• E4J University Module Series: Organized Crime

• Module 10: Sentencing and Confiscation in Organized Crime

• Introduction and learning outcomes

• Key issues

• Aggravating and mitigating factors
• Sentencing options relating to organized crime
• Alternatives to imprisonment
• The death penalty and organized crime
• Backgrounds of convicted offenders
• Confiscation
• Confiscation in practice: responding to the movement of criminal assets
• Summary
• References

• Exercises

• Case studies and exercises
• Thinking critically through fiction
• Excerpts of legislation
• Role play

• Possible class structure

• Core reading

• Advanced reading

• Student assessment

• Review and assessment questions
• Quiz 10
• Research and independent study questions

• Additional teaching tools

Published in May 2018

Regional Perspective: Pacific Islands Region - added in November 2019

Regional Perspective: Eastern and Southern Africa - added in April 2020

  This module is a resource for lecturers  

Possible class structure

This section contains recommendations for a teaching sequence and timing intended to achieve learning outcomes through a three-hour class. The lecturer may wish to disregard or shorten some of the segments below in order to give more time to other elements, including introduction, icebreakers, conclusion or short breaks. The structure could also be adapted for shorter or longer classes, given that the class durations vary across countries.

• (In-class) Ice-breaker (10-15 minutes): Watch a TED talk video in class: "Drug Smuggler Speaks out about Incarceration and Marijuana (Richard Stratton) TEDxFultonStreet". After the video, discuss the punishment approach in the case and related mitigating and aggravating circumstances. Why did Stratton claim that his sentence was vastly disproportionate to sentences generally imposed in cannabis-related offences? What is recommended in the talk as one of the solutions to incarceration?

• Related court files:
• • United States v. Richard Lowell Stratton, A/K/A "Richard Lowell," 820 F.2d 562 (2d Cir. 1987)
  • United States of America, Appellee, v. Richard Lowell Stratton, Steven Parness, Leonard Parness and Bernard Farbar, Defendants-appellants, 779 F.2d 820 (2d Cir. 1985)

• Give a brief lecture about sentencing and confiscation in organized crime cases (40 minutes).
• Use some discussion questions (provided in the Module) to generate a debate about sentencing and confiscation in organized crime case (20-25 minutes).
• Break (10 minutes)
• Administer and evaluate Quiz 10 (45 minutes): Give students 15 minutes to take the quiz (sample questions are provided in the assessment section of the Module). Students can work in pairs to grade the quiz. They exchange quizzes and grade each other's results. Instructor asks individual students to read questions and discuss possible answers. This activity is expected to help students analyse the mistakes and learn from interaction with each other.
• Assign one of the research and independent study assignments (provided in the Module) as homework for the next class.

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