Women in Organized Crime

This paper discusses the extent, the characteristics and the most controversial issues related to the presence of women in organized crime. Some specific topics are analysed: women in some criminal organized activities, like human trafficking, smuggling and drug trafficking, and women in gangs and Italian mafia organizations. The presence of women in organized crime is an important, though still understudied, issue. The overview of the existing literature shows that theories of organized crime can benefit from a better understanding of women offending in this context, and that gendered studies and feminist criminology can improve this knowledge and offer important and new insights on these phenomena. It also shows that understanding women roles, behaviors, motivations and life stories in all these forms of organized crime challenges traditional and established concept like: victims, perpetrators, violence, and agency. Women, in all the context analysed, are still in between passive and subordinated roles, and more active and powerful positions and behaviors. Borders between victims and perpetrators are often blurred. They often tend to replicate male models, and there is still little space for a real emancipation in the close social environments of Italian mafia groups and gangs. More research is needed in particular on the role of globalization dynamics and technological changes tha affect criminal behaviors in this field, on the concept of masculinity, that is at the core of some criminal organized groups, and on the re-definition of violence, both in terms of the violent environment in which often the lives of these women unfold, and in terms of their behaviors