Thank you for the opportunity to participate in this important conference at such a critical time in world history. It is 30 years ago last January that I began my career in police research, as a research analyst for the New York City Police Department. That year, 1971, was the year in which more New York Police Officers were murdered than in any other year since the Department was established in 1944, at least until 2001. In 1971, there were ten police officers shot to death by criminals, several of them in assassination attempts. I was riding in a patrol car myself on the night of one ambush in which two officers were murdered, and was merely a few blocks away when it happened. The car I was in might easily have been the one that was lured into the ambush. Thus I have some sense of the tragedy that surrounds the death of police officers in the line of duty.

1. Transnational organised crime is now the most significant trend in world crime. This concept of criminology covers a wide range of offences, violent or sophisticated, but all extremely serious and having in common the fact that they are committed by individuals operating in networks. By proposing this operational concept in response to the difficulties of national criminal legislation in giving a single legal definition to these crimes, criminology research has made a decisive contribution to criminal justice (1). In any state based on the rule of law, offences have to be defined in criminal legislation and this does not always make it possible to identify new criminal behaviour as strictly as necessary. This problem is so acute that several countries, including Italy and France, have introduced legislation on new offences in order to deal with certain manifestations of organised crime.

1. A Criminalidade organizada transnacional é actualmente a tendência mais significativa da criminalidade mundial. Este conceito criminológico abrange actuações muito diversas, violentes ou elaboradas mas com uma gravidade excepcional e tendo em comum a capacidade de ser imputáveis a indivíduos que agem em redes.

Quelles que soient les lois, rien ne remplace la force de caractère, la décence de celui qui est chargé de veiller sur l'intégrité de l'administration publique et sur celle des citoyens. Qu'on relise, pour mémoire, ces quelques lignes écrites sur Caton qui, s'il n'avait été païen, serait bien le Saint-Patron de ceux qui veillent sur l'intégrité et l'honnêteté des comptes publics et de la fiscalité : « Cet homme avait une telle force de génie et de caractère que, dans quelque condition que le sort l'eût fait naître, il semblait qu'il dût se frayer lui-même le chemin de la fortune. Il ne lui manquait aucun des talents qui illustrent l'homme public (…) Caton avait un génie flexible, propre à tous les genres (…) plein de courage à la guerre (…) il se montrait excellent général. Durant la paix, il se montra jurisconsulte profond…et grand orateur. Il est certain qu'il avait une humeur âpre, qu'il était acerbe dans ses discours, qu'il poussait la liberté jusqu' à l'invective, mais inaccessible aux passions; d'une probité rigide, il méprisa la force et les richesses. Économe, infatigable, intrépide, il semblait avoir une âme et un corps de fer » (Della Corte, 1949).

Le personnage du financier fascine les gens de lettres. La Fontaine, dans sa fable Le savetier et le financier opposait le premier qui « chantait du matin jusqu'au soir » au second qui « tout cousu d'or, chantait peu, dormait moins encore» et se trouvait chargé de soucis. Voltaire, peu après, parlera de «l'avidité des financiers».

La manifestation organisée cette semaine à Neuchâtel sur la criminalité financière me donne l'occasion d'intervenir sur le volet « coopération judiciaire ». Il ne s'agit pas ici de développer de façon exhaustive les nombreux aspects de l'entraide judiciaire internationale. Mon intention n'est pas non plus de me limiter à la coopération dans le domaine du droit pénal financier parce que la coopération entre États dans le domaine judiciaire pénal ne peut être étudiée, à mon sens, uniquement sous l'angle de la lutte contre la criminalité financière.

Major advances in crime research in Latin America, Africa, the former Soviet bloc and parts of Asia focus on crime commission as the defining problem for political and economic development. Prominent economists, political scientists, lawyers, and even public health specialists in developing and transitional countries examine the impact of large scale victimization, a globalized illicit economy, and of democratic transitions derailed by institutionalized corruption and organized crime penetration into the state.

Prisons are, still today, a world of pressure and suspicion. Choosing to approach the subject mater through participant observations and qualitative interviews implies that the researcher is confronted with the difficulties inherent in this environment. In order to deve- lop a good rapport and trust with his respondants, he has to find ways to integrate into the prison. When, as a researcher, one submerses himself in his research environment, everything around becomes a source of information about that world.