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Special Report: Crime and security – trends and solutions (ISSN 17414474)
Crime remains a profitable business
An important perspective on crime in Latin America can be gained from viewing it as a business. After all, most criminal activity is the result of demand and supply for illegal goods and services. Experience has shown that efforts to combat crime that rely exclusively on supply-side factors on the one hand, or exclusively on demand-side factors on the other, tend to be unsuccessful. According to a report by lobby Global Financial Integrity (GFI), there are 11 top-earning criminal businesses worldwide. Together, they represent US$1.6tn to US$2.2tn in annual retail value. By value and on a global level, the top criminal activities are counterfeiting, drug trafficking, illegal logging, human trafficking, and illegal mining, in that order. GFI suggests that these businesses will continue to thrive as long as “the paradigm of high profits and low risks” is not challenged.
- Executive summary
- The homicide rate: fluctuating, but too high
- Organised crime remains resilient
- Crime remains a profitable business
- A heroin epidemic in the United States?
- Colombian cocaine production surges ahead
- Prison reform is urgently needed
- White collar crime: the battle against ‘grand corruption’
- The criminal justice system struggles to cope