Organized Crime (Research Paper Sample)

ORGANIZED CRIME:
OPERATIONS AND TRENDS

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Background
As per common knowledge “organized crime” is an outcome of assimilation due to the exchange of global ideas and other features of culture. Criminals are really adaptable operators that easily move around even securely guarded states. In order to understand their basic nature it is very essential to adopt that the borders that separate the world amongst ethnic and dialectal barriers are obstacles for the effectiveness of organized criminals all across spheres. ‘Organized crime’ is the crime that is very much consolidated and somehow goes above borders”. In reality, the term is complex due to the obscurity of the word ‘organized’. Criminals, illegal activities, groups and the illegal authority are the foremost elements of ‘organized crime’. This paper will emphasize on organized criminal operations and the establishment of illicit goods and services.
Introduction
Organized crime is similar to other criminal operations but the fact that organized criminals exploits prospects characterized by a profitable objective where there is not enough protection. Consistent with some aspects, the ‘organization’ of a crime might be supportive of the criminals, making it smooth, worthy and safer to violate the law whereas in other situations, the ‘organization’ aspect creates more problems. As per this perspective, criminals are generally the answer to the problem, as they undergo challenges that are specific and noticeable.
Actually, it is not an easy task to presenting organized criminals as solutions to crime because firsthand material is not easily available on the daily activities of organized crime. In fact, most of the available materials focus on awareness raising and description of ‘organized crime’ whereas the information to be extracted from the existing empirical works along with journalistic source is rather varying. Subsequently, organized crime is extremely diverse that it is challenging to control general patterns as there are various forms and measures of operation and challenges arising from variations in the category of crime and geographic location. In due course this paper will provide a collection of information well-ordered along with of a rough and extremely definite sorting scheme presenting two major facets: operation of criminals, and the current trends of organized crime groups and finally provide solutions and recommendations.
Operation of Organized Crimes
Cataloging ‘organized crime’ puts emphasis on the ethnicity of the criminal, specially their loyalty to a certain ethnically distinct criminal group. These criminal organizations are alleged to have the flexibility look for the most cost-effective prospects for crime, but then after the crime has been committed they retreat to a ‘safe haven’ that provides shield from the consequences of breaking the law. In addition, it has been found that organized crime can carefully conceal in legitimate businesses and foreign communities. Global crime appears in a different light taking into account of the problems that organized criminals may encounter when penetrating borders and working in odd and dangerous environments. Also these criminals are always used to circumventing law enforcement inspection as compared domestic criminals.
As it happens, organized crime is not subject to these issues. As such, the deviation can be utilized through differentiating organized criminal operations as per what these criminal enterprises offer in the market, as information, goods and people. In the meantime it has been implicated the most of the organized crime is reputable in smuggling operations. For the most part this means the transportation of contraband across borders, highly taxed goods such as liquor, stolen vehicles, illegal drugs, endangered animals, firearms, verboten technology or even human organs. In human smuggling, people are brought across the border rather than contraband. Criminals may accompany the smuggled goods depending on the mode of operation or may not. Even so, criminals do cross borders as an essential typical of some organized crimes, i.e. voracious crimes such as gangs involved in armed robbery in one country may operate from a location in a foreign country so as to they cross the border when they go on criminal mission.
Crossing Borders (to commit crime)
Despite the fact that the level and nature of the organized crime varies, there appears to be certain kinds of problem patterns that are distinctive of most crimes, concerning to the identification of crime opportunities, the utilization of these opportunities, and the controlling of the risks offenders encounter during and after the execution of an organized crime.
Awareness
Beneath the hypothesis that crimes are the outcome of striving and capable criminals utilizing opportunities, the first key challenge for organized criminals is to be aware of prospects that that exist in the international sphere. Such opportunities take account of lucrative objects such as cultural artifacts, vulnerabilities due to lack of physical or legal protections, such as cross-border price variances in legal or illegal markets e.g. cigarettes and drugs
Foraging
As matter of fact, the common notion that criminals come across crime opportunities accidently in the course of daily activities does not completely explain ‘organized crime’ more generally for that matter. As is happens, sophisticated criminals are capable of taking the edge and looking for and generating crime opportunities. A good example is human traffickers that undertake informal market analyses to pinpoint the most strategic market, calculating risks, costs and profits. Kenney has described Colombian drug trafficking networks as “learning groups” that carry out research on crime prospects by “collecting information concerning shipment methods and testing options that are capable of moving massive goods” (Desroches, 2007). Actually this sort of conduct tries to expand the access to other crimes and acquire new object markets.
Crossing the Border
Actually criminals who forage across borders encounter similar challenges as the actual execution of the crime. Nonetheless the risk involved in seeking tendency seems to be somewhat low so long as laws are not broken at this stage. In point of fact, the actual encounter of organized crime simply emerges when offenders leave to utilize the openings that they have established. As mentioned earlier and will be discussed in more detail later, limited organized crimes certainly require the criminals to physically cross international borders. On the other hand, wherever offenders travel from one country to another to commit a crime, crossing the borders is the, major barrier. And so, international organized criminals remain with two choices:
Using legitimate transportation
Sneaking across the border
As the advance of technology take effect in the society, progresses in law enforcement and collaboration have resulted in improved monitoring and identification of organized criminals while borders have increased and become reliable. All together outdated border structures have been close down in most vulnerable borders. As a result the regulation movement across these borders is more difficult as time goes by every day.
Outside Operations
Organized criminals breaking the law in foreign soil incline to be immigrants operating in a distant environment. As an outcome of language, cultural and legal barriers in the foreign country organized criminals are not as efficient as the local offenders more familiar to use the legitimate arrangements, such as assets of technical significance for the criminals such as typical transportation, banking and cable. On the other hand unusual behavior can attract undesirable attention and can as well interfere with criminal operations. As such, that is the reason the Cali cartel allegedly “produced a manual for their operatives providing practical advice for managing a stash house to be conventional in the context of the United States”.
Additionally, it can be hypothesized that criminals functional in a foreign country as outsiders are limited in the crimes they can commit. It is undoubtedly not a concurrence that criminals without a social support structure in the country of operation tend to specialize in open “hit-and-run” crimes like armed robbery and theft that do not require mixing into orthodox behavior patterns.
Networking
As a matter of fact sustaining, creating and organizing relationships that are exploitable across countries is challenging for organized criminals prior to the actual execution of crimes. Initially, there are many ways in which cross-border networking can be favorable to organized criminal activities. Secondly, cross-border networks tend to be dynamic and fragile, rather due to law enforcement intervention or opportunistic behavior so that organized criminals constantly need to capitalize in building and fostering relationships.
Contingencies
Actually the value of cross-border networking varies regarding the category of crime. In operation, it is natural in the international illegal markets, linking suppliers and customers from foreign countries. Also, the need for cross-border networking seems to be reliant on the scale of a criminal venture. In accordance with a research conducted on the link between the mass of smuggling shipments and the size and range of criminal networks. In consequence, the ability of organized criminals to create links that are functional appears to be randomly distributed, depending on the available social skills, social capital and psychological personalities.
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