Impact of Organized Crime

Organized Crime and Its Impact
What are some of the ways that organized crime impacts you and a community or city (of your choice) directly?
Organized crime details a conspiracy among criminal elements who wish to enter into an enterprise engaged in illegal activities as a way of generating dirty money (Dirks & Snyman, 2010). An organized crime is organized as a group with a structure that is similar to some pyramid hierarchy. The groups employ bribery and violence to ensure their operations continue. They also use retribution threats to ensure they maintain external and internal control in the community, and mobilization and thievery to acquire political power during campaigns in order to get immunity from prosecution and exposure (Dirks & Snyman, 2010). The activities of organized crime groups include gun running, kidnapping to get ransom, vehicle theft, smuggling, racketeering, prostitution, pornography, fraud related to credit cards, illegal gambling, narcotics trade, and insurance fraud.
Organized crime has domestic and global consequences on the economy, political environment, social environment, and commercial environments. Financial security, safety systems, and healthcare are some of the most adversely affected areas by organized crime. Economic crimes from organized crime have monumental financial consequences on any society. Organized crime consequences extend beyond monetary consequences as well. Corruption, intimidation, and violence are primary characteristics of organized crime. Organized crime will characteristically affect the security and solace of any community, neighborhood, and home. Human rights to order, good governance, and peace are fundamentally affected by organized crime activities. Organized crime corrupts the political system as well as the governance structure of any society, diminishes the life quality of the community, puts the security of the people at risk, and disrupts family life.
As an individual, organized crime has made it very hard to live in a secure, safe, and cohesive neighborhood. Normal commercial activity is slowed down because potential investors think it is very risky to start business or run already existing business enterprises. Organized crime leads the society of the ability to flourish. With organized crime the society becomes lawless especially when the organized criminal groups have taken control over the political and economic environments. Where the organized crime group is dominant, most people in the community who are not part of the organized crime group end up finding it hard to live their life normally.
In the American society transnational organized crime groups involved in drug smuggling and drug trafficking have infiltrated the American society with cocaine, heroin and other drugs of abuse (Spapens, 2015). This has had a significant impact on the way people live their lives. Young people have been enticed into drug addiction hence making their lives miserable. When young people sink into drug use and drug trafficking they become less productive therefore negatively affecting the economy of the community and the entire nation.
Organized crime in the City of Chicago has been evolving for many years and organized crime was blamed for the many murders when Al Capone was the alive. Today, street gangs have taken over Chicago. During the 1020s Chicago experienced dangerous crime (McCauley, 2015). During the season there were close to 25 deaths every month (McCauley, 2015). Today, it is worse because there are forty to fifty deaths occurring through shooting in Chicago every month. Robert Lombardo, a former police officer in Chicago reiterated that most criminal problems are associated with gangs and drugs (McCauley, 2015). The criminal group dynamics in Chicago seem to have evolved today according to Lombardo (McCauley, 2015).
What are some of the ways that law enforcement agencies are working to reduce these types of organized crime in the area you chose?
After an incident where an excess of 40 people got shot in Chicago, the office of the mayor in collaboration with the police department came up with a strategy aimed at streamlining the coordination of activities between law enforcement and city departments. This would allow the two departments to collaborate in the sharing of intelligence information and resources necessary in curbing of gang violence (Childress, 2012). Chicago has close to 60 gangs with more than 6000 factions splintered from the gangs. Most of the murders in 2011 involved young African-American men who in their teen age or in their early 20s. The young men were shot dead by fellow gang members in incidents that were gang related. Victims of the shooting and the killers had some history of crime related arrests.
The strategy used to combat the crime was seen as reactive therefore needing some immediate review. It was important to have strategies that help the young men get out of the criminal groups. One of the strategies employed was to issue warnings to the leaders of the criminal gangs with information that their cohorts would be faced with harsh penalties like serving jail time in state facilities and federal prisons (Childress, 2012). The city and the police are also planning to provide programs aimed at helping members of the gang to find some employment or complete their GED as alternatives to remaining in street crime. The police also established some database for the purpose of compiling gang members’ related data and the affiliate groups. This would help law enforcement members to keep up with the shifting organized crime alliances (Childress, 2012).
There is no clarity as to whether this plan is workable especially because most other strategies have had no significant impact. There were suggestions to directly involve the affected communities like schools, universities, and the local community in order to safeguard the security of the police and the community. The city has also planned an investment of more resources to facilitate ceasefire. The strategy has had some remarkable success in alleviation of violence. The strategy allows gang members to arbitrate conflicts and hence dissolve any tensions in the community where tensions are high (Childress, 2012).
Have these efforts been successful? Why or why not?
The new strategies are not reactive but proactive. These strategies have been proven to have some positive impact in the society. They have helped alleviate any tensions in the community, reduce the number of deaths, and resolve conflicts between criminal gangs. The funds set aside by the City have made it possible to expand the scope of work into more Chicago neighborhoods (Childress, 2012).The participation and support of the community has been fundamental in the reduction of violence. Often violence has been synonymous with Chicago.
Compare your findings to the effects of organized crime in China, Japan, Saudi Arabia, England, France, and Germany on their people. What similarities or differences exist? Explain.
The levels of organized crime in countries like Saudi Arabia, Japan, and China are significantly lower than Chicago. This is because the youths have been given no space to be idle or hang around and about without any constructive responsibilities. The communities in these countries have also remained vigilant reporting any suspicious activities to the law enforcement authorities. In Germany the influx of asylum seekers and widespread political extremism has given rise to organized crime against asylum seekers and against rival political groups. Organized crime in England may entail credit card fraud, drug smuggling, child trafficking etc. (Perry, 2018). In most of these countries organized crime is not as high compared to Chicago. The only similarities are that in all circumstances insecurity, poor economic performance, and deterioration of quality of life are sure consequences of rampant growth in organized crime.
References
Childress, S., (2012).What Will It Take to Stop Gang Violence in Chicago? PBS. Retrieved 2, January 2019, from https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/what-will-it-take-to-stop- gang-violence-in-chicago/
Dirks, D., & Snyman, H. F. (2010). Organized Crime. In Encyclopedia of Violence, Peace, and Conflict (pp. 1408–1418). Elsevier Inc. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-012373985- 8.00119-7
McCauley, T., (2015). Mobs to Gangs: The Evolution of Chicago’s Organized Crime, Loyala Phoenix. Retrieved 2, January 2019, from http://loyolaphoenix.com/2015/12/35774-2/
Perry, A., (2018). Organized crime in the UK is bigger than ever before. Can the police catch up? The Guardian. Retrieved 2, January 2019, from https://www.theguardian.com/uk- news/2018/nov/22/uk-organised-crime-can-police-catch-up-national-crime-agency-lynne- owens
Spapens, T. (2015). Transnational Organized Crime. In International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences: Second Edition (pp. 596–601). Elsevier Inc. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-08-097086-8.45091-9