The research project “Organized Crime 3.0” is a German-wide collaborative research project. In addition to the research group of the Institute of Criminology at the University of Tuebingen, further research groups are located at the:

• University of Osnabrueck, Center for European and International Criminal Law (Prof. Dr. Prof. h.c. Arndt Sinn, project coordinator)

• University of Osnabrueck, Institute for Corporate Criminal Law (Prof. Dr. Roland Schmitz)

• Germany Police University, Muenster (Joachim Faßbender)

• Fraunhofer Institute for Secure Information Technology, Darmstadt (Prof. Dr. Martin Steinebach)

Several German police and customs agencies as well as prosecutor’s offices are also associated with the project.

The heart of the project is an extensive legal and empirical examination of the phenomenon “organized crime” in order to analyze both its structure and its threat potential and to develop strategies for prevention based on the research findings. The interdisciplinary project combines a large variety of data hailing from legal, criminological and technological standpoints. It is the highly complex and interdisciplinary structure of the collaborative project that offers potential for future research collaborations of a similar kind.
“Organized Crime 3.0” is funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research for the duration of three years (October 2020 through September 2023) and it is the biggest project of its kind so far. All in all, the project consists of eight different project modules and the Institute of Criminology (University of Tuebingen) is responsible for module 2.

The interdisciplinary research group located at the Institute of Criminology at the University of Tuebingen is in charge of providing an empirical analysis of the status quo of organized crime in Germany. As there still is a considerable gap in research and knowledge on organized crime in the German context, module 2 sets out to shed light on the quality, the extent and the different manifestations of organized crime in Germany.

The results gained from within module 2 will present the most thorough and all-encompassing study of organized crime in Germany as of yet. Following a mixed-methods design, the Institute of Criminology collects and analyzes a wide range of different data. The data consists of official public data (statistics, political inquiries, court decisions), 80+ qualitative interviews with law enforcement personnel, prosecutors and currently incarcerated persons considered to be associated with organized crime, 80+ court cases and an online survey of law enforcement personnel. This combination of both quantitative and qualitative data will allow insights into the status quo of the phenomenon “organized crime”. Additionally, the findings from module 2 will also provide the basis for a thorough analysis of the threat potential of organized crime.

In sum, the combination of the findings from all modules of the collaborative interdisciplinary research project will paint the most realistic and thorough picture of the phenomenon of organized crime in Germany.