Who researches organised crime? A review of organised crime authorship trends (2004–2019)

This article presents a review of organised crime authorship for all articles published in Trends in Organized Crime and Global Crime between 2004 and 2019 (N = 528 articles and 627 individual authors). The results of this review identify a field dominated by White men based in six countries, all in the Global North. Little collaboration occurs; few studies are funded, and few researchers specialise in the area. Organised crime research, however, does have a degree of variety in national origin, and therefore linguistic diversity, while the number of female researchers is growing. The article concludes that authorship trends are influenced by the challenges of data collection, funding availability, and more entrenched structural factors, which prevent some from entering into, and staying active within, the field.