Role of Violence in Organized Crime - Term Paper Example

 Role of Violence in Organized Crime Violence is referred to as a physical force which is used by an individual or a group intentionally to threaten a community or a group which results in injury or death. Similarly, a violent crime is an act which is used by an offender or threatens to be used upon victim. Organized crime also referred to as criminal organization which is run by locals and transnational groups just for the goal of carrying out illegal activities for profits. Organized crime is defined as a widespread group of criminals that perform their criminal activities under a centrally formal structure. They may be disciplined which is why they are called organized and may force someone in order to business with them. They are also referred to as mobs. These groups have been escalating violence to promote their organized crime which are highly disciplined unlike normal thugs and perform unlawful activities (Mallory, 2012). Violence is an important tool for organized criminals in achieving their criminogenic goals through coercion, aggression, and rebel against the government or an authority. Amongst these violent tools, assault tops the list which is often used as a tool for coercion. This often occurs when people refuse to act according to the will of criminals which causes accidents to happen. Violence and threat of violence is normal under the norms of organized criminals in the location they operate and have control. However, the violence is dependent upon the nature and the type of crime in which criminals are involved. A lower grade crime act would involve assault that might result in serious injuries; however, a higher grade crime would lead the assault into murder. The researchers who have studied the factors involved in criminology considers that in the context of organized crime, mostly the harm done to the body is due to social and cultural factors and other psychological factors (Mallory, 2012). The strengths of an organized crime include the intensity and the level of the crime committed by criminal organization and an extreme response from the community. The involvement in organized criminal organization leads to high financial rewards and a great control over a particular society. An organized criminal also has the potential to create a huge violence which creates fear amongst people. The lack of trust is considered a bigger threat amongst group members of organized crime because they can become to no extent to protect the secrets of organization. These groups are also unwilling to cooperate with other organized criminal groups, as they do not want to share their piece of knowledge with other groups. If an organization is high profile then it would attract a lot of attention for the law enforcement agencies. The concept of murder in organized crime has evolved due to vengeance and revenge killings which have contributed enormously on the act of murder and its consequences. In a criminal society, the group can achieve power through greater violence by annihilating competition amongst criminal groups and through murder. The role of a ‘hitman’ is of great importance to the organized crime because they are mostly involved in the assassination of renowned figures. Some organized crimes are motivated for the monetary gain, but some non-traditional crime organizations which are involved to gain the acceptance of political institutions (Abadinsky, 2007). These groups are referred to as terrorist organizations and perform their crime in a disciplined manner. These terrorist organizations are bound to create fear amongst public and creating violence is their biggest weapon. They enforce political institutions and people to act according to their demands or they threaten to create violence. The same is the case with the group of Taliban that insisted United States to not to support Israel and to step out of Saudi Arabia. However, despite of threats of violence United States did not agree to the terms of Al-Qaeda and therefore the terrorist groups hijacked 4 different passenger planes and destroyed the World Trade Center (Siegel & Nelen, 2008). The threat of violence plays a key role in criminal acts because people are well aware of the capabilities and power of organized crime and due to which they are often forced not to show any kind of resistance. Violence creates and develops fear amongst people which can be observed after the 9/11 attacks when people considered America to be the safest country on planet but was attach by group of militants (Padhy, 2006). The form of organized crime involves drug trafficking, money laundry, trafficking of arms and humans, etc. Organized criminal groups are professionals and mostly have links with higher rated people who are positioned in the upper rank in government or in business field. These have power to rule from different locations and therefore have tremendous power to move quickly and to change their various forms. Technology has helped organized criminals to add fear and create violence in general public. After the end of World War II, it has become a common trend for countries to cooperate regionally for the betterment of their relations and to increase trade integration. Therefore, countries avoided tariffs on imports and increased easier access for the export commodities in order to improve relations. This provided an opportunity for organized criminals to smuggle drugs and humans from one state to another freely without any resistance from government or military. The period had been the rise in the number of organized criminals. This also made the system of criminals complex and harder to determine as the time increased (Shanty & Mishra, 2008). Many international conventions have agreed upon in the United Nations combating and stopping the criminal acts of organized crime. However, understanding the structure of organized criminal is difficult when compared with normal criminals. It is considered that the influence of United Nations can only be the reason for the prevention and combating the matters of organized crime as they have authority over the political institutions. Many authorities uses the activity of organized crime to increase violence in a state in order to convince people in taking a particular decision. The corruption in the government is a form of organized crime which is done through a formal channel. The particular form is very much popular in an underdeveloped country which undermines the democratic channels of politics and hampers the growth of economy of the country. Therefore, it affects the whole country and creates violence in a state (Archer & Gartner, 1984). Threat of violence makes it even easier for criminals to perform their work without any resistance shown by individuals and groups. An investor who have the majority shares of a company threatens a company to make decisions as per his desire, makes it difficult for the company to resist the decision even if the decision reflects making fraud in the industry. It has been noted that crime and violence are strongly dependent on each other and are mostly associated with young adults particularly in developing nations. The figure shows in a report that about 85% of the youth of the world population lives in developing nations and this figure is subjected to increase in the near future (Archer & Gartner, 1984). Most of the fatality and accidents are performed by youth who live in a developing nation. These groups are often recruited by organized criminals for doing their job because they are either unemployed or poor and have no other choice to earn money rather than performing the task which is asked by different criminal groups. They are the major source for creating violence in a state because a fair amount of aggressiveness is found in the youth instead of an older generation people. This also results in the drug addicts where the population of youth is higher and increased activity in gang and criminal associations (Dean et al., 2010). Urban organized crimes in developing nations are recorded to be higher than in the rural areas because the chances of gaining monetary value and spending power are higher in urban cities. The increases in the number of migrant have also increased a threat for organized crimes around the world since 1965. The migrants are forced to move different places for better chances of employment and growth and often they are not as wealthy as they should have for the desired country needs. Therefore, they become a target prospect for organized crime professionals to utilize them in creating violence in the country (Siegel & Nelen, 2008). There is always the presence of violence or the threat of violence in managing organized crime. However, it is noted that professional and organized criminals always avoid the use of violence in order to make smooth flow of managing profits and not to make anyone realize about their presence and to avoid any kind of attention for general public to create awareness about their organized criminal group. According to one study, the areas that have high presence of organized crime are mostly involved in low level of violence. This shows the relation of violence with the organized crime, as better the organized crime is, it would have low level of essence of violence involved (Dean et al., 2010). It has also been noted that the areas that have high level of violence performed by organized criminals are often treated strictly with the law because they happen to gain more attention to the public. Organized crime often finds the support of general public to collect revenues and monetary funds and act as social service organizations and works against the government. The law enforcement can influence and make an end to the violence of organized criminal groups (Shanty & Mishra, 2008). Like any other criminals, organized crime is performed through the use of violence to fulfill their goals and to achieve their objectives. They are mostly motivated by money rather than ideology which are a characteristic which separates them from terrorist organization. However, substantial links have been found of organized criminals with terrorist organizations, but they avoid associating themselves with terrorist organization except for the purpose of spreading violence globally. If violence is used as a deterrent to subordination then it creates an important role for violence in organized crime (Padhy, 2006). Violence can also result in the failure of goals of organized criminals which can be stated with an example, if a drug consignment is intercepted in a border of two countries on the authority of an official of that particular country, and then it will create in the result of violence by murder of that particular official. This act of violence creates fear amongst different politicians and officials to restrain the organized criminal groups in taking actions against them. These criminals also have fair amount of international reach which allows them to operate in any country. Some big criminals also have organizations which are subjected to promote world products, but at the same time they trade illegal products under the same license (Padhy, 2006). Bribery and extortion are also the most important tools of organized criminals which help them in buying the confidence of government in reaching towards their goals. These are also considered as necessary tools for their survival if they have to survive in a non-violence manner. Even the security officials and judges are involved in the criminal activity because of violence spread by organizations to promote their goals. Many officials in United States are reported to have been arrested due to taking bribes from criminal organizations in order to successfully carrying out their work (Dean et al., 2010). The term organized crime was previously managed in 19th century when these gangs used to make residents as their victim. However, due to the invention of new technologies and increased in the awareness of public, these criminals now work behind the screens to promote their illegal activities. The threat of violence is reported to have been their common channel for creating more profits out of their illegal activities. Psychologist believes that the threat of violence creates more fear than the violence itself. This happens because violence can be seen or heard by people which creates a sense of stepping up against the illegal act and aggression. However, psychologist argues that the threat of violence is unseen and the fear for the violence provides a greater chance for organized criminals to take greater advantage. Therefore, the trick is never missed by these organized criminals who uses the threat of violence as their key in their success because they also try to avoid violence in order to smoothly run their operations without anyone getting to know about their activities (Mallory, 2012). It is now concluded that violence and the threat of violence is such an important factor in creating fear amongst people and groups which makes it easier for organized criminals to perform their illegal activities. Psychologists termed the threat of violence to be more effective in the case of organized crime because they are more likely to remain outside the attention of an individual. The organized criminal groups often have links with top authorities and politicians in order to carry out their work effectively across borders and they use bribery and extortion for such purposes. List of References Abadinsky, H., 2007. Organized crime. 1st ed. New York: Thomson/Wadsworth. Archer, D. & Gartner, R., 1984. Violence and Crime in Cross-National Perspective. 1st ed. New York: Yale University Press. Dean, G., Gottschalk, P. & Fahsing, I., 2010. Organized Crime: Policing Illegal Business Entrepreneurialism. 1st ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Mallory, S., 2012. Understanding Organized Crime. 1st ed. New York: Jones & Bartlett Publishers. Padhy, P., 2006. Organised Crime. 1st ed. New Delhi: Gyan Books. Shanty, F. & Mishra, P., 2008. Organized Crime: From Trafficking to Terrorism, Volume 1. 1st ed. New York: ABC-CLIO. Siegel, S. & Nelen, J., 2008. Organized Crime: Culture, Markets, and Policies. 1st ed. New York: Springer. Read More