Transnational Organized Crime: Summary of a Workshop (1999)

Summary: Crime is becoming increasingly international. The rates for many crimes in the developed countries of the West are quite similar and appear in recent years to rise and fall in tandem. The integration of the world’s economic systems and institutions; the easing of barriers to trade, travel, and migration; and the technology that supports global communications have all increased criminal opportunities worldwide. This workshop was designed to elicit ideas about the kinds of knowledge needed to understand the phenomenon of transnational crime—whether it is in fact the global threat to democracy and to free enterprise that it is sometimes portrayed to be—and to respond to it appropriately.