The Governance of Organised Crime in Canada

Abstract

Abstract: The paper examines governance of in Canada as it developed over course of 1990s. It looks especially at micro-processes of knowledge construction about groups as it was carded in policing sector in Canada during period. On basis of empirical fieldwork, it describes in detail process of measuring threat of and explores its lacunae. The paper observes that object of governance that is is not all that can be. It argues further that what can be observed about governance of is more governance through crime. Resume: Cet article pone sur l'exercice des pouvoirs du organise au Canada pendant les annees 1990. Il s'attarde surtout aux microprocessus de la construction de connaissances sur les groupes de organise que le secteur du maintien de l'ordre au Canada utilisait pendant cette periode. En se basant sur du travail sur le terrain, l'auteur decrit en detail le processus qui consiste evaluer la menace de organise et en explore les lacunes. Il fait remarquer que l'objet de l'exercice des pouvoirs qu'est le organise, n'est pas si organise qu'il pourrait l'etre et que ce que l'on peut observer au sujet de cet exercice de pouvoirs relive plutot de l'exercice de pouvoirs au moyen de organise. Introduction Organised is notoriously difficult concept to define. As Dick Hobbs, of Britain's leading scholars in field, noted some time ago, when it comes to crime, the issue of definition threatens to kill off both description and debate (1997, p. 801). Organised crime, it can be confidently asserted, is of most contested terms in academic criminology. This is at least partly because the range of organizational and structural variations on this admittedly ambiguous theme is immense (ibid. p. 801). And yet, despite evident difficulties of arriving at consensus definition of term, it is a traditional object of criminology's attention and one that has always been within criminology's speculative horizon (Pavarini, 1994, p. 48, emphasis added). During decade of 1990s rising concerns were expressed within policy making and governmental circles of OECD countries about problem of crime, and especially transnational crime, and was consequent efflorescence of criminological work on topic (eg. Edwards and Gill, 2002a and 2002b; Beare, 2002) that did nothing to dispel definitional quagmire. Definitional vicissitudes notwithstanding, was marked tendency whereby became an object of governance, and this trend was, more or less, global. The purpose pursued here is not to try and explain why and transnational became matters of governmental concern during this period. That would be much bigger undertaking (see Sheptycki 2002 for wider discussion of these issues). Rather, aim is limited to describing way in which these phenomena were made an object of governance. This paper aims to uncover governmental technologies that have been brought to bear on fluid, manifold and diverse range of activities that academic criminologists have long struggled to discipline under heading of crime. It looks especially at knowledge processes of policing intelligence system and suggests that what we have become accustomed to thinking of as organised crime is, in fact, largely an institutional construction. In simple terms, argument is that is not so much something happening out there in society as it is product of institutionalised thinking that goes on in some of major social institutions that govern social life. As such, analysis pursued here is of general interest to sociologists, since it casts empirical light on some specific processes of knowledge construction and governance. …