The paradoxes of organized crime

The paper argues that the concept of organised crime inconsistently incorporates the following notions: a) the provision of illegal goods and services and b) a criminal organization, understood as a large-scale collectivity, primarily engaged in illegal activities with a well-defined collective identity and subdivision of work among its members. Against this superimposition, the author's contention is twofold: (1) The supply of illegal commodities mainly takes place in a `disorganized' way and, due to the constraints of product illegality, no immanent tendency towards the development of large-scale criminal enterprises within illegal markets exist. (2) Some lasting large-scale criminal organizations do exist, but they are neither exclusively involved in illegal market activities, nor is their development and internal configuration the result of illegal market dynamics.For Susan Strange: mentor and friend     

Partners in organized crime

As Polish philosopher Leszek Kolakowski maintains, the ultimate cause for the supremacy of Stalinist totalitarianism was the complete lack of respect for the rule of law.1 This brief look at the situation in Bulgaria — a former Communist state — gives us a case in point of the continuing residue from that history.     

Policing organized crime

Conclusions Recent criminological research in the Netherlands underscores the fact that organized crime is embedded in society and the overall picture makes it clear that police emphasis on a crime fighting model of the police, based solely on criminal law will not be entirely effective. Therefore, the Twente police force developed a new strategy of policing organized crime in their region. This strategy is based on criminological knowledge and on the approach of community policing: preventive, pro-active and integrated actions taken by various partners of the police in order to reduce illegal activities of organized crime groups. This strategy, however, can only succeed when two conditions are satisfied. First, this approach can only function in an open democratic society in which numerous public and private organizations and the public feel responsible for the emergence of organized crime in their environment. Secondly, the police force and their partners must be (relatively) free of corruption. This implies that this strategy can only be effective in societies in which organized crime has not deeply penetrated democratic institutions and business organizations. Respectively Commissioner of Police and head of the Division Organized Crime of the Twente Police force and Professor of criminology and director of the International Police Institute (IPIT) at the University of Twente. PO Box 217, 7500 EA Enschede, The Netherlands. We would like to thank Alexis Aronowitz of the IPIT for her comments on an earlier draft of this paper and for her grammatical corrections, as well as the members of the editorial committee for their suggestions for improvements.     

The dragon breathes fire: Chinese organized crime in New York City

Although it is widely acknowledged that Chinese businesses are victims of extortion by Asian youth gangs, there is no reliable information to examine the patterns and social processes of the problem. This paper explores the structure of extortion and other forms of victimization based on surveys of (N=603) Chinese-owned businesses in three Chinatown neighborhoods in New York City. It focuses on the nature of Chinese crime groups, social contexts of gang extortion, social processes of victimization, and merchants' compliance or resistance to gang demands. Finally, the paper discusses the problems and prospects of Chinese criminality in America.Support for this research was provided by Grant 89-IJ-CX-0021 from the National Institute of Justice. The opinions are those of the authors and do not reflect the policies or views of the U.S. Department of Justice.     

Principled compromise: The New York state organized crime control act

Digby Anderson, ed., Criminal Welfare on Trial London: The Social Affairs Unit, 1981, 95 pp.     

The phantom and threat of organized crime

Organized crime is often perceived in terms of extended, hierarchical crime “families” that extend not only their activities but also their authority structures across national boundaries. However accurate such a view may or may not have been in the United States, where it originated, evidence from a Dutch survey of organized crime enterprises reveals a different picture. For organized crime in northwestern Europe, it is more helpful to think of crime markets of two kinds: those in which the goods and services are themselves forbidden, and those in which legal goods and services are handled in illegal ways. Case studies of the drug trade, and of organized crime in the business realm, offer a detailed look at these two kinds of markets. The evidence suggests that while organized crime enterprises conduct trade across national boundaries, they do not constitute an international authority structure. Crime entrepreneurs constitute a challenge, not to the basic structure of society itself, but rather a more subtle kind of challenge to basic values and morals, particularly when criminal enterprise is linked to power at higher levels of society.     

Women in transnational organized crime

The last two decades have seen a number of publications showing that women play an important role in transnational organized crime. The recent focus on this subject has revealed a growing body of evidence to suggest that women have been active as members and leaders of criminal organizations around the world in various periods of history. This evidence has cast doubt on the prevailing idea of a ‘sudden rise’ of female power and could provide us with new explanations for the rise of women to the top of the criminal world. This article shows that the transnational and fluid opportunities and the attractive image of crime (associated with wealth, power and freedom) seduce women into entering the criminal world. The changing character of organized crime provides women with new criminal markets and clients.     

跨国有组织犯罪的主要类型

随着全球一体化进程的加深,跨国有组织犯罪出现了多样化的趋势,并且,其中有些类型的发展日益猖獗,其危害性亦愈来愈严重。系统研究当今跨国有组织犯罪的主要类型,对有效打击这类犯罪无疑有着重要的实践意义。     

The role of counterintelligence in countering transnational organized crime

Summary TOC behaves like or assumes the structure and the operations of a secret orga-nization. Powerful TOC organizations grow in symbiosis with the security structures of their host countries. In recent years, the way in which criminals in organized groups think has made them very successful. They are serious about their ‘business,’ and those who would defeat them must understand this. Counterintelligence personnel are especially well-equipped for this task because they are trained to deal with secret structures. Therefore it is worthwhile and necessary to attempt to gain more and better knowledge of TOC by employing the approach and methods of counterintelligence. This approach has after all been quite successful in the past in countering hostile intelligence and security services.     

The dualism of business victimization and organized crime

Conclusions Businessmen victimized by organized crime are chosen based upon their economic condition and their involvement in activities of interest to organized criminal groups. The level of victimization is determined not only by the level of involvement of organized crime, but also by the victims' perceptions of how business should be operated. The responses of businessmen surveyed for this research reflect their association of business victimization with organized crime. Those surveyed, however, seriously underestimated the level of victimization of the population as a whole.