Criminology Internal Security Management Nature and Forms of Organised Crime 1 | P a g e Role Name Affiliation Principal Investigator Prof. G.S. Bajpai Professor/ Registrar, NLU Delhi Paper Coordinator Dr. Hunny Matiyani Assistant Professor, LNJN NICFS, Delhi Content Writer/Author Dr. Swikar Lama Assistant Professor, Sardar Patel University of Police, Security and Criminal Justice, Jodhpur, Rajasthan Content Reviewer Prof. G.S. Bajpai Professor/ Registrar, NLU Delhi DESCRIPTION OF MODULE Items Description of Module Subject Name Criminology Paper Name Internal Security Management Module Name/Title Nature and Forms of Organised Crime Module Id Objectives Learning Outcome: To make the learners understand the concept of organized crime. To make the learners understand various forms of organized crime. To acquaint the learners with the processes involved in organised crime. Prerequisites General understanding of the Nature and Various Forms of Organised Crime Key words Crime, Mafia, Kidnapping, Gangs, Groups Nature and Forms of Organised Crime 2 | P a g e 1. Introduction: Organized crime is crime based on a cooperative effort like an organized business. Lindesmith (“organized crime”, the annals of the American academy of political and social science, September 1941: 19) has defined it as “crime that involves the cooperation of several persons or groups for its successful execution”. According to Gordon Hawkins (cf. Randzinowicz, et al., Crimes and justice, vol. 1, 1997:374) organized crime involves: (a) association of a small group of criminals for the execution of a certain type of crime, (b) chalking out plans by which detection may be avoided, (c) development of a fund of money for organizing criminal activities and providing protection to members, and (d) maintaining political connections by means of which immunity may be secured in case of detection. Thorsten Sellin (1963: 12-19) has described organized crimes as “an enterprise organized for the purpose of making economic gain through illegal activate”. Pick-pocketing, robbery, burglary, smuggling, drug trafficking, prostitution, gambling are some of the crimes which involve association of a few criminals working as a team. The motive for committing these crimes is profit. Numerically, organized crime does not in love a large proportion of criminals, but, for society it is considered to be a serious problem. 2. Characteristics: Organized crime has following important characteristics (Cf. Caldwell, 1956: 73-74): 2.1. Team work: It involves association of a group of criminals which is relatively permanent and may even last decades. 2.2. Hierarchical structure: It has a structure with grades of authority from the lowest to the highest, involving a system of specifically defined relationship with mutual obligations and privileges. 2.3. Planning: It involves advance arrangements for successfully committing crimes, minimizing risks and insuring safety and protection. 2.4. Centralized authority: It functions on the basis of centralized control and authority which is vested either in the hands of one individual or a few members. 2.5. Research fund: It maintains a reserve fund from profits which serves as capital for criminal enterprises, seeking help of the police, lawyers and even politicians, and for providing security to the arrested members and their families. 2.6. Specialization: Some groups specialize in just one crime while some others may be simultaneously engaged in multiple crimes. Those groups which are engaged in multiple crimes are more powerful and influential. 2.7. Division of labour: Organized crime involves delegation of duties and responsibilities and specialization of functions. 2.8. Violence: It depends upon use of force and violence to commit crimes and to maintain internal discipline and restrain external competition. 2.9. Monopoly: It has expensive and monopolistic tendencies. Initially, organized criminal gangs operate in a limited area, and are engaged in a limited type of crime with a limited number of persons, but, gradually they expand into a wider range of activities extended over large geographical areas, involving a large number of carefully selected criminals. In whatever area they operate, they secure monopoly in their criminal enterprises. They do not hesitate to use violence or threats of violence to eliminate competition. 2.10. Protective measures: It arranges permanent protection against interference from law-enforcement authorities and other agencies of government. The protective measures include contacts with policemen, lawyers, doctors, politicians, judges, and influential persons in society. Giving money in cash or in gifts, providing help in elections threatening their 3 | P a g e competitors, and arranging their(influential persons’) foreign trips are some of the methods used by these gangs to secure protection and avoid arrest and conviction. 2.11. Conduct norms: it frames rules of conduct, policies of administration, and methods of operation for members and for the operation of crime. This helps in maintaining discipline, efficiency, loyalty, obedience, and mutual confidence. Penalties are imposed for violating rules. 3. Organised Crime Clinard and Quinney (Criminal Behavior Systems: A Typology, 1967:383) have stated that organized crime has a hierarchical structure of positions. Burgess (Cf. Clinard, Sociology of Deviant Behavior, 1963:273-84) has compared this hierarchical structure with a feudal system. At the top of the pyramid are ‘Lords’- powerful leaders who take important decisions and run the organization. These leaders maintain a master-serf relationship with other persons in the feudal structure. A middle echelon of gangsters-‘henchmen and lieutenants’-carry out commands of the leaders. At the bottom of the structure are ‘runners’, who are persons marginally, associated with organized crime. These are criminals who work as prostitutes, carry narcotics or other illegal goods, pick pockets, supply alcohol, and directly deal with public. Hierarchal Structure The hierarchal structure is held together by personal loyalties, a code of conduct, a chain of command, and antagonist attitude towards conventional society. The hierarchal structure affects career of the criminals, especially those lower in the hierarchy. They have a long record of crimes against and never think of ending their criminal careers. These bottom gangsters are either their criminal careers. These bottom gangsters are either on the payroll of the organization or get a cut of profits. The gangsters at the middle level are sometimes pulled up from the lower levels and sometimes directly recruited from large cities, having criminal record of armed robberies and murders, and having a perception of themselves as ‘tough’ guys. Some lieutenants sometimes become leaders at the top. Leaders in the organized crimes live segmented lives, retiring to the seclusion of respectability. Their commitment, nevertheless, remains, with the world of crime, where in detachment from the values of the larger society, they receive their prestige, power and a lifestyle of luxury. 4 | P a g e Organized crimes may provide a person with an opportunity for a lifetime career in crime. Walter Reckless (1995:203) is of the opinion that selection of a career in organized crime is apparently dependent upon the existing social conditions of the area in which a person lives. However, little is known of the specific mobility of a criminal from one position to another, once he is a part of the hierarchy of organized crime. The career histories of organized criminals are not usually available because of the immunity of these persons from detection and imprisonment. 4. Types of Organised Crime: Organized crime has three major types/forms: gang criminality, racketeering, and syndicate crime. The first has simple characteristics while the last one has a fully developed form because of which it is considered to be most dangerous to society. 4.1. Gang Criminality: This type of criminality includes kidnapping, extortion, robbery, vehicle theft, etc. on a large scale. Gangs are composed of tough and hardened criminals who do not hesitate to kill, assault, or use violence. They are equipped with modern pistols, bullet-proof vests, cars, etc. The gang criminal are efficient, disciplined but dangerous. Barnes and Teeters (1951:36) have said: “they live violently and expect violence.”Their activities are spread over a large geographical area, moving from place to place but reuniting at prearranged hideout. They are registered as hardened and habitual criminal in police records. These criminals are recruited from among ex-convicts, escaped murderers, professional gangsters, and high powered robbers. The Tyagi gangs in Delhi, the Radha Yadav gang in Champaran district Bihar, the Arun Gandhi gang in Bombay, the Vikram Singh gang in Uttar Pradesh, are some of the notorious gangs operating in different part of our country, and are engaged in robberies, kidnapping small children and wealthy individual to obtaining ransoms, murder, extortion and smuggling. There exist inter rivalries among most of these gangs. Some of the gangs are also affiliated to the syndicates, operating on a very large scale. Some gangs organize activities and brains to individuals and groups engaged in anti social activities, taking a cut of the loot or a fixed amount of money for the help rendered. The gangs float a score of satellite including restaurants, gambling dens and underworld messengers, Women and children, and hangers-on. In