Fighting Organized Crime: Tactics, Laws, and Strategies
This paper examines the nature of transnational organized crime (TOC) and the primary strategies governments employ to combat it. It begins by defining organized crime, outlining its diverse structures, profit-driven motives, and wide-ranging criminal activities — from drug trafficking and human trafficking to cybercrime and money laundering. The paper then analyzes three key counter-strategies: prosecuting criminal organization members using statutes like the RICO Act, targeting kingpin leaders to destabilize criminal networks, and educating ordinary citizens to recognize and report suspicious activity. Drawing on FBI data, legal scholarship, and policy literature, the paper evaluates the effectiveness and limitations of each approach.
- Introduction: The Scope of Organized Crime: Defines TOC, its structures, motives, and criminal activities
- Prosecuting Members: The RICO Statute: How RICO law dismantled major crime families
- Prosecuting Kingpins: The Headhunting Strategy: Targeting leaders to destabilize criminal networks
- Educating Citizens to Combat Organized Crime: Public awareness as a foundation for fighting crime
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What makes this paper effective
- Grounds abstract concepts in concrete examples, such as the dismantling of all five New York mafia families through RICO convictions, which makes complex legal mechanisms accessible to a general reader.
- Balances advocacy with critical perspective — notably by including scholarly criticism of the kingpin strategy, demonstrating awareness that no single tactic is a complete solution.
- Moves logically from broad definition and context to increasingly specific policy interventions, giving the argument a clear and coherent progression.
Key academic technique demonstrated
The paper demonstrates effective use of authoritative sourcing — drawing on FBI publications, Department of Justice legal analysis, and UNODC policy documents — to substantiate each claim before introducing critical counterarguments. This source-then-critique structure is a reliable model for policy analysis writing.
Structure breakdown
The paper opens with a definitional and contextual introduction covering TOC's scope, motives, and methods. It then moves through three distinct sections, each addressing one counter-strategy: RICO-based prosecution of criminal organizations as a whole, targeted prosecution of leadership figures, and public education campaigns. Each section introduces the tactic, explains its rationale, and evaluates its strengths or weaknesses.
Introduction: The Scope of Organized Crime
Organized crime today takes a variety of forms. Some entities and collectives are domestic to the United States exclusively, while many operate at the transnational level because that is the most lucrative for the criminals involved. Consider the following definition: "Transnational organized crime (TOC) groups are self-perpetuating associations of individuals who operate, wholly or in part, by illegal means and irrespective of geography. They constantly seek to obtain power, influence, and monetary gains" (FBI.gov, 2016). As the FBI explains, organized crime can operate within a wide variety of structures — from small single cells, to interconnected cells spread across a nation, to networks, clans, and hierarchies that may develop into other manifestations.
These collectives are generally exceedingly private and work to safeguard their operations through intimidation, violence, bribery, international exchanges, and commercial structures capable of undermining national laws and codes (FBI.gov, 2016). The primary objective for virtually all organized crime entities is money, since wealth brings power and influence. Generating profit becomes the singular goal, and there are numerous methods, schemes, and rackets in place — most of them illegal — designed to achieve it. "Crimes such as drug trafficking, migrant smuggling, human trafficking, money laundering, firearms trafficking, illegal gambling, extortion, counterfeit goods, wildlife and cultural property smuggling, and cybercrime are keystones within TOC enterprises" (FBI.gov, 2016).
These crimes do not exist in a vacuum. They impact legitimate businesses and law-abiding economies, and can have an indelible corrupting effect on government leaders and others working in an official capacity (FBI.gov, 2016). It is not uncommon for these criminal organizations to bribe or otherwise place government officials on their payroll, viewing it as a business expense to ensure their illicit activities can continue indefinitely.
Cells and networks of organized crime are vast and operate across the globe. With the advent of the internet, it has become increasingly easy to execute plans and coordinate operations from anywhere in the world. As the FBI notes, "the extent of their presence within a particular area does not necessarily reflect the degree of the threat they pose" (FBI.gov, 2016). More and more organized crime groups are incorporating cybercrime techniques to facilitate a wide range of unlawful acts, from internet auction fraud and illegal gambling to other forms of classic criminal activity.
Organized crime networks operate beneath the surface of ordinary daily life and commerce. Quietly and illicitly, massive profits from these industries are amassed, untaxed, and largely invisible to the public. Even though most people are unaware of these criminal conglomerates, they affect numerous aspects of health and national security. "It jeopardizes our border security, endangers our health through human trafficking and counterfeit pharmaceuticals, and seeks to corrupt officials domestically and abroad" (FBI.gov, 2016). More aggressive action is needed to dismantle these entities in order to protect national security, international alliances, and the future. This paper examines three of the main ways that governments around the world attempt to combat organized crime: prosecuting members, targeting kingpins, and educating citizens.
References
Brown, R. (2011, July 27). Federal agents raid massage parlor in Overleaf. Retrieved from http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2011-07-27/news/bs-md-co-overlea-brothel-20110727_1_massage-parlor-belair-road-raid/2
FBI.gov. (2016, May 3). Organized crime. Retrieved from https://www.fbi.gov/investigate/organized-crime
Justice.gc.ca. (n.d.). 4. Organized crime control strategies and their effectiveness — Assessing the effectiveness of organized crime control strategies: A review of the literature. Retrieved from http://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/rp-pr/csj-sjc/jsp-sjp/rr05_5/p5.html
UNODC.org. (n.d.). Let's put organized crime out of business: What's being done and how you can help. Retrieved from https://www.unodc.org/toc/en/whatsbeingdone.html
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