The politicians and law enforcement agencies need to remember that the gangs must be targeted and attacked as a whole, and not to single out a certain individual within the group. Gangs have chapters or cells all over the U.S. and abroad. Gangs tend to center themselves under a strict “street code”, that if you break, or interrupt, usually leads to some sort of attack or even taking someone’s life. The main objectives of gangs is to set out to earn money, or to maintain some means of financial gain, to help aid the gang and its members for whatever they desire. The other most important goal of a gang is to gain turf.
I would describe organized crime as groups of people taking the time to commit criminal activity without being caught by law enforcement officers. I have in the past thought about the mafia or drug cartels concerning organized crime. I had never given much thought to gangs being a part of organized crime. Many organized crime groups have law enforcement and politicians on their payroll, which disturbs me. The very people whose job is to protect society will deceive people to make illegal money.
While the criminal justice practitioner can slow the offenders down they will never be able to completely stop organized crime, human trafficking and drug trafficking. Organized Crime Organized crime is a term used to describe a group or ring of people who commit fraud, extortion, or any other illegal activity. The main goal of this group is money making through holding power and having the ability to control people and their circumstances. Member’s focus on anything from money lending, to drug and human trafficking. Members of groups like this are usually family but not always and they will sometimes have a small business to disguise what they do for a living.
Effects of Organized Crime on Our Society Stephanie Garner Martin Methodist College CJ 360 Effects of Organized Crime on Our Society Organized crime is a group of people who commit various levels of criminal actions along with having some type of criminal relationship with public officials or lawyers (Woodiwiss, 2005). Organized crime was not always in the United States. Sicilian and Italian mafia members became prominent in the United States around the time of prohibition (Woodiwiss, 2005). There are many different words people use to describe organized crime. The most used one is mafia, which is a term from Sicily meaning a secret criminal society (Nicaso & Danesi, 2013).
Engl 101 July 1, 2012 THE CURES AND CAUSES OF AMERICAN GANGS Gangs are a violent reality in today's cities. Why do they exist? What makes children feel that being in a gang is a desirable, acceptable, and prestigious way to live? The long-range answer to these questions can only be speculated upon, but the short term answers are much easier to find. Superficially, gangs are a direct result of human beings' personal desires and peer pressure.
In my own words, I would describe organized crimes as people who gather together to form a group of personalized opinions which are all the same in beliefs, wants and needs. They are all focused on acquiring and maintaining money, power, and loyalty by any means necessary. As I looked up other definitions of organized crimes, our studies define organized crimes as a group of people who forms and organization and commit crimes in an organized way. By forming a chameleon-like organization disguised as a business of some sort, this makes it difficult to identify who they really are. Although today they are more organized, they are still very violent and will do in some cases whatever it takes to maintain their freedom and get the job done (Lyman, M. D., & Potter, G. W., 2007).
So when applying social institution status on organized crime is because organized crime exhibits the same characteristics as some of the examples giving for social institutions. Again organized crime does the opposite of what the other social institution have done and continue to do, but it does resemble the same traits in producing productive criminal individuals for the organizations. For this reason many persons are drawn to organized crime because it exhibits value for those persons, whereas in other areas those persons feel rejected (Lyman & Potter, 2007). The next part of
Social Organized Crime Perspective Social institution is a group of people organized to achieve their goals. A social institution perspective is one who views communities as a collection of these social institutions and views the residents of the community as their members (Carlie, 2002). Social institutions are applied to organized crime in several ways. Warren (1973) defines community as “that combination of social units and systems which perform the major social functions having locality relevance.” The community’s organization is recognized by the social activities, rather than geographic or legal boundaries (Lyman & Potter, 2007). Organized crime represents a continuing, profit-motivated, criminal enterprise that employs the use of fear, violence, intimidation, and public corruption to achieve organizational goals and remain immune to law enforcement (Lyman & Potter, 2007).
Most common people would look at these organization leaders as heroes. Criminals like Al Capone, Bonnie and Clyde, and John Dillinger were most prominently looked at by the people in this era. Criminal organizations kept their illegal operations secret, and member’s conferred by word of mouth. Any gangs that became sufficiently systematic were called organized. The act of engaging in criminal activity as a structured group is referred to in the United States as racketeering.
Throughout the history of the criminal justice systems, entrapment has played a big role with police officers. Entrapment is an improper or illegal inducement to crime by agents of the law enforcement, also a defense that may be raised when such inducements have occurred (Schmalleger). “Governmental bribe of criminal movement is usually viewed as essential for effective law enforcement. Especially when the government is seeking to prosecute persons engaged in crimes committed in secret among willing participants, for example; drug offenses, bribery, receipt of stolen property, and trafficking in pornography”(Carlson p.614). These are some of the movements police officers would try to bribe criminals to get involved in.