Explaining Organized Crime

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert M. Lombardo
Keyword(s):  
Organized Crime ◽  
Human Ecology ◽  
Cultural Transmission ◽  
Social Disorganization Theory ◽  
The Social ◽  
American Society ◽  
Ethnic Succession ◽  
Deviance Theory ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Succession Theory

This chapter reviews the theoretical underpinnings of the alien conspiracy and ethnic succession theories as explanations for the emergence and continuation of organized crime in American society. It first considers the arguments of the alien conspiracy theory, as well as the cultural deviance theory upon which it is based, before discussing the claims of the social disorganization theory as the basis of the ethnic succession theory. The chapter also examines the theories of human ecology, cultural transmission, and differential social organization, along with delinquency theories and their relation to organized crime, with particular emphasis on recruitment issues. Finally, the chapter looks at the relationship between Gerald Suttles's conceptualization of the defended neighborhood and racket subcultures.

Conclusion

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert M. Lombardo
Keyword(s):  
Organized Crime ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Social Conditions ◽  
Early Years ◽  
Conspiracy Theory ◽  
The Social ◽  
American Society ◽  
Ethnic Succession ◽  
The City ◽  
Succession Theory

This book has has argued that traditional organized crime in America is directly related to the social conditions that were found in American society during the early years of the twentieth century, rather than the result of a transplanted Sicilian Mafia as claimed by the alien conspiracy theory. Additional evidence against the alien conspiracy thesis comes from sociologist William Chambliss's study of “Rainfall West,” a pseudonym given to the city of Seattle. This concluding chapter first considers the arguments of ethnic succession theory before discussing racket subcultures and street crew neighborhoods and how the failure of social control allowed organized crime to develop further. It asserts that organized crime in Chicago was not related to the emergence of the Sicilian Mafia but was the product of America's disorganized urban areas. It also highlights the importance of community social structure for recruitment issues and the influence of differentially organized community areas for the development and continuation of organized crime in Chicago.

Immigration, Ethnicity, Race, and Organized Crime

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Will Cooley
Keyword(s):  
Organized Crime ◽  
Informal Economy ◽  
Delinquent Youth ◽  
Youth Groups ◽  
Ethnic Succession ◽  
Immigration And Ethnicity ◽  
Succession Theory

How immigration and ethnicity shaped delinquent youth groups (gangs) and adult organized crime syndicates (mobs) is examined. Ethnicity has played a key role in these organizations. Gangs and mobs used ethnic ties as an organizing principle to foster trust in their illicit activities. Scholars have usually applied the theory of ethnic succession to account for the changes in supremacy over the informal economy. Yet scholars have attached too much importance to the ethnic succession theory. To fully understand the underworld, scholars need to recognize interethnic cooperation, the persistence of class, and the rewards of whiteness.

The Black Mafia

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert M. Lombardo
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
Organized Crime ◽  
Black Migration ◽  
History Of ◽  
Historical Role ◽  
American Society ◽  
Organized Crime Groups ◽  
Political Economic ◽  
The Relationship

This chapter explores the historical role of African Americans in organized crime in Chicago. It begins with a brief overview of black migration and settlement in Chicago in order to elucidate the relationship between the city's black community and the larger political, economic, and social organization. It then traces the history of the ethnic vice industry that flourished in Chicago's African American community during the first half of the twentieth century. It also considers how policy gambling—a lottery gambling system in which players wagered a small sum of money on a combination of three numbers—became the most important form of vice activity in Chicago's black South Side, citing the role played by three men: Patsy King, King Foo, and Sam Young. The chapter argues that sophisticated African American organized crime groups existed in Chicago independent of white organized crime largely because of the segregated nature of American society. African American organized crime did not follow Italian organized crime but existed alongside Irish and Italian groups from the first days of syndicated vice.

Organized Crime in Chicago

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert M. Lombardo
Keyword(s):  
State Government ◽  
Organized Crime ◽  
Political Corruption ◽  
Conspiracy Theory ◽  
Urban Centers ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
American Society ◽  
Sociological Explanation ◽  
American Cities

This book provides a comprehensive sociological explanation for the emergence and continuation of organized crime in Chicago. Tracing the roots of political corruption that afforded protection to gambling, prostitution, and other vice activity in Chicago and other large American cities, the book challenges the dominant belief that organized crime in America is a descendent of the Sicilian Mafia. According to this widespread “alien conspiracy” theory, organized crime evolved in a linear fashion beginning with the Mafia in Sicily, emerging in the form of the Black Hand in America's immigrant colonies, and culminating in the development of the Cosa Nostra in America's urban centers. Looking beyond this Mafia paradigm, this volume argues that the development of organized crime in Chicago and other large American cities was rooted in the social structure of American society. Specifically, the book ties organized crime to the emergence of machine politics in America's urban centers. It contends that Chicago's criminal underworld could not have existed without the blessing of those who controlled municipal, county, and state government. These practices were not imported from Sicily, the book contends, but were bred in the socially disorganized slums of America where elected officials routinely franchised vice and crime in exchange for money and votes. The book also traces the history of the African American community's participation in traditional organized crime in Chicago and offers new perspectives on the organizational structure of the Chicago Outfit, the traditional organized crime group in Chicago.

The Roots of Organized Crime

1962 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 325-338
Author(s):  
Gus Tyler
Keyword(s):  
Organized Crime ◽  
Ethnic Diversity ◽  
Social Background ◽  
Dominant Culture ◽  
The Social ◽  
Patterns Of Behavior ◽  
Robber Barons ◽  
American Society ◽  
Free People ◽  
Established Order

The hierarchy of organized crime is a new economically powerful and politically influential class in American society. Once the servant of politics, business, and labor in social struggles, organized crime now reaches out to become the master: an economy behind the economy, a government behind govern ment. Its roots lie deep within the American culture, drawing nourishment from the traditional virtues as well as the popular ized vices of our civilization. Our revolutionary tradition is a proud expression of our desire to be a free people; yet this same readiness to challenge the established order when it denies what individuals and groups consider to be their rightful heritage has made America a lawless nation. Our material riches are our international boast; yet this pursuit of riches was institutional ized by generations of "robber barons" whose unethical patterns of behavior became sanctified when sufficiently aged in gilt. The challenge to accumulated wealth, coming from the "lower" orders, continued the pattern of subordinating means to ends. The frontier provided the social background for continuing the tradition of advancing "rights" and "riches" through a process of organized anarchy; when the open frontier ran out, the metropolises produced the "internal" frontier, the pockets of deprived, alienated, but aspiring subcultures that challenged the established order. Out of the clash issued new gangs, the nuclei of organized crime. Even our desire to be pure has added more than its share to the impurity known as organized crime. A puritan heritage, superimposed on a materialistic pragmatism, has created a widespread hypocrisy in which Amer icans collectively outlaw the practices in which they privately indulge. In this inner clash of values, the organized criminal provides the "outlawed" services that the "respectables" crave. While the top gangster tends to move from violence to di plomacy, from strong arm to investment, from hood to statesman, the institution of gangsterism is constantly renewed from the ranks of the juvenile delinquent gang, youth alienated from the dominant culture by age, by poverty, and by ethnic diversity.

Social Disorganization Theory

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Bellair
Keyword(s):  
Collective Efficacy ◽  
Social Disorganization ◽  
Urban Neighborhoods ◽  
Informal Social Control ◽  
Social Disorganization Theory ◽  
Neighborhood Crime ◽  
The Social ◽  
Organic Solidarity ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Crucial Test

Contemporary sociologists typically trace social disorganization models to Emile Durkheim’s classic work. There is continuity between Durkheim’s concern for organic solidarity in societies that are changing rapidly and the social disorganization approach of Shaw and McKay (1969). However, Shaw and McKay view social disorganization as a situationally rooted variable and not as an inevitable property of all urban neighborhoods. They argued that socioeconomic status (SES), racial and ethnic heterogeneity, and residential stability account for variations in social disorganization and hence informal social control, which in turn account for the distribution of community crime. Empirical testing of Shaw and McKay’s research in other cities during the mid-20th century, with few exceptions, focused on the relationship between SES and delinquency or crime as a crucial test of the theory. As a whole, that research supports social disorganization theory. A handful of studies in the 1940s through early 1960s documented a relationship between social disorganization and crime. After a period of stagnation, social disorganization increased through the 1980s and since then has accelerated rapidly. Much of that research includes direct measurement of social disorganization, informal control, and collective efficacy. Clearly, many scholars perceive that social disorganization plays a central role in the distribution of neighborhood crime.

Prophets and Profits of Racial Science

2018 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ruha Benjamin
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Social Construction ◽  
Precision Medicine ◽  
Group Differences ◽  
Racial Science ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Racial Ethnic

In this response to Terence Keel and John Hartigan’s debate over the social construction of race, I aim to push the discussion beyond the terrain of epistemology and ideology to examine the contested value of racial science in a broader political economy. I build upon Keel’s concern that even science motivated by progressive aims may reproduce racist thinking and Hartigan’s proposition that a critique of racial science cannot rest on the beliefs and intentions of scientists. In examining the value of racial-ethnic classifications in pharmacogenomics and precision medicine, I propose that analysts should attend to the relationship between prophets of racial science (those who produce forecasts about inherent group differences) and profits of racial science (the material-semiotic benefits of such forecasts). Throughout, I draw upon the idiom of speculation—as a narrative, predictive, and financial practice—to explain how the fiction of race is made factual, again and again. 

Diffusion and Adoption of Corruption in Developing Economies: Evidence from Ghana

2018 ◽  
Vol 6 (6) ◽  
pp. 21
Author(s):  
Solomon A. Keelson ◽  
Thomas Cudjoe ◽  
Manteaw Joy Tenkoran
Keyword(s):  
Social Values ◽  
Developing Economies ◽  
Policy Formulation ◽  
Institutional Factors ◽  
Developing Economy ◽  
Theoretical Underpinning ◽  
Institutional Failure ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
And Diffusion

The present study investigates diffusion and adoption of corruption and factors that influence the rate of adoption of corruption in Ghana. In the current study, the diffusion and adoption of corruption and the factors that influence the speed with which corruption spreads in society is examined within Ghana as a developing economy. Data from public sector workers in Ghana are used to conduct the study. Our findings based on the results from One Sample T-Test suggest that corruption is perceived to be high in Ghana and diffusion and adoption of corruption has witnessed appreciative increases. Social and institutional factors seem to have a larger influence on the rate of corruption adoption than other factors. These findings indicate the need for theoretical underpinning in policy formulation to face corruption by incorporating the relationship between the social values and institutional failure, as represented by the rate of corruption adoption in developing economies.

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