Fighting Serious Crimes
Strategies and Tactics for Conflict-Affected Societies
Fighting Serious Crimes: Strategies and Tactics for Conflict-Affected Societies is an invaluable resource for anyone battling serious crimes in societies seeking to avoid conflict, to escape from violence, or to recover and rebuild. Packed with practical guidance, this volume includes real world examples from more than twenty of today’s conflict zones, including Libya, Yemen, Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, and Colombia. All the major challenges are covered, from initial assessment to legal and institutional reform, investigation to prosecution, criminal intelligence to witness protection, the use of international tribunals to the role of international military forces. The volume draws on the firsthand experience of dozens of practitioners, distilling what they have learned into clearly organized and highly readable text that is supplemented by check-lists and sidebars that help readers conduct assessments, identify international and regional legal instruments (such as treaties), and complete a host of other key tasks.
Contributors
Elaine Banar • Adalbert Gross • Michael Hartmann • Deborah Isser • Andrew Mackay • Vivienne O’Connor • David C. Ralston • Colette Rausch • Thomas Stevenson
Experts
Thomas Barfield • Kurt W. Bassuener • Hudson Benzu • Roberto Courtney • Felipe De La Torre • Christian De Vos • Fidelma Donlon • Michael J. Dziedzic • Charles Erdmann • Larry Gwaltney • Isabel Hight • Christiana Hoffman • Alex Innes • Goran Klemencic • Agnieszka Klonowiecka-Milart • Peter Korneck • Neil J. Kritz • Kenneth Lowrie • Leanne McKay • Joyce Kasee Mills • Marco Maria Monaco • Assad Mubarak • Maria Nystedt •Bruce Ohr • Bruce “Ossie” Oswald • Michael Platzer • David Reddin • Ali Saleem • Govind Prasad Thapa • Kim Thomas • Horst Tiemann • Catherine Volz • Abla Gadegbeku Williams • Gerard Winter
Organized crime networks pose a serious and growing threat to security. That is because those networks cooperate with hostile states and terrorist organizations. And those networks perpetuate state and institutional weakness that frustrates efforts to improve security and foster development. Fighting Serious Crimes offers exactly what we need: firsthand accounts of what has worked in the past, expert assessments of current threats, descriptions of new tools, and explanations of how to apply those tools effectively.
This handbook offers policymakers and practitioners an invaluable combination of breadth of coverage, pragmatic focus, and wealth of experience. Brimming with experience and brilliantly edited, this volume is truly a useful tool.
Fragile states with weak institutions often provide ample opportunity for criminal organizations, particularly those with international ties, to deepen and expand instability, violence, and lawlessness. This book is compelling reading for those interested in how efforts to establish the rule of law and develop justice institutions can counter such threats—and, more broadly, help nations to emerge both strong and free after critical moments of transition.
This volume is the product of years of patient and diligent work, and the outcome is a truly outstanding contribution to law enforcement capacity- and institution-building . . . . A repository of knowledge hitherto longed for but never before accessible in tangible form.
Fighting Serious Crimes provides us with reliable and analytical information covering many different facets of the problem of serious crimes. It also presents practical steps that we can take to build the rule of law in our countries.
