This article presents quantitative and qualitative information about victims of human trafficking in Italy. It does so from the point of view of Italian judicial activities and draws on information from various sources: statistics on criminal proceedings, judicial cases from the Italian public prosecutors' offices handling the largest volume of prosecutions for human trafficking, and interviews with investigating magistrates of these offices and NGOs. The first part of the article provides a quantitative analysis of criminal proceedings brought against traffickers in Italy between June 1996 and June 200 I. Particular attention is paid to the victims of trafficking. It considers their nationalities and their geographic distribution in the country and an attempt is made to estimate their number on the basis of judicial data. In the second part a qualitative analysis of recent judicial cases on human trafficking is provided, the purpose being to draw up profiles of the victims and identify current trends. Finally, the article deals with the role of victims as collaborators in proceedings brought against traffickers in Italy. It considers the systems in place to assure their presence at trials as witnesses and the degree of cooperation between law enforcement agencies and NGOs in this field.

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This paper provides a narrative synthesis of the results of a systematic review of the social, psychological and economic factors leading to recruitment into organised crime. This is based on the analysis of evidence emerging from 47 qualitative, quantitative and mixed-method studies published in or before 2017. While the selected studies varied markedly in method and quality, several factors emerged as particularly important in understanding recruitment into organised criminal groups. These included the role of social relations (family, kinship, friendship and work-relations), criminal background and criminal skills.

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This thematic issue of the journal is devoted to the crime proofing of legislation. As coordinator of the MARC project, financed in 2004 under the Sixth European Framework Programme of the European Union, I am very happy to put the main results of this project at the disposal of the community of researchers, policy makers and practitioners.The MARC project had two legs: one focusing on the crime proofing of legislation and a second focusing on the crime proofing of products. This issue is devoted to the former.Why crime proofing legislation? The concept originated in the framework of the prevention of organised crime, where the criminogenic potential of any civil and administrative (but not criminal) legislation became evident. The main assumption of legislative crime proofing is that a policy, together with the instrument through which it is implemented (legislation, regulation), may have loopholes that are exploitable by criminals. Pointing out these loopholes and closing them, when this is possible, are the two main components of any crime proofing activity. The MARC project, and this issue of the journal, presents its main findings in the area of legislation, aimed at developing a model that could help policy-makers and public officials in charge of drafting legislation to determine whether parts of the legislation they are preparing and/or using create crime risk. And, if so, which crime/s and what magnitude. Aware of this, policy-makers might decide to trade these costs (in terms of crime) for the benefits the legislation produces, or, rather, to reduce/eliminate these costs by proofing the legislation that creates them.The construction of the MARC legislative crime proofing mechanism has gone through different steps. The different parts and the articles in this issue present them in a logical sequence.In the background part there are the introductory articles to crime proofing. The first article introduces the different models of risk assessment; the second points out which Eur