Final Exam

Patron-Client Model

• Informal, decentralized activities based on kinship, family & informal networks.

• Dependant on favours, respect (backed by violence) & services provided

• Social networks are crucial here, not occupying a corporate role.

• Relationships constantly in flux & fluid.

• Enables OC to change people easily, replace those jailed.

  • Example of hydra effect

Hydra Effect

• OC members are easily replaceable

  • Arrests of OC members will not dampen the market.

Corporate Model

• Favourite of law enforcement

• OC is highly organized into hierarchies

  • Ex: bosses, underbosses, capos, cells

• Have defined roles: enforcer, corrupter, negotiator, boss, sit downs

• Positions are based on skill

• This model is largely rejected by most researchers (but not law enforcements), they are much more fluid than a corporation.

Enterprise Model - Mark Haller

• Focuses on the big picture & what’s most important.

  • Deters from focusing on individual gangsters.

• Focus on the markets & the sub economy

• Economic profit is the main goal, same as a legitimate enterprise.

• Arrests don’t effect the presence of illegal services.

Neo-Marxist Model

• Largely suppressed in North America

• Assumptions: OC embedded in state formations

• OC tends to favour elites

• In times of instability, OC used by elites to maintain privileged positions

• Illicit goods & services in state structures (criminalized) OC pursues capital accumulation & relationships with elites

• Lots of evidence to support this

Role of Ethnicity!!

• Not all OC criminals are Italians - in fact, majority aren’t & Italian formations are fading out.

You cannot have a continuing criminal formation without?

• Support from the state/infrastructure

• A market/demand to fill

  • Focus of Mark Haller’s “Illegal Enterprise”

Corruption - Beare

• Bribery kept law enforcement looking the other way.

  • Ex: once OC gained control of the construction industry by providing protection & using intimidation & threats of violence.

• Political figures accepted bribes/payments in exchange for permitting them to engage in illegitimate business.

Organizational Strain Theory

• OC fulfilled function of giving underprivileged immigrant population access to economic & social status that was unattainable by legal means.

  • Proposed by Robert K. Merton

• Stated OC helps disadvantaged immigrants achieve social & economic status they can’t attain legally.

Transnational Crime

• Execution of crime involves more than one country

  • Ex: Piracy (not a new phenomenon)

  • Ex: White collar crimes & state crimes

Infrastructure

• You cannot have a continuing criminal conspiracy without help from the state

• Essentially means support

  • Ex: Dominican drug traffickers paying off the Dominican police to ship drugs to the US

  • Ex: Piracy

  • Ex: providing food, shelter, accommodations, resources, etc.

Piracy

• Large scale violence

  • Violence has dramatically risen

• Ships are bigger, faster, & safer

• Violent daily attacks on vessels

• Any ship on coast could be victimized - including cruise ships

• Still present in Somalia due to infrastructure

Privateers

• Authorized private vessels to act in a military (auxiliary) fashion on behalf of the states.

• Pirates were not to:

  • Attack ships of the country issuing the letter

  • Plunder villages or towns

  • Open the captured cargo until they returned to port

  • Must share some of the plunder with Royalty (because they protected you)

• In return pirates were protected by nations, which provided:

  • Safe harbours

  • Supplies

  • Auctioned seized vessels, crew members & ship fixings.

    • Infrastructure argument (why they lasted 400 years)

The Financial Transactions & Reports Analysis Centre of Canada (FINTRAC)

• Canada's financial intelligence unit and anti-money laundering and anti-terrorist financing supervisor.

Classical Features of Organized Crime

• Violence

• Profitable opportunities

• Code of secrecy (as a pirate)

• Access to black markets to sell wares

  • Prominent merchants & traders

  • Seized ships auctioned off

• Protection from political elites

  • Accommodation argument

Loansharking (HALLER)

• Makes loans at illegal rates of interest and uses violence or the threat of violence to ensure payments are made.

• Violence not commonly used b/c they wanted to keep customers.

  • Ex: Harry Riccobene & Frank Sindone

Gambling (HALLER)

• Syndicates arose in many cities during the decades following the Civil War.

Differential Social Organization Theory

• Sutherland coined this phrase

  • Chicago school origins

• Designed to explain crime category variations as a whole oppose to individual

• Crime rate variations

  • Age groups, locations

• Focuses on illicit nature of stolen securities

Rational Choice Theory

• Individuals make decisions based on their association of costs and benefits associated with their actions.

Hybrid Model

• Focuses on the dynamics and interdependencies of the marketplace

• Applies behavioural theories of businesses to criminal networks

• Grey areas between licit and illicit behaviour

• There are more similarities between legal and illegal businesses then there are differences 

• OC is largely symbiotic rather than parasitic 

• Market exchange of many goods and services between licit and illicit markets