The Mafia and Organized Crime: A Beginner’s Guide (Oneworld Beginner’s Guides) PDF
Preview The Mafia and Organized Crime: A Beginner’s Guide (Oneworld Beginner’s Guides)
prelims.qxd 5/4/2007 4:42 PM Page i The Mafia and organized crime A Beginner’s Guide prelims.qxd 5/4/2007 4:42 PM Page ii From anarchism to artificial intelligence and genetics to global terrorism, BEGINNER’S GUIDES equip readers with the tools to fully understand the most challenging and important debates of our age. Written by experts in a clear and accessible style, books in this series are substantial enough to be thorough but compact enough to be read by anyone wanting to know more about the world they live in. anarchism energy NATO ruth kinna vaclav smil jennifer medcalf evolution anti-capitalism the palestine–israeli burton s. guttman simon tormey conflict evolutionary psychology dan cohn-sherbok & artificial intelligence r. dunbar, l.barrett & dawoud el-alami blay whitby j. lycett philosophy of mind biodiversity fair trade edward feser john spicer jacqueline decarlo genetics postmodernism bioterror & biowarfare a. griffiths, b.guttman, kevin hart malcolm dando d. suzuki & t. cullis quantum physics the brain global terrorism alastair i. m. rae a. al-chalabi, m. r. turner leonard Weinberg & r. s. delamont religion life in the universe criminal psychology martin forward lewis dartnell ray bull et al. the mafia & organized the small arms trade democracy crime m. schroeder, r. stohl david beetham james o. finckenauer & d. smith FORTHCOMING: animal behaviour extrasolar planets philosophy of religion john byers ian stevens charles taliaferro asylum feminist theory political philosophy pamela goldberg sally j. scholz christopher bertram beat generation forensic science racism christopher gair jay siegel alana lentin bioethics galaxies radical philosophy heather widdows joanne baker andrew collier british politics gender & sexuality renaissance art richard s grayson samuel a. chambers tom nichols censorship globalization romanticism julian petley simon lee corinna russell cloning human rights socialism aaron levine david beetham mike gonzales conspiracy theories humanism time alasdair spark peter cave amarendra swarup crimes against humanity immigration volcanoes adam jones liza schuster rosaly lopes existentialism oil thomas wartenburg vaclav smil prelims.qxd 5/4/2007 4:42 PM Page iii The Mafia and organized crime A Beginner’s Guide James O. Finckenauer prelims.qxd 5/4/2007 4:42 PM Page iv THE MAFIA AND ORGANIZED CRIME A Oneworld Book Published by Oneworld Publications 2007 Copyright © James Finckenauer 2007 All rights reserved Copyright under Berne Convention A CIP record for this title is available from the British Library ISBN-13: 978–1–85168–526–4 ISBN-10: 1–85168–526–X Typeset by Jayvee, Trivandrum, India Cover design by Two Associates Printed and bound by TJ International Ltd., Padstow, Cornwall Oneworld Publications 185 Banbury Road Oxford OX2 7AR England www.oneworld-publications.com Learn more about Oneworld. Join our mailing list to find out about our latest titles and special offers at: www.oneworld-publications.com prelims.qxd 5/4/2007 4:42 PM Page v Contents Foreword viii 1 Organized crime and the Mafia 1 In the beginning 1 The problem of definition 3 Background 4 Why is definition important? 9 According to the law 10 Building the knowledge base 13 Organized crime and the mafia: same or different? 16 Organized crime and criminal organizations 19 Organized crime versus crime that is organized 21 Harm 24 Transnational organized crime: the new menace 27 2 Truth, fiction and myth – the role of 30 popular culture From The Godfather to The Sopranos 40 What is the appeal? 47 Gangsta rap 48 Cultural resistance to the mafia 49 Myths, organized crime, and the mafia 52 3 Explaining the past, present, and 56 possible future Theory and explanation 56 Alien and other conspiracies 57 Cultural climates for organized crime 60 prelims.qxd 5/4/2007 4:42 PM Page vi vi The Mafia and Organized Crime: A Beginner’s Guide Ethnicity and ethnic succession 64 Implications for the who, how, and what of 71 organized crime Rational choice, routine activities, and situational 74 crime prevention 4 The many faces of organized crime 84 La Cosa Nostra 84 Urban street gangs 88 Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs/One percent biker clubs 93 The Russian “Mafiya” 96 The Japanese yakuza 101 Chinese “Mafia” 104 Colombian drug cartels, guerillas and paramilitaries 110 5 Organized crime is what organized 114 crime does Profiting from the illegality of the otherwise legal 115 Organized crime exploits sin 121 Drug trafficking – the king of the hill 126 Predatory crime 131 Vulnerabilities and potential markets 138 6 An evil business: the traffic in people 141 The terminology 143 The problem of human trafficking 147 Why human trafficking? 151 Who are the traffickers – organized crime or 155 crime that is organized? The role of corruption 161 Combating the problem 168 prelims.qxd 5/4/2007 4:42 PM Page vii Contents vii 7 Confronting the enemy 171 The anti-organized crime tool-kit 174 International efforts against organized crime 185 Legalizing or decriminalizing the activities of 187 organized crime Rooting out organized crime 190 Appendix: books and films 193 References and further reading 196 Index 206 prelims.qxd 5/4/2007 4:42 PM Page viii Foreword “As above, so below” was one of the central tenets of the ancient hermetic philosophies – the world in which humans lived was a reflection of the glories of Heaven, but at the same time, the heav- ens were affected by what happened on the mortal Earth. What connection does this have to organized crime? The underworld is shaped by the “upperworld” but also shapes it. The decision of the US government to introduce Prohibition reshaped the North American underworld, while the collapse of the Soviet Union unleashed a new form of organized crime on the world. There can be little doubt that organized crime and its pernicious activities has a direct impact on the modern world, whether in facilitating the activities of international terrorists or in polluting the global money supply with “dirty” funds. When societies get organized, so too do their criminals, and organized crime has evolved as the shadowy underside of mod- ernization and order. A dark, common, thread runs through human history, from the smugglers and protection racketeers of ancient Rome, to the surprisingly sophisticated economic sub- structures which supported and flourished on the back of seven- teenth-century piracy, to today’s cybercriminals and a global drug trade worth an estimated $500 billion a year. Organized crime exists because it supplies needs not satisfied by the legitimate sec- tor, such as narcotics and vice, or inadequately controlled by the state, such as protection rackets. However, it is at its most danger- ous when it doesn’t just exploit the weaknesses of the state, but it begins to replace it. prelims.qxd 5/4/2007 4:42 PM Page ix Foreword ix Jim Finckenauer usefully draws a distinction between orga- nized crime and mafias. The former is essentially a description of an activity, but the latter is a culture of criminality, a sub-set of organized crime that embeds itself in society by filling needs that in more ideal circumstances would be the preserve of the state. What does it say about the experience of migration to the United States that so many communities, as they arrived, created their own forms of organized crime, from the Irish and Jewish gangs of the nineteenth century to the Cosa Nostra of the Italians? Feeling locked out of the opportunities for which they had made the long and hazardous journey to the New World, the migrants felt disen- franchised, and neglected. In their violent and parasitic way, the gangs offered a sense of identity and opportunity, and social mobility. Why were the yakuza crime gangs of Japan only crimi- nalized in the 1990s, before which they were openly accepted and even respected? To a large extent because the yakuza were considered “reliable,” because it was felt that organized crime could be used to control “disorganized crime” and at the same time buttress the power of the existing political and economic elite. Understanding mafias and organized crime helps us under- stand the wider world in which they operate. To this end, this useful primer to the phenomenon quite rightly starts with a simple question that begs a complex answer: what is organized crime? Sometimes, the mobsters are easy to identify, a collection of ne’er-do-wells with no visible source of income but owning flashy cars and homes; involved in the staples of organized criminality, whether trafficking drugs or infiltrating legitimate businesses. The old stereotypes, which were always something of a caricature, are becoming even less applicable in the modern world. Today’s “OC” could as easily be an apparently legitimate businessperson whose portfolio of interests ranges from the entirely “clean” through to overtly criminal, or who facilitates the activities of more conventional criminals. Or they might be a fringe member of a radical movement, involved in raising funds
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