Organized Criminal Organizations in the United States - Essay Example

Organized Criminal organizations are a fact of life in the United States today. Despite the best efforts of Law Enforcement Agencies criminal organizations have proliferated in almost every avenue of American Life. In light of the widespread dissemination of organized crime much can be gained from the study of four of the most successful recent groups, Outlaw Motorcycle gangs, Jamaican and Nigerian gangs and Russian organized crime. Examining the origins of these groups, the common patterns of organization and their overall gestalt allows a clearer understanding of how best to deal with the future threat that they pose all Americans. Origins: Each group has its unique origins. The Outlaw Motorcycle gangs were originally born out of disaffected of disaffected World War II veterans returning home to find society did not understand the terrible things to which they had been witness and therefore no longer fit into mainstream life. The original bikers were not a criminal group but rather free spirits in pursuit of the thrills that war had given them and no longer available in conventional society; however, this innocence was short lived as a series of conflicts with the police dramatized in the film the Wild Ones marked the beginning of outlaw status. Even with their outlaw status the bikers in the 60's had romantic associations for the growing hippie movement as they seemed symbolize part of the rebellion against the values of the previous generation. In 1969 at a Rolling Stones concert members of the Hell's Angels gang beat 2 to death a young black man in what was believed to be a racially motivated killing. After this, the biker gangs lost any aura of romance and were seen for the criminal organization they were. The Hell's Angels are the oldest and largest of the biker gangs but there are others, all of which exist in state of smoldering enmity with each other, notably the Pagans, the Outlaws and the Bandidos. The biker gangs were not based on any ethnicity like the other gangs and if anything they are characterized broadly by a racist ideology of white superiority, this despite the fact that a African- American Chapter of the Hell's Angels exists in California. The Jamaican and the Nigerian gangs and the Russian mob were born out of the corruption of their native countries and united by common ethnic, national and historical ties. Jamaican immigration to the U.S opened up after 1965 after years of discriminatory restrictions. While early migrants were generally benign members of the Rastafaris, a religious sect honoring former Emperor Halie Selassie as a living deity, the pattern changed after 1970. At this time a stream of migrants with criminal records were sent to the U.S unbeknown st to U.S authorities. This group schooled in the ways of crime established criminal organizations in the U.S that are currently involved in the street gang drug scene on the Atlantic coast. The Nigerians that came in 1980 as a wave of student migrants, were well inculcated in society that had become steeped in corruption after the economy had changed from a a largely agrarian base to one heavily 3 dependent on the discovery of huge deposits of oil. The huge flood of money into to the country with the advent of oil had changed the character of the country where it seemed that corruption was established way of doing business. The Russian mob which had been a feature of Russian life throughout its history, made its entry into the U.S much in the way of the Jamaican criminal element, through lax immigration screening, allowing large numbers of criminals that established themselves in ethnic enclaves initially in the Brighton Beach of New Jersey. Russian criminal groups were always an element of Russian life. Some sided with Lenin and the Bolsheviks in the revolution in 1917. They were also employed by Stalin among the many groups he used as assassins and instruments of terror during his reign. Criminal Organizations: All the criminal organizations discussed are characterized by a high degree of organizational structure, a fact that has allowed them to expand their criminal operations and limit repercussions from law enforcement agencies The Outlaw Motorcycle gangs ( OMGs) are a exclusive fraternity of male dominated individuals.Sonny Berger the founder of the Hells Angels adopted a pattern of organization that is seen repeated in the other gangs. Gangs are organized into Chapters, that are like military divisions. Each Chapter has an elected President who chooses other members of his cabinet which include a treasurer, a vice president, and an executive arm who does the the bulk of the 4 enforcement. There is also a road manager who organizes all the logistics of travel in large groups. Membership is exclusive and conditional on passing through a number of stages signified by the colored cloths marking the progression through the ranks. Initiation is often a brutal process with the new devotee suffering physical beatings and all manner of humiliations. The status of women on the hierarchy is decidedly low, a hardly surprising fact considering that the group has a history of living of the avails of enslaved women among other elements of their criminal enterprises. Women who did achieve some long standing affiliation with members could be accorded “Old Lady”or “Mama”status but this would entail considerable screening. This was seen as necessary since the organization was at all times concerned about leaks into their tightly guarded criminal organization and women were seen as vulnerabilities if they came privy to too much information. The Jamaican gangs were organized in a way to ensure that the top individuals were protected from the risks and in turn received the majority of the profits. This Pyramid scheme was built up on layers of lower echelons of workers answerable on up to the the top individuals. To further protect themselves the Jamaican gangs often hired Americans to work at the street level to shoulder most of the risk. Dealing as they did with the street drug scene the Jamaican gangs were careful to distance themselves as much as possible from the street where the greatest danger lay. By contrast the Nigerian gangs were organized on a more egalitarian basis 5 much like an octopus with arms extending out in many directions. This pattern of egalitarianism sets apart the Nigerian gangs from the Jamaican gangs and the OMGs. The Nigerian gangs were known to cooperate with other gangs in their efforts. Perhaps this had some basis in the familial relations that seemed to pervade the gangs with groups of cousins often working side by side. The Russian Mob's organization in the United States mirrors the organization that it developed from its history. The old gangsters in Russia were characterized by an absolute loyalty to the group and a dogmatic insistence of living apart from society. On an individual level they were remarkable for their tolerance to pain. This organization underwent further development under the pattern of organized corruption that developed during communist rule. At this time a hierarchy was developed of leaders who were insulated from the crime and beneath them classes of corrupt officials to carry out the administration and below them further the more brutal executors of the crime. Ethnic loyalties also played a role with gangs composed of Georgians and Chechens and others. In America the Mob is a unique for the speed in which it has ascended the criminal hierarchy. This is in no small measure because of the highly educated and sophisticated profile of Russian gang members. 6 Criminal Operations: All the criminal gangs discussed have succeed in large measure because of specialization in particular areas of crime. By specialization they have in criminal parlance established certain turfs and have worked aggressively to develop and defend these areas. Organized Motorcycle gangs deal in the drug trade, white slavery as well as extension into legal businesses that serve both as fronts for their criminal enterprises as well as ventures in their own rights like bars, tattoo parlors,and auto shops. There are certain regional patterns with the Bandido's the fastest growing group starting in Arizona. The Hell's Angels are well established on the West coast and internationally in Canada and Australia. The Outlaws are an old group based in Detroit. The Pagans are violent group that is trying get a foot hold on the East coast. Problems have arisen when the groups cross into rival groups turfs often erupting in violent wars like was the case of the battles in Quebec between the Hell's Angels and the Rock Machine, a branch of the Bandidos. The Jamaican gangs have made their greatest impact by importing Cocaine from Columbia and then processing the drug into crack cocaine to sell in crack houses on the Atlantic coast. The gangs have learned to keep the supplies circulating in small quantities understanding the nature of criminal indictments of larger quantities. The crack houses themselves are constructed with elaborate systems of guards to protect themselves from persecution. The 7 bulk of the street work is placed on the shoulders of local American dealers to minimize the risk to gang members. The money earned from this illicit trade also is laundered in elaborate schemes that range from straight bribes of corrupt pilots to straightforward use of Western Union to the hiring of “Higglers”native Jamaican businessman who come to the U.S take the drug money and buy expensive electronic goods among other things and then return to Jamaica to sell and retrieve the money in cleaned form. Arms trading is also a staple of the Jamaican gangs. Guns are bought in states with more lax laws by locals hired by the gangs and then these gangs are shipped to New York for sale. The Nigerian gangs initially established niches in white collar crimes of fraud in getting student loans, car insurance scams, welfare fraud, and credit card fraud. Interestingly these members often had training in specialized schools that taught fraud of this nature in their native Nigeria. With this education in hand Nigerian posing as students would apply for loans, steal credit card numbers from professors , in essence carry out all the types of fraud mentioned with a full understanding of the required paperwork to achieve their ends. Often the paper work needed could be supplied from printers that worked for peers in Nigeria. The Nigerian gangs were characterized by a remarkable degree of cooperation in carrying out their scams allowing other groups to also have access the the credit card numbers or other information that they had acquired illicitly so the ill gotten gains could be shared. The Nigerian gangs focused on these particular crime partly 8 because with good English skills and education they were accessible and also in order to avoid long potential prison terms that come with other crimes. This pattern has changed somewhat lately as the Nigerian gangs have extended their operations into the the drug trafficking scene by importing drugs into America from Asian destinations such as Pakistan and Afghanistan. Again they have used their cooperative skills by working along side the Jamaican gangs that now have a new supply source for their street drug scene. The Russian Mob like the Nigerians also have made a habit of specializing in sophisticated white collar crimes. In one such scam they succeeded in defrauding Medicare through a very elaborate scheme of fake patients and corrupt doctors and an intricate understand of the processing of insurance forms. They like the Nigerians have a flair for cooperation, colluding with Italian Mob in New Jersey and New York to defraud gas stations with various schemes that ranged from selling adulterated oil to actually faking the excise taxes and keeping the difference. Threat Posed to America by these Gangs: All these aforementioned gangs are a growing threat to the security and prosperity of Americans in many ways. These gangs present an element of violence and fraud and anarchy into the system that threatens the social fabric of the nation. The organized Motorcycle gangs have started to shed their outward 9 appearances to blend to better avoid detection by the police. They have acquired a more sophisticated understanding of the law and now even employ a more corporate model in their organization but they still ply the majority of their profits through the drug trade, prostitution and other illegal avenues. The predatory nature of their activity is all the more disturbing by the veneer of propriety that they now adopt. Even with the changes in outward appearance they still reveal themselves to be a criminal organization by the way they most violently defend their turf illustrated in the killings in Quebec. The Jamaican gangs also have sheltered their money in legal investments such as property, resorts, small businesses but they continue to deal in the most potentially brutal areas of crime: the street drug scene involving as it does the poorer populations of the country and the dealing of arms which continue to exacerbate the problems that follow unregulated gun distribution, namely violent crime. This group has in way waned and continues to provide a threat to the United States especially as their revenues grow and they start to access other sources of drugs through cooperation with Nigerian gangs. The Nigerian gangs are to be feared for their sophistication in taking on the white collar crimes early in their history and all the more so now for their new boldness in taking on more dangerous method such as smuggling drugs from new areas of supply . Apart from this new venture in more hard crimes the disturbing aspect of the Nigerians is their cooperative spirit is resulting in a collusion with the Jamaican gangs. Both gangs seek to benefit from this 10 arrangement but to the great detriment of the American public as both groups will benefit from the others strengths. With these two groups cooperating there is now for America a larger supply base of drugs entering the inner cities and and greater degree of sophistication in the operations in these areas. The most fear inspiring group of these gangs is the Russian Mob. This group in a very short time has perpetrated some of the most sophisticated crimes in the U.S. Already they have established themselves as worthy partners for the long established Italian Mob. This group as already has been mentioned is the most sophisticated group with member ship that often includes individuals fluent in a number of languages and highly educated. This level of education and cosmopolitan knowledge suggests that this group will not be limited to regional crime in a single commodity but rather has the potential to expand into any area of the economy. Allied to this intellectual scope for their crime the Russian Mob also have a reputation for brutality that at the very least is equal to any of the other groups in existence. It is this combination of capability and ruthlessness that marks the Russian mob as the potentially dangerous to the country . With that said it hardly suggests that the danger of the other groups is not growing and becoming increasingly more threatening. Conclusion: By studying these criminal organizations it is possible to understand the 11 scope of the problem and the challenge of dealing with it as well. Law Enforcement agencies are best served today by the the best use of all forms of intelligence about the problems they confront. This is essential for as these organizations adopt clever tactics to avoid persecution the forces of the law can advise policy makers for the requirements of new laws that will aid in the apprehension of these criminals. In these gangs there were certain patterns of organization that developed in response to pressures of legal persecution. Today the groups are adopting more conventional methods of operation, they are investing in legal ventures and starting to cooperate in amongst themselves to continue their own growth .These groups present an ongoing challenge and will continue to do so in the future. The best method of dealing with them is through the maximum use of intelligence on all aspects of their operations. Read More