Shaping space. A conceptual framework on the connections between organised crime groups and territories

This paper, which is the introduction to this special issue on ‘Spaces of Organised Crime’, aims to analyse the nexus between organised crime groups and territories. Such groups are able to exploit resources that circulate within territorial contexts in which they are embedded. They also operate concretely as entities that can take part to the transformation of spaces into places. Accordingly, we will lay out an analytical model about the processes through which organised crime groups contribute to create and shape territories. We show how these processes link with the main types of organised crime groups on a differentiated basis. In the last section of this introduction, we present the papers included in the special issue and the logic connecting them to one another.