4. Controlling and preventing organized crime

‘Controlling and preventing organized crime’ discusses the types of policy and law enforcement approaches intended to address organized crime as an issue. The US became the first country to develop a comprehensive and wide-ranging response to the phenomenon of ‘organized crime’. Legislation introduced in the late 1960s gave prosecutors a new model based on patterns of criminal activity rather than specific offences. Alongside the new tools for prosecuting criminal groups, it increased the severity of sanctions against them. The US approach became the model for other countries. With organized crime being seen as an international issue new organizations have appeared to address it. But can organized crime ever be prevented?

1. What is organized crime?

Organized crime seems a tangible, inescapable issue in today’s world, but despite some agreement on its characteristics, there is no uncontested definition of it. ‘What is organized crime?’ explains that despite ‘organized crime’ being a recent term, the illicit activities it includes have occurred regularly throughout history in various geographical contexts and economic, social, and political conditions. Social scientists focus on three different features of organized crime: that it consists of a collectivity/association; that it can be understood as criminal business, aimed at financial gain; and that it can be understood as an accumulation and use of power akin to that of a government.

3. The business of organized crime

‘The business of organized crime’ discusses the types of business in which organized crime is involved. Although the discussion is not an exhaustive list of organized criminal activities, it covers a wide spectrum of possibilities in the reality of organized crime where there are opportunities for financial gain. The specific areas of organized criminality covered include predatory activities, such as extortion and protection; illegal markets of legal commodities such as tobacco; illegal markets of illegal commodities such as drugs; migrant smuggling and human trafficking; loansharking and illegal money lending; arms trafficking; counterfeiting; corporate crime; and money laundering.

2. Organized crime structures around the globe

‘Organized crime structures around the globe’ looks at how different structures of organized crime exist in particular contexts worldwide. It begins by considering the connection between organized crime structures and particular national or cultural contexts as traditionally, and often in popular culture, organized crime has been understood through the lens of ethnic links. The nature, characteristics, and links with the sphere of the ‘upperworld’ (legal businesses, law enforcement, politicians, the state, nationalist organizations, etc.) are also looked at. The key structures of organized crime studied include Italian and Italian-American, British, Russian, Turkish, Latin American, Chinese, Japanese, and outlaw motorcycle gangs.

5. Business as usual

‘Business as usual’ brings together and evaluates the different aspects of organized crime considered so far. The idea that organized crime is a socially constructed phenomenon reflects the reality of a variety of institutions and everyday life experiences, and views of these are an inherent part of the process of defining and addressing it. When the openness, fluidity, and opportunism that characterize illicit markets dictating the forms of participation and association actors may adopt in them are considered, it is astounding that within a period of approximately fifty years a formidable institutional, legislative, and investigative armoury has been constructed and has proliferated internationally to address the threat of organized crime.