The paradoxes of organized crime

© Margaret E. Beare 2013. The paper argues that the concept of organised crime in consistently incorporates the following notions: a) the provision of illegal goods and services and b) a criminal organization, understood as a large-scale collectivity, primarily engaged in illegal activities with a well-defined collective identity and subdivision of work among its members. Against this superimposition, the author's contention is two fold: (I) The supply of illegal commodities mainly takes place in a 'disorganized' way and, due to the constraints of product illegality, no immanent tendency towards the development of large-scale criminal enterprises with in illegal markets exist. (2) Some lasting large-scale criminal organizations do exist, but they are neither exclusively involved in illegal market activities, nor is their development and internal configuration the result of illegal market dynamics.

ISBN:9781409447566

Publication year:2017