NCJ Number
174677
Journal
Transnational Organized Crime Volume: 3 Issue: 3 Dated: Autumn 1997 Pages: 126-146
Date Published
1997
Length
21 pages
Annotation
The Third International Police Executive Symposium on "Organized Crime: A World Perspective" (1996), attended by participants from 25 countries, focused on several major themes: the concept of organized crime, the nature and extent of organized crime, the methods used in fighting organized crime, and a comparative evaluation of the methods and proposed measures against organized crime.
Abstract
All participants were asked to describe the concept of organized crime from the perspective of their countries. This helped in arriving at a cross-cultural concept of organized crime through various definitions used across the world. There is broad cross-cultural agreement that organized crime is characterized by the following criteria: criminal activities of a serious nature committed in a planned manner with a view to profit; continuing businesslike and structured hierarchical division of labor that includes internal sanctions and discipline; the use of actual or implied violence and intimidation; and the exercise of influence over, or the corruption of, various elected and appointed officials or other pillars of social control and opinion leaders within the society. The symposium participants concluded that organized crime is made possible by corrupt politicians and corrupt companies. Neither would it exist without widespread public participation in prohibited activities and services. Government responses to organized crime have been duplicitous and hypocritical. Governments have created the market vacuums that have been filled by entrepreneurial groups of criminals, often with the assistance of corrupt government officials. Particularly harmful has been the involvement of the CIA with international drug traffickers for more than 30 years, both in Indochina and in Latin America. Along with the fall of socialism and the emergence of global capitalism, the gap between richer and poorer nations of the world has continued to increase. Organized crime represents an answer to the crisis of poverty by providing an access to illegal economies for those who cannot obtain sufficient income from legal economies. Organized crime also takes advantage of uncontrolled accumulation and the markets created by government restrictions on activities for which there is public demand. The need is for a broad, balanced, concerted, and innovative strategy against organized crime. 104 notes and an appended list of symposium participants