Organized Crime and Appropriation of Ethnicity

Frank Bovenkerk, University of Utrecht
Mattijs Van de Port, Willem Pompe Inst. for the Criminal Law
Dina Siegel, Willem Pompe Inst. for the Crim. Law/Crim
Damian Zaitch, Erasmus University Rotterdam

ABSTRACT
In criminology race, culture and ethnicity are used to explain delinquency. In this tradition organized crime has often been presented with an exotic flavor. In the course of our research among Colombian "traquetos" in cocain, Turkish and Kurdish heroin dealers and Russian-speaking Mafiosi in The Netherlands we have learned to reverse the assumed causal relationship. It is through the appropriation of ethnicity that criminal groups and individuals manifest themselves.

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Updated 05/20/2006