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Organized crime has been around throughout history and has changed definition multiple times. One definition, similar to that in use by many scholars, is the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) glossary definition which “defines organized crime as any group having some manner of a formalized structure and whose primary objective is to obtain money through illegal activities. Such groups maintain their position through the use of actual or threatened violence, corrupt public officials, graft, or extortion, and generally have a significant impact on the people in their locales, region, or the country as a whole.” This very broad topic encompasses everything from drug trafficking to most cyber crimes. Also, Organized crime is not limited geographically. Traditionally one thinks of the local mafia or gang when thinking about organized crime, but in the current day and age organized crime can also mean transnational crime (Albanese 3). Albanese defines transnational crime as a “law violation that involved more than one country in its planning, execution, or impact (3).” A recurring term in the research is globalization

These broad definitions create many topics to examine. The examination of organized crime is especially important today, because it has changed as much as technology in the past two decades. Organized crime has become such a problem that in 2012 the Congressional Research Service created a report for congress entitled Organized Crime: An Evolving Challenge for U.S. Law Enforcement.

This paper will examine the current literature on organized crime, transnational organized crime, as well as enforcement issues that have come with the globalization of crime. Specifically organized crime groups who participate in tr...

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...ied international law is needed. They hypothesize that there is no way of “escaping international crime, because transnational organized crime groups work between borders and across seas” (94). To test this hypothesis they create a qualitative case study of journal articles, Internet sources, as well as commentary of political actors. They use an exploratory research approach in order “ to seek an explanation of the causes and methods of inhibiting such criminality” (97). They also focus their research on similarities of these organizations, the problems they create for states, and tactics that would be able to successfully deal with the transnational crime organizations. Ruetschlin and Bangura were able to find some benefits to society from transnational organized crime. However these benefits are still significantly outnumbered by the cons of transnational crime.