Organised crime threat assessments: a critical review

Abstract: Since the beginning of the 21st century, several national and international government agencies have initiated organised crime threat assessments. Additionally, a few scholars have published methods to assess the risks and threats of organised crime. These governmental bodies and scholars claim that their reports and methods can demonstrate that certain forms of organised crime are more threatening than others and thus help policy-makers set strategic priorities. In this article I discuss these claims by examining the reliability and validity of the operational definitions of the key concepts used, such as organised crime, threat and risk. This examination reveals that most reports and methods provide insufficient detail—and sometimes even no details at all—to guarantee the reliability and validity of their operational definitions. The search for validity is made particularly difficult by the ambiguity surrounding the concepts of organised crime, threat and risk, while the concept

Object Details

• Location: Deutsche Nationalbibliothek Frankfurt am Main
• Extent: Online-Ressource
• Language: Englisch
• Notes: Postprint ; begutachtet (peer reviewed) ; In: Crime, Law and Social Change ; 54 (2010) 1 ; 63-86

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Soziale Probleme, Sozialdienste, Versicherungen

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (where): Mannheim
• (when): 2010
• Creator: Zoutendijk, Andries Johannes

Further information

• DOI: 10.1007/s10611-010-9244-7
• URN: urn:nbn:de:0168-ssoar-256004
• Rights: Open Access unbekannt; Open Access; Der Zugriff auf das Objekt ist unbeschränkt möglich.
• Last update: 15.08.2025, 7:36 AM CEST