Abstract

In a globalized world, the encounter between organized crime and official economic system generates convergences of interests that arise on the boundary between legality and illegality. Globalization produces mobility and competition. To adapt to a constantly changing scene and avoid social control institutions, the new criminal systems have adopted a flexible network structure, whose methods and procedures make the boundary between what is lawful and what is not less visible, and hamper the control of legality. The degradation of democracy, that is linked to the spread of corrupt practices, lowers the moral costa for those people who are in the so-called grey areas, and lowers the threshold of perception of moral disapproval and public indignation. However if the social reaction is lower, the practice of corruption increases and the lawlessness spread becomes normal. The result is an increasingly problematic condition for our democracy.