Organized crime


Organized crime refers to transnational, national, or local groups of centralized enterprises that engage in illegal activities, most commonly for profit. While organized crime is generally considered a form of illegal business, some criminal organizations, such as terrorist groups, rebel groups, and separatists, are politically motivated. Many criminal organizations rely on fear or terror to achieve their goals and maintain control within their ranks. These groups may adopt tactics similar to those used by authoritarian regimes to maintain power. Some forms of organized crime exist simply to meet demand for illegal goods or to facilitate trade in products and services banned by the state, such as illegal drugs or firearms. In other cases, criminal organizations force people to do business with them, as when gangs extort protection money from shopkeepers. Street gangs may be classified as organized crime groups under broader definitions, or may develop sufficient discipline to be considered organized crime under stricter definitions.
A criminal organization can also be referred to as an outfit, a gangster/gang, thug, crime family, mafia, mobster/mob, ring, or syndicate; the network, subculture, and community of criminals involved in organized crime may be referred to as the underworld or gangland. Sociologists sometimes specifically distinguish a "mafia" as a type of organized crime group that specializes in the supply of extra-legal protection and quasi-law enforcement. Academic studies of the original "Mafia", the Sicilian Mafia, as well as its American counterpart, generated an economic study of organized crime groups and exerted great influence on studies of the Russian mafia, the Indonesian preman, the Chinese triads, the Hong Kong triads, the Indian thuggee, and the Japanese yakuza.
Other organizations—including states, places of worship, militaries, police forces, and corporations—may sometimes use organized-crime methods to conduct their activities, but their powers derive from their status as formal social institutions. There is a tendency to distinguish "traditional" organized crime such as gambling, loan sharking, drug-trafficking, prostitution, and fraud from certain other forms of crime that also usually involve organized or group criminal acts, such as white-collar crime, financial crimes, political crimes, war crimes, state crimes, and treason. This distinction is not always apparent and academics continue to debate the matter. For example, in failed states that can no longer perform basic functions such as education, security, or governance, organized crime, governance, and war sometimes complement each other. The term "oligarchy" has been used to describe democratic countries whose political, social, and economic institutions come under the control of a few families and business oligarchs that may be deemed or may devolve into organized crime groups in practice. By their very nature, kleptocracies, mafia states, narco-states or narcokleptocracies, and states with high levels of clientelism and political corruption are either heavily involved with organized crime or tend to foster organized crime within their own governments.
In the United States, the Organized Crime Control Act defines organized crime as "he unlawful activities of a highly organized, disciplined association ". Criminal activity as a structured process is referred to as racketeering. In the UK, police estimate that organized crime involves up to 38,000 people operating in 6,000 various groups. Historically, the largest organized crime force in the United States has been Cosa Nostra, but other transnational criminal organizations have also risen in prominence in recent decades. A 2012 article in a U.S. Department of Justice journal stated that: "Since the end of the Cold War, organized crime groups from Russia, China, Italy, Nigeria, and Japan have increased their international presence and worldwide networks or have become involved in more transnational criminal activities. Most of the world's major international organized crime groups are present in the United States." The US Drug Enforcement Administration's 2017 National Drug Threat Assessment classified Mexican transnational criminal organizations as the "greatest criminal drug threat to the United States," citing their dominance "over large regions in Mexico used for the cultivation, production, importation, and transportation of illicit drugs" and identifying the Sinaloa, Jalisco New Generation, Juárez, Gulf, Los Zetas, and Beltrán-Leyva cartels as the six Mexican TCO with the greatest influence in drug trafficking to the United States. The United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 16 has a target to combat all forms of organized crime as part of the 2030 Agenda.
In some countries, football hooliganism has been linked to organized crime.

Models of organized crime

Various models have been proposed to describe the structure of criminal organizations.

Organizational

Patron–client networks

Patron–client networks are defined by fluid interactions. They produce crime groups that operate as smaller units within the overall network, and as such tend towards valuing significant others, familiarity of social and economic environments, or tradition. These networks are usually composed of:
  • Hierarchies based on 'naturally' forming family, social and cultural traditions;
  • 'Tight-knit' focus of activity/labor;
  • Fraternal or nepotistic value systems;
  • Personalized activity; including family rivalries, territorial disputes, recruitment and training of family members, etc.;
  • Entrenched belief systems, reliance of tradition ; and,
  • Communication and rule enforcement mechanisms dependent on organizational structure, social etiquette, history of criminal involvement, and collective decision-making.

    Bureaucratic/corporate operations

Bureaucratic/corporate organized crime groups are defined by the general rigidity of their internal structures. They focus more on how the operation works, succeeds, sustains itself or avoids retribution, they are generally typified by:
  • A complex authority structure;
  • An extensive division of labor between classes within the organization;
  • Meritocratic ;
  • Responsibilities carried out in an impersonal manner;
  • Extensive written rules/regulations ; and,
  • 'Top-down' communication and rule enforcement mechanisms.
However, this model of operation has some flaws:
  • The 'top-down' communication strategy is susceptible to interception, more so further down the hierarchy being communicated to;
  • Maintaining written records jeopardizes the security of the organization and relies on increased security measures;
  • Infiltration at lower levels in the hierarchy can jeopardize the entire organization ; and,
  • Death, injury, incarceration or internal power struggles dramatically heighten the insecurity of operations.
While bureaucratic operations emphasize business processes and strongly authoritarian hierarchies, these are based on enforcing power relationships rather than an overlying aim of protectionism, sustainability or growth.

Youth and street gangs

An estimate on youth street gangs in the United States provided by Hannigan, et al., marked an increase of 35% between 2002 and 2010. A distinctive gang culture underpins many, but not all, organized groups; this may develop through recruiting strategies, social learning processes in the corrective system experienced by youth, family or peer involvement in crime, and the coercive actions of criminal authority figures. The term "street gang" is commonly used interchangeably with "youth gang," referring to neighborhood or street-based youth groups that meet "gang" criteria. Miller defines a street gang as "a self-formed association of peers, united by mutual interests, with identifiable leadership and internal organization, who act collectively or as individuals to achieve specific purposes, including the conduct of illegal activity and control of a particular territory, facility, or enterprise." Some reasons youth join gangs include to feel accepted, attain status, and increase their self-esteem. A sense of unity brings together many of the youth gangs that lack the family aspect at home.
"Zones of transition" are deteriorating neighborhoods with shifting populations. In such areas, conflict between groups, fighting, "turf wars", and theft promote solidarity and cohesion. Cohen : working class teenagers joined gangs due to frustration of inability to achieve status and goals of the middle class; Cloward and Ohlin : blocked opportunity, but unequal distribution of opportunities lead to creating different types of gangs ; Spergel was one of the first criminologists to focus on evidence-based practice rather than intuition into gang life and culture. Participation in gang-related events during adolescence perpetuate a pattern of maltreatment on their own children years later. Klein like Spergel studied the effects on members of social workers' interventions. More interventions actually lead to greater gang participation and solidarity and bonds between members. Downes and Rock on Parker's analysis: strain theory applies, labeling theory, control theory and conflict theories. No ethnic group is more disposed to gang involvement than another, rather it is the status of being marginalized, alienated or rejected that makes some groups more vulnerable to gang formation, and this would also be accounted for in the effect of social exclusion, especially in terms of recruitment and retention. These may also be defined by age or peer group influences, and the permanence or consistency of their criminal activity. These groups also form their own symbolic identity or public representation which are recognizable by the community at large.
Research has focused on whether the gangs have formal structures, clear hierarchies and leadership in comparison with adult groups, and whether they are rational in pursuit of their goals, though positions on structures, hierarchies and defined roles are conflicting. Some studied street gangs involved in drug dealing - finding that their structure and behavior had a degree of organizational rationality. Members saw themselves as organized criminals; gangs were formal-rational organizations, Strong organizational structures, well defined roles and rules that guided members' behavior. Also a specified and regular means of income. Padilla agreed with the two above. However some have found these to be loose rather than well-defined and lacking persistent focus, there was relatively low cohesion, few shared goals and little organizational structure. Shared norms, value and loyalties were low, structures "chaotic", little role differentiation or clear distribution of labor. Similarly, the use of violence does not conform to the principles behind protection rackets, political intimidation and drug trafficking activities employed by those adult groups. In many cases gang members graduate from youth gangs to highly developed OC groups, with some already in contact with such syndicates and through this we see a greater propensity for imitation. Gangs and traditional criminal organizations cannot be universally linked, however there are clear benefits to both the adult and youth organization through their association. In terms of structure, no single crime group is archetypal, though in most cases there are well-defined patterns of vertical integration, as is the case in arms, sex and drug trafficking.