Violenza e Mercati Illegali: Teorie a Analisi della Realtà Italiana

[Autom. eng. transl.] Who kills, and who gets killed, in illegal markets? How and why do people kill themselves in illegal markets? Violence and illegal markets: Theories and analysis of the Italian reality investigates the emergence of violence as a tool, and goal, of individuals and groups operating in illegal markets. The first part of the book offers an articulated theoretical reflection on the link between society, the illegal economy and violence. In doing so, it also examines the mechanisms that lead certain illegal markets to be particularly violent. The second part of the book presents an original empirical study of violence in Italian illegal markets. Analyzing quantitatively and qualitatively all the cases of homicides that took place in Italy in 2014, the study shows how it is above all the mafia groups that trigger systemic violence, that is, linked to the functioning of illegal markets. Case by case, it is demonstrated how the spread of criminal subcultures acts as a catalyst for violence and how violence in illegal markets, especially drugs, has both a functional component - territorial control, debt collection, dispute resolution - and an expressive - self-affirmation, fulfillment of the desire for revenge, defense of one's honor.