Do Conventional Organised Crime Groups in Slovenia Prefer a Rural or Urban Environment
Purpose:
The aim of the paper was to research whether conventional organised crime groups (OCG) in Slovenia prefer rural or urban environments to conduct their activities. And if there are specifics about the environment where OCGs are found to be operating.
Design/Methods/Approach:
Slovenian police data on offences with organised crime indicators (OwOCI) was the main dataset used. The dataset included the year, name of the settlement and the name of and municipality where OwOCI was recorded. Data was then mapped out using QGIS software. Also, data regarding rural/urban characteristics of Slovenian settlement, urbanisation of Slovenian NUTS regions, etc., was used to examine how can the settlement where OwOCI occurred be characterised in the urban-rural nexus.
Findings:
The location data was received for 4,549 OwOCI and shows that Osrednjaslovenska region dominates in the statistic (1421 OwOCI in 2009– 2019 period), following by Goriška (834) and Obalno-kraška 643). None of the Slovenian regions is categorized as an Urban region by Eurostat. Slovenia has three Intermediate regions (Gorenjska, Obalno-kraška, Osrednjeslovenska), and the rest are categorized as Predominantly rural. Therefore, using this categorisation, most offences occurred in Predominantly rural: 2,385 vs 2,164 in Intermediate regions. Similarly, when it comes to municipalities, Slovenia currently has only two municipalities with densely populated areas, 44 with areas that are of intermediate-density and 166 with thinly-populated areas. Most offences using this categorisation occur in municipalities with thinly populated areas. Only if examining how many OwOCI occurs in the settlements that by Slovenian criteria have the status of a city then predominantly urban environments dominate. If making calculations only on 4,549 OwOCI and for which location data was received, then the averages are 62.24% (settlement with a status of a city) vs 37.76% (settlement without a city status). If missing data is included, then a ten-year average was 53.40% vs 32.88% for the non-city settlements, considering that there was on average 13.73% of missing location data.
Research Limitations / Implications:
There are three main limitations. Firstly, due to the nature of organised crime, the locale where OwOCI occurred may not be the location where it was recorded. Secondly, due to the safeguarding of anonymity of the victims, perpetrators and others, the received location data is on the level of settlements, which affected the accuracy of the study. Thirdly, the SarS-CoV-19 pandemic has influenced the modus operandi of OCG, thus making statistics of 2020, 2021 and 2022 incomparable to previous years. This was also the reason why these years were not included in the analysis.
Practical Implications (if applicable):
The results can be used for trend detection, and this provides information for strategies in the field of crime prevention. Secondly, it can be used for a starting point for future studies.
Originality/Value:
To the best of our knowledge, there was only one previous paper that investigated the locale of OCG in Slovenia. This paper thus provides an insight into this important but rather, overlooked field of research on OCG.
UDC: 343.341(497.4)
Keywords: organised crime, locations, Slovenia, urban-rural, settlements