BookPDF Available

Criminele families in Noord-Brabant. Een verkenning van generatie-effecten in de georganiseerde misdaad

Authors:
  • EMMA, Experts in Media and Society
A preview of the PDF is not available
... Besides the expansion and professionalization of organized drug crimes, a diversification has also been observed. Firstly, different drug markets overlap now more than in the past, and certain combinations of drug types are the rule rather than the exception-especially in the smuggling markets, which, on the one hand, have similar logistical processes and, on the other hand, are lucrative even in small quantities of drugs such as heroin, cocaine, and synthetic drugs (Spapens, 2017). Secondly, as the interviews of our study indicate, criminals within drug networks are also increasingly active in other sectors that were more delineated in the past, such as various forms of illegal immigration or human trafficking (Nelen et al., 2021). ...
... Firstly, networks often include a top segment with two to four core players, consisting mostly of investors and organizers, followed by a middle management including coordinators and right hands of organizers. In the lower levels, executors and assistants can be found (Kruisbergen et al., 2012;Spapens, 2017). The latter often turn out to be socially disadvantaged people with financial problems or, even if less often, forced laborers . ...
... In the past 5 years, we initiated two major studies on Dutch criminal families (Moors & Spapens, 2017;Boer et al., 2020). 1 In the first study, the main research question was whether intergenerational transmission of involvement in serious and organised crime occurred within such families, and if so, how this should be explained. The second study focused on strategies to reduce criminal and antisocial behaviour within such families and to prevent intergenerational transmission. ...
Chapter
In Germany, an intense political and media discussion has emerged on the phenomenon of “clan crime” (Clan-Kriminalität). In the course of the debate, “Arab clans” have often been accused of establishing criminal networks based on kinship and family ties. Despite the public debate, however, there has been a very little empirical research on the topic and virtually no attempt to understand it on a scientific basis by examining its socio-historical and cultural contexts. In this chapter, I demonstrate the roles of migration politics, socio-economic conditions, and kinship dynamics in shaping the structure and character of “clan crimes” in Germany. I argue that when a crime is committed by the member of a clan, it usually takes place either within that person’s nuclear family or independently of it and not at a clan level. Despite a widespread belief to the contrary, in my fieldwork, I found no evidence of clans either organizing or supporting organized criminal activity.
... achteraf te ontnemen dan wel voor opsporing van financieel economische delicten. 98 Het volgen van geldstromen 99 vindt nauwelijks plaats met als gevolg dat geldstromen nogal eens buiten het zicht van de opsporing blijven: onduidelijk is waar het geld blijft (zie onder anderen Kruisbergen et al., 2018;Moors & Spapens, 2017;Tops et al., 2018;Van Wijk & Lenders, 2018). De nadruk in de bestrijding van georganiseerde (drugs) criminaliteit ligt -ondanks alle mogelijkheden die op het gebied van financieel rechercheren zijn gecreëerd -nog sterk op de kilo's en kerels (zie Lindeman, 2017;Tops et al., 2018). ...
... Dit neemt niet weg dat specialisatie voor criminele samenwerkingsverbanden nodig is om een criminele business (processen, connecties, routes, poortwachters et cetera) goed te leren kennen (Spapens, 2017). Het vergt nogal wat capaciteiten om een crimineel samenwerkingsverband te runnen dat succesvol is in lucratieve vormen van criminaliteit (Moors & Spapens, 2017). De georganiseerde criminaliteit gebruikt legale structureren om enerzijds criminele processen uit te voeren en anderzijds de financiële opbrengsten van criminele processen toegankelijk te maken voor gebruik (Tops & Tromp, 2017). ...
... Relaties hebben hierbij deels een familiair of vriendschappelijk karakter (zie bijvoorbeeldMoors & Spapens, 2017;Staring et al., 2019). 164 Deze logistieke processen kunnen overigens worden gebruikt voor de handel in andere goederen, zoals illegaal vuurwerk. ...
... 'closed' family systems, where money, drugs, and weapons are available and where the use of aggression and violence is common [9]. There are some smallscale qualitative studies available that seem to suggest that children of organized crime offenders may be at high risk of criminal involvement [9,17,29,34]. For example, Moors and Spapens [29] studied seven criminal families in the south of the Netherlands and found that very few family members seemed able to escape the continuity of crime. ...
... There are some smallscale qualitative studies available that seem to suggest that children of organized crime offenders may be at high risk of criminal involvement [9,17,29,34]. For example, Moors and Spapens [29] studied seven criminal families in the south of the Netherlands and found that very few family members seemed able to escape the continuity of crime. Van Dijk and colleagues (2018) found similar results in their case study on 25 Amsterdam-based organized crime offenders. ...
... As shown before, one of the major components of organized crime specifically, is the complex network structure in which criminal activities are carried out. As several more anecdotal or qualitative studies showed, sons and also daughters are potentially more likely to marry someone within the (criminal) network of their parents, which subsequently poses additional risk of continued offending in the generations to come [9,20,29,34,33,36]. In addition, particularly in this group of more serious offenders, we cannot rule out the possibility that official record biases may lead to an overestimation of intergenerational continuity [4]. ...
Article
Full-text available
As existing literature on intergenerational continuity of criminal behavior is mainly based on data on ‘general’ offenders and their children, the current study aims to improve our knowledge by looking at intergenerational continuity of crime among a national sample of children of organized crime offenders. Judicial data on all (N= 478) offenders convicted of organized crime in the Netherlands (in the period 2008 - 2014) and their children were used to study offspring’s involvement in crime. In addition, a comparison group was selected from the entire population in the Netherlands to examine the relative risk of offending. Results show that almost half of the children of organized crime offenders have a criminal record. Sons are significantly more at risk of offending and this risk also increases strongly by age. Furthermore, the results show the strongest intergenerational relation for violent crimes. Gender of the convicted parent and timing of parental crime also seem to play a role in the continuity. With regard to the relative risk of offending, the results show that children of convicted organized crime offenders are three times more at risk of offending compared to children in the comparison group, even after controlling for the number of parental crimes. In sum, there is a substantial risk of intergenerational continuity of criminal behavior among children of organized crime offenders. Future research would benefit from focusing on how criminal behavior in these specific families is transmitted to future generations.
... Shady entrepreneurs, criminals and their family members are usually known in their local communities. Criminal families, for instance, ensure 'walls of silence' both through intimidation and philanthropy, the latter for instance by acting as 'informal mayors' and spokespersons for the neighbourhood and arranging things with the municipality such as housing and children's playgrounds, but also by supporting individuals who experience setbacks (Moors and Spapens 2017;Bruinsma et al. 2018). Others, however choose to maintain a low profile but stand out because of their well-protected private homes, including heavy roller-shutters and CCTV-cameras. ...
... Status may of course also be linked to money and the power derived from it. Expenditure on luxury goods and a luxury lifestyle as well as being 'generous' to people in their social environment can therefore be status-enhancing (Klerks 2000;Moors and Spapens 2017). ...
Article
Full-text available
In the past five years involvement of criminals in socially beneficial activities and philanthropy has received increasing attention in the Netherlands. Amateur football clubs appear to be particularly vulnerable to criminal infiltration. This paper presents the results of three exploratory studies conducted to answer two main questions. First, to what extent does criminal infiltration in amateur football occur, who are involved and what are their motives? Second, how may criminal infiltration be better prevented, both by clubs and public institutions? Suspected criminals have been active in amateur football as official and covert sponsors, as clubs’ presidents and coaches, or have misused clubs’ facilities for illegal activities. Our studies showed that in 2020, 19% of Dutch amateur football clubs reported to have been confronted with indications of attempted criminal infiltration and in this year the authorities had 40 cases under investigation. Criminal involvement in amateur football can be explained primarily from the perspective of social embeddedness and the aim to improve one’s status and social acceptation within local communities. Although awareness of the problem has been growing, preventing, detecting and tackling criminal infiltration may still be improved.
... intergenerationele overdracht van geweld in intieme relaties of de overdracht van crimineel gedrag over meer generaties bestudeerd (Moors & Spapens, 2017). Diverse studies hebben onderstreept dat kindermishandeling een risicofactor is voor zowel het plegen van geweld in intieme relaties op volwassen leeftijd, als voor het plegen van geweldsdelicten en andere strafbare feiten tijdens de adolescentie en daarna (Lahlah, 2013(Lahlah, , 2017Moors & Spapens, 2017 ...
... intergenerationele overdracht van geweld in intieme relaties of de overdracht van crimineel gedrag over meer generaties bestudeerd (Moors & Spapens, 2017). Diverse studies hebben onderstreept dat kindermishandeling een risicofactor is voor zowel het plegen van geweld in intieme relaties op volwassen leeftijd, als voor het plegen van geweldsdelicten en andere strafbare feiten tijdens de adolescentie en daarna (Lahlah, 2013(Lahlah, , 2017Moors & Spapens, 2017 ...
... Het actuele onderzoek focust zich hoofdzakelijk op de continuïteit van crimineel gedrag in de brede, open samenleving die gekenmerkt wordt door een heterogene samenstelling, en kijkt vervolgens hoe delictgedrag zich concentreert bij leden van bepaalde subgroepen die dit gedrag aan hun nageslacht doorgeven. Voor gesloten en moeilijk te onderzoeken leefgemeenschappen, berucht om hun criminele activiteiten, heeft het levenslooponderzoek minder aandacht (Moors & Spapens, 2017). Enerzijds komt dit omdat er -zeker voor recent ontstane leefgemeenschappenonvoldoende langetermijndata beschikbaar zijn om die intergenerationele overdracht te bestuderen. ...
... Strong social ties, like family ties (cf. [48]), provide trustworthy partners that are discrete towards outsiders with regard to the illegal activities. Unlike conclusions in the literature that are based on the trade-off between communication and concealment, trust can be built through elaborate communication [40,41]. ...
Article
Full-text available
This article examines how corporate crime is organised through studying the longevity of illegal business cartels. Previous studies demonstrate cartels can remain undetected for years or decades. Similar to criminal networks, cartel participants need to communicate in order to collaborate effectively, but operate covertly at the same time. The case study analysis of fourteen Dutch cartel cases in this study demonstrates two main findings. First, cartel participants communicate frequently and elaborately, and the need for trust and communication impedes concealment. Second, the longevity of cartels cannot be explained by isolation from but by embeddedness in their social environment. The context of legitimacy and a facilitating environment are significant factors. Criminal collaboration is studied extensively in literature on organised crime, however gained little attention in the literature on corporate crime. Hereby, this study contributes to an understanding of how corporate criminal conduct is organised, by applying relevant theory on criminal networks gleaned from the literature on organised crime.
Book
Full-text available
This book charts the development of crime and (in)security in Almere since 2010. It describes its development until 2030, in connection with the urban and social evolution of the city. In this way, the book explores the challenges this New Town has to tackle in order to keep the safety level in the city manageable.
Book
Full-text available
Een goed onderbouwde aanpak van de georganiseerde criminaliteit is alleen mogelijk wanneer er een gedegen inzicht bestaat in de aard van de georganiseerde criminaliteit zoals die zich in Nederland manifesteert. De Monitor Georganiseerde Criminaliteit biedt dat inzicht door zo veel mogelijk de kennis te benutten die wordt opgedaan tijdens omvangrijke opsporingsonderzoeken. Dit rapport is een deelrapport van de vijfde ronde van de Monitor Georganiseerde Criminaliteit. Het behandelt de volgende onderwerpen: de criminele carrière van daders in de georganiseerde criminaliteit; hoe de verwevenheid van daders met hun omgeving hen in staat stelt hun criminele activiteiten af te schermen; en de opsporing van de daders.
Book
This book studies and disaggregates the "crisis of the suburbs" in Paris through the stories of inhabitants in 4000sud: a French suburban neighborhood. These stories have become pressing in the aftermath of the recent wave of terrorist attacks in France. The French banlieues are some of the most prominent and infamous examples of urban neighborhoods affected by vandalism, rioting, criminality and chronic poverty. Based on extensive ethnographic research, the book explores the making of the French suburban crisis as constituted both externally (by state actors) and internally, by young people at the street corner. It reveals how the French state’s understanding of banlieue violence, and subsequent policy measures, contribute to the creation and hardening of boundaries between "us" and "them". The book takes the reader on a journey from the city center of Paris to the heart of neighborhood 4000sud. It unveils how young suburban residents try to cope simultaneously with the negative images imposed on them from the outside, and the disciplinary expectations of their peers on the street. In search for identity and dignity they navigate life through diverging strategies: they escape the neighborhood, contest stereotypical images through (violent) protest, or confirm and act out the image of "gangster from the ghetto". Drawing on Urban Sociology, Human Geography, and Cultural Anthropology, this book offers new analytical vocabularies to understand the connections between place-making processes, social identity dynamics and violent performances. The book is written for a broad audience of students, scholars and policy makers interested in contemporary (sub)urban violence in Europe.
Chapter
The distinguishing feature of chronic poverty is its long duration. It might be argued that the most extreme form of chronic poverty is that which persists over an entire course of life or even across generations. In this chapter, the international literature on the intergenerational transmission (IGT) of poverty is reviewed in order to identify the key factors associated with the IGT of poverty and to identify any gaps in our understanding.
Article
James J. Heckman, John Eric Humphries, and Tim Kautz make a powerful case for noncognitive skills- or what they conceptualize as character-as an explanation of educational achievement and other important outcomes in life. They do so while exposing the myth of the GED, arguing that the GED harms its intended beneficiaries by failing to instill the character skills that predict adult success. Childhood interventions to build personal character, especially self-control, are emphasized. The Myth of Achievement Tests is a major contribution, but I integrate relevant research on crime and social control across the life course that motivates a more dynamic conceptualization of character. I also review evidence on the environment as a source of both cognitive and noncognitive skills, including exposure to concentrated deprivation, violence, and lead toxicity. Moreover, I review evidence suggesting that social reactions to character shape life chances in ways not reducible to individual propensities, such as changes in criminal-justice policy that created large cohort differentials in incarceration for the same underlying behaviors. Social context and the character of American society itself are thus central to fostering individual character-not just skills but the desire to conform. It follows that self-control and social control need to be better unified theoretically and in designing interventions. (JEL I21, I26, I28, J24, R23, Z13).
Article
Social Networks: An Introduction is the first textbook that combines new with still-valuable older methods and theories.
Chapter
Aggressive and antisocial behaviors are persistent problems for our society. Understanding the etiology of such behavior has proved difficult at best. One of the issues currently facing researchers engaged in the etiological study of aggressive and antisocial behavior is the possibility that congenital factors may play a role in such behavior. These factors include genetic influences and pregnancy, delivery, and neonatal complications. If congenital factors are indeed an aspect in the etiology of some violent antisocial behavior, then the expectation arises that such factors, which affect children at the beginning of their lives, would result in individuals who would evidence persistent patterns of violent behavior. But are there individuals who are reliably violent? If not, then the search for congenital biological determinants of violence may be in vain.
Article
This article examines the familial transmission of criminal convictions in families in the Cambridge Study in Delinquent Development Our main analyses focus on the 344 families in the Cambridge Study with two or more children. Criminal convictions were highly familial because convictions in a parent increased the risk of convictions in a child. Correlations between siblings were stronger in same-sex siblings (.45 to .50) than in opposite-sex ones (.27). Sibling correlations did not vary by birth order. Convictions of mothers and father correlated .55. Parent-child correlations were about the same as within-generation correlations between siblings. LISREL models were used to assess whether the effect of parental convictions on child convictions was direct or mediated through the quality of the family environment (i.e., supervision, child rearing, and family size). The best fitting LISREL models suggested a direct effect of parental convictions on child convictions, without any mediation by family environment. These data on full biological siblings, however, did not permit separate estimation of family environmental versus genetic effects. One environmental effect appeared, however - a socialization effect among siblings; in families with three sons, there appeared to be mutual influence of one sibling on another. Also, regression models based on the boys suggested that family environmental variables did add to parental criminality.