NCJ Number
78803
Journal
Kriminalist Volume: 10 Issue: 9 Dated: (1978) Pages: 366,368-372
Date Published
1978
Length
6 pages
Annotation
The second part of a two-part series on international crime organizations based in the Federal Republic of Germany explores problems surrounding control of international crime.
Abstract
Defining organized crime has proved difficult, as the term is used for basically different phenomena in the United States and Europe. To differentiate, organized crime is applied to the American phenomenon and organized criminal associations to the European phenomenon. Organized criminal associations tend to concentrate in particular crime areas such as white collar crime, politically motivated violence, and kidnappings. However, such organizations are constantly evolving new criminal activities. As a result, an effective information-gathering system is required to detect new activity areas. Unfortunately, German police structures in general have not changed to meet the challenges of the new crime types. The offenses of organized criminals are recorded but not related to one another by the existing outmoded information system. An updated information system must be uniform throughout the country and have specialized evaluation systems for international offender data. As an example of failed attempts to capture confidence men illustrates, major problems develop in coordinating efforts of Federal criminal police, the Office of Criminal Investigation, and 11 separate State criminal police systems with overlapping functions. Furthermore, there is no central office for the investigation of international crimes. If international crime is to be combatted more effectively, the provincialism resulting from federalism and its effects must be overcome and the basic structure of German criminal police modified.