Organized Crime, Sociology of

Establishing a concrete definition of organized crime is rather difficult given the multidimensionality of scholarship surrounding criminal organizations. Because working definitions of organized crime have been offered by disciplines such as economics, criminology, political science, international affairs, and anthropology, determining the precise elements of a criminal organization and organized crime itself becomes difficult. Additionally, creating a comprehensive definition is further complicated by the changing and adaptive nature of organized crime and the cultivation of new groups (e.g., terrorist ...