NCJ Number
181741
Journal
Journal of Financial Crime Volume: 7 Issue: 2 Dated: November 1999 Pages: 147-154
Date Published
November 1999
Length
8 pages
Annotation
Many countries are experiencing increasing levels of concern about the threat that organized crime poses to the established political structures and processes.
Abstract
Four categories of corruption are bribes/kickbacks, election or campaign corruption, protection, and systemic top-down corruption. Western democracies tend to assume an ethnocentric universal template for what corruption is and what should be done about it. However, what is generally true about corruption and organized crime is that corruption is often necessary to facilitate the smooth interaction of the legal and illegal options of organized crime. Corruption is also part of a broader societal behavioral continuum. The level of political power that organized crime can wield is often crucial to the success of its activities. Three of the most widely acknowledged manifestations of the political power of organized crime are protection, repression, and mediation. Collaboration between governments and organized crime has a long history. The factors central to understanding this collaboration across time and cultures are the prevailing social structures, the contemporary political economy, and classifications and understandings of criminality. Countries have varying levels of commitment to addressing organized crime due to their diverse social, economic, political, and cultural considerations. The United States has been in the vanguard. However, legal, jurisdictional, and other constraints affect law enforcement efforts against organized crime in different ways in different countries. Issues that need further attention include the reasons that collaborative relationships develop between politicians and criminals, the factors that sustain or change these relationships, and what government and the private sector can do to affect these relationships. 16 references