It is even more difficult to measure organised crime than conventional crime. Much of organised crime involves criminal enterprises where there is no clear victim or where victims are unlikely to step forward, and so the de-tection of organized crime is almost entirely reliant on the efforts of local law enforcement. Countries with the worst problems may have the lowest detection rates, and so Lustration
Most European post-communist countries have at least discussed some form of lustration. Albania, in 1991, passed an amendment to the Labour Code stipulating that persons must be removed from any official position held where they had previously served in the communist administration. Similar laws followed in 1993 and 1995, focusing on persons who had held a state or a party posi-tion. In 2003, a lustration law was adopted by the Serbian parliament, covering human rights violation occurring after March 1976. Persons affected by the law included deputies, members of the judiciary, and officials of the se-curity information agency. Implementation, however, has been slow. Other countries are at an earlier stage in the process. In the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, in January 2007, the parliament approved a draft lustra-tion law. The aim of the law is to exclude collaborators of the ex-State Security Agency from being elected to senior state posts. In addition to legislative and executive power, the law prohibits also the appointment of ex-collaborators in the areas of justice and media. As of May 2007, an initiative by the National Liberal Party (PNL) of Romania to draft a lustration law is underway. In Croatia, two lus-tration law drafts were proposed by the ‘Croatian Party of Rights’ in February 1998 and October 1999 but both were ultimately rejected. Similarly, no lustration laws are in force in Bosnia and Herzegovina or Moldova. 142
Russia police work than it is of the level of crime in a society.
It is therefore difficult to demonstrate the existence of an organised crime problem in a society, let alone track trends.
Law enforcement investigations, prosecutions, and convictions do provide a kind of ‘floor’ on the organised crime picture, however. With regard to Balkan organised crime, there are two sets of indicators to be consulted:
Organised crime investigations, arrests, convictions,
•
and seizures within the region
Organised crime investigations, arrests, convictions,
•
and seizures involving South East European crimi-nals or territory but made in West Europe.
These will be considered in turn.
Within the region, it is clear that while law enforcement corruption is an issue (as will be discussed below), it is also clear that remarkable efforts are being made against organised crime. The governments of South East Europe dedicate substantial capacity to organised crime investigations. Romania has nine organised crime investigators per 100,000 citizens, as opposed to Italy’s 0.4 (Figure). All the countries of the region have ratified the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime (Box).
According to the Council of Europe’s 2004 Organised Crime Situation Report, the governments of South East Europe identified over 2,500 organised crime operations in 2003, with just under 9,000 suspects identified or prose-cuted. Albania, a country with limited resources to fight
or-The UN Convention against Transnational Organised Crime
The United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime, adopted by General Assembly resolu-tion 55/25 of 15 November 2000, is the main internaresolu-tional instrument in the fight against transnational organized crime. It opened for signature by Member States at a High-level Political Conference convened for that pur-pose in Palermo, Italy, on 12-15 December 2000 and en-tered into force on 29 September 2003. The Convention is further supplemented by three Protocols, on human trafficking, migrant smuggling, and firearms trafficking.
States that ratify this instrument commit themselves to taking a series of measures against transnational organ-ized crime, including:
Criminalising participation in an organized criminal
•
group, money laundering, corruption and obstruction of justice
Acceding to a comprehensive agreement on
extradic-•
tion, mutual legal assistance and law enforcement co-operation; and
the promotion of training and technical assistance for
•
building or upgrading the necessary capacity of na-tional authorities.
All of the countries of the region have adopted the con-vention: Bulgaria and Serbia in 2001; Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Romania in 2002; Croatia in 2003;
Moldova and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia in 2005, and Montenegro ratified it in 2006.
Organised crime investigators per 100,000 citizens in 2004 Map 3:
Source: UNODC CTS
The real problem: Organised crime and corruption
ganized crime, had more investigations per capita in 2003 than any other country in the region,148 and the number of investigations increased by over 50% in 2004.149
The 2005 Council of Europe Organised Crime Situa-tion Report gave a better sense of the types of crime investigated in these cases, which varied considerably between countries (Figure). For example, a very large share (82%) of organised crime investigations in Kosovo province involved trafficking in human beings, while the single largest category in the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia was counterfeiting.
These investigations reveal two things. One is that or-ganised crime problem is there to be detected. The sec-ond is that something is being done about it, at least in targeted areas.
Of even greater international concern is the impact South East European criminals are having outside the region. How serious a threat are South East European organised crime groups to West Europe? There remains the possibility that criminals operating within the Bal-kans may be protected by political connections or cor-ruption, but no one has alleged that these groups have succeeded in subverting law enforcement across West Europe. Consequently, data on the rate at which South East European criminals are arrested and convicted in West Europe should give some insight into the scale of the problem.
With a few notable exceptions, most countries in the world incarcerate far more of their own citizens than for-eigners. It is fair to conclude that, globally, the number one crime threat for most countries is domestic. While not
The CARPO organised crime situation reports Between 2004 and 2007 the European Commission and the Council of Europe produced a series of situation re-ports on organised and economic crime in Albania and the former Yugoslavia. These reports were based on a survey of member states and were able to make some im-portant qualitative observations about crime in the region.
According to the final report, issued in June 2007:
The traditional Balkan drug trafficking route has become a two-way route with an increasing volume of trafficking.
Mainly heroin and cannabis are moving toward the EU, the major consumer market for illicit drugs, while precur-sor chemicals and synthetic drugs are moving eastwards, increasingly in the form of multi-drug trafficking (“cocktail load”).
Trafficking in human beings for sexual exploitation has be-come more clandestine and sophisticated (“micro-broth-els”), but seems to decrease. Victims seem to be receiving a less violent treatment (and more money) but also more psychological pressures (threats to families at home)…
Illegal migration is and has been on the top of national and international agendas for some time. Law enforce-ment efforts and a more effective border control manage-ment appear to have made a positive change as figures are decreasing; at least so far [sic] as organised crime groups are engaged.
Economic crime, which affects all project areas continues to evolve but remains fussy [sic] and unclear…152 Organised crime suspects investigated
Figure 42:
per 100,000 citizens in 2003
Source: Council of Europe, 2004150
Breakdown of organized crime cases Figure 43:
prosecuted
Source: Council of Europe 2005151
1 3
Greece Moldova Serbia FYR Macedonia Germany Bulgaria Romania Italy Albania
32
all convicts are equally dangerous and foreign criminals can create problems out of proportion to their numbers, it is illuminating to look at the share of prison berths oc-cupied by non-citizens, particularly from a comparative perspective.
Looking solely at the foreign prison population of four West European countries, South East Europeans repre-sent a minority of between 2% (France) and 34% (Italy) of the foreigners incarcerated (Figure). Similarly, some 27% of the foreign prison population of Switzerland was from the former Yugoslavia, 8% from Albania, and less than 1% from Romania, Bulgaria, and Moldova, in 2004.
In other words, in none of these five countries do citi-zens of the nine South East European countries repre-sent more than 35% of the foreign crime problem, at least in terms of convict numbers.
In countries where the size of foreign populations is well-documented, it is possible to look at what share of resident South East Europeans find themselves in trou-ble with the law. Albanians incarcerated in Italy make up the single largest group in the figure above, constituting 15% of all foreigners detained in Italy. At the end of 2005 there were nearly 3000 Albanians in criminal detention in Italy, but there were almost 350,000 Albanians resi-dent in the country, so 0.9% of the Albanian population in Italy was detained. This may sound like a lot, but 0.1%
of the general population in Italy is in prison – if one were to control for factors like age and income, the dif-ference may not be so great. And this is just 0.2% more than the share of all foreigners in prison in the country.
In other words, Albanians are not much more likely than the average foreigner to find themselves behind bars in
Italy, and are less so than many African groups. Many nationalities from the region are less likely than the aver-age foreigner to be incarcerated.
While this sort of comparison is interesting, these figures include a great number of petty criminals. More pertinent are the data related to the numbers and share of South East Europeans who are arrested for specific organised crimes. These are included in the topical discussions of organised crime below. Recent analysis suggests that organised crime groups are increasingly involved in more than one type of crime.155 Despite multi-crime organisations, it still makes sense to look at organised crime by categories of offence, and this discussion com-prises the balance of this section.Two broad headings of organised crime are discussed: the various forms of