Organised Crime in Criminal Law: Conspiracy and Membership Offences in Italian, English and International Frameworks

This paper aims at presenting criminal law offences to target organised crime as established by Italian and English criminal law. In order to assess similarities and differences between the two systems, the general distinction between conspiracy offences and offences of membership or participation to organised crime groups shall be explained and assessed with a view to grasp the concept of wrongfulness as the basis of criminal agreements both for complicities in crime and for unlawful association offences. The ultimate aim of the paper is to engage with international and European frameworks and calls for actions in this field to enlarge a debate in terms of comparative legal systems and to assess the possibility for the English system to consider a change in criminal law for targeting organised crime groups beyond conspiracy.