RT Article
T1 Loan-sharking in a time of crisis: lessons from Rome’s illegal credit market
JF Trends in organized crime
VO 20
IS 1-2
SP 196
OP 215
A1 Marinaro, Isabella Clough
LA English
UL https://krimdok.uni-tuebingen.de/Record/1819144267
AB One of the consequences of Italy’s on-going financial crisis has been rising civil society activism and media attention to the growing phenomenon of families and small businesses becoming indebted to illegal moneylenders. Much of the public discourse focuses on indications that major organized crime groups are strengthening their participation in this sector and appropriating homes and business assets as a means of laundering money and expanding their presence in the legal economy. This article examines the multiple and complex factors that leave rising numbers of small business owners with few alternatives to seeking illegal sources of credit in order to continue operating financially. Focusing on the city of Rome and drawing on in-depth interviews with support groups and former debtors, as well as on a wide range of documentation and statistical data, it provides a multiscalar analysis of the ways in which local social norms concerning informal credit and the exigencies of day-to-day business practice on a micro scale are interwoven with the macro-level effects of legislation, banking practices, and the capacity of institutions mandated to fight illegal lending. It questions whether an adequate system of alternatives to borrowing illegally exists and the extent to which the official mechanisms in place to disincentivize this practice are effective.
NO Published: 26 May 2016
NO Literaturverzeichnis: Seite 213-215
K1 Usury
K1 Loan-shark
K1 Illegal lending
K1 Illegal credit
K1 Rome
K1 Italy
K1 Economic Crisis
DO 10.1007/s12117-016-9279-y