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Organized Crime and its Stranglehold on the World Nuclear terrorism against the United States is one of the most likely outcomes of the post-cold war time period. At least according to Americans surveyed it is (United 1). These weapons are now readily available to anyone with enough money to purchase them thanks to the surplus of weapons located in Russia, and the Russian Mafias uncanny skills in acquiring these weapons (United 3). How organized crime was allowed arrive at this stage of power is a mystery.
Peter Lupsha of the University of New Mexico writes that because organized crime is a process there is no real date or time that organized crime originated (Robertson 33). However in the case of Russia, where organized crime was dormant for many years and then suddenly erupted into a national epidemic, a date can be placed on the point of upheaval. Organized crime was slowly building its power with minimal activities and then exploded with the fall of Communism (Kerry 22). American organized crime, on the other hand, can be traced back to the birth of the United States, when freedom and the constant human struggle for increased profits combined (Robertson 33). It slowly gained followers up to the 20 s where it then exploded into major business. It has since expanded into a worldwide operation threatening to corrupt entire governments and running very profitable businesses (United 3).
Law enforcement techniques of the past have been sidestepped by crime groups allowing for a growing and increasingly active crime wave which has forced policing changes. Organized crime groups growth and power are out of control and new law enforcement techniques and strategies are hoped to put an end to this Most organized crime groups follow a structured line of hierarchy. This line of power is the organized in organized crime, which aids in its growth and power (Beare 1). Even crime groups with lower levels of organization, such as the Russian Mafia, all have a certain way of grouping members (Finckenauer 232).
An example of this hierarchy is the Sicilian Mafia, or La Cosa Nostra. All of its members are divided into separate but supposedly equal families. Currently there are over twenty different families stationed in specific cities nationwide. Each of these families are under control of a boss, or capo, who has the final say in just about everything involving his family.
Each boss has his own appointed counselor. These counselors are generally older, partially retired mobsters with enough experience in crime to advise the boss in the running his family. Next in line is the undergoes, also know as a sotto capo. They are generally known as the books right hand man, and are always on the books side.
The rest of the family is broken up into smaller groups, each being led by a captain. The captains in turn have control over the soldiers, which are the lowest ranking official members of the mob. These smaller groups are the ones that carry out the books wishes, and many of the captains have there own illegal businesses that they run. This chain of command is what keeps the bosses relatively clean of committing crimes, in turn keeping the family, and La Cosa Nostra as a whole running (Harris 14 - 16). Every mob group runs businesses that help bring in and launder large amounts of money.
Businesses range from the obvious: drug trafficking and making, and the newly emerging: health care fraud; either way every business makes large sums of money (New 1, 2). Many of these businesses thrive on that fact that they are illegal, and they are the only group offering the service in a certain city (Ferris 1, 2). Loan sharking is one of the more prevalent businesses as it is a part of nearly all criminal organizations. These sharks loan money to people who can not obtain money legally, and want the loan immediately. Another perk to using a loan shark is that no collateral is required to acquire the cash. The sharks make their money off of illegally high interest rates (Albanese 8).
These astounding rates range from thirty to upwards of two hundred percent. Repayment of loans is ensured with violence towards anyone owing money as refusal to pay often leads in death, or severe destruction (Harris 72 - 75). This destruction is also seen in another area of criminal groups businesses, drugs, and the death and destruction is obvious. One of the biggest moneymakers for organized crime groups is in the drug making and distribution businesses.
In fact it is estimated that the drug industry accounts for over eight percent of the entire worlds economy, or 400 billion dollars. Nearly a quarter of this striking amount comes from trafficking (trading, or selling from place to place) alone (United 4, 19). Amazingly this problem is on the rise. With the new found ties between Colombian drug cartels and both the Sicilian and Russian Mafias, the profits and destruction caused by the drugs can only go up (Kerry 29). The power and influence of organized crime are unmatched by any other group of people in the world. The reasons for this immense power are innumerable, ranging from pure number of people willing to commit crimes to the strict code of conduct that most crime groups require.
The most influential reason, though, is corruption of police forces (Kerry 29). In nearly all countries the police are the ones that do the investigating and arresting of crimes and criminals. When this line of defense is corrupted neither of these necessary steps happen, and crime groups are free to do as they please. An example is organized crime in China. The Triads, one of the major Asian crime groups, have been in the crime business for over two hundred years.
However it was not until 1975 that American crime agencies began to conceive that they were a threat, and were soon found to be criminally worse than the Sicilian mob. Triad groups located in San Francisco's China Town are said to be getting worse. The city is doing very little to stop them as the police are a major part of the problem. The corruption has also made undercover police work harder. Fewer and fewer agents are willing to go against the Triads and become undercover agents (Robertson 54, 58, 64).
The crime wave throughout Russia is astounding. Russia has essentially been overtaken by organized crime in every aspect of life, over one thousand cases of corruption in the government in the first quarter of this year (1000 1). In 1993 and 1994 Russian government officials accepted around 100 billion dollars in bribes (Waller and Yasmann 2). According to Arnaud De Borchgrave, the senior advisor of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, two thirds of Russias economy is under sway of organized crime (United 17). Unfortunately the corruption does not stop there. It has been reported that criminal groups in Russia now have access to the surplus of weapons created during the Cold War.
These weapons, such as earth to air missiles, combat helicopters and submarines, were designed with only one purpose, mass destruction, and that destruction is now available to anyone with enough money (United 9). These same groups have also long since moved into recruiting former KGB agents. KGB agents, trained in the arts of gaining information, carrying out murders in secrecy, and protecting anyone or anything they are told, add to the power of criminal groups by lending their expertise to the highest bidder (United 8, 9). These examples show only a fraction of the overall power the Russian Mafia exerts, as their ties and capabilities are improving and expanding more and more each day. As seen the Russian Mafia alone has more than enough power to be an influence on a global scale; factor in criminal groups of smaller size and equal potential found in every ethnicity in the world and the influence of organized crime is unparalleled (Kelly 34). The corruption in Asia, for example, rivals that of Russia.
Chinas criminal groups, the Triads and their Japanese counterparts the Yakuza, are said to be the most effective crime organization in the world and according to Frank Robertson, the author of Triangle of Death, the Triads are more efficient than the Mafias dreams (54). The power of these Chinese groups comes from the lawlessness they operate in. This lack of policing is worsened by the extreme scarcity of undercover law enforcement agents. The Triads do extensive background checks on every new member making it incredibly hard to infiltrate their system.
Because of this, law agencies have minimal information on how the Triads and other Asian crime groups operate, and what kinds of business they run (Robertson 56 - 58). The crime wave has also spread across the Pacific Ocean into Latin America, and the business there is drugs. Drug cartels are corrupting governments from the inside out, extending all the way to the Presidents. Criminal organizations are found throughout Latin America, the worst of which are located in Colombia and Mexico. The governments in these crime infested countries are in shambles, leaving the door wide open for massive amounts of criminal activity (Kerry 2...
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Research essay sample on Organized Crime And Its Stranglehold On The World
