NCJ Number
191904
Journal
British Journal of Criminology Volume: 41 Issue: 4 Dated: Autumn 2001 Pages: 549-560
Date Published
2001
Length
12 pages
Annotation
This paper extends arguments made elsewhere concerning changes in British criminal fraternities (Hobbs 1995, 1997a) by focusing on the connections between criminal culture and the specific political economy of a locale.
Abstract
Within the new serious-crime community, relations among individuals vary according to demographic dispersion, familial composition, ethnic distribution and integration, commercial practice, trading routes and patterns, the economic backcloth of the legitimate culture, and the particular use of space. As a consequence, serious-crime networks are now stretched across time and space, with members inhabiting terrains indistinguishable from the lawful economic sphere. Yet these networks stand in stark contrast to their predecessors, particularly regarding their energy, flexibility, and the extent to which they impact globally via their ability to both exploit and undercut traditional cultures. The new "family firm" is highly instrumental and typified by "vertically disintegrated networks of small firms engaged in transaction-rich linkages of market exchanges." Although its configurations have changed in accord with post-industrialism and the relocation of traditional communities, the family firm is far from obsolete, because relationships and kinship remain crucial in comprehending interactions within serious-crime networks and their enabling environments. There are permutations of old established brands of criminal enterprises, along with first-generation felons, legitimate businesses in the process of criminal mutation, and a multitude of venture capitalists, their peers, and subordinates in confederations at various stages of formation and disintegration. It is this multiplicity of interlocking entrepreneurial networks of firms and individuals that, when imposed upon multinational terrain, constitutes transnational organized crime. 98 references