Social Organized Crime - Research Paper Example

Social Organized Crime In this paper, the proponent starts with defining the concept of social and integrates it with the issue of organized crime and criminal behaviors. However, it is not just enough to understand organized crime and criminal behaviors in a simple way like this. Regarding this, the proponent includes different generic theories that could substantially explain organized crime and criminal behaviors in detail. The proponent founds that employing not only one general theory in understanding organized crime and criminal behaviors would be of great help.

Keywords: organized crime, criminal behaviors, theory Introduction Social institution is a group where an individual lives and grows up, and learning many things associated with life. One basic example of a social institution where a person learns many things about life is the family. Aside from becoming widely known as the basic unit of the society, family is the fundamental example of a social institution because in here individuals learn to adapt, accept and execute many things taught or observed within their immediate environment.

On the other hand, creation of organized crime and criminal behaviors can be in a group as these definitely happen within the bound of social institution (Lyman & Potter, 2007; Mallory, 2007). This group could be a social institution as it could substantially provide wide range of influence on individual’s culture, values, characteristics and behaviors; leading to the creation of organized crime and criminal behaviors. There are different theories that could explain the establishment of organized crime and criminal behaviors.

Mallory (2007), and Lyman and Potter (2007) present four generic groups of empirical and speculative theories that could explain the conception or existence of organized crime and criminal behaviors within the society. Theories applied in organized crime and criminal behaviors The first generic theory discussed in the book of Mallory, Lyman and Potter regarding the thought about organized crime and criminal behaviors is the theoretical approach. Theoretical approach consists of other significant theories including alien conspiracy theory, social control theory, Albanece’s theory of typologies, Sutherland’s theory of differential association, Beccaria and Lombroso’s classical theories and biological theories.

All of these theories simply explicate the point that organized crime and criminal behaviors take shape due to environmental, individualistic and genetic or biological factors. Another generic theory is related to law enforcement efforts. Here, organized crime’s and criminal behaviors’ definitions come from the type or kind of activities associated with them. This eventually leads to having three important factors that could define organized crime: opportunity factors, criminal environment, and special access or skills.

Enterprise theory, hierarchical and local-ethnic models, deterrence theory and other models substantially discuss the above-mentioned three elemental factors for the inception and continuing existence of organized crimes and criminal behaviors. The third major theory about organized crime and criminal behaviors is the beyond theory which postulates that organized crime is extremely dynamic and resilient, so it would continue to exist and create its form. On the other hand, another theory includes the point that there is no single theory that could explain organized crime and criminal behaviors in detail.

This leads to the birth of accepting the significance of combining all the previous theories discussed previously regarding the inception and continuing existence of organized crime and criminal behaviors. When one needs to critically consider each of the above stated theory regarding the conception and prolongation of organized crime and criminal behaviors, it is of noteworthy importance to reflect on the fact that each of them carries substantial point. However, it is also clear that human behavior is so complex that there is a need to understand it from various points of view.

Based on the above discussion, it is clear that human behaviors which manifest through organized crime and criminal behaviors play center stage at the heart of different theories attempting to explain them in detail. In other words, the very point why there are varying theories attempting to explain organized crime and criminal behaviors is just a mere proof that there are other important points not covered within a single theory that may be more elaborate in other theoretical perspective. Conclusion Based on the above discussion, the formulation of organized crime and criminal behaviors clearly integrates social institution because groups could be responsible for the development of one’s behaviors, attitudes or core values in life.

It is also of important point to consider that the environment plays a very crucial part in the transformation of somebody’s well-being. Economics, political and other relevant factors are not exemptions to this. In other words, there have to be different perspectives to consider when understanding organized crime and criminal behaviors. The complexity of this issue paves the way for the consideration of combining different and relevant theories associated with organized crime and criminal behaviors.

In other words, it is always of great help to employ not only one general theory in understanding organized crime and criminal behaviors, but above all, the opportunity to consider other relevant theories is a must as they also have substantial points which could pave the way for seeing the whole picture of the subject. References Lyman, M. D., & Potter, G. W. (2007). Organized crime (4th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson/Prentice Hall. Mallory, S. L. (2007). Understanding organized crime.

Sudbury, MA: Jones and Bartlett.