Organized crime: an evolving phenomenon that defies precise and clear-cut universal definition - Essay Example

Organized Crime: An Evolving Phenomenon that Defies Precise And Clear-Cut Universal Definition Introduction When any human activity repeatedly threatens the common good and begins to get out of hand, the objective is to put it up for closer inspection so that better understanding of its dynamics would help improve the capability of government to fight and prevent it. For this reason, criminality was given the tag "organized crime" when common crime is committed not through a one-man foray but by a group of conspiring hoods. This paper argues that organized crime has eluded accurate and clear-cut definition through the years because the problem is in a perpetual state of flux, such that certain characteristics or behaviors of criminal gangs today may be abandoned tomorrow. In fact, the very structure attributed to a criminal organization can change without notice, which explains why the existing definitions of organized crime are the continuing objects of debate in criminology circles. Criminology & Organized Crime Criminology, according to its textbook definition, is the scientific study of crime, penal treatment, and the behavior of criminals and convicts. This suggests that the end goal of such a study is to find out how the criminal mind works so that crimes can be prevented and criminals given the appropriate treatment or penalty. The same objective should underpin efforts to deal with organized crime, but the problem in this sub-discipline of criminology is that there is no universally accepted definition of organized crime. Even in the US and Russia, which both grapple with the largest organized problems in the world, there is as yet no legal definition of organized crime (Finckenauer & Voronin, 2001). Organized crime has existed for hundreds, even thousands of years, in some countries but unlike common crime, the characteristics of organized crime as defined is not present everywhere (Ibid). Organized crime is often called the "underworld," referring to a group of criminals who run many illegal operations, including sale of dangerous drugs and automobile stealing. Based on standard definitions of organized crime, these groups amass illegal profits that are never taxed or recorded unless they are caught. The organization is made up of criminals who conspire to carry out illegal acts and thus requires a degree of trust among its members. Among the elements organized crime supposedly uses to promote such trust is common ethnicity. This definition cites examples of criminal organizations bound by ethnic ties such as the Italian, Latino, Irish, Asian, and Afro-American blacks in the US. However, this definition becomes inaccurate when applied to the Russian organized crime, whose nucleus is not attached to a common ethnic root but developed in Soviet prisons and the "nomenklatura" system in which some apparatchiks embarked on a life of crime by first establishing ties with thieves (Finckenauer & Voronin, 2001). The ethnicity angle is only one of the reasons why organized crime defies precise, generally accepted definitions (Abadinsky, 2003). Criminal groups are usually placed in this category when they are not motivated by ideological concerns like social doctrine or political beliefs but solely by money and power. But if such definition is followed to the letter, organized crime would then exclude such groups as terrorists and the Ku Klux Klan. This invites curiosity because the Ku Klux Klan and international terrorist groups like the al Qaeda and Jemaah Islamiya are as much involved in illegal, often violent acts that harm the innocent, which are the basic criteria in identifying organized crime. The other characteristics attributed to organized crime include: Control is done through a hierarchy. Membership is limited or exclusive. The group perpetuates itself in ongoing criminal conspiracy. It uses illegal means to achieve its ends. It specializes and divides the work of members. It is monopolistic. It operates with its own set of rules and regulations (Abadinsky, 2003). Uses legitimate businesses as front for illegal activities and uses clean cash to launder proceeds from crime (Wagley, 2006). Its profits are increased by coercion. It follows the bureaucratic/corporate model. It uses the patrimonial or patron-client network (Abadinsky, 2003). Organized crime is taken as synonymous with such concepts as a "jointly undertaken criminal activity," "the same course of conduct" and a "common scheme or plan." The services and goods in which organized crime deals with include gambling, loan sharking, theft and fencing, prostitution, and drugs. The largest sources of revenues for organized criminals are listed as illegal drugs, human trafficking for sexual exploitation or forced labor, human smuggling, and violations of intellectual property rights. All these pose serious threats to the stability and security of the state. In the US, for example, official data note that prohibited drugs kill about 17,000 Americans yearly and bleed the government of $160 billion in social and economic costs, plus $67 billion in direct costs. The proceeds from the illegal OC activities, which are laundered in places with lax financial regulations and law enforcement, are valued at 2 to 5 percent of global GDP. The popular definition relates organized crime to organizations whose existence continues over time and across crimes, using systematic violence and corruption to facilitate their activities. The characteristics common to organized crime everywhere are systematic use of violence, hierarchical structure, limited or exclusive membership, specialization in types of crime and division of labor, military-style discipline with iron-clad rules and regulations, and possession of high-tech equipment that include military weapons. All these represent a lax definition of organized crime that may inhibit action by the state or civil society. Under the narrow definition, authorities are likely to be stumped when the activities of organized crime become extensive in range and reach (Reinares, 1999). Similarities & Differences Definitions of organized crime and terrorism sometimes overlap in that both operate in decentralized cell structures, tend to target civilians and use similar tactics like kidnapping and drug dealing. Most experts distinguish crime and terrorist groups by motive, pointing out that criminals are usually driven by monetary gain while political if not religious goals underpin the activities of terrorists. However, discerning their motives can be challenging since crime bosses at times dabble in terror while terrorist groups are known to support themselves through criminal activities, such as drug trafficking and gunrunning (Wagley, 2006). For example, investigations showed that funding for the March 2003 terror attacks in Madrid was raised from drug dealing, while a paper trail points to Dubai-based Indian mobster Aftab Ansari as having helped financed the 9/11 attacks with ransom money from kidnapping. Definitions of organized crime and terrorism also merge because extremists may feel justified in committing crime themselves on the rationale that these activities square with their ultimate terrorist aims. This gave rise to the term "narco-terrorism," which practically erases the line between organized crime and terrorism. The US Drug Enforcement Agency lists narco-terrorism as "a subset of terrorism in which individuals or groups participate directly or indirectly in the cultivation, manufacture, transport and distribution of controlled substances and in the money derived from these activities." Again, the term is too broad and could apply to a wide range of groups, from guerrilla organizations to small fledgling terrorist cells. It may also reflect political motives. Organized crime has existed for hundreds, even thousands of years for some countries but unlike common crime, organized crime as defined is not present everywhere, although both are influenced by many of the same factors and feed on the same troughs - greed and demand (Finckenauer & Voronin, 2001). Organized crime is supposed to exist in urban settings and in countries with advanced levels of economic development, indicating that illegal activities occurring in less developed areas are limited to common crimes. This again does not hold true in most cases, since the Sicilian Mafia flourished in rural areas and is identified with small landholders and peasants. The Mafia is one of the world's biggest and most enduring representations of organized crime whose tentacles spread far and wide. In fact, organized crime and Mafia are defined in almost the same terms: "a complex of small clandestine associations governed by a code of silence and in control of some illicit business activities (Airoma, 1995). In a Best of Sicily magazine (online) expose, it was noted that the dark presence of the Mafia pervades Sicily, where it traces its origin. The criminal organization controls entire economic sectors in that region and is into hotels, transportation, banking and construction. It is believed to have indirectly built half the city of Palermo, and since criminals handled urban planning, the results are unsightly buildings in the city's newer districts where green parks are rare. The Mafioso influence is also said to reflect in political corruption that has become commonplace in Sicily. However, the Mafia is non-visible to any first-time visitor in Sicily, unless he looks closely. The main reason is that Sicilians are generally secretive, to which is added their prevailing dissatisfaction with government because of the high 30 percent unemployment rate, their widespread lack of confidence in the competence of law enforcement agencies, and their general distrust of the state (Best of Sicily, online). Moreover, Italians are different from the Americans such that they refer to organized crime not for the sake of euphemism but because there are many other criminal organizations in Italy apart from the Mafia. Equating the Mafia with organized crime as a whole may be inappropriate, if the standard definition is used, especially on the part of its being active in several illegal fields (Pezzino, 1995). The reason is that the Sicilian Mafia also exercises sovereignty functions over certain territories, which normally belongs to public authorities. In fact, the Mafia has penetrated legal institutions in Sicily, increased its power before the eyes of the Sicilians, and used by the state to fight political dissidents. Furthermore, Falcone & Padovani (1991) observed that when the Mafia established connections with foreign criminal gangs, notably the Russian mafia, this opened the "extremely dangerous perspective of standardization of the models of organized crime." Problems & Perspectives The basic problem in setting a more accurate and realistic definition of organized crime is that crime varies from country to country. Thus, what is a criminal act in India may be proper and legal in England. For example, a man can be prosecuted for a crime called bigamy if he weds more than once in countries like the US, but it is perfectly legal to have several wives in a Muslim country (Potter, 1994). As for the description of organized crime on the use of fraud and deception, this may as well apply to legitimate companies who are not above defrauding or cheating the people buying their goods or services. In fact, violations of such acts as the RICO law in the US make authorities busy 24/7. The widely accepted definitions of organized crime suggest that the problems associated with its activities are confined to certain countries or regions (Reinares, 1999). This perception has been put to question when criminal organizations started to acquire a transnational character. This was brought about by economic globalization, which rendered all existing definitions of organized crime moot and academic. Criminal organizations took advantage of the increasingly global economy by developing powerful tools, techniques and relationships that enable them to thwart state attempts to control their campaign of violence, intimidation, extortion and corruption. The resulting threat has dire economic, political, security and social implications to state policy (Castle, 1997). Among the more serious crimes with transnational dimensions attributed to organized crime are: trafficking in narcotic drugs and psychotropic substances, nuclear materials, women and children, and body organs; smuggling of illegal aliens; large-scale and cross-border car theft; money laundering and tax evasion; and corruption. New technologies increased the flow of both illicit and licit goods, and organized crime appropriated for its own use the new control and communication systems. This shows in the cross-border spread of new synthetic substances of narcotics, weapons and the proliferation of fake products. The processes that made economic globalization possible also enabled organized crime, which were once confined to restricted environments or countries, to perform at a broader scale. Because criminal gangs now operate on a wider scale, the narrow vision of organized crime no longer applies. Von Lampe (2006) notes that organized crime has developed in the past 30 years as a separate sub-discipline of criminology with its own textbooks, journals and professional associations. In the process, the study borrowed concepts and theories from a variety of disciplines that include sociology, economics, history, law and political science. Nonetheless, the theory on organized crime that emerged is largely an eclectic patchwork such that instead of clearing the fog, this added to the confusion that already existed on the conceptual level (Potter, 1994). Among the conflicting views are those of Cloward & Ohlin (1960), who took organized crime as simply an outgrowth of the overall gang phenomenon with some bearings on the social position and patterns of activity of juvenile gangs, and Honneth (1994), who held organized crime as a market-based phenomenon with a structure that is entrepreneurial by nature. The word "organized" in the term organized crime indicates that criminal organizations use the concept of business logistics and the transaction cost approach in economics (Smith, 1994; Von Lampe, 2006). This means that some forms of organization emerge when the parties to a transaction operate under conditions of uncertainty. But the debate on a more accurate definition of organized crime is actually animated by two lines of research - organizational theory and network analysis (Cressey, 1969). In organizational theory, the key concern is the structure of organized crime - its size, formalization, centralization, vertical or horizontal integration. As for the network theory, the objective is to identify the social construction or the relationships involved in the organization. The latter view emphasizes not the initiators of the organization but the results of the action that are being continuously shaped and reshaped in exchanges between the various stakeholders (Smith, 1994). But the definitions arising from these studies neglect the various kinds of offenders associated with organized crime (Von Lampe, 2006). Conclusion The critical review and appraisal of the literature on organized crime shows that its popular definition actually describes many legitimate business organizations as to hierarchical structure, the limited and exclusive membership, a monopolistic stranglehold, the setting of rules and regulations, the bureaucratic model and the patrimonial or patron-client network. Even regular businesses sometimes engage in illegal means and in criminal conspiracy as evidenced by racketeering charges filed from time to time against well-established companies. Of the characteristics attributed by Abadinsky (2003) and Wagley (20006) to organized crime, the only parts that hardly apply to legitimate businesses are the use of legal companies as front for illegal operations and money laundering. This explains why the existing definitions of organized crime are not acceptable to some criminologists. Expert opinions also go in different directions because of events that have overtaken the current definitions of organized crime. For example, criminal organizations supposedly recruit members with the same ethnic roots so they could trust each other. The Russian organized crime does not exhibit this characteristic, as well as the Latino mafia that has combined forces with the Japanese Yakuza or the Afro-American gangs that engage in narcotics with the Cuban and Columbian drug dealers. The same gap between the literature and reality can be observed in the line that has been drawn between terrorism and the activities associated with organized crime as noted by Wagley (2006). What happened in recent years was that terrorists began to engage in crime while criminals began to engage in terrorism. Illegal and violent acts that harm the innocent, which are attributed to terrorist groups, are now part of the activities of organized crime Thus, the widely accepted definitions of terrorism and organized crime overlap that you can no longer tell one from the other. We are told that the sole motivations of organized crime are money and power, never ideological beliefs or causes. Terrorist organizations have behaved lately that they are interested not only in the pursuit of their political or religious beliefs but also in money and power. The definitions of organized crime also suggest that criminal groups confined themselves to illegal activities. This has been rendered irrelevant by the latest trend that sees criminal organizations acquiring legal status. They may still maintain some illegal operations on the sly but the preponderance of their activities are legal as their way of being "on the right side of the law." Another characteristic of organized crime found in the common definition is its urban orientation, which alludes to criminal gangs in the US. The case is different with the Sicilian Mafia, which thrives in the hinterlands of that region and is in fact identified with the small landholders who need musclemen to repulse outsiders. Finally, there is the inherent difficulty of setting a standard definition of organized crime that would be universally acceptable because of the fact that crime differs from country to country, such that a criminal act in, let us say, China may be legal in Australia. References: 1.Abadinsky, H. (2003). "Organized Crime Inside Out." 7th edition, Belmont CA: Thomson. 2. Airoma, D. (1995). "The Mafia." Instituto per la Dottrina e l'Informazione Sociale, Italy. 3. Best of Sicily Magazine. "The Mafia." Available at: http://www.bestofsicily.com/mafia.htm 4. Castle, A. (1997). "Transnational Organized Crime and International Security." Institute of International Relations, University of British Columbia 19. 5. Cloward, R. & Ohlin, L. (1960). "Delinquency and Opportunity: A Theory of Delinquent Gangs." New York: The Free Press. 6. Cressey, D. (1969). "Theft of the Nation: The Structure and Operations of Organized Crime in America." New York: Harper & Row. 7. Finckenauer, J. & Voronin, Y. (2001). "The Threat of Russian Organized Crime." Issues in International Crime, National Institute of Justice. 8. Falcone, G. & Padovani, M. (1991). "Cose de Cosa Nostra." Rizzoli, Milano. 9. Honneth, A. (1994). "Disintegration: Fragments of a Contemporary Sociological Diagnosis." Frankfurt am Main, Germany: Fischer Taschenbuch. 10. Paoli, L. (2003). "Mafia Brotherhoods: Organized Crime, Italian Style." New York: Oxford. 11. Pezzoni, P. (1995). "Mafia: Industry of Violence." La Nueva Italia, Firenzi. 12. Potter, G. (1994). "Criminal Organizations: Vice, Racketeering and Politics in an American City." Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland Press. 13. Reinares, F. (1999). "Transnational Organized Crime as an Increasing Threat to the National Security of Democratic Regimes." Barcelona: Paidos. 14. Reuter, P. (1994). "Research on American Organized Crime." In Robert Kelly, Ko-Lin Chin & Rufus Schatzberg (eds), Handbook of Organized Crime in the US, Westport CT: Greenwood Press. 15. Smith, D. (1994). "Illicit Enterprise: An Organized Crime Paradigm for the 1990s." In Robert Kelly, Ko-Lin Chin & Rufus Schatzberg (eds), Handbook of Organized Crime in the US, Westport CT: Green Press. 16. Sterling, C. (1990). "Cosa non solo Nostra." Mondadori, Milano. 17. Von Lampe, K. (2006). "The Interdisciplinary Dimensions of the Study of Organized Crime." Trends in Organized Crime 9 (3). 18. Wagley, J. (2006). "Transnational Organized Crime: Principal Threats and US Responses." Report for Congress, Congressional Research Service. Read More