals has emerged as a booming criminal phenomenon.
This issue represents a serious threat to people’s health, the national budget, companies’ revenues and legal competition. However, studies concerning theft of medicines are lacking, as most research focuses only on the counterfeiting of medicines. In 2014 Transcrime published the first systematic and scientific attempt to analyse the theft of medicine from Italian hospitals.
This essay summarises and provides updates on the results of that study. Transcrime is active in analysing emerging crime problems and illicit markets for suggesting preventive interventions and effective countermeasures.
One of the consequences of Italy’s on-going financial crisis has been rising civil society activism and media attention to the growing phenomenon of families and small businesses becoming indebted to illegal moneylenders. Much of the public discourse focuses on indications that major organized crime groups are strengthening their participation in this sector and appropriating homes and business assets as a means of laundering money and expanding their presence in the legal economy. This article examines the multiple and complex factors that leave rising numbers of small business owners with few alternatives to seeking illegal sources of credit in order to continue operating financially. Focusing on the city of Rome and drawing on in-depth interviews with support groups and former debtors, as well as on a wide range of documentation and statistical data, it provides a multiscalar analysis of the ways in which local social norms concerning informal credit and the exigencies of day-to-day business practice on a micro scale are interwoven with the macro-level effects of legislation, banking practices, and the capacity of institutions mandated to fight illegal lending. It questions whether an adequate system of alternatives to borrowing illegally exists and the extent to which the official mechanisms in place to disincentivize this practice are effective.
Purpose: To test whether geographical, temporal and Modus Operandi (MO) crime scene behaviours can be used to support behavioural case linkage (BCL) with crime series that contain several different types of offence.
Methods: Crime scene data relating to 749 solved commercial burglaries and robberies were extracted from the databases of the Metropolitan Police Service, London, England. From these data, 2,231 linked crime pairs (containing two crimes committed by the same offender) and 273,422 unlinked crime pairs were created (two crimes committed by different offenders). Three measures of similarity were calculated for each crime pair: 1) the kilometre-distance between crimes (inter-crime distance); 2) the number of days between crimes (temporal proximity); and 3) a statistical measure of similarity in MO behaviour (Jaccard’s coefficient). Statistical tests of difference, binary leave-one-out logistic regression, and Receiver Operating Characteristic analysis were used to determine whether the three measures of similarity could be used to distinguish between linked and unlinked crime pairs, some containing only burglaries (burglary pairs), some containing only robberies (robbery pairs) and some containing both burglaries and robberies (cross-crime pairs).
Results: Linked and unlinked crime pairs could be distinguished with a high level of accuracy (AUCs > .90), with the highest accuracy when combining inter-crime distance, temporal proximity and Jaccard’s coefficient. These findings were replicated with the burglary pairs, robbery pairs and cross-crime pairs.
Conclusions: Offender behaviour is sufficiently consistent and distinctive to support the use of BCL with versatile crime series, as well as with burglary crime series and robbery crime series.
This article examines the character and consequences of encounters between police and residents of the city of Chicago. It describes the frequency with which they contacted the police for assistance or support and how often they were stopped by them. Follow-up questions gathered information about the character of those contacts. The analysis contrasts the effects of experiential, on-scene factors with those of race, age, gender, and language on satisfac- tion with encounters. It demonstrates the great importance of the quality of routine police-citizen encounters, for things that officers did on the spot dom- inated in determining satisfaction. The personal characteristics of city resi- dents played an important role in shaping who was treated in this way or that and affected satisfaction primarily through on-scene actions by police. This article examines the character and consequences of encounters between police and residents of the city of Chicago. Although there are many determinants of people's attitudes and assessments of policing, none is more important for policy than the quality of service being rendered. Through their training and supervision practices, departments have the capacity to shape the relationship between residents and officers working the street. Whether police are polite or abrasive, concerned or aloof, or help- ful or unresponsive to the obvious needs of the people they encounter depends importantly on actions taken by department leaders.
Conclusions Businessmen victimized by organized crime are chosen based upon their economic condition and their involvement in activities
of interest to organized criminal groups. The level of victimization is determined not only by the level of involvement of
organized crime, but also by the victims' perceptions of how business should be operated. The responses of businessmen surveyed
for this research reflect their association of business victimization with organized crime. Those surveyed, however, seriously
underestimated the level of victimization of the population as a whole.
The important findings of the International Crime Victim Survey (ICVS) have led the organisers to attempt to expand the scope of research to address the problem of victimisation of businesses through a specific international survey. Further to a first international survey in eight countries in 1994, the questionnaire was revised to focus in particular on the issues of corruption, fraud and extortion. The International Crime Business Survey (ICBS) was conducted in nine central–eastern European capital cities in 2000. The article presents a comparative analysis of experiences and attitudes of businesses in central–eastern Europe, where possible with reference to comparable information collected through the international households survey (ICVS) in the same cities and at the same time. Although there is great potential in this type of international research, too few resources are involved in analysing the results and looking at possible policy implications.
It has been often been suggested that crimes against business premises have received little attention from criminologists (Gill 1998b; Burrows 1996) However a growing amount of research has emerged in this area and it has indicated that business premises have a higher risk of experiencing crime types such as burglary and criminal damage than households. Despite these findings, there has been little criticism of the methodological approaches employed by the key research and the lack of attention paid to understanding and explaining the crime patterns that emerge from these surveys. This paper reviews the key previous research that has been conducted and begins to consider a number of questions about the future directions for research in this area. First the key research is considered and what this tells us about the nature and extent of victimization against businesses. Second a number of methodological problems with this research are highlighted and finally, consideration is given to potential directions for future research.
Trends and Methodological aspects in the international collection of crime and criminal justice statistics
- Alvazzi Del Frate
Alvazzi Del Frate, A. (2008). Trends and Methodological aspects in the international collection of crime and criminal justice
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How to measure and How to use statistical data to analyze the victimization of the private sector in Latin America
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Mugellini, G. (2013). How to measure and How to use statistical data to analyze the victimization of the private sector in
Latin America. UNODC/INEGI. Mexico City: Centre of Excellence for Statistics on Governance, Public Security,
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Handbook of crime prevention and community safety
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Burrows, J., & Hopkins, M. (2005). Business and crime. In N. Tilley (Ed.), Handbook of crime prevention and community
safety (pp. 486-515). Cullompton, Devon: Willan Publishing.