The Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime (GI-TOC) has released the second edition of their Global Organized Crime Index report, offering a robust and comprehensive look at various levels organized crime and the capacity of the 193 United Nations member states to resist criminal threats. The Index is based on three key elements:
- The scope, scale and impact of 15 criminal markets (e.g., trafficking, financial crimes, drug trades)
- The structure and influence of five criminal actor types (e.g., mafia-style groups, state-embedded actors)
- The existence and capacity of countries to be resilient to organized crime, measured across 12 resilience building blocks (e.g., political leadership, territorial integrity, economic regulatory capacity)
In an effort to enhance accessibility and user experience, the Global Organized Crime Index 2023 report is available exclusively in digital format. Readers can use the Index interactive website to sort and compare scores for the criminal markets, criminal actor types, and resilience indicators discussed in the report as well as explore a criminality heatmap, which details a country’s criminality score (scale of 1 to 10) based on overall organized crime levels in that country. Conversely, a resilience score for each country is available for comparison and is based on a country’s mechanisms to resist organized crime and the their effectiveness. Countries with the highest criminality scores include Myanmar, Colombia, and Mexico. Countries with the highest resilience scores include Finland, Liechtenstein, and Iceland.
The 2023 Index report indicates that organized crime remains a major challenge in a post-pandemic world where open war, political divide, and strained international relationships abound. By offering this assessment based on a comprehensive dataset and over 400 experts, the GI-TOC endeavors to provide global actors with a toolkit to understand–and fight–organized crime effectively and fully.
For more information related to this piece, please visit HSDL In Focus on Gangs, these resources on organized crime, or the premier edition of the Global Organized Crime Index 2021.
