Assessing the Effectiveness of Organized Crime Control Strategies ...

Assessing the Effectiveness of Organized Crime Control Strategies:
A Review of the Literature
In discussing the diversion of controlled chemicals for the purpose of manufacturing illicit
substances, the United States’ General Accounting Office (1993) noted that the international
community has no centralized data exchange for monitoring controlled chemicals
Aside from official sources, information on the size of the illicit market can be obtained from
perpetrators themselves. Reuter and Haaga (1989), for example, acquired detailed information
about the drug market from incarcerated high-level drug dealers. Studies of incarcerated persons
are always exposed to the criticism that those contacted do not constitute a representative
sample, as the most intelligent and sophisticated offenders are less likely to be caught and
convicted. The issue of whether those interviewed for this study did represent all high-level drug
dealers was also underscored by the fact that just 40 percent of those contacted consented to
giving interviews.
Another concern with the use of a particular form of criminal activity, such as the amount of
illicit drugs sold/smuggled, as a performance measure is that criminal organizations may
compensate by a crackdown on one activity by increasing their involvement in another (Maltz,
1990:14). It would serve as little consolation to society if OC groups shifted their activities from
gambling to drug dealing. An intensification of law enforcement efforts in one area is also likely
to generate more seizures of contraband, underscoring the need to develop measures that are not
influenced by enforcement activity.
Maltz (1990:15) adds:
We may not be able to estimate the magnitude of an activity, but must be content
with knowing whether it is increasing or decreasing, or what its targets are, such as
which businesses are being infiltrated. Furthermore, we may have to resort to
sources of information that cannot be cross-checked—for example, the comment of
the target of an investigation in a tapped telephone investigation that he has had to
alter his activities due to enforcement efforts would be a definite indicator of impact,
but could not be disclosed in an evaluation report.
Volume and Scope of Organized Crime
The United States’ General Accounting Office (1977:17) has reported that “complete and
reliable data is not available on the number of organized crime figures in particular areas, their
position within the organization, and the extent of their criminal activity.”
Measures that attempt to ascertain the number of criminal enterprises may be limited in their
validity. Van Duyne (1996:207) argues that OC may not be quantifiable in the sense that the
number of illicit enterprises is not static:
Organized crime is not a quantifiable phenomenon. In the first place any operational
definition for counting the number of crime-enterprises is bound to be invalidated by
the fluidity of reality. During my research it sometimes happened that I thought to
analyse one enterprise which split into two or more while doing my research. The
reverse also happened: different crime-enterprises cooperated so closely that the
14 | Research and Statistics Division / Department of Justice Canada