Transcrime agenda at the 2026 ASC Annual Conference

This paper presents an updated systematic analysis of the presence of Italian mafias abroad from 2000 to 2022 using references extracted from official reports of Italian antimafia authorities. Building on earlier research, it examines how foreign mafia presence changes over time in terms of countries, mafia groups, and activities. The analysis compares the evolution of the ’Ndrangheta, Camorra, Cosa Nostra, and Apulian mafias across countries and activity types, including drug trafficking, fugitives and arrests, money laundering and legal-economy infiltration, stable presence, generic presence, and other illicit activities. Preliminary findings suggest that reported mafia presence remains geographically concentrated but evolves substantially in composition, with the ’Ndrangheta becoming increasingly prominent and economic activities gaining salience alongside drug trafficking. The paper emphasizes dynamic change rather than static distribution and explores whether observed growth reflects only longer and more detailed reporting or also substantive shifts in the international profile of Italian mafias. The study contributes to debates on organized crime mobility and the internationalization of mafia groups, while also reflecting critically on the strengths and limits of official law-enforcement sources.

Place management theory argues that commercial establishments vary in their capacity to influence criminal behaviour and crime opportunities, but large-scale empirical tests remain limited. This study uses Food Standards Agency (FSA) inspection ratings of different types of facilities across 4,988 English Lower Layer Super Output Areas as a proxy to test whether presence and concentration of poorly managed establishments is associated with higher crime. Mixed-effects negative binomial models, including both temporal and spatial lags, are estimated for violent crime, robbery, theft, and drug offences. Results show that the absolute presence of at least one poorly managed establishment is associated with significantly higher violent crime, robbery, and theft, while the relative share of poorly managed premises is not independently predictive. An analysis by type of establishment reveals that poorly managed restaurants are the most consistent predictor across crime types, with retailers and takeaways contributing specifically to theft only. Drug offences show no association with poor management across any model. The findings advance place management theory by empirically testing it on a large scale sample. Further it suggests the potential of regulatory inspection data as a crime prevention screening tool.

This study offers a criminological analysis of the security of places of worship beyond the dominant focus on hate crime and extremism. Drawing on environmental criminology, it conceptualises religious sites as settings where routine opportunity structures shape vulnerability to non-ideological offences such as theft and vandalism. The analysis is based on a large dataset of incidents identified through systematic monitoring of Italian media (2020–2025) and is complemented by insights from religious leaders, practitioners, and public authorities involved in a capacity-building workshop within the EU-funded PARTESS-COM project. The findings show that these incidents are typically opportunistic and facilitated by situational factors, including limited guardianship, unclear access control, and weak spatial demarcation. By applying situational crime prevention and routine activity theory, the paper highlights the potential of environmental and organisational interventions to reduce opportunities for offending. The results support the development of more comprehensive and balanced approaches to the security of places of worship, adopting everyday risk prevention strategies.

This study advances a risk-based approach to corruption by focusing on structural conditions that precede illegal conduct. It develops and applies novel indicators to capture two underexplored dimensions of corruption risk: conflict of interest and undue influence. Conflict of interest is defined as the overlap between political roles and private economic activity, operationalised through firm-level links to politically exposed persons. Undue influence is conceptualised as the potential for foreign ownership and control (particularly from high-risk jurisdictions) to shape decision-making through economic leverage. Using large-scale corporate ownership data from Orbis and risk-intelligence datasets, the study maps these risks across European Union Member States, disaggregating results by sector (NACE) and territory (NUTS regions). Preliminary findings highlight the concentration of politically connected firms in regulated and strategic sectors, as well as spatial clustering linked to economic and administrative structures. By moving beyond legality-based definitions, the study provides a framework for identifying corruption risks in their early, lawful stages. The resulting indicators are designed for integration into policy tools, including dashboards supporting EU Rule of Law monitoring, and offer a scalable approach to preventive anti-corruption analysis.

Waste trafficking is an increasingly relevant form of transnational environmental crime, yet the global patterns through which illegal waste moves between countries remain insufficiently understood. Existing studies have relied on binary representations of global waste trafficking networks, which capture whether countries are connected through illegal waste flows but overlook the magnitude of these exchanges. Building on this limitation, this study asks: How does the structure of the global waste trafficking network change when considering not only the presence of connections between countries, but also their frequency and the volume of waste exchanged? Drawing on data from the Basel Convention National Reports (2016–2024), we develop three network representations: a binary network, a frequency-weighted network, and a composite weighted network combining adjusted frequency and volume. To address reporting imbalances, we introduce an Adjustment Reporting Score (ARS), applied at the case level. The analysis shows that incorporating weights provides a more differentiated representation of the network, highlighting variations in the relative importance of routes and countries not visible in binary representations. This study contributes by advancing network analysis in environmental crime research and by showing how incorporating flow intensity can reveal structural patterns of waste trafficking that remain hidden.