The constitution of the organized crime as a sociological object comprises a major challenge for social scientists devoted to investigate this issue. Among the hindrances to the formulation of organized crime as a sociological problem lies its own conceptualization that remains controversial since the 19th century. The book "Organized Crime: world perspectives" edited by Jay Albanese, Dilip Das and Arvind Verma and published in 2003 by Prentice Hall is an opportune reference for those who seek to know about the organized crime and its characteristics in the distinct world regions. The book is comprised by a collection of articles that resulted from the "Third International Police Executive Symposium" that took place in 1996, in Japan. The authors represent 19 countries from all world regions, and they analyze the organized crime in their respective countries. The major contributions of this work are the conceptual framework proposed in its introduction and the fact of pointing out the future challenges identified from the analysis of the national contexts.
Crime sociology; Crime and society