In 1973, the central office of the German police, the Federal Criminal Police Office, was legally obliged "to maintain the necessary facilities for...research in forensic science", "to monitor crime trends and compile analytical reports and statistics on this basis", and "to conduct research with a view to developing police methods and procedures for crime control". This task is undertaken in the Research and Training Institute by the research units on criminology and criminal investigation and on technological development. In this volume, researchers from the Institute present their latest projects as well as report on the activities undertaken since 1973. This gives you a comprehensive picture of their wide-ranging work. They also examine the role that specialized police research plays for crime policy-makers, detectives and criminologists. A list of publications from the Federal Criminal Police Office completes the book.

Includes articles on criminology, penology, probation and criminal justice.

This Research Handbook on Transnational Crime is an interdisciplinary, up-to-date guide to this growing field, written by an international cohort of leading scholars and experts. It covers all the major areas of transnational crime, providing a well-rounded, detailed discussion of each topic, and includes chapters focusing on responses to transnational crime in specific regions.

This book examines the trans-border connections between militant and criminal networks and the relationship between these and the states in which they operate. "Unholy alliances" is a term used to describe hybrid trans-border militant and criminal networks that pose serious threats to security in Europe and elsewhere. Identity networks provide the basis for militant organizations using violent strategies – insurgency and terrorism – for political objectives. To gain funds and weapons militant networks may establish criminal enterprises, or align with existing trans-border criminal and financial networks. This book extends the concept of unholy alliances to include the trans-state criminal syndicates that arise in failed and dysfunctional states, exemplified by Serbia and Bulgaria during their post-Communist transitions. To deal with this complex and unconventional subject, the authors develop a theoretical framework that looks at four kinds of factors conditioning the interaction between the political and the criminal: trans-state identity networks, armed conflict, the balance of market opportunities and constraints, and the role of unstable and corrupt states. The volume also examines actors at two levels of analysis: the structure and activities of militant (and/or criminal) networks, and the policies of state actors that shape and reshape the interaction of opportunities and constraints. This book will be of much interest to students of terrorism, insurgency, transnational crime, war and conflict studies, and IR in general.