The case represents one of the few instances where an appellate court considered whether an affirmative defense of duress should be allowed to incorporate evidence of battered person syndrome. The defendant, convicted of conspiring with her boyfriend to extort money from a doctor, testified that her boyfriend coerced her participation through his physically and emotionally abusive behavior. He also pretended to be an FBI agent which allowed the defendant to argue she did not feel reasonably safe in reporting the extortion scheme. Also of note, the case had an unusual procedure history wherein a three-judge panel reversed its prior judgment and the final split opinion was authored by Judge (now Justice) Brett Kavanaugh.

In this chapter I develop my argument to explain variation in the processes and mechanisms that lead to distinct strategies of resistance to criminal extortion. I first define the core concepts that readers will encounter throughout the book. Next I explain the logic of the argument to show how the intersection between the time horizons of criminal actors, the nature of local political economies, and whether there is criminal capture of the police shapes the strategies of resistance that victims pursue. I then outline the parameters under which I expect the argument to hold, and discuss how my study builds on insights into existing research. I conclude by discussing the research design, case selection, and the methodologies that I used to collect and analyze data.

This concluding chapter first briefly summarizes the argument to explain variation in the processes and mechanisms that lead victims to pursue distinct strategies of resistance to criminal extortion. It then identifies the broader implications that follow from the book’s core findings, including the need to bring victims more squarely into our research on the politics of crime, unpack how victims understand and experience criminal victimization, broaden our approach to the political consequences of criminal victimization to include resistance, and complicate the ways in which we think about relations between police and communities. The chapter outlines a future research agenda on the politics of crime that emphasizes greater attention to the intersection between the political economy of development and the politics of crime as well as criminal governance, armed politics, and the ways in which attention to the understandings of victims can help move us beyond a focus on relations between states and criminals as limited to the binary of corruption or conflict. The final part of the chapter discusses a series of policy implications based on the book’s analysis and findings.

This chapter argues that civilian resistance to criminal victimization is a gap in the growing literature on the politics of crime. It contends that much of the existing research on crime focuses on drug-related violence. But most people in Latin America experience organized crime not through spectacular acts of drug violence, but instead through the everyday victimization associated with criminal extortion. The chapter identifies the contributions that the book makes to the literatures on the politics of crime, our understanding of business as a victim of crime, and the need for dialogue between the study of crime and the political of development. The chapter previews the argument to explain variation in the processes and mechanisms that lead to different strategies of resistance. It concludes by outlining the structure of the book.