Abstract

Why do contemporary criminal policies assimilate corruption and organized crime? The author offers a number of explanations, such as the evolution of corruption into a “systemicµ or “organizedµ type of crime, the empirical evidence of a significant link between corruption and organized crime, and theoretical approaches using models which go beyond the white-collar crime paradigm. Yet, the author contends that these new scenarios do not justify. According to the author, these new scenarios are not sufficient to justify the assimilation of phenomena that remain very distant one from the other from a legal point of view. In this perspective, the legal definition of mafia -organized crime is still reasonable because it is based on scientific grounds and empirical evidences.