Organized crime

modern trends and perspectives in relation to transnational Criminal Law

Abstract

Seeking to achieve terminological precision on the meaning of "organized crime", a minimum requirement for building solid considerations, the author starts from the observation that both the doctrine and the case law of most countries recognize that it is almost impossible to formulate a "unanimous concept". Hence, he states that these conceptual difficulties do not mean a total impossibility of identifying some factors that usually affect the problem and contribute to defining the profile of this phenomenon today. Therefore, he seeks to comment on these particularities as a way of understanding the total dimension of the issue, exposing a strategy of tangential approach, analyzing the international literature on certain matters that are frequently dealt with, in order to finally identify the main points of the phenomenon. After analyzing these premises, the work draws attention to the fact that certain elements or trends should decisively influence the dogmatic and criminal-policy options that Criminal Law will manifest in the societies of the future. The perspectives reveal that some positions are unavoidable and will certainly define the profile of the response mechanisms formulated by States in the face of the offense capable of being classified as "organized". Data such as the flexibilization of imputation systems and of the principle of territoriality, the growing introduction of norms based on the breach of the duty of guarantee (generating criminal types founded on omission), the tendency to adopt the theory of control of the fact and the fundamental postulates of the theory of objective imputation will be components of a new dogmatic model destined to find answers to the phenomenon of organized crime.