CRIM 2303: Crime and Society

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CRIM 2303 Crime and Society

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This Week

• Define organized crime
• Describe organized crime
• Theories of organized crime
• Group discussion

http//www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2007/08/17/crime-re
port.html
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Defining Organized Crime

• two or more persons conspiring together on a
  continuing and secretive basis to participate in
  illegal activities either directly or indirectly
  for gain.
• - Criminal Intelligence Service Canada

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Defining Organized Crime

• Presidents Commission on Organized Crime (1967)
• Organized crime is a society that seeks to
  operate outside the control of the American
  people and their governments. It involves
  thousands of criminals, working within structures
  as complex as those of any large corporation,
  subject to laws more rigidly enforced than those
  of legitimate governments. Its actions are not
  impulsive but rather the result of intricate
  conspiracies, carried on over many years and
  aimed at gaining control over whole fields of
  activity in order to amass huge profits.

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Defining Organized Crime

• Vincent Teresa, former American mob boss
  (deceased)
• "Organized crime ... it is just a bunch of people
  getting together to take all the money they can
  from all the suckers they can."

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Characteristics
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STRUCTURAL/ORGANIZATIONAL

• Two or more people involved
• Criminal Code defines a criminal organization as
  five or more people conspiring together
• A structure to the relationships between the
  individuals in terms of
• personal ties (family, ethnicity, nationality,
  language)
• power (i.e. in a hierarchical organization), or
• specific tasks performed by each person (in a
  network)

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STRUCTURAL/ORGANIZATIONAL

• Specialization/Division of labour
• Individuals assume certain functions within an
  organization
• Specialization corresponds to the position that
  one assumes in the power structure or ones
  skills
• Insulation
• One purpose of criminal organization is to
  insulate or protect its leadership from arrest
  and prosecution.

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STRUCTURAL/ORGANIZATIONAL

• Transnational in scope Groups, networks, and
  activities

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INSTITUTIONAL

• Limited or Exclusive Membership
• Some groups place limitations on who can be a
  member
• Membership predicated on some form of binding
  relationship ethnicity, kinship, race, language,
  criminal record, etc.
• Membership is not symbolic it can bestow
  prestige upon individuals within the criminal
  underworld

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INSTITUTIONAL

• Secrecy (Omerta)
• Most important code of all
• OC groups go to great lengths to protect the
  secrecy of its operations (codes, violence,
  intimidation, insulation, rules, communication,
  etc.)

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Commercial Criminal Activities

• Profit-Oriented Criminal Activities!!!!
• One goal to make money!
• Distinguishes OC from crimes of passion,
  vandalism, terrorism, etc.
• Criminal acts that do not directly generate
  revenue - violence, money laundering, corruption
  - are to support the money making effort.
• Emphasis on consensual crimes distinguishes OC
  from unorganized predatory personal property
  crimes

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BEHAVIOURIAL

• Contempt for Civil Society (Subculture)
• Instead of conforming to conventional societal
  norms, many members of criminal organizations
  openly rebel against them
• Organized crime comprises ( relishes) a deviant
  subculture
• Outlaw motorcycle gangs purposely separated
  themselves from the majority culture through
  their label "one percenter"
• Anybody who follows commonly accepted rules and
  laws are saps and deserve to be victimized

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BEHAVIOURIAL

• Contempt for Civil Society

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BEHAVIOURIAL

• Rules, Regulations, and Codes
• Some OC group have rules and regulations that
  members are expected to follow
• Rules are a control mechanism that regulates 1)
  relationships within the criminal group 2)
  between the group and the outside world
• Most rules and codes have evolved to protect
  members and the criminal organization two most
  important codes are secrecy and loyalty (to the
  organization).

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BEHAVIOURIAL

• Discipline (Violence)
• Most criminal groups have strict forms of
  discipline intimidation and death
• Because OC groups do not have recourse to the law
  or courts they operate their own system of civil
  and criminal justice

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Theories of Organized Crime

• Etiological Theories of Organized Crime
• Alien Conspiracy Theory
• Sociological Theories
• Economic Analysis
• Public Policy Impetus

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Two Views

• The relationship between OC and society can be
  viewed from two diametrically opposed
  perspectives
• OC as predatory
• vs.
• OC as symbiotic with society

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Etiological Theories of Organized Crime

• Alien Conspiracy Theory
• OC does not emerge from the norms, values, and
  institutions of North American culture
• OC is the result of the import of secret criminal
  societies rooted in foreign cultures.
• Roots of OC lay in values antithetical to North
  American culture are identified with the
  culture of specific immigrant groups.

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Etiological Theories of Organized Crime
Critiques of Alien Conspiracy Theory

• Based on xenophobia blame foreign cultures,
  immigrants, outsiders
• Government commissions law enforcement agencies
  were greatest promoters, to secure greater
  enforcement resources and powers
• Theory also promoted by politicians to advance
  their careers.

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Sociological Theories of Crime

• Ethnic Succession Theory (Anomie, Strain)
• Immigrant groups experience strains in North
  American society (discrimination, poverty,
  unemployment, etc.)
• Some react to blocked opportunities (strain) by
  becoming involved in (organized) criminal
  activities to achieve economic success
• When the societal strain subsides, the ethnic
  group relies less on crime to subsist, and moves
  into mainstream society.
• This creates an opportunity for succeeding
  (immigrant) groups to fill the criminal void in
  their attempts to climb up the social and
  economic ladder

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Economic Theories of Organized Crime

• The underground economy is an extension of the
  legitimate economy.
• Criminal organizations exist to supply goods
  services demanded by the public, but declared
  illegal by the state
• The black market serves the public by providing a
  (cheaper) supply of certain goods (thus OC is
  symbiotic with society)
• Prohibition of goods and services drives the
  trade underground, where it is monopolized by
  criminal entrepreneurs

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Economic Theories of Organized Crime

• Parallels between legal and illegal commerce
• Economic theories used to explain legal markets
  can be applied to illegal markets.
• Consensual criminal activities governed by the
  same laws of supply and demand that drive the
  legitimate economy
• Demand for prohibited goods drives (illegal)
  supply
• Relationship between a buyer and a seller
• Criminal entrepreneurs seek as much profit as
  they can extract from their operations
• Supply and demand will dictate the price

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Economic Theories of Organized Crime

• Like sociological theories, economic approaches
  situate the cause of OC within the societies in
  which it operates.
• However, avoids characterizing OC as
  pathological OC is a rational system that
  operates according to the laws of supply and
  demand.
• OC is not alien to the societies in which in
  operates, but a part of the (underground) markets
  of that society.
• Symbiotic relationship between criminal
  organizations (as suppliers) and the larger
  society (as consumers).

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Economic Theories of Organized Crime

• Prohibition, organized crime Las Vegas

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Economic Theories of Organized Crime

• Las Vegas before Benjamin Siegel

• Las Vegas after Benjamin Siegal

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Economic Theories of Organized Crime

• Benjamin Seigel before Las Vegas

Benjamin Seigel after Las Vegas
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The Public Policy Impetus to Organized Crime

• When governments outlaw a product or service, it
  drives it underground where it is monopolized by
  criminal entrepreneurs
• The involvement of OC in trafficking legal goods
  services is also the result of government
  policies
• Differing taxes in different jurisdictions leads
  to smuggling
• Restrictions on the dumping of waste has helped
  fuel organized illegal waste dumping

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Prohibition Organized Crime
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Group Discussion/Debate

• The Legalization of Marijuana
• Pros and Cons