Social Organized Crime Perspective
In some communities organized crime is as much of a social institution as other legitimate functions. Often, the impact of organized crime can be hidden and not readily apparent to community members. In other cases the community may come to accept the organized criminal group for the benefits they provide. Understanding how organized crime meshes into the social fabric of a community is important to understanding how to fight against it. Just as important to understanding the social implications is understanding theories as to why individuals become involved in criminal activities and how criminal organizations function.
Social Institution as it Relates to Organized Crime
The first thing that must
…show more content…
Organized crime group’s further entrench themselves into the community by establishing legitimate business interests. These legitimate enterprises provide the organized crime group an opportunity to mask their true operations and offer covert means to launder money or hide illegal activities from detection. The criminal group can become imbedded within the community and provide further opportunities. Organized criminal groups can generate additional business for legitimate community institutions, jobs, income, and services. This can become so valuable to a community that the citizens actually accept the criminal organization and look the other way. A major reason organized crime is so successful within communities are the corrupt ties these groups form with political and social leaders often as a result of bribery or other favors. Organized criminal organizations become part of the social fabric of a community. Many individuals who consume illegal services provided by these groups do not view themselves as criminals, yet they directly support the group’s criminal activities (Lyman & Potter, 2007). Understanding how organized crime becomes part of a community’s social structure is valuable, but an examination of theories of organized crime is important to provide a deeper understanding.
Applicable Theories
There are two parts to understanding the reasons for the emergence of organized crime. First it is important to understand the structure and
Organized crime has been present in the history of the United States and can be traced back to the streets of the early 1800’s. Organized crime occurs when a group of people congregate together and plan to commit a series of crimes to make money, usually illegally. Organized crime groups have evolved over time from small rackets to grand organizations like the Italian Mafia. Crime particularly began to become prominent in urban areas during the prohibition. Organized crime is still just as visible today as it was back in the early 1800’s.
For years, gang crime has been loathed by society, as society has perceived it to threaten the well-being of its members. In addition to the fear of gang violence, concerns have been raised of gangs polluting youth; hence, policing strategies have emerged more increasingly in an attempt to put an end to the delinquency. Nevertheless, for society the causation of gang crime has been discussed to a lesser extent; thus, the objective of this essay will be to depict a viable explanation of gang crime through the use of two criminological theories. To accomplish the task at hand; I shall, define gang crime, provide a description of social disorganization theory, illustrate how the application of social disorganization theory provides an explanation of gang crime, describe differential opportunity theory, demonstrate how differential opportunity theory can explain gang crime, and exemplify as to which theory provides a superior explanation of gang crime. In the end, it will be clear that social disorganization theory is a superior explanation of gang crime in comparison to differential opportunity theory, due to its ability to deliver a more enhanced explanation than the one that is provided by differential opportunity theory.
3. Characterize the initiation ritual. How do you think it compares to the “real” ritual – if such a ritual exists?
In this paper it was asked of us as a team to give an in-depth historical analysis of an organized crime group. With this class being about organized crime one would think to write about mobsters, but we decided to think outside the box. Even though when thinking of organized crime the first thought is The Italian Mafia and groups of that sort, one has to remember that organized crime comes in many different forms of organizations. From this class we were able to understand more on organized crime and who can be classified as an organized crime organization. Organizations that one would never really think of as having ties to organized crime may have some
“Gangs have morphed from social organizations into full-fledged criminal enterprises” (Thomas, 2009, para 5). Gangs are highly sophisticated and more dangerous then ever. The number one reason to join a gang is money; and 95 percent of gangs profit comes from drug dealing
When dealing with organized crime, those working in the criminal justice field that there are plentiful problems that organized crime brings to the table. One such issues that can rise up are the provision of illicit markets is one large problem associated with organized crime. This is an issues because communities that are in a susceptible state and as a result this types of villages can undoubtedly become dependent on what organized crime can supply (Beare & Naylor, 1994). Within at risk environment manipulation and perversion can
“According to statistics from the National Youth Gang Center, more than 24,500 gangs, consisting of more than 770,000 members, exist in about 3,300 cities in the U.S.” (Rank 1). Although it is not illegal to be a member of a gang, it should be noted many gangs participate in illegal activity for funding and will use the money as a way to entice new membership. The “money begins flowing, and with that comes all of the things associated with material wealth that is usually beyond the reach of these adolescents without the criminal activity of being involved in a gang” (Nawojczyk 3).
The sociological analysis of gang membership explores the different types of effects that arise due to criminal involvement. Because of the social conflicts that are associated with gang membership, this paper will explore the different theories of social learning and both personal and control issues that relate to the recent surge in crime across Chicago. As we open the doors of a crime ridden society, the truth begins to unfold. It isn’t just the thought of helping, it is the action that remains the barrier between living a life of crime or a life that carries hope.
The degree in which communities are socially organized against corporate crime partly depends on local economic, social, and crime conditions. Communities overthrown by high rates of violent crime focus their attention and efforts against violent crime. When violent crime is under control, then the attention on other forms of crime may rise. Communities with strong and diverse economies can afford greater control of corporate crime. The more socially organized an economy becomes, the greater prosecutors feel the need to devote more time and resources into investigating and prosecuting corporate
There are at least two competing definitions: one that focuses on particular groups of people, and one that focuses on particular types of crime. Both definitions have some validity, and neither is sufficient to completely describe the global reality. Understanding the way that real-life organized crime situations fit these two definitions makes a big difference in the ways we might go about solving these problems. When most people say “organized crime”, it is often a shorthand way of referring to groups of people, usually “the mafia” and similar groups. Understood in this way, organized criminal activity is simply whatever these organized crime groups do. The people are consistent across time, although what they do may change: today maybe extortion, tomorrow maybe heroin trafficking, or check kiting, or procurement fraud, or all of the above. The emphasis is on the group, not the nature of the crime. This is an important distinction, because it implies a number of assumptions about the way that organized crime works. Law enforcement agencies use this definition almost as a matter of course, because the criminal justice system is designed to deal with specific offences committed by specific people. Police arrest suspects and seize their property, prosecutors secure convictions one-by-one, and only individual people can be sent to prison. When actors in such a system plan proactively, they are limited by the tools at hand, and this affects the way they conceptualize the
Social Institutions are groups of people who have come together for a common purpose. These institutions have formed a common bond. They have done research and have concluded by joining they can achieve more. Some of the social institutions in the local community are the Boys and Girls Clubs, the Cub Scouts, the Girl Scouts. There are generally five different types of social institutions. They are political, educational, religious, economic, and family. Each is filled with members of a common goal. Organized crime organizations have adopted the philosophy of social institutions. They
Criminal gangs are there to rule, they have been there in every community for a long time. Gang's intentions are to commit crimes. Gang leaders oversee extortion, order killings or smuggle drugs. This paper studies gang formation, why individuals join gangs and the negative influence gangs have to the society and the economy. The study focuses on some of the prominent gangs in the world today; it explains the activities of the Russian mafia and other gangs. This paper explains power struggles within gangs and gives out recommendations to solve problems associated with gang operations. This paper puts into perspective a study on factors influencing gang membership; the study employs personal interviews as a method, causal research design and ordinal scale of measurement. Prisoners in California state prison are the sample population. Structured proxy question are used, and observation to study an individual's race. The study focuses male prison gang members. Findings from the study indicate that the less educated an individual is the likely for one join a gang, from the study it is evident that gang members feel disregarded when formulating policies, it is clear that race is not a factor to gang membership and that most of the gang members come from dysfunctional families.
The impact organized crime groups have on society is not hidden. These groups do what they need in order to make their money. The actions of these organized crime groups impact all areas of our society, including healthcare, financial and our safety.
All of these points illustrate how organized crime violates social norms and the impact on families directly involved, but in the study of organized crime the impact is not only felt on that level but on a much broader societal level as well.
In society we constantly encounter countless illicit acts and crime organizations. There is White Collar Crime, Organization Deviance, Corporate Crime and Organized crime. Several activities overlap one another but all of them eventually lead to an erosion of quality of life in society as it affects basic rights to peace, order and good government. Organized crime consists of a group of criminals who tend to participate in illicit activities usually in the purpose of making profit. There are different groups that fall under this category, such as human trafficking, money laundering, blackmailing, kidnapping, smuggling and drug trafficking amongst others.