Defining and Defying Organised Crime

Discourse, Perceptions and Reality

Felia Allum, Francesca Longo, Daniela Irrera, Panos Kostakos

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2010
• Print ISBN: 9780415548526
• eBook ISBN: 9781135273156
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Political Institutions & Public Administration
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Organized crime is now a major threat to all industrial and non-industrial countries. Using an inter-disciplinary and comparative approach this book examines the nature of this threat. By analysing the existing, official institutional discourse on organized crime it examines whether or not it has an impact on perceptions of the threat and on the reality of organized crime.

The book first part of the book explores both the paradigm and the rationale of policy output in the fight against organized crime, and also exposes the often 'hidden' internal assumptions embedded in policy making. The second part examines the perceptions of organized crime as expressed by various actors, for example, the general public in the Balkans and in Japan, the criminal justice system in USA and circles within the international scientific community. Finally, the third part provides an overall investigation into the realities of organized crime with chapters that survey its empirical manifestations in various parts of the world.

This book will be of interest to students and scholars of international relations, criminology, security studies and practitioners.

Part I
Discourse and definitions

1
Discoursing organized crime

Towards a two-level analysis

Francesca Longo

A systematic investigation into the activities for tackling organized crime shows that we need to understand it better and this means understanding its key features today, in particular its transnational dimension, as well as describing its specific local features. If the perceived threat of organized crime, and of TOC in particular, has increased in importance on the agenda of policy-makers and social scientists in the last two decades, there is as yet little consensus over the definitions, the key characteristics and the appropriate models which should be used for controlling them (see Edwards and Gill 2002b). Organized crime is a very complex phenomenon: it affects the social, economic, political and cultural spheres and the attempts to provide an adequate definition of this concept have given rise to a very controversial debate.

‘Complexity’, as a specific dimension of organized crime, could be considered as an impediment to reaching a shared definition of the concept. Von Lampe lists over 100 definitions of organized crime on his website ‘Organized Crime Research’,¹ stressing that several difficulties arise in finding a generally accepted definition of organized crime because of the wide range of relevant but different variables of which it is composed (von Lampe 2001). Some authors have even questioned the scientific usefulness of such a concept (van Duyne 1996a). Nevertheless, if ‘complexity’ is adopted as an epistemological perspective, it connotes a multi-factor and contextual analysis aimed at understanding the multifaceted phenomenon through a systemic approach. The definition of theoretical foundations and conceptual parameters of organized crime/TOC using an analysis aimed at explaining the complexity and the characteristics of the term is necessary for two reasons.

First, there is a methodological requirement of finding an exclusive meaning of a term which is not yet unanimously defined either by those scientific disciplines involved in this topic or by the different judicial systems (see Burnham 2004; Peters 1998; Sartori, Riggs and Teune 1975). International relations, sociology, criminology, international law, penal law, among other disciplines, have organized crime on their research agenda. Each of these fields of study engages in a definitional debate about the features that distinguish this kind of criminality from other forms of illegal activity. This debate has long been a source of contention probably because each discipline has different scientific requirements. A clearly defined term able to capture the complexity of the structures, activities and social context of organized crime/TOC could facilitate collaboration between different disciplines and activate a synergic action or energy between them.

Second, efforts aimed at conceptualizing organized crime and TOC are associated with the relationship between academics and practitioners and, in a broader sense, with the connection between ‘science’ and ‘reality’. In particular, the debate is about whether the ultimate aim of research activities and findings has been to help policy-makers. Should scholarly research settle on policy aims? Or should it produce ‘pure’ knowledge?

This chapter is based on the notion that academia and practitioners need to engage in a continual dialogue in the field of TOC: practitioners would gain from a consolidated scientific knowledge and academics would find data and research incentives from the practical activity. Our academic task is therefore to search for a theoretical definition of organized crime which helps towards the production of useful knowledge aimed at increasing the effectiveness of counter-organized crime policies.

A common definition is considered a preliminary step in order to look more systematically at the subject of TOC and to organize a policy agenda in a more coherent way. As Feltes argues ‘if we do not share a common understanding of organized crime, we are not able to analyse it properly because we are not able to find the necessary theoretical framework’ (2008: 152). Academics need to know what they are searching for and practitioners need to know what they are fighting in order to find the best solution at national and international levels. A common definition of organized crime does not even exist in different national and international juridical systems and law enforcement agencies. This lack of a theoretical as well as an operational definition generates scientific and policy problems

because how the problem of organized crime is defined goes a long way toward determining how laws are framed, how investigations and prosecutions are conducted, how research studies are done, and, increasingly, how mutual legal assistance across national borders is or is not rendered.

(Finckenauer 2005: 68)

In this chapter, we develop a two-level approach for the analysis of TOC: the first level focuses on the definition of organized crime as a specific form of criminality; and the second level focuses on the study of the process of ‘transnationalization’ (here it is intended as a mode of behaviour adopted by organized crime groups in order to adapt to the global system and exploit fully the incentives of a globalized market). To do this, we present an overview of the various definitions of organized crime and TOC as they have developed in the social sciences since the 1960s (Albanese 2004). In addition, an analysis of the various meanings that organized crime and TOC have had in international documents since the beginning of the 1990s is also presented. The ultimate aim of this chapter is to test and verify whether a two-level approach is feasible either at the theoretical level or at the operational level in order to link, with a semantic and theoretical interaction between science and institutions, the study and the practice of the organized crime tackling policy agendas and governance.

Approaches to organized crime in the social sciences

Before looking at the different schools of thought that study organized crime, it may be helpful to outline our understanding of organized crime. Finckenauer (2005) lists and illustrates eight analytic defining variables of organized crime: lack of ideology, structure/organized hierarchy, continuity, violence/use of force or the threat of force, restricted membership, illegal enterprises, penetration of legitimate businesses and corruption. The first feature can help to illustrate the difference between organized crime and terrorism. Even if organized crime and terrorist groups may collaborate and exchange illegal goods, nevertheless organized crime groups ‘did not have political agendas of their own … They did not espouse a particular radical, liberal, conservative, or other political ideology. Their interest in government was only in its nullification – through bribery, payoffs and corruption’ (Finckenauer 2005: 65).

The hierarchical structure and the continuity of the organization, despite the disappearance of specific individuals who are replaced by others, gives organized crime a well-defined collective identity and collective tasks, and permit it to adapt to changes in the external environment. The use of force and corruption are to be considered as complementary tools for acquiring power and controlling territory. A restricted membership in organized crime groups is based on ‘relations of ritual kinship’ (Paoli 2001: 94) that imply a lifelong commitment for its members and that is generally formalized through a ritual of affiliation in many cases.

The violence, use of force and intimidation strategies compel some scholars to consider organized crime as an ‘anti-state’ activity which threatens national institutions’ capability to maintain a monopoly on the legitimate use of force. In this perspective, organized crime is to be considered a political challenge to the state and its role of governing and controlling territory: ‘it has been a mafia that has assumed responsibility for such otherwise governmental functions as contracting for public works, dispute resolution (via an informal court system), and especially for providing protection (Finckenauer 2005: 74).

If organized crime is considered as a kind of criminality which needs to exercise territorial control, use or threaten violence, and use deterrent methods in order to make economic profits and, at the same time, maintain its influence, it could be argued that these objectives are only reached with a stable and hierarchical organization made up of institutionalized roles going beyond the participation of specific individuals. Nevertheless, Catanzaro (1993: 162) stresses that the use of violence as a form of territorial control needs a centralized organization in order to be effective but, at the same time, the good fit of the organizational dimension is located at sub-national level in order to avoid direct conflict with the state. Catanzaro argues that organized crime is not interested in defeating the national state. Rather, it needs a weak state system to succeed in its activities. The local dimension of organized crime is useful for preventing conflicts with the central institutions but, at the same time, it represents an obstacle to profit and organizing activities in a globalized economic system.

In this perspective, a contradiction stems from organized crime’s need to maintain a sub-national dimension of the organization and, at the same time, to act in a global economic system and to link its performances and strategy with global economic activities. At this point, the focus shifts from the definition and analysis of organized crime as a national or local phenomenon to the definition and analysis of TOC or the supposed transnational dimension of organized crime.

The two-level approach proposes a framework for the definition of organized crime and its transnational dimension passing through two methodological stages. The first stage focuses on the identification of the semantic meaning of the term ‘organized crime’ by looking at the analytical variables which distinguish this phenomenon from other forms of criminality. The second stage seeks to specify the conceptual ‘transnational’ dimension in terms of identification of the specific dynamics which permit the identification of organized crime as part of transnational processes and as an issue for the global political agenda.² The search for a theoretical definition of organized crime by social scientists has given rise to five main approaches to this topic. Each one of them starts from a different ontological vision of the phenomenon and produces many different ways of defining and understanding it.

The first approach uses organizational theory for the study of organized crime. It considers organized crime as a classical organization and emphasizes the associative dimension as the main variable of this kind of illicit activity. It focuses on the permanent and well-defined associational structure, on the existence of collective tasks, on the division of work among its members and on the reproduction of the internal roles over time by processes of internal socialization and adaptation to the external environment. In this theoretical framework, the organizational variables, such as the degree of formalization, hierarchy, differentiation and flexibility, have variously been used to stress the differences between organized crime and other forms of criminality (Lyman and Potter 2000). Johnson (1962) stresses the continuity of criminal conduct as the main descriptive element. Reuter meanwhile defines organized crime as ‘organizations that have durability, hierarchy and involvement in a multiplicity of criminal activities’ (1983: 175).

The second approach adopts the ‘patron–client’ model of relationships among members of the groups as the main feature of organized crime (Mcillwain 1999: 303) and as a conceptual foundation for understanding the practice of corruption (Matjaž 2004).

The third approach is based on a different epistemological perspective: it moves from the analysis of the structure to the analysis of the objectives: it conceptualizes organized crime starting from its specific aims which have an entrepreneurial nature. According to this view, organized crime is an economic and financial enterprise which adopts rational, even if illegal, choices and strategies aimed at maximising benefits and reducing costs of its (illegal) business, following the economics rationale. As Smith (1975) pointed out illicit enterprise is, at the same time, the response to a latent illicit demand and an extension of the legal market beyond the limits of law. In this approach, we can discern two main groups of theorists. The first group (Arlacchi 1983; Hess 1973) describes an historical evolution of organized crime which moves away from a ‘traditional form’ towards ‘entrepreneurial crime’. Traditional organized crime used power to protect specific interests, punishing ‘deviant’ behaviour and providing social mediation in a traditional environment. Since the 1970s, organized crime has transformed itself into an ‘entrepreneurial mafia’ which has accumulated capital and entered the production of services and goods, transferring the ‘mafia methods’ (Arlacchi 1983: 109) into the national economy by gaining sustainable competitive advantages through illegal activities.

The second group considers the entrepreneurial nature as the original feature of organized crime which is to be considered as an illegal firm acting in the national economy from its formation (Catanzaro 1988). Paoli (2002) contests the concept of organized crime as a well-organized large-scale collectivity primarily engaged in supplying illegal commodities and services. She claims that the definitions of ‘criminal organization’ and ‘provision of illegal goods and services’ must be kept separate. She argues that organized crime is heavily involved in illegal businesses, but that this kind of criminality is not the product of illegal market dynamics. The absence of rules, controls and security in the illicit market makes it very unlikely that the establishment of an organized illicit framework for supplying illicit good and is largely carried out in an unorganized way. Moreover ‘the very criminal organizations that are assumed to be the prototype of organized crime … cannot be reduced to their involvement in illegal entrepreneurial activities’ in that these groups existed prior to ‘the formation and expansion of modern illegal markets’ (Paoli 2001: 63) and they have played many non-economic roles: protection from their own threats or from other threats, or supplying of votes, among others (Paoli 2001).

The fourth approach adopts a social network theory in the study of organized crime. Mcillwain (1999) stresses the relevance of the relationships that link people in the organized crime structure and defines this latter as a social system based on a set of relationships among individuals and groups aimed at providing illegal goods and services. In this perspective, organized crime is considered as a set of multiplex, fluid and interdependent network connections. The patterns of the relationships are dependent on the environment in which organized crime is structured.

Block states ‘mafia could not have become what it was independently of these other groupings with which mafiosi formed specific configurations of interdependent individuals’ (Block 1974: 9). The role of ‘power brokers’ that organized crime plays between individuals and groups which do not have direct reciprocal relationships and which use the mafiosi as the intermediary node has been described by Block (1974) and Hess (1973). This model derives from the description of organized crime in terms of interpersonal power relationships based on a main person, the capo-mafia, who manages the network structure through the monopoly of communication. The capo-mafia has dyadic relationships with each single individual of the network and the connection ...

Table of contents

• Routledge Advances in International Relations and Global Politics
• Contents
• Figures and tables
• Contributors
• Foreword
• Acknowledgements
• Abbreviations
• Introduction
• Part I Discourse and definitions
• Part II Perceptions
• Part III Reality
• Bibliography
• Index