Explaining, Preventing, and Intervening in organized Crime involvement – EPIC project

Youths’ involvement in organized crime and organized crime groups is a cause of growing societal concern as it thwarts them reaching conventional goals, aggravates the seriousness of their crimes, and complicates their returning to a crime-free life. Unique to organized crime is its dependence on social opportunity structures; the social ties providing access to illicit opportunities. To successfully prevent youths from organized crime involvement, and to promote already involved youths’ desistance from organized crime groups, therefore asks for integrated interventions that likewise encompass both individual youths, as well as groups, and the different social networks that make up their social world, including their family, friends and neighborhood. The proposed research will ultimately test and improve current integrated intervention strategies. To do so, we will describe and explain youths’ organized crime involvement by combining nationwide register data on youths’ exposure to and involvement in organized crime, describe and explain the role of multiplex social networks in organized crime involvement, and interview professionals in youth care as well as youths currently or formerly involved in organized crime to gain a full understanding of the mechanisms via which youths become or stay involved in organized crime. We will, furthermore, examine what works (and what does not work) in preventing and promoting desistance among youths involved in organized crime by rigorously testing and the effectiveness of several current interventions. Knowledge and experience gained and partnerships built in the proposed project are expected to greatly advance society’s efforts in combating youths’ organized crime involvement.