Organized Crime In The New Millennium

willing to use illegal violence and bribery;
specialized division of labor: to achieve organization goal;
monopolistic: Market control to maximize profits; and,
has explicit rules and regulations: Codes of honor.
Definitions need to bring together its legal and social elements. OC has widespread
social, political and economic effects. It uses violence and corruption to achieve its
ends: "OC when group primarily focused on illegal profits systematically commit crimes
that adversely affect society and are capable of successfully shielding their activities, in
particular by being willing to use physical violence or eliminate individuals by way of
corruption."
It is a mistake to use the term "OC" as though it denotes a clear and well-defined
phenomenon. The evidence regarding OC "shows a less well-organized, very diversified
landscape of organizing criminals…the economic activities of these organizing criminals
can be better described from the viewpoint of 'crime enterprises' than from a
conceptually unclear frameworks such as 'OC'." Many of the definitions emphasize the
‘group nature’ of OC, the ‘organization’ of its members, its use of violence or corruption
to achieve its goals, and its extra-jurisdictional character….OC may appear in many
forms at different times and in different places. Due to the variety of definitions, there is
“evident danger” in asking “what is OC?” and expecting a simple answer.
The Locus of Power and Organized Crime
Some espouse that all organized crime operates at an international level, though there
is currently no international court capable of trying offenses resulting from such activities
Page 43 of 372