Armed conflict, crime and criminal violence

Abstract

Abstract Continuing proliferation of criminal violence in armed conflict settings and the growing links between crime and conflict underscore the need to more actively integrate the study of organized crime and criminal violence into the analysis of organized collective violence. In 2009 this was illustrated by the case of piracy rooted in the weak, conflict-torn state of Somalia and the interaction between the opium economy and conflict in Afghanistan. Even in the absence of classic armed conflict, systemic criminal violence, such as drug-trafficking-related violence in Mexico, may match conflict in scale and intensity and threaten to undermine human security and social order.