Pathways into organized crime: comparing founders and joiners

Luke Kemp,Paul Gill,Sanaz Zolghadriha

doi:10.1007/s12117-019-09371-w

Abstract

This paper outlines research on the engagement processes and pathways into organised crime (OC). In recent years research on OC has increased, however there is still little understanding of how individuals become engaged in OC, and specifically whether differences exist in engagement patterns between certain groups of OC offenders. A content analysis was undertaken on the auto/biographies of one-hundred OC offenders to collect data on engagement processes. Quantitative analysis was used to identify significant differences in the engagement processes between OC offenders who join (‘joiners’) or form (‘founders’) an OC operation. The results revealed that measures pertaining to risk-factors, criminal trajectories, turning points, criminal motivations and social influences in engagement statistically differed between the groups. It was concluded that ‘founders’ were influenced by short-term criminal opportunities and economic considerations towards OC engagement, whilst ‘joiners’ were impacted more so by long-term social dynamics arising from ties and exposure to OC, such as one’s parents being engaged in OC. Both groups however, directly engaged through social dynamics. The current study provides preliminary findings which increase academic and practical understanding of the OC fraternity, but also the findings offer a basis on which to target legal interventions. Additionally, the new knowledge may be instrumental for building theories of OC engagement. Specifically, it is theorised that the circumstances in how ‘joiners’ become engaged in OC represents a ‘contagion process’.

Highlights

Our empirical understanding of the pathways into organized crime is limited in two large ways: (a) its homogenous treatment of offenders and (b) access to relevant data
Categorising seminal organised crime (OC) offences (n = 100) shows 28% were involved in violent offences upon their seminal OC crime,; 24% became involved in trafficking/transit crimes; 22% were involved in organised acquisitive crimes; 18% started their OC careers with Racketeering offences; and 8% became engaged in ‘Other’ crimes
They include a range of familial and neighbourhood risk factors as well as social benefits. These results indicate that joiners often have at least one family member who is connected to organised crime activities, and that they lived in neighbourhoods with a clear criminal code

Summary

Introduction

Our empirical understanding of the pathways into organized crime is limited in two large ways: (a) its homogenous treatment of offenders and (b) access to relevant data. The umbrella category of ‘organized criminal’ subsumes many types of offender that can be dichotomized in a number of ways (e.g. leader/follower, violent/non-violent) and across a number of offence-specific roles (e.g. money launderer, trafficker, enforcer and so on) Despite this heterogeneity in outcome, studies tend to treat all organized criminals and do not disaggregate on the dependent variable. There are many practical hurdles to research and the lack of access to systematic data looms large This is a problem shared within the terrorism studies literature. Terrorism-related articles began to make use of historiographical approaches with a particular emphasis on terrorist autobiographies (Altier et al 2012) This study utilizes such data gathering and analytical techniques on 100 organized criminals. This article makes contributes to the study of the organized criminal and advances our theoretical understanding of the organized criminal by not treating them as a homogenous entity

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion