New Public Policies Based on the Economic Theory of Human Capital to Defeat the Transversal and Transnational Organised Crime.

All over the world, criminal organizations often succeed in creating a pervasive convergence and overlapping of interests between the world of politics, bureaucracy, business and criminal networks. This phenomenon, which is evidently the result of their special ability to weave interpersonal relationships and create profitable «alliances in the shadows» (R. Sciarrone, 2011), allows them to spread beyond the boundaries of the geographical (transnational) and social (transversality) environment where they ordinarily operate. This paper focuses on these phenomena showing in which way the joint use of analysis techniques of the complex networks and the economic theory of human capital might lead to the implementation of new and more effective strategies and policies to contrast organized crime. For this purpose, in its first part, the paper employs an interdisciplinary approach and utilises the techniques and concepts of Social Network Analysis to identify the essential properties differentiating criminal networks from other social networks and develop a reliable indicator of their organizational resilience. From this point of view, the index Ozgul and Erdem is undoubtedly a valid measurement tool of criminal networks resilience and an equally sound basis for designing new and more effective policies to fight organized crime. However, it does not consider that the resilience of criminal networks is often dependent on the formation and personal qualities, as well as the skills of the members. The paper proposes an index of organizational resilience much more sensitive and better able to measure the effects of attacks based on the human capital strategy. The empirical analysis in the second part of the paper highlights the remarkable ability of networking and the resilience to law enforcement activities of criminal organizations, suggesting the adoption of new and diversified repressive policies based on the analysis of human capital which these organizations can use for their own purposes.