NCJ Number
164143
Journal
Crime, Law and Social Change Volume: 24 Issue: 4 Dated: (1995/96) Pages: 341-377
Date Published
1996
Length
37 pages
Annotation
This article discusses patterns and structures of organized crime across national boundaries in Europe.
Abstract
Organized crime is often perceived in terms of extended, hierarchical crime "families" that expand not only their activities but also their authority structures across national boundaries. How accurate such a view may or may not have been in the United States, where it originated, evidence from a Dutch survey of organized crime enterprises shows a different picture. For organized crime in northwestern Europe, it is more helpful to think of crime markets of two kinds: those in which the goods and services are themselves forbidden and those in which legal goods and services are handled in illegal ways. Case studies of the drug trade and of organized crime in the business realm provide a detailed look at these two kinds of markets. The evidence suggests that although organized crime enterprises conduct trade across national boundaries, they do not constitute an international authority structure. Crime entrepreneurs constitute a challenge, not to the basic structure of society itself, but rather a more subtle kind of challenge to basic values and morals, particularly when criminal enterprise is linked to power at higher levels of society. 12 notes and 62 references