Critical Reflections on Transnational Organized Crime, Money Laundering, and Corruption

Ashley Thomson is a full librarian at Laurentian University and co-editor or co-author of nine books, most recently Margaret Atwood: A Reference Guide, 1988-2005.

This volume, which contains 11 scholarly papers and a lengthy
introduction by its editor (the director of York University’s
Nathanson Centre for the Study of Organized Crime and Corruption),
represents a nice compendium of current critical thinking on organized
crime and associated issues. The authors address various questions: What
is organized crime? What is transnational crime? How have authorities
responded to such crime both nationally and internationally? Is media
coverage of crime distorted to serve the interests of some politicians,
media, police, and international organizations whose financial
viability/resources depend on the public perception that crime is
growing and poses a serious threat? Is the addition of new resources
beneficial or wasteful?

Some papers are specifically focused on drug and tobacco trafficking.
What they do not seem to focus on is money laundering and corruption
(the subject of only one paper) and from that perspective, the book’s
title is somewhat misleading.

Two papers appeared earlier in the journal Crime, Law and Social
Change, and one in an earlier version in the book Wages of Crime. The
35-page bibliography will be invaluable to specialists wishing to read
further.