Public reputation and organised crime: explicating the relationship between racket subcultures and informal social control

Abstract

This paper examines the influence of traditional organised crime on informal social control in community areas that once had a presence of organised crime while controlling for neighbourhood attachment, satisfaction with the police, social and organisational ties, and tolerance of deviance. The data comes from the Community Survey of the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods. The comparative quantitative method was used to analyse the data. The findings indicate that neighbourhoods with an historic reputation for organised crime can report higher levels of informal social control when compared to current racket areas in the city of Chicago. These findings have important implications for the study of deviance. Not only do they suggest that criminals can play an important role in controlling street crime, the findings also suggest that this public reputation remains long after organised crime activities have ceased in the area.