Organized Crime Within the United States
Organized crime is a widespread topic of concern among many Americans due to its popularity in the media and entertainment industry. The public is aware of its existence, yet is not fully aware of why and how this complex “underworld” exists. In order to fully understand this area of criminology, one must take into account the characteristics of organized crime, the variables that allow organized crime to thrive, its large-scale effects on society, and the measures that have been taken to extinguish organized crime.
The roots of organized crime can be traced back to periods of vast amounts of immigration within the United States. Many of the immigrants sought wealth and prosperity upon their arrivals but inevitably found themselves to be members of the lower class. While some groups, such as the Jews, were able to climb the social ladder, other groups faced hostility and racism, hindering their acquisition of wealth. Their movement toward crime can be explained by Cloward and Ohlin’s Differential Opportunities Theory. This states that there are both legitimate and illegitimate means to achieve desired goals. In the immigrants’ case, they “want what American society offers and expects of all – success – yet they are prevented from legitimately achieving this goal because of opportunity blockage, that is poverty and discrimination” (O’Kane 27). In turn, the immigrants turned to a criminal subculture as means to attain their goals. They began violating an extreme amount of criminal statutes such as extortion, murder, bribery, fraud, narcotics, and labor racketeering.
Thus far, the focus of this topic has been on early groups of organized criminals within the United States. The face of organized crime has changed within the past few decades, however, and is currently in a period of transition. Whereas the Italian-Americans were once the rulers of the underworld, African-American and Hispanic involvement has been on the increase. This cultural shift is significant because it alters the infrastructure of organized crime within the United States. Criminal groups form in different manners than in previous years. Within Italian-American organized crime, kinship is the primary segue into organized crime. Among African-Americans and Hispanics, however, there are two distinct types of linkages among criminals. First are causal...
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...uently used by wealthy and large corporations, in order to monopolize” (Miller 1999).
Although it appears as though many actions are being taken in an effort to extinguish organized crime, RICO illustrates that the government may have ulterior motives behind their efforts. If this is the case, the government must expect organized crime to increase according to the Differential Opportunities Theory. According to this theory, organized crime occurs when minority groups are unable to achieve the ‘American dream’ through legitimate means. By further oppressing these groups, the government places them back at square one where they will most likely continue to lead criminal lives. Thus the most effective manner to alleviate organized crime is to ensure that the aforementioned groups have access to legitimate means in achieving their goals. By making this effort, the government would have a greater chance of preventing the underclass’s development into the underworld.
Works Cited
Anechiarico, Frank. “Administrative Culture and Civil Society.” Administration & Society. 30.1 (1998): 13-22.
Criminal Division. U.S. Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation. 2 March 2000.
Over the past 60 years there has been a recent phenomenon in the development and rise of gangs and gang violence. This is exceptionally apparent in South Central Los Angeles where the Bloods and the Crips have taken control of the social structure and created a new type of counter culture. Poverty in this area is an enormous problem caused by a shear lack of jobs; but just because there is a lack of jobs doesn’t mean that there will be a lack of bills to pay, so sometimes selling drugs in order to keep a roof over your head seems like the most logical option. Crime often times flourishes in these regions because the inconvenient truth is; crime pays. Senator Tom Hayden stated “It’s been defined as a crime problem and a gang problem but it’s really an issue of no work and dysfunctional schools.” this statement is in fact true, but with an exception it is a more broad issue than just involving school, and lack of jobs but goes beyond into social structure as a whole and more specifically the judicial system, this can all be supported by three sociologists Chambliss, Anderson, and Durkheim.
Our team presentation focused on three Latino gangs, MS-13 (Mara Salvatrucha), the Mexican Mafia and the Los Surenos gang. My part of the presentation was to provide information on the type of crime these three gangs are known to commit. The crimes committed by the MS-13 gang are varied, violent, and take place all over the country. The FBI even put together a task force called the MS-13 National Gang Task Force in December of 2004 to try to put a stop to this gang’s activities. (www.fbi.gov). Los Surenos or Sur-13, originally based in Los Angeles, has also branched out from turf wars with rival gangs to “for profit”, violent crimes across the country. The Mexican Mafia has a similar story to tell as well in regards to gang crimes, which again range from respect crimes, and retaliatory violence to crimes for profit.
Oprah disregarded the symbolic meaning of the gate not realizing its importance to the book. The gate held a very important...
The emotional tale of James Frey’s journey in rehab is told in the memoir A Million Little Pieces. Born in Cleveland but living in New York, James Frey was an alcoholic for ten years and a drug addict for another three years before he decided to finally receive treatment at the age of twenty-four. Since his doctor told Frey that he would surely die at the age of twenty-four from his habits of drinking and doing drugs, his family checks him into the oldest rehab clinic in a last effort to change his ways. He fights his evil, or as he calls it the “Fury”, throughout the entire book as it begs for another drink or anything. It begs for anything in his six weeks in rehab. A Million Little Pieces tells the author’s struggle as he attempts to get clean in his treacherous six weeks in treatment.
Peterson, R, Krivo, L, & Hagan, J. (2006). The many colors of crime. NY: New York University Press.
We can see in Source C, that though the law did try to take down organized crime, it was too well protected by both its own form of government: gang rule, and its protection its money gave it by buying off politicians and powerful officials who in turn made no effort to control the rise in organized crime. Source D tells us that 3300 police officers and prohibition agents could not take Al Capone down due to the protection he had bought for himself. This further shows us how ineffective the American government and police force was in demolishing organized crime and it was this ineffectiveness that was responsible for it becoming such a wealthy
Robert Merton (1938) argued that members of American society are socialised to want the culturally defined goals such as the ‘American dream’ where success is attributed to material wealth. When they are denied access to the legitimate means, they resort to illegitimate means such as criminality and deviance to attain what they have been taught to want. (Lanier&Henry,1998) It could be argued that America is organised for crime due to its overwhelming significance placed on material success. This may explain why America has the highest rate of imprisonment, in 2000 approximately two million men and women were serving prison sentences. (Fleisher&Decker,2006) Similarly, Toy and Stanko (2008) identify that being part of a society that attributes achievement with material wealth are other factors which may influence becoming gang affiliated. (Harris et al, 2011)
New Century Foundation. (2005). The Color of Crime: Race, Crime and Justice in America. Retrieved from http://www.colorofcrime.com/colorofcrime2005.pdf
Echoing the structural strain theory is the differential opportunity theory, which states that learning environments and opportunities are not equally distributed in the social system and gender, class and ethnicity affects conformity and deviance (Deutschmann, 2007). Taking both theories into account, those susceptible to joining gangs would be people that are deprived of opportunities and resources to succeed, mainly people of the lower class and racial minorities as exemplified by the high volume of emergence of racially exclusive gangs in the past. In the 1970’s, the United States of America lifted its quota on immigration based on nationality and this saw the influx of immigrants from Asia and the West Indies coming into the USA in hopes of getting rich or simply to flee from their war torn native lands. Instead of assimilating into the American culture, these immigrants brought along their own cultural practices and religions, which were rejected by the Americans and resulted in resentment between both parties. Racial discrimination was rampant and these once hopeful immigrants soon found themselves being isolated in the outskirts, jobless and helpless. Members of racial minority groups like the majority aspire to possess material success in life but are void of the means to achieve those (McNulty & Bellair, 2003). The same can be said of the lower class, whose low socio-economic status limit their opportunities for tertiary education which could potentially be imperative in securing lucrative jobs (Curry & Spergel, 1988). Therefore, to satisfy their appetite for success, these people adapt to strain by treading the path of innovators- using illegitimate means to actualise their positively valued goals. Moreover, with global...
Surprisingly, little has been written about the historical significance of black gangs in Los Angeles (LA). Literature and firsthand interviews with Los Angeles residents seem to point to three significant periods relevant to the development of the contemporary black gangs. The first period, which followed WWII and significant black migrations from the South, is when the first major black clubs formed. After the Watts rebellion of 1965, the second period gave way to the civil rights period of Los Angeles where blacks, including those who where former club members who became politically active for the remainder of the 1960s. By the early 1970s black street gangs began to reemerge. By 1972, the Crips were firmly established and the Bloods were beginning to organize. This period saw the rise of LA’s newest gangs, which continued to grow during the 1970s, and later formed in several other cities throughout the United States by the 1990s. While black gangs do not make up the largest or most active gang population in Los Angeles today, their influence on street gang culture nationally has been profound.
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