Crime In Europe Research Articles

How immigration, level of unemployment, and income inequality affect crime in Europe

How immigration, level of unemployment, and income inequality affect crime in Europe

Organised vehicle crime in Europe: Six country case studies on organised vehicle crime and potential barriers to prevent the facilitation of online distribution of stolen vehicles and vehicle parts

Organised vehicle crime in Europe: Six country case studies on organised vehicle crime and potential barriers to prevent the facilitation of online distribution of stolen vehicles and vehicle parts

A Dynamic Analysis of Economic Crime in Europe: The Role of the European Institutions in the Prevention of Economic Crimes in the COVID-19 Pandemic

A Dynamic Analysis of Economic Crime in Europe: The Role of the European Institutions in the Prevention of Economic Crimes in the COVID-19 Pandemic

Intersecting Inequalities in Romanian Crime Series Shadows (HBO). Expressions of Identity between Authenticity, Stereotypes and “Eastploitation”

"The representations of gender, ethnicity and class play a particularly significant part in structuring the way in which East European crime fiction makes sense of its cultural identity. Issues of social inequality and discrimination are addressed by the European institutions through the promotion of inter- and multi-cultural values that are meant to foster awareness about social stereotypes and prejudices and promote the artistic expression of more balanced representations (i.e. the EIGE policies). Yet sometimes the gap between the inclusive aims pursued by the European policies and the realities represented in crime films, TV dramas and novels is more than noticeable. This article aims to discuss this fluctuation between disparity, stereotypization, realism and exploitation in the HBO production Shadows (Umbre, 2014-2019)."

Audiences of popular European television crime drama: A nine-country study on consumption patterns, attitudes and drivers of transcultural connection

This article presents findings of a mixed-methods audience study on consumption patterns and attitudes towards European television crime narratives among European viewers. Based on semi-structured interviews in Denmark, Germany and Italy, and a nine-country online survey (n1321), we asked how, when, where and why European audiences watch crime series, and whether watching non-domestic European crime narratives influences perceptions of the European ‘Other’. Our findings reveal preferences for Anglo-American content, combined with a criticality towards domestic content often perceived as stereotyped. While stereotypes and personal and previous non-mediated encounters draw viewers to European content, they do not necessarily challenge viewers’ perceptions of the European ‘Other’. It does, however, enable critical reflection on viewers’ domestic societies and TV cultures, leading to a process of banal cosmopolitanism.

Book Review: European White-collar Crime. Exploring the Nature of European Realities

Book Review: European White-collar Crime. Exploring the Nature of European Realities

Anti-mafia Cross-border: Conceptual and Procedural Asymmetries in the Fight against Italian Mafias in Europe

Abstract This article explores some of the challenges to fighting against Italian mafias and mafia-type organized crime in Europe, specifically in eight countries—Germany, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, Romania, the UK, and Italy. Data have been collected and analysed in two phases: first, from open sources (including media and official reports) and judicial files; secondly, from 40 individual or collective interviews. European institutions still struggle to counter the mobility of Italian mafias because of conceptual asymmetries in policing mafia-type crimes/groups and procedural challenges. We present two analytical foci: first, the existence of a conceptual tension in the definition of mafia and mafia mobility between Italy and European countries and institutions; second, emerging procedural asymmetries in countering mafias across borders, which relate more broadly to cross-border countering of organized crime. This article wishes to screenshot the state of the art and advance some reflections, without pushing any specific theoretical framework. After exploring the two main analytical foci emerging in this research, we advance recommendations.

Capturing European crime

As “shop windows” for newly produced but not-yet-released films, the study of festivals is one measure by which it is possible to assess the nature, presence and relative quantity of European crime films made in any given year. This article explores the presence of European crime films at European film festivals by examining the complete festival programmes from Cannes, Berlin and Venice. These three festivals are widely regarded as the most prestigious and largest in Europe (forming part of the global “Big 5” alongside Sundance and Toronto) and as such are premier destination for films of all types, particularly European productions. The prestige and visibility afforded by them means that they are key sites of exhibition, marketing and potential distribution to any film that is programmed there. The aim is to begin substantiating the numerical, national and transnational make-up of European crime cinema by using its presence on the European festival circuit as means to highlight its contemporary production status. A systematic analysis of all films programmed at Cannes, Venice and Berlin in order to identify the European crime films present identified a total 289 films (8.05% of the total films programmed at these festivals) out of 3587 films surveyed across a five-year period (2016–2020).

On the cultural circulation of contemporary European crime cinema

Considering the transnational prominence of European cinema, European crime films present an interesting case. As a genre, crime “is clearly the most popular genre across Europe for novels, television series and films”, and crime fiction productions are abundant on a national level in most European countries (Bondebjerg et al. 223). Crime fiction, therefore, appears as the genre most able to facilitate transborder cultural exchange and communicate “Europeanness” at local, national, regional, and transnational levels. This is surely the case of television productions where “crime drama seems to be a powerful, cross-cultural phenomenon with the noteworthy possibility of travelling internationally” (Hansen et al. 3). However, while crime novels and television series have been receiving much critical attention—especially within the context of Nordic Noir—crime films are absent from most of the scholarly discussions and struggle to gain cross-border popularity. It can be argued that crime drama on television has profited from a changed transnational production and distribution culture which has not benefited European crime films in the same way.

The Troubles crime thriller and the future of films about Northern Ireland

Troubles-based crime thrillers were once a staple of Hollywood cinema in the 1990s. However, these types of films have become something of a subgenre of European crime films in the last few decades given that films produced over the period have all been produced and financed by either the United Kingdom, Ireland, France or Germany. Owing to both the financial and critical success of these films, relative to other types of films about Northern Ireland, and the more market-driven approach adopted by policymakers, the crime thriller genre has also become the primary way that audiences engage with cinema about Northern Ireland. Although some encouraging developments have come with this transition away from, at times, exploitative Hollywood-produced films, continued reliance on genre in this new dispensation—specifically the crime thriller—is still a development that is not without problems. The type of films about the conflict produced today also contrasts significantly with those produced during the “first wave” of Irish cinema in the 1980s.

DETECting the “noirification” of European popular narratives across film, fiction and television

The article explores the transcultural dimension of European crime narratives by looking at the specific role of cinema in this context. Building on the research conducted by DETECt scholars in different areas of contemporary popular culture—especially literature and television—it first discusses the link between the more and more widespread use of the “noir” label and the increasing cultural legitimation of the crime genre. The article then argues that this phenomenon echoes the emergence of a new “European quality crime film” in recent years. While stressing the potential contribution of the genre to the circulation of European cinema, the evident limits of its impact in this field are also examined. Finally, it looks more closely at the transnational circulation of contemporary Italian crime films to assess to what extent they have been able to find a transnational audience on a continental level. In this context, the importance to look beyond theatrical distribution and the centrality of intermedial exchanges are highlighted, indicating new directions for research.

Shadows from the past: Unstable memories and collective trauma in Black Earth Rising1

Among the many important issues addressed by contemporary European crime drama production, one can find the construction of collective and individual memory, oftentimes linked to major traumatic events of the twentieth century. This article focuses on Black Earth Rising, a UK production created by Hugo Blick. The series’ protagonist, Kate Ashby (Michaela Coel), is a legal investigator, orphaned during the 1994 Tutsi genocide in Rwanda and later adopted by a renowned British prosecutor in international criminal law. Black Earth Rising revolves around Kate’s investigations, which in turn lead her back to Rwanda, where she faces not only trauma and shadows of her childhood in Rwanda, but also the tragic violence that shaped the history of her country. Considering the relationship between memory, processing trauma and the crime genre, this article examines different aspects of Blick’s TV series. More precisely, the article explores the crime drama’s utilization of investigation as a narrative tool that guides the viewer through the history of the Rwandan genocide, the role of its female protagonist and the function of reoccurring black-and-white animated sequences. In this analysis, crime drama, in part due to its widespread popularity, is framed as an important tool that allows for the construction of shared space, in which mediated cultural encounters and collective memory can take place.

A game of mirrors: Western/Eastern European crime series and the struggle for recognition

Our article focuses on a corpus of crime television series reflecting upon differences between western and eastern Europe – a phenomenon that we will address as the ‘West–East slope’. The series figure as instances of the struggle for recognition at the level of the social imaginary, between western and eastern Europe. Addressing the double logic of the western narrative on eastern Europe and the eastern narrative of western Europe, one of our main findings is that the recognition aesthetics of eastern Europe produced a multi-layered representation of the West varying from country to country. On the other hand in western productions, there is still a bias towards a more politically correct image of easternness, a state of affairs that is questioned by eastern European attempts to produce their original contents.

Book review: Environmental Crime in Europe., edited by Andrew Farmer, Michael Faure and Grazia Maria Vagliasindi. (Oxford: Hart Publishing, 2017)

Book review: <i>Environmental Crime in Europe.</i>, edited by Andrew Farmer, Michael Faure and Grazia Maria Vagliasindi. (Oxford: Hart Publishing, 2017)

Glocality and Cosmopolitanism in European Crime Narratives

Glocality and Cosmopolitanism in European Crime Narratives

‘Free In, Free Out’: Exploring Dutch Firewall Protections for Irregular Migrant Victims of Crime

Abstract Real and perceived risks of deportation may compromise the effective right of irregular migrants to report to the police if they have been a victim of crime. Some localities have therefore introduced so-called ‘firewall protection’, providing a clear separation between the provision of public services and immigration enforcement. This article explores one such policy in the Netherlands: ‘free in, free out’. While the policy began as a local pilot project, in 2015 it was introduced at the national-level alongside implementation of EU Victim’s Rights Directive, and currently represents the only national-level example of ‘firewall protection’ for victims of crime in Europe. This article is based on a socio-legal study that included interviews with informants from governmental and non-governmental organisations. It documents the legal and social reasons for instituting the policy, while critically assessing the challenges in implementation. Finally, it discusses the lessons and opportunities for expanding firewall protection more broadly in a European context.

European Crime Cinema and the Auteur

This article will offer an overview of the ever-changing relationship between the crime genre – understood as a global, transnational phenomenon – and European art cinema, with its national specificities. After a historical contextualization, this contribution focuses on the mode of production and circulation of contemporary European crime cinema by looking at two case studies of the contemporary national productions of Spain and Northern Ireland. The goal is to grasp the shifts occurring in this relationship, so understanding both the role played by the ‘auteur’ label in the distribution, commercialization, and appreciation of European crime cinema and how easily-marketable crime storylines promote the creation of new modes of authorship.

Images of the European Crisis: Populism and Contemporary Crime TV Series

During the last two decades a dramatic shift in the production and distribution strategies of TV series has taken place on a global level. This article discusses how these broad changes also led to a transformation in the form and the themes of European crime series, which emerge as ideal objects to study the representation of European societies in contemporary popular culture. The article looks at recent serial crime dramas such as La casa de papel, Suburra, and Peaky Blinders, which have abandoned the classic formula of European crime TV series, usually focused on the figure of the detective and primarily addressed to a national audience. Designed for an international market, these series provocatively concentrate on the figure of the criminal and adopt an explicitly sensationalist approach. The article argues that this style and the bleak depiction of European society in these series are both an expression and a critical representation of the rise of populism across the Old Continent.

From Euro-noir to Europe

This introduction briefly deals with the major orientations of this European Review Focus on ‘European crime fiction’. It first specifies what is meant by ‘Europe’ and which type of questions can be asked of crime fiction in view of a better understanding of Europe’s multiple and changing identities. It then presents the various contributions by linking them with the three fundamental questions of (1) circulation of crime fiction, (2) expansion of crime fiction in the broader cultural, social and economic field, and (3) the relevance of crime fiction for a thorough reflection on some properly European aspects of culture and society.

A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis of Income Inequality and Crime in Europe: Do Places Matter?

While previous synthesis research studies have found income inequality to be the most consistent predictor of crime at the cross-national level, recent comparative research studies in Europe have implied that the magnitudes of income inequality-crime association might be different in cross-national studies depending on sample composition. Employing a systematic review and meta-analysis, this study aimed to systematically estimate the strength and variability of income inequality-crime association in Europe across multiple published articles and to investigate the intervening role of regions in this relationship. Additional analyses were conducted to detect the regional differences within Europe using the official secondary data of 36 European countries. Income inequality in Europe had a small impact on crime (Mr = .171, k = 10), indicating that income inequality accounts for only 3% of the variance in crime outcomes. While the income inequality-crime association was significant in Eastern/Northern Europe, income inequality had little or no effect on crime in Western/Southern Europe. The small association between income inequality and crime in Europe may be due to the well-developed welfare system, which helps to buffer the adverse effects of being poor. This study’s findings highlight the importance of incorporating geographic characteristics into cross-national research using purposive sampling techniques.