Definitional analysis: the war on terror and organised crime
| Pages | 19-36 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/13685200510621217 |
| Published date | 01 January 2005 |
| Date | 01 January 2005 |
| Author | Angela Veng Mei Leong |
| Subject Matter | Accounting & finance |
De®nitional Analysis: The War on Terror and
Organised Crime
Angela Veng Mei Leong
INTRODUCTION
It is necessary to know what it is that is being fought
against before any useful discussion or appropriate
instruments can be derived. This paper discusses the
relationship from a de®nition point of view between
organised crime and terrorism, which is an important
area of research on the development and re®nement of
legal and other mechanisms in their control. One of
the major diculties preventing eective interdiction
is that the phenomena of organised crime and terror-
ism are fundamentally dicult to de®ne and often
overlap. Dierent theories and analysis are derived
based on how the two phenomena are de®ned.
Thus, a thorough understanding of the two concepts
is essential in order to generate appropriate and eec-
tive policy decisions for law enforcement agencies,
governments and international organisations. By
comparing the two concepts, similarities and dier-
ences in their origin, organisational structures and
activities are drawn. So, how `organised' is organised
crime and to what extent is terrorism an `organised'
crime?
PARADIGMS OF ORGANISED CRIME
Al Capone, Meyer Lansky and Lucky Luciano are
well-known organised crime ®gures in the USA and
have been the subjects of books and ®lms. Though
the term `organised crime' is frequently used, it
remains controversial because of the de®nitional
debates about the origin, organisation and activities
of organised crime, which are often clouded by the
Ma®a mystique. Various models, such as Cressey's
Cosa Nostra Model,
1
Albini's Patron-Client Model,
2
Smith's Enterprise Model,
3
Ianni's Kinship Network
Model,
4
Chambliss's Crime Network Model
5
and
Haller's Partnership Model,
6
are developed to under-
stand the organised crime phenomenon. Dierent
de®nitions are oered by politicians, law enforcement
ocials and scholars.
It is important to distinguish between the structures
of activity and structures of association.
7
There are
uncertainties between the oence and the oender in
de®ning organised crime, whether `organised crime'
is referring to an act or a group. On the one hand,
`organised crime' seems to refer to an act, that is a
speci®c set of crimes such as gambling, prostitution,
drug tracking, extortion etc. On the other hand, it
is sometimes said that there is the in®ltration of legit-
imate business by organised crime. It seems that
the term `organised crime', apart from referring to
the act, can also be used to refer to a group such
as the Ma®a, Triads or other secret societies. Indeed,
the term `organised' itself is problematic: does it
mean `well-planned' or `done by an organisation'? If
it refers to an act, how `well-planned' should it be
before it could be called organised crime? Likewise,
if it refers to a group, how big should the `organis-
ation' be? In fact, there is no standard about what
kinds of criminal act are organised crimes or when a
criminal group is organised.
8
Therefore, some law
enforcers and criminologists apply the term organised
crime to organised criminal activities and focus on
de®ning their actual activities. In other words, much
emphasis has been put on `crime' but little on `organ-
ised'. Other experts apply the term organised crime to
a group of people or an entity and emphasise the struc-
ture of these criminal groups. The focus seems to be on
the characteristics of groups or gangs participating in
organised crime instead of their activities.
Due to the confusion between oence and oender
in de®ning organised crime and the dierent focuses
in various de®nitions, it is dicult to generate a uni-
versal de®nition of organised crime, as this term
may mean dierent things to dierent societies.
Instead of trying to de®ne it, some common charac-
teristics
9
and certain attributes
10
of organised crime
are identi®ed, and groups of criminals having all or
most of the attributes or characteristics are referred
to as organised criminal organisations. As a result,
the term is often used interchangeably with pro-
fessional crime, organisational crime in legitimate
business, crime organised by criminal groups, crime
syndicates, Ma®a, racketeers, mobs, gangs, under-
world, secret societies and triads.
The de®nitions of organised crime are often
determined by the level of targeting within an
agency, ie a local police force would work to a
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dierent de®nition from a national body or an inter-
national organisation. Lacking a clear and precise de®-
nition of organised crime, it is indeed dicult to
determine the extent of the problem. But it does not
prevent the continuous eorts of the law enforcement
agencies in combating organised crime. Investigative
and prosecution tools, such as electronic surveillance,
informants, undercover agents, the use of wiretap
evidence in court, witness protection programmes,
witness immunity and special grand juries are adopted
to ®ght against organised crime.
Organised crime as nationwide
conspiracy
The earliest attempt to de®ne organised crime in the
USA was conducted by the Chicago City Council
Committee on Crime in 1915, followed by the
Kefauver Committee in 1951 and the McClellan
Committee in 1963. However, no speci®c de®nition
of organised crime was given at those times. It was
only in 1967 that the US President's Commission on
Law Enforcement and Administration of Justice
armed the `ocial' position of La Cosa Nostra or
Ma®a, and oered a de®nition of organised crime
which described it as:
`a society that seeks to operate outside the control of
the American people and their government. It
involves thousands of criminals, working within
structures as complex as those of any large corpor-
ation, subject to laws more rigidly enforced than
those of legitimate governments. Its actions are
not impulsive but rather the result of intricate con-
spiracies, carried over many years and aimed at
gaining control over whole ®elds of activity in
order to amass huge pro®ts. The core of organized
crime activity is the supplying of illegal goods and
services Ð gambling, loan-sharking, narcotics,
and other forms of vice Ð to countless numbers
of citizen customers.'
11
Since then, organised crime has been identi®ed as a
nationwide, centralised, hierarchical and rationally
designed criminal organisation which is very similar
to Max Weber's ideal type of legal-rational bureauc-
racy. Each family is headed by the `boss', followed
by the `underboss', `caporegime' and `soldiers'.
12
It is
believed that the Ma®a is alien to American society
and seen as a conspiracy, whose aim is to in®ltrate, cor-
rupt and control that society. Furthermore, the Ma®a
is alleged to participate in all kinds of illegal activities,
and violence is readily used. Law enforcers believe that
the problem could be solved through vigorous prose-
cution and incarceration of the leaders of organised
crime. Due to the widespread belief in the existence
of a nationwide conspiracy, the establishment of
powerful prosecution tools is justi®ed, including the
Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act 1968,
Organized Crime Control Act 1970 and the Racke-
teer In¯uenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO)
provisions.
13
A vague de®nition is found in the Omnibus Crime
Control and Safe Streets Act 1968 which states that
`organized crime means the unlawful activities of the
members of a highly organized, disciplined association
engaged in supplying illegal goods and services,
including but not limited to gambling, prostitution,
loan sharking, narcotics, labor racketeering, and
other unlawful activities of members of such organiz-
ations'.
The concept of a nationwide conspiracy is rein-
forced in the Organized Crime Control Act 1970:
`Organized crime in the United States is a highly
sophisticated, diversi®ed, and widespread activity
that annually drains billions of dollars from Amer-
ica's economy by unlawful conduct and illegal use
of force, fraud, and corruption; organized crime
derives a major portion of its power through
money obtained from such illegal endeavors as
syndicated gambling, loan sharking, the theft and
fencing of property, the importation and distri-
bution of narcotics and other dangerous drugs,
and other forms of social exploitation; this money
and power are increasingly used to in®ltrate and
corrupt our democratic processes; organized crime
activities in the United States weaken the stability
of the Nation's economic system, harm innocent
investors and competing organizations, interfere
with free competition, seriously burden interstate
and foreign commerce, threaten the domestic
security and undermine the general welfare of the
nation and it citizens.'
In President Reagan's Commission on Organized
Crime in 1983, other organised crime groups, includ-
ing outlaw motorcycle gangs, Colombian cartels, the
Japanese Yakuza, and Russian gangs, were added to
the list besides La Cosa Nostra. However, this narrow
theory of conspiracy has undermined the true nature
of organised crime and restricted the law enforcement
agencies in a particular type of prevention strategy. It
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