This book presents primary research conducted in Italy, USA, Australia and the UK on countering strategies and institutional perceptions of Italian mafias and local organized crime groups. Through interviews and interpretation of original documents, this study firstly demonstrates the interaction between institutional understanding of the criminal threats and historical events that have shaped these perceptions. Secondly, it combines analysis of policies and criminal law provisions to identify how policing models which combat mafia and organised crime activities are organized and constructed in each country within a comparative perspective.

After presenting the similarities between the four differing policing models, Sergi pushes the comparison further by identifying both conceptual and procedural convergences and divergences across both the four models and within international frameworks. By looking at topics as varied as mafia mobility, money laundering,drug networks and gang violence, this book ultimately seeks to reconsider the conceptualizations of both mafia and organized crime from a socio-behavioural and cultural perspective.