Organized Crime

Organization

Organized crime involves numerous individuals who conspire together to commit one or more criminal acts. In general, there is some structure to the relationships between these individuals, in terms either of power or specific tasks performed. One of the more controversial debates in the study of organized crime concerns the nature of that structure. Traditionally, organized crime was understood to consist of self-contained groups that were hierarchical in nature, meaning that there was a vertical power structure with at least three permanent ranks. This bureaucratic model has been criticized as too simplistic, failing to take into account the great diversity of organizational structures and patterns of relationships involved in ongoing organized criminal conspiracies. An alternative conception is the client-patron model developed by sociologists Francis Ianni and Elizabeth Reuss-Ianni (1972). This model views the interpersonal relationships inherent in organized crime as a constellation of individuals that revolve around a particular criminal entrepreneur, who it turn acts as a patron to these like-minded individuals by providing the opportunities to organize and engage in a criminal conspiracy. In recent years, evidence suggest that the patterns of relationships between individuals participating in organized criminal conspiracies do not entail a mono-lithic, self-contained hierarchical organization, but involve a fluid network of criminal entrepreneurs, none of whom has any long-term authority over the others. Indeed, a syndicate model of organized crime views the patterns of relationships among participants not as hierarchical in nature, but as symmetrical business partnerships, based on complementary areas of expertise or resources that are formed usually as part of a specific [Page 1042]criminal transaction (for example, a major drug importation). In other words, the relationship among the participants is defined not by power, but by the particular function that the individual performs in the criminal conspiracy. Whether an ongoing criminal conspiracy is structured as a self-contained hierarchical organization or as a fluid network of individual entrepreneurs, there is often a division of labor such that individuals involved specialize in a certain function or functions.

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