Organised crime is a diverse area of study. There are numerous groups of individuals involved in a wide variety of activities that come under this type of offending. Organised crime is defined by the UN and EU as “a group of three or more persons existing over a period of time acting in concert with the aim of committing crimes for financial or material benefit.” Organized crime is a category of transnational, national, or local groupings of highly centralized enterprises run by criminals who intend to engage in illegal activity, most commonly for profit. Some criminal organizations, such as terrorist groups, are politically motivated.
For organised crime to exist, three or more offenders must come together to carry out an illegal act or acts. Therefore, some communication and cooperation are necessary. There can be as little as three individuals for illegal activities to be defined as organised crime, or thousands of individuals. These groups of criminals can be complex and flexible in nature. There is usually some structure to these groups; however, it is unlikely to be as tightly structured as legal organisations. Some of these networks of criminals are loosely structured while others more tightly so. This usually depends on the criminal activities its members are engaged in.
There is a vast range of activities that organised crime groups can be involved in. The underlying goal is usually either money or power. Some criminal networks are involved in drug trafficking and distribution. There will usually be a hierarchical structure to these networks. There is likely to be a group of core individuals with roles and responsibilities and these are the individuals who usually profit the most from their activities. So if it were a drug trafficking group, these would be the ones who manufacture or supervise the acquisition of the drugs. These are international activities and would require a distribution network in order to make a profit. This network of individuals would require a way to package and ship the drugs between the various countries. Once drugs have arrived at the country they are destined for, they need to be repackaged into smaller quantities and distributed throughout the country. These drugs would then require individuals to sell them to people. An operation such as this would require communication and cooperation on an international level. This would require hundreds of criminals working towards the same goal and accepting their role s and responsibilities within the group.
The individuals who are ‘higher’ within this hierarchy may never know or meet the people who sell the drugs on the streets. Therefore, the lower ranking individuals would be required to take a level of responsibility and manage others. If any individual does not do as they are required some form of retribution must be administered. Criminal networks such as this would require a higher level of organisation and hierarchy than others might.
The underlying goals and skill set of these individuals determines what level of organisation, communication, and interaction these groups will have. The criminal networks may offer some kind of specialised skill set. These skills may be, for example, money laundering, counterfeit currency, or document fraud. Groups such as these will often serve other criminals or groups. This usually always involves some form of social interaction. It is because of these social interactions that reflect the importance of group structure.
Some organised crime groups will be involved with activities involving innocent people. For example, child sexual exploitation or people trafficking for slavery. In groups such as this, the victims involved are treated as commodities which are used to make money. These types of victims often come from poorer countries and are either kidnapped or promised a better life if they comply with their captors.
Other networks may deal with large companies on a corporate level. Companies may wish to evade paying more tax than they ought to and so will turn to an organised crime group to help them in some way. The corporate industry is rife with companies wishing to invest fraudulently, avoid paying excise duty, VAT fraud and so on. By employing the services of these expert criminals they avoid having to carry out any illegal activities directly.
Individual criminals and criminal groups are flexible and quickly adapt to exploit new victims, to evade countermeasures or identify new criminal opportunities. There is often violence and extortion involved throughout the network of individuals. These criminal networks can operate in a variety of ways and can even be involved in our everyday sporting activities. There have been convicted cases of sports corruption and match-fixing in a number of sporting events.
These networks of criminals can be large or small scale in activities such as drug dealing or dealing firearms. The rich and powerful may employ their services for the prestige of having the head of some endangered species hanging in their home. The common feature of these groups is that they show some level of structure within them. There will be a core group of individuals that coordinate the network’s activities. Below this, there will be key central figures who will engage in planning and organisation such as the distribution of drugs.
Below these key central figures will be the various subgroups. These subgroups will often have a variety of skills in different areas. For example, they may be involved in distribution, manufacture, communication, protection, and in cases of sexual exploitation skills such as kidnapping and media distribution. Within these subgroups, there will be mid-level workers who communicate between the ‘workers’ and the ‘leaders’. These mid-level workers are usually well respected and trusted individuals who communicate either within or between gangs.
At the very bottom level of the criminal networks are isolated individuals. These would be the burglars and thieves that go and steal where they are instructed to. They may very be asked to steal particular objects or vehicles. These individuals are not usually given any responsibility within the organisation. This may not be a static set of individuals. These isolated individuals Can change over time as people go to jail and new people are recruited.
Unsurprisingly then, there is not one particular theory of organised crime. One theory would not be able to apply the same rules and principles to drug dealers as it would to say, the Triads or IRA. Large gangs such as the Triads or IRA could not be compared directly to local neighbourhood gangs around London. However, all of these criminal networks usually involve some form of hierarchical structure.
