Organized Crime

Organized crime constitutes in and of itself a social problem, but, in reality, it becomes an influential factor in producing many other types of social problems.

Attempts at finding a definition of organized crime acceptable to all the disciplines that deal with its subject matter have met with frustration; hence, here its major characteristics are distinguished by the word organized, which means that it is committed by two or more or a group or groups of individuals working together. Another distinguishing feature lies in the criminal goals, motivations, or ends that these groups seek to achieve.

There are four basic types of organized crime. The first is mercenary organized crime, in which the major goal is attaining a direct financial profit from engaging in the crime. This category includes gangs that burglarize homes, auto theft rings, pocket-picking rings, and groups that perpetuate various forms of confidence games. By contrast, those who participate in ingroup organized crime do not have financial gain as their major motive; instead their purpose lies in the individual's psychological and social gratification attained by belonging to a group that engages in “rumbles” and other risk-seeking thrills for the sheer adventure itself. Political-social organized crime also does not have direct financial profit as its goal; instead the goal is that of changing or maintaining an existing political-social structure; terrorist groups and the Ku Klux Klan are examples of this type. Finally, syndicated organized crime, the type that receives the most attention from [Page 641]researchers, journalists, and politicians, has as the goal of its criminal participants that of attaining direct financial gain by providing illicit goods and/or services to the public through the use of threat, violence, and procuring police or political “protection” to safeguard its participants from legal interference. Illicit gambling, prostitution, and illicit drug trafficking have been its major enterprises.

In the United States, the subject of syndicated organized crime has enjoyed a romance with the terms Mafia and Cosa Nostra. In the 1950s and 1960s, U.S. governmental committees captured the public imagination and concluded that syndicated crime was primarily an Italian and Sicilian import. Critics of these conclusions were quick to point out that these governmental investigations had two serious flaws: (1) historically, they argued that syndicated crime began with Sicilian involvement in the 1930s and that its membership was exclusively of Italian and Sicilian origin. Historical fact reveals that syndicated crime has existed in America throughout its history, including during colonial times. And (2) studies show that syndicated crime is not and never has been the province of any one ethnic group. In reality, mafia as syndicated crime is better understood as a method rather than an organization, a method that includes the use of force, intimidation, or the threats of such, requiring a group whose purpose is that of providing illicit goods and services and does so by obtaining political or police protection. As such, mafia or syndicated crime can exist anywhere. As for being exported, it is individuals who migrate; the growth and survival of the system itself is ultimately dependent upon the social conditions and social system of the country where it operates, which either allows or stifles its development.

...