organized crime Flashcards
Chicago city counsel committee on crime (1915)
-interstate, international connections
-Own language, laws, history, customs, methods and techniques (culture)
-Highly specialized machinery, specialized mode of defense
-Characteristics of a system
Oyster bay conference on Organized crime (1965)
-Survives on fear and corruption
-High degree of immunity from the law
-Has its own hierarchy
-Protects people in power (insulated from crime/danger of prosecution)→ puts underlings to do dirty work
-Totalitarian
-Self-perpetuating
-Profits from criminal activity
President’s commission on organized crime (1967)
Laws are more rigidly enforced than legit govs
Control over whole fields
Profits w/ least amount of risk
Actions are NOT impulsives → Intricate conspiracies
Structures as complex as those of any large corp
Control over whole fields
Canadian criminal code definition of organized crime
A group however organized (3+ ppl)
Facilitations or commission of material or financial benefit
Would not apply to a group of ppl that forms randomly for immediate commission of a single offence (needs to be consistent→ not self-perpetuating)
Criminal gangs
Focus primarily on large scale profit and material benefit through illegal, but highly organized, activity
Systems of hierarchy, memberships, mentoring and clear divisions of labour
May have fronts through legal business, money laundering…etc
Often ethnically homogenous (less true in modern times)
Often national (or international) in scope
Conflict gangs
Generally not as well organized and lacking the specialized skill and knowledge of criminal gangs
Typically don’t have the same economic goals and opportunities
Primary activity is often violence and other petty crimes
Protection (family) and socially belonging
A cyclical process of violence w/ little upward mobility
Often ethnically homogenous and based on physical locations/neighbourhoods
Retreatist gangs
Tend to be failures in both legitimate and illegitimate worlds (can’t achieve status or success in either)
Often based around drug/substance usage and a general ‘retreat’ from the goals and conditions of society
May rely on petty crime to support their habits
Predatory activities of OC
An unwilling victims is deprived of some valuable (often financial) asset
As such, most can be generalized as a form of theft
Includes theft, extortion, fraud, counterfeiting, cyber fraud/scams, etc
But also activities such as human trafficking/sex trafficking
Make up a small portion of OC
Human/sex trafficking
Transferring of individuals often by use of coercion, force, manipulation, or intimidation, w/ the intention of exploitation (sexual, labour, etc)
Often follows the pattern of:
Recruitment (enticement + false promises of a ‘better’ life, sometimes through force)
Transportation (through both established smuggling networks and more informal ones)
Exploitation (forced prostitution/sex work, indentured servitude, forced marriage, etc…)
Overwhelmingly impacts women and girls ( + in canada, First Nation’s women are esp vulnerable)
why is canada a main hub of the international sex trade/ human trafficking activity
location (lot of open space, biggest border and is not that policed; great lakes area), highly international (toronto + connections), indigenous reserves are also policed differently
Consensual activities (crimes of morality) for OC
When no apparent ‘victim’ exists
The activity/ transaction is a free and consensual (non-coerced) exchange between 2 willing parties
buyer/seller, client/prostitute, loaner/loanee, etc…
No ‘crime’ is reported or otherwise recorded
Currently and historically the most widespread and profitable of OC activities
Gambling, loansharking, smuggling, trafficking, drugs, etc
Loansharking
Lending of money to individuals with often much looser regulations than those of legal moneylenders:
More money allowed to be borrowed
Less ‘paperwork’ involved
Higher interest rates
Shorter payback times
Threat of violence or extortion upon failure to repay
While violence/intimidation is certainly used by OC groups as a means of collection/punishment, loan sharks tend to operate more like legal creditors/lenders
They loan to ppl that they expect will pay back and potentially borrow again (no financial loss)
A close relationship to illegal gambling (also run by OC groups).
Drug distribution
The production, smuggling, trafficking, and distribution of illegal drugs is (by far) the most profitable activity of most modern OC groups
The global illegal drug market is worth hundreds of billions of dollars
An incredibly complex and international network of routes and distribution that involves:
-Producers of the drugs (coca, poppy, marijuana farmers).
-Lab techs/chemists (for synthesized drugs)
-Transporters (drivers, boaters, pilots, etc.. can be illegal and legal)
-Corrupted gov employees (customs, immigrations, law enforcement…etc)
wholesalers/distributors
-Street level distributors (drug dealers)
-Many ‘legitimate’ professionals who offer services (electricians, carpenters, bankers, lawyers, accountants, tradespeople, farmers, security personnel, etc)
