organized crime exam 1

What is organized crime according to the FBI?

A group with some form of formalized structure whose primary objective is obtaining money through illegal activities.

What are the 8 major attributes of organized crime?

No political goals; hierarchical; limited/exclusive membership; unique subculture; perpetuates itself; willing to use illegal violence; monopolistic; governed by rules and regulations.

What TWO characteristics best summarize organized crime?

Non-ideological goals and instrumental violence. Organized crime primarily seeks money and power rather than political change, and violence is used as a tool to accomplish its goals.

What does it mean that organized crime perpetuates itself?

The organization is designed to continue over time even when individual members or leaders change.

What makes organized crime similar to a bureaucracy?

A complicated hierarchy, division of labor, specialized positions, rules and regulations, impersonal responsibilities, and a chain of command.

What are the major weaknesses of a bureaucratic criminal organization?

Communications can be intercepted; written records create evidence; upper-level infiltration can threaten the organization; losing leaders can disrupt operations; and weak personal ties can encourage betrayal.

Why do criminal organizations often value loyalty over competence?

Personal loyalty reduces the danger of betrayal, which can be more important to the organization's survival than having the most skilled members.

What is compartmentalization and why is it useful?

Members are divided into cells and generally know only members of their own cell. If one cell is infiltrated or lost, the rest of the organization can continue operating.

What are franchising and credentialing in organized crime?

Franchising is authority to independently conduct criminal business under an organization's protection. Credentialing means affiliation with a respected criminal organization gives someone reputation and status that helps them conduct criminal business.

What are criminal networks, brokers, and points of convergence?

A network is a group of connected people in the criminal underworld. A broker connects people who otherwise would not interact. A point of convergence is a place where criminals meet or congregate.

What is transnational organized crime and why has it grown?

Self-perpetuating criminal organizations operating across national borders. Globalization of trade, finance, travel, communication, markets, and technology has created more criminal opportunities.

How do organized crime and terrorism differ?

Organized crime primarily seeks money and power, generally benefits from maintaining the status quo, and prefers secrecy. Terrorism is politically motivated, seeks change or subversion of the status quo, and often seeks publicity.

How can organized crime and terrorism become connected?

They can imitate each other's techniques and eventually buy and sell goods and services from one another. Both may also need to launder money.

What is anomie and how did Robert Merton apply it to American society?

Anomie involves strain between cultural goals and the legitimate means available to achieve them. Merton argued that America strongly emphasizes economic success even though legitimate opportunities for success are unequal.

What is criminal innovation?

Accepting society's goal of economic success but using illegal means to achieve it when legitimate opportunities are unavailable.

What is differential association?

Criminal behavior is learned through interaction with others, including criminal attitudes, values, skills, and techniques.

Why can't anomie alone explain organized crime?

Many people experience economic strain without becoming criminals. A person also needs exposure to criminal values, skills, relationships, and opportunities.

What are subcultures and cultural transmission?

A subculture is a set of values, norms, and behaviors traditional within a particular group. Cultural transmission is the process through which criminal values, attitudes, and techniques are passed from one generation to another.

What did Shaw and McKay find about crime and neighborhoods?

Some neighborhoods maintained high crime rates even when their ethnic populations changed, suggesting that criminal traditions can be transmitted across generations.

What is social disorganization?

Weak or ineffective family and community controls that reduce conformity and make delinquent or criminal subcultures more likely to develop.

How can gangs prepare someone for organized crime?

Gangs can teach loyalty, territoriality, criminal skills, antisocial attitudes, and connections that later serve as credentials for organized crime.

What is differential opportunity theory?

Cloward and Ohlin argued that illegal opportunities, just like legitimate opportunities, are not equally available. A person needs access to criminal networks and opportunities to pursue an organized-crime career.

What are Cloward and Ohlin's 3 delinquent subcultures?

Retreatist = drugs and escape; Conflict = violence for status; Criminal/rackets = utilitarian crime for money and most closely resembles organized crime.

What question does social control theory ask?

Why do most people conform? Strong bonds to conventional society encourage conformity, while weak bonds make movement toward crime more likely.

What is ethnic succession?

The idea that different ethnic groups can use organized crime as a route toward economic advancement before later generations move into legitimate opportunities.

Why was Prohibition a catalyst for organized crime?

Illegal alcohol created huge profits and required organized manufacturing, transportation, distribution, protection, financing, warehouses, and connections, producing larger and more sophisticated criminal organizations.

What are "Zips"?

Recent Sicilian or Italian immigrants who provide connections between southern Italian criminal organizations and the American Mafia.

What are the main psychological explanations discussed in Chapter 2?

Psychoanalytic theory emphasizes early development and internal controls; behaviorism emphasizes learning through reinforcement and punishment; psychopathy involves lack of conscience and emotional detachment; neurotransmitter problems may make antisocial behavior more reinforcing.

How do the major sociological explanations for organized crime fit together?

Anomie creates strain; cultural transmission preserves criminal traditions; differential association teaches criminal values and skills; differential opportunity provides access to an actual criminal career.

Why was Prohibition important to organized crime in the United States?

The illegal alcohol market allowed Irish, Italian, and Jewish criminal groups to accumulate enormous wealth and power, and helped figures such as Al Capone become powerful.

How did the Mafia develop among some Italian immigrants in the United States?

Limited legitimate opportunities combined with available criminal opportunities, while Sicilian immigrants reproduced Mafia traditions in American cities with large Sicilian populations.

What was the Castellammarese War?

A struggle between two major New York Mafia factions led by Giuseppe "Joe the Boss" Masseria and Salvatore Maranzano. Both were eventually killed, allowing Lucky Luciano to become the dominant Mafia figure.

Who was Lucky Luciano?

He became the most important New York Mafia figure after Masseria and Maranzano died. He was later convicted on 61 counts of compulsory prostitution and sentenced to 30–60 years.

What are the Five New York Mafia Families?

Bonanno, Colombo, Gambino, Genovese, and Lucchese.

What is the basic hierarchy of a New York Mafia Family?

Boss → underboss and consigliere → captains/caporegimes → soldiers/soldati → associates outside formal membership.

What is a "made guy" and how does he operate?

A formal Mafia member who acts as an independent criminal entrepreneur. He earns his own money and kicks a portion upward to his captain and boss in exchange for protection, status, and access to the Family's network.

What is the difference between Mafia "earners" and "shooters"?

Earners prove themselves by generating money. Shooters prove themselves through the ability to kill efficiently and dispassionately.

What are Mafia crews?

Semi-independent units of members and associates normally headed by a caporegime or captain.

What is the Mafia Commission and what does it do?

A body regulating relationships between Families. It facilitates joint ventures, resolves disputes, regulates activities, recognizes new bosses, resolves leadership disputes, approves new members, and can authorize executions.

What is the Mafia's basic rule about loyalty?

Loyalty to the Mafia Family supersedes loyalty to one's blood family; a member may even be required to participate in killing a relative.

What is the Mexican Mafia and what does "blood in, blood out" mean?

An organization primarily of Mexican American convicts and ex-convicts originating from Los Angeles barrios. Bloodshed or murder can be required to enter, and leaving can mean death because membership is for life.

How is the Mexican Mafia organized?

It has no single supreme leader. Decisions are theoretically made by consensus, although some members gain greater influence. Entry requires a sponsor and unanimous approval.

What characteristics of the Mezzogiorno helped create conditions for organized crime?

Strong family loyalty, importance of respect and reputation, willingness to use violence, revenge for offenses, noncooperation with authorities, and distrust of government and the church.

Why were conditions in Sicily favorable to the development of the Mafia?

Weak government control over violence, major inequality between landowners and peasants, and distrust of authorities created opportunities for private individuals and groups to provide protection and exercise power.

Who were the gabelloti and campieri?

Gabelloti were estate managers and middlemen between wealthy landowners and peasants. Campieri were armed guards or "men of respect" feared for their willingness to use violence.

What is a cosca and what is a mafioso?

A cosca is a local Sicilian Mafia clan often based around family. A mafioso is a Mafia member who gains respect through reputation, violence, connections, and the ability to solve problems.

How can a mafioso act as a broker and protector?

A mafioso connects criminals, politicians, businesses, and others to exchange favors and services and can provide unofficial protection when the state cannot or will not.

What did Mussolini do to the Mafia?

He targeted it as an independent source of power, abolished elections in 1925, and gave Prefect Cesare Mori extraordinary police powers. Thousands were arrested, but the Mafia was suppressed rather than permanently destroyed.

What is the difference between the Old Mafia and New Mafia?

Old Mafia = rural, agricultural, traditional, cosca/family-based, and focused on respect and status. New Mafia = urban, business-oriented, materialistic, wealth-focused, more violent, and influenced by the American gangster model.

What caused the transition from the Old Mafia to the New Mafia?

Agrarian reform weakened traditional income from land and agriculture, pushing the Mafia toward urban activities such as construction, business, drugs, robbery, kidnapping, heroin, and cocaine.

What is the pizzu?

Protection money or extortion paid to Mafia members.

How did Mafia violence change with the New Mafia?

Violence became more extreme and was directed against politicians, judges, prosecutors, police, journalists, clergy, and others who challenged Mafia power.

How do the Mafia and Camorra differ?

The Mafia has rural origins, traditional honor, and a stronger family/cosca structure. The Camorra has urban origins in Naples, was historically associated with poorer populations, is less formally structured, and is often centered around individual bosses.

What social conditions helped the Camorra develop?

Poverty, unemployment, a large population, migration into Naples, and marginalized or unskilled populations for whom crime could become a means of survival.

How is the modern Camorra structured and what does it do?

It is less hierarchical than the Mafia and clans center around bosses and relationships through family, friends, blood, and marriage. Activities include drugs, extortion, gambling, loansharking, construction, waste disposal, cigarettes, and politics.

What is the 'Ndrangheta?

A Calabria-based organized crime group heavily structured around blood and family relationships, involved in drugs, weapons, kidnapping, extortion, public contracts, protection, and international crime.

What is the Sacra Corona Unita (SCU)?

"Sacred United Crown," based in Puglia/Apulia. It developed partly in response to Camorra expansion and adopted hierarchy and initiation rituals through influence from the 'Ndrangheta.

How does Albanian organized crime compare with southern Italian organized crime?

Both emphasize family/clan loyalty, reputation, violence, and distrust of authorities. Albanian groups tend to be small, flexible, loosely organized, and involved in international trafficking and smuggling.

What is labor racketeering and what are its 3 major forms?

Using or infiltrating unions for illegal profit. Strike insurance = employer pays to prevent labor trouble; sweetheart deal = corrupt employer-union agreement for favorable treatment; siphoning = stealing or diverting union funds.

Why are unions useful to organized crime?

Control of essential workers gives organized crime leverage over employers and industries. Employers may cooperate because racketeers can provide labor peace, favorable contracts, lower costs, or protection from competition.

What were the "Big Four" unions associated with organized-crime influence?

LIUNA = laborers/construction; HEREIU = hotel/restaurant workers; ILA = longshoremen/waterfront; IBT/Teamsters = trucking.

Why were the ILA and Teamsters especially powerful targets for racketeering?

ILA longshoremen controlled a shipping choke point because ships needed rapid unloading. Teamsters controlled trucking, which many industries depended on, giving racketeers leverage far beyond the union itself.

Why is Jimmy Hoffa important to organized crime history?

The powerful Teamsters leader formed relationships with organized-crime figures who helped his rise, while they benefited from employer extortion, loansharking, union influence, and pension-fund schemes.

What is business racketeering and what is a "choke point strategy"?

Business racketeering uses criminal influence to control legitimate industries or restrict competition. A choke point strategy means controlling something essential to an industry and using that control to influence the rest of the industry.

What are restraint of trade, price fixing, and bid rigging?

Restraint of trade = illegally reducing competition; price fixing = competitors agree on prices; bid rigging = competitors secretly determine who will win a contract while others submit intentionally losing bids.

Why would legitimate businesses cooperate with organized crime?

Organized crime can reduce competition, enforce illegal agreements, settle disputes, provide labor peace, and help businesses increase profits.

How did organized crime use the construction and private waste-hauling industries?

In construction, it could enforce collusive bidding and influence contractors, unions, suppliers, and subcontractors. In waste hauling, companies could divide customers and territories and enforce agreements not to compete.

Why is organized crime useful for enforcing illegal business agreements?

Its reputation and credible threat of violence can make businesses follow price-fixing, territorial, bidding, or other illegal agreements.

Why does organized crime become involved in legitimate businesses?

To earn legitimate profits, invest illegal money, create legitimate-looking income or employment, gain contacts and influence, facilitate crimes, and help launder money.

What is money laundering and how can legitimate businesses help?

Money laundering disguises the illegal source of money so it appears legitimate. Criminal cash can be mixed with legitimate business revenue and reported as lawful income.

What are chop and hawala?

Informal systems for transferring value through trusted intermediaries, allowing funds or value to move between locations without the original cash physically traveling and making conventional financial tracing more difficult.

What is the big picture of organized crime in labor, business, and money laundering?

Control labor → control or influence business → reduce competition and make money → use legitimate economic activity to conceal or invest criminal profits.