Reorganizing Crime.

Thieves-in-law' (vory-v-zakone in Russian) are career criminals belonging to a criminal fraternity that began in the 1930s in the Soviet prison camps. For reasons that the book attempts to explain, thieves-in-law became exceptionally prevalent in the former Soviet republic of Georgia. Here, by the 1990s, they formed a mafia network—criminal associations that attempt to monopolize protection in legal and illegal sectors of the economy. At this time, the mafia was in many ways more powerful than the state. In 2005, however, anti-organized crime policy was transferred from Italy and America to Georgia. Legislation targeting the thieves-in-law directly was successful in causing a steep decline in mafia influence and organized criminal activity. This book asks how and why this occurred. In particular, why did the thieves-in-law not resist the attack on them successfully? Based on extensive fieldwork and utilizing unique access to primary sources of data, such as police files, court cases,