Organised Crime Originating from Outlaw Motorcycle Clubs

Abstract

What constitutes organised crime, or how it should be defined, is a subject of intense debate (Korsell and Larsson 2011; Beare 2003; Edwards and Gill 2003). Part of the disagreement concerns whether organised crime is a phenomenon that should be defined on the basis of what characterises criminal organisations or what characterises organised criminals and their illegal activities. Taking the latter perspective as our starting point, we can at least say that it involves profit-oriented criminal activities with multiple participants who collaborate over time based on a degree of structure and role allocation. Much of our understanding (some would say the “social construct”) of the phenomenon of organised crime has traditionally been based on the Italian Mafia as a sort of archetype of a hierarchical criminal organisation (Cressey 1969). Recent analyses by both researchers and the police have shown that most of what we consider organised crime can better be understood as criminal networks rather than hierarchical organisational structures (Paoli 1998; Williams 1998; Klerks 2001; Korsell and Larsson 2011). Meanwhile, statutory provisions covering organised crime are often based on notions of fixed and hierarchical organisations. In reality, much of the organised crime such provisions seek to impact is often based on looser “project teams” originating from criminal networks that disband once the specific project has been completed.