NCJ Number
230764
Date Published
2010
Length
18 pages
Annotation
This chapter explores the consequences to situational crime prevention of cross-border crime.
Abstract
Cross-border crime by organized crime groups involves international smuggling activities such as drug trafficking, money laundering, and smuggling illegal immigrants. This chapter examines the consequences that cross-border crime has for situational crime prevention. The work in this paper is based on research conducted in the Netherlands and explores cross-border crime from three different views (export, import, and transit) with respect to four different areas of organized crime: drug production and export, drug import and transit, money laundering, and human smuggling. Ecstasy and cocaine are used as examples of drug production and export, and drug import and transit, respectively. Research results indicate that cross-border crime poses new challenges for situational crime prevention and routine activity theory. The results also highlight the limitations of situational crime prevention in dealing with cross-border crime. These limitations include: 1) many cross-border crime problems are hidden problems and thus easily overlooked; 2) cross-border crime problems are often global in nature and difficult to reconcile between foreign problem owners and local solutions; 3) cross-border crime creates trade-off problems between economic interests and criminal justice interests; 4) cross-border crime competes with limited local criminal justice resources; and 5) the false belief that administrative solutions will completely solve the problem of organized crime. Notes and references