Organised crime encompasses a broad range of activities and people, from peasants in Colombia to transnational corporate actors. Due to the diversity of actors, a global analysis of organised crime does not allow us to understand its different workings. Moreover, some activities are still poorly documented. In order to fill these gaps, Federico Varese, a professor of sociology at the Centre for European Studies and Comparative Politics and specialist of mafias, proposes a new framework that distinguishes three key activities of organised crime groups: production, trade and governance.
Based on extensive data collection, he wants to find out whether or not those functions overlap and shed light on how groups specialised in one function differ from those with other specialisations. This is the ambition of the CRIMGOV project (2021–2026) for which he has received support from the European Research Council highly selective Advanced Grants programme.

Cybercrimeology, a Canadian podcast about cyber crime, its research, and its researchers, sits down with Dr. Miranda Bruce, to discuss research mapping the global landscape of cybercrime and the importance of understanding local factors that contribute to digital offenses. She discusses the challenges of measuring cybercrime, the innovative use of expert surveys, and the development of the World Cybercrime Index.

The American Society of Criminology has selected Federico Varese, Professor of sociology at the CEE, as the 2024 recipient of the Thorsten Sellin, Sheldon and Eleanor Glueck Award in recognition of his “outstanding contributions to the field of criminology”.