Felia Allum*, Anita Lavorgna and Yuliya Zabyelina

We are pleased to present the latest issue of the European Review of Organised Crime (EROC). EROC has now reached its third year of activity. We are very proud to continue to publish one of the few online “diamond” open access journals—meaning that the process is completely free of charges to both authors and readers. This is not always easy to achieve, as we do not rely on external funding. We believe that it is a worthwhile project in order contribute to a better understanding of organised crime and promote knowledge sharing between the research community and practitioners.

In this latest issue, we have one original article, one debate piece and two practitioner contributions. Each piece complements the others as they look at different aspects of organised crime, from both national and international standpoints, and from diverse academic and non-academic perspectives. In their original article, Martin O’Brien and Sue Penna seek to see whether Europe should be understood in terms of “technological zones” based on devices, practices and regulations when looking at the policing of organised crime, and whether organised crime exposes specific challenges to new social scientific constructions of European governance.

*Felia Allum (corresponding author) is a Lecturer in Politics and Italian in the Department of Politics, Languages and International Studies, University of Bath, Claverton Down, Bath

BA2 7AY, UK. She is also the co-convenor of the ECPR Standing group on Organised Crime. Email: f.s.allum@bath.ac.uk

Anita Lavorgna is Lecturer in Criminology at the University of Southampton, UK.

Yulyia Zabyelina is Assistant Professor in the Political Science Department, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, CUNY, New York, USA.

Giving a voice to practitioners continues to be an integral part of EROC, as we strongly believe that only an open communication between the diverse practitioner and research communities, between academic and non-academics, can create a real advancement in organised crime research and facilitate evidence-based policies and processes to better prevent and counter serious and organised crime. In his contribution, Peter Klerks reflects upon the Dutch approach to counter organised crime through networked partnerships, outlining successes and ongoing challenges. Claire Rickards offers an Australian perspective on the current and potential obstacles in the fight against organised crime.

Last but not least, we are very pleased to publish a thought-provoking debate piece by Dwight C. Smith, Jr. who revisits his previous 1970s analysis of organised crime as crime enterprise and provides an historical explanation and a criticism of the alien conspiracy theory.

Finally, an obituary written by Bill Tupman remembers John Benyon who died in May 2016.

Throughout the pieces published in this issue, there is a clear sense of how today organised crime needs to be understood and dealt with as a dynamic and mobile entity, a fluid that can move everywhere, even in its national manifestations. We hope that you find these articles reviving, thought-provoking and enlightening as we try to understand some of the challenges of the contemporary world.

We would like to take this chance also to thank all those who submitted papers for consideration to EROC and all those who took part in the peer review process for their invaluable work (alphabetical order):

Alice Tregunna 

Daniela Irrera 

Elena Pavan 

Helena Farrand-Carrapiço

Jana Arsovska

Jay Albanese

Julie Ayling

Ludo Block

Monica den Boer

Russell Smith

Stan Gilmour

We would also like to acknowledge the contribution of Chris Bowkett, Aaron Martin and Diorella Islas who have worked on formatting, proofreading and copy editing.

Our next issue, due out in June 2017, will consist of a special issue edited by Marco De Biase (Université Libre de Bruxelles (GERME) and Université de Liège (CEDEM)) on “Entrepreneurial Activities, Mafia Practices and Legal/Illegal Economies: A Socio-Anthropological Perspective”. We look forward to it.

Sincerely,

EROC editors

Felia Allum, Anita Lavorgna and Yuliya Zabyelina