Organized Crime
Ever since societies have existed crime has existed within them. It is human nature to behave in a manner, which is sometimes violent and unruly when facing basic needs or feel threaten. Depending on what rules, regulations, and laws that a society has put in place to maintain order and peace, various actions could be deemed as being criminal activities. The people and leaders within the society will take actions to regulate and enforce these guidelines. These leaders have a perception on what they believe is moral and just based on the feedback from the members of society who elected them to those positions. As time passes these perceptions could change and as the changes take place, the societies will also change with them.
This paper will briefly discuss current organized crime policies that we have in place within our own society, which were based on events from our past. This paper will discuss relevant statistics, facts, resources, and public opinion as one develop America’s own local, state, and/or federal policy as it relates to the organized crime policy that currently exists. It will discuss the impact on how politics have an affects on its implementation.
Organized Crime The best way to describe organized crime is to think of it or comparing in to a business. There are employees that have to perform and answer to a board of directors or president depending on how elaborate their structure might be. The definition can change not only from country to country but from agency to agency as well. According to Lyman and Potter (2007), for a group to be considered a criminal organization it must have at least three people that engage in criminal activities for to gain power and money for an indefinite period of time (pg.5).
Organized Crime has a history within the United States that dates back to the early 1920s. One way to look at organized crime would be to consider it as a profession. Those involved with organized crime have chosen crime as a means to support themselves and their family. Their duties are primarily involving activities, which are deemed illegal but in demand of their area and hiding them within legitimate businesses. Organized crime is a more sophisticated form of crime than just stealing or selling drugs in a corner. Without a want, need and desire from the public, which is willing to pay for whatever service or product; those involved with organized crime provide would not have a business. Organized crime is very much like a business institution and they must operate in accordance to what it is that their customer base needs and wants.
History
Organized crime took a stronghold over the United States in the 1920s during the era of prohibition. “Prohibition in the United States was a measure designed to reduce drinking by eliminating the businesses that manufactured, distributed, and sold alcoholic beverages. The Eighteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution took away license to do business from the brewers, distillers, vintners, and the wholesale and retail sellers of alcoholic beverages. The leaders of the prohibition movement were alarmed at the drinking behavior of Americans, and they were concerned that there was a culture of drink among some sectors of the population that, with continuing immigration from Europe, was spreading (prohibition.osu.edu, 2012).”
A few policy makers got together and were joined with religious groups and decided that they knew what was best for Americans. The problem with this is that Americans did not feel the same way. They believed that a small majority of the American public did not have the right to decide what was best for him or her, based on the idea that he or she did not like alcohol. Americans loved alcohol and the demand for it gave organized groups an opportunity to exploit it. People had a need for a substance that he or she could not get anywhere else. When this happened organizations, groups, and individuals stepped up to provide the American public with what he or she wanted even though it was illegal. When prohibition passed the American public was divided. The stakeholders on one side were those for the sale and consumption of alcohol and the stakeholders on the opposing side were those who had worked to have the sale and consumption of alcohol outlawed.
A preacher named Billy Sunday spoke at the beginning of prohibition and gave a rousing speech that stated, “The reign of tears is over. The slums will soon be a memory. We will turn our prisons into factories and our jails into storehouses and corncribs. Men will walk upright now, women will smile, and children will laugh. Hell will be forever for rent.” Americans who were for prohibition were overjoyed and they all waited and watched for the improvements to come and were dismayed when none were seen. Things essentially went from bad to worse for the American public.
“Arrests for drunkenness and disorderly conduct increased 41%. Arrests for drunk drivers increased 81%. Thefts and burglaries increased 9%. Homicides, assaults, and batteries increased 13%. The number of federal convicts increased 561%. The federal prison population increased 366% and the total federal expenditures on penal institutions increased 1,000% (Albany.edu, 2012).”
This brought on a surge in organized crime that was funding the American public with alcohol. They flourished and became stronger and wealthier than ever. They had a public that demanded a product that they could get nowhere else and the organized crime groups fulfilled that need with a product. They made astronomical amounts of money and by bootlegging alcohol they could fuel their businesses into authority figures.
Structure Television usually presents criminal organizations ran by a Boss, a single leader, and in some cases that is true. However history also knows that success for these groups at times comes with the price of criminal organization mergers or criminal deals. One group may contain the goods while the other may take care of the transportation and a different group to supply it. This concept is very common with narcotics manufactured in South America, transported by Mexican cartels and distributed by all kinds of different groups. Contacts, criminal relationships, and deals under one umbrella of trust that have been developed through risks taken by the parties involved. At times a single group may make the decisions in the best interest of a group instead of a leader, almost like a board of directors, but these groups are rare. The most common groups have established leaders and successors in place to make decisions in the best interest of the organization or the individual (Lyman & Potter, 2007). Law enforcement agencies spend years investigating some of these groups because their structure is so well organized it often involves a leader that has no prior criminal history, a politician, a respected member of the community, or any other average looking person. Not all criminals are flashy or dress a certain way. The most organized criminal employ individuals that will blend in well with the community in order to succeed. Children are sometimes encountered by law enforcement in criminal activities that are beyond their own comprehension. Necessity and fear sometimes take a role in a person’s thought process, and make drastic decisions that involve innocent lives. Investigations take unexpected turns and finish with unexpected results.
How it affects the criminal justice system
Like much of human nature, with superior power and great wealth comes corruption. We have seen this to be prevalent in our own political environment, while organized crime leaders were performing an act that was illegal, they were growing stronger and more violent as time passed thanks to the protection given to them by means of corruption. Detecting, arresting, and prosecuting these organizations became difficult because those breaking the laws were protected by those who were supposed to enforce it.
Competition from other organized crime groups that also wanted to bootleg was bringing violence into the streets, especially in heavily populated areas creating bigger problems for the criminal justice system. When their actions became so violent that they were beginning to be feared across the nation for their power and their ruthlessness, task forces were created by the government to put a stop to them. They already had policies in place that made their actions illegal but they needed to have actions ready to put forth to put a stop to the illegal business that was taking place throughout the country.
The end of prohibition marked a great day for the American people. The problem with what had taken place was that prohibition was created by a small majority of people who thought they knew what was best for the American people and banned a substance based merely on his or her dislike and ignorance of it. They did not realize that in doing so they were giving another small majority of the public a means to exploit the needs and wants of the American public and grow more powerful and wealthy than any of him or her could have ever imagined. The policy that was in place was one that was biased from the beginning and flawed to the point that all it did was cost the country billions of dollars and have many people incarcerated all the while adding fuel to the fire that created organized crime.
These policies have changed over time as new technologies have had adverse effects on the nation’s ability to combat organized crime. Illegal substances still exist and there are still markets and underground ways of obtaining these substances through organized crime syndicates. What technology has done is made it possible for organized crime groups to become more organized and be able to reach a person anywhere in the world from anywhere in the world. This is dangerous and this is complicated and this is frustrating because each country has their own set of laws and rules. A person from another country can contact a person in a different country and plan for an illegal transaction in another country all together and the expense that would come from being able to track, find, locate, and put a stop to this type of activity taking place is unfathomable. There is no way that a policy would be able to guarantee a stop to organized crime unless each country was in agreement on how they would be dealt with. This is a problem because of the wealth and the corruption that exists in politics the underground trades and exchanges have continued.
The cost that comes with trying to put an end to all of them is one, which is hard to measure because this activity takes place so often from so voluminous diverse people from so many different locations at the same time that the only way to combat it is to stop the need and desire for the products and activities that one offer. How does one do this? You have to make them legal. Every citizen has the power to make the organized crime groups become official professional businesses. This is an unsavory idea for many people and one that would never happen because of a small majority of the public that feel that one know better and what is best for the Americans who live in this country. One does not have the freedoms to make our own choices and have those who design policies tell us what we can and cannot do for ourselves based on what they feel like is unsavory and what we should not be doing.
Conclusion
There is no blue print to describe organized crime. Each group has their own structure and each one will make adjustments to increase their power and money in regards to law enforcement or competition. Greed and envy can motivate any group to take over the other. Murder, extortion, and corruption are tools of the business. Law enforcement agencies rely on only statistics and in times informants to remove a piece of the criminal pies at the same time criminal organizations are trying to replace it. It is a dangerous process that we would like to have an answer how to resolve but unfortunately we probably never will. The elaboration, the people involved, and the money involved with the combination with the lack of respect to life creates a never win situation for law enforcement. The goal is to continue to fight and try to keep control of the situation. More support against corruption and resources to infiltrate the organizations might be the only way to minimize this global issue.
References
Lyman, M. D., & Potter, G. W. (2007). Organized Crime (4th ed.). Retrieved from The University of Phoenix eBook Collection database
Internet Reference, http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h1596.html, retrieved on April 9, 2012.
Internet Reference, http://prohibition.osu.edu/why-prohibition, retrieved on April 9, 2012.
Internet Reference, www.albany.edu, retrieved on April 9, 2012.
