“Clan-Based Crime”: Kinship Dynamics and Risk Factors

Abstract

This panel explores the phenomenon of “clan-based crime” by looking at kinship dynamics within the context of crime. There is no single definition or clear criteria for the term as it is defined, understood, and used differently in different contexts. Recently, the term has come to describe crimes that are based on family ties among different immigrant communities in Europe that are linked by kinship, thereby having a common ethnic origin and a patriarchal-hierarchical structure, where conflicts are mediated internally. The “clans” are often suspected of committing crimes such as robbery, money laundering, drug and arms trafficking, illegal gambling, and even murder. This panel thus seeks to discuss the phenomenon of “clan-based crime” in different settings. Based on her on-going research, Dina Siegel will analyse the “Arab criminal clans” in Israel and their modus operandi and development. Amir Rostami will provide an overview of the role of kinship and so-called criminal families in Sweden, with special attention on the Syriac Mafia. Based on his long ethnographic fieldwork, Mahmoud Jaraba will discuss “Arab clan crime” in Germany, aiming to explain how, and under what circumstances have “clan crimes” evolved. Toine Spapens compares between criminal families involved in organised crime and serious antisocial behaviour with communities in which clan-type characteristics exist, but who are not associated with large-scale illegal activities, such as Assyrian and Somalian family networks in the Netherlands.

Title	Details
Kinship in crime: the case of criminal families in Sweden	View Paper Details
Arab criminal clans in Israel	View Paper Details
Extended Criminal Family Networks in the Netherlands	View Paper Details
“Arab Clan crime” in Germany: Development and Risk Factors	View Paper Details