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Drug Enforcement, Vice Control, and
Organized Crime

PLTCOL JOSE C COBALLES

 DRUG ENFORCEMENT, VICE CONTROL, AND ORGANIZED CRIME

Lessons
Week 14

Theoretical background of Organized Crime

a. Criminal psychology
b. Critical criminology and sociology
 DRUG ENFORCEMENT, VICE CONTROL, AND ORGANIZED CRIME

Theoretical background
1. Criminal psychology
a. Rational choice
• the role of criminal organizations in lowering
the perceptions of risk and increasing the
likelihood of personal benefit is prioritized
• it ignores that in addition to financial gains,
people commit crimes for the need of
acceptance, respect, and trust by others

e.g., white-collar crime. An investment banker decides to skim money from his clients' accounts and hides the loss, and
then personally takes the money to fund his/her lavish lifestyle
 DRUG ENFORCEMENT, VICE CONTROL, AND ORGANIZED CRIME

Theoretical background
1. Criminal psychology

b. Deterrence
• the perceived strength, importance or
infallibility of OC is directly proportional to
the types of crime committed, their intensity
and level of community response

• the benefits of participating in OC contribute

greatly to the psychology behind highly
organized group offending

e.g., that person is said to be deterred by the fear of a sanction or penalty, in this case, an arrest
 DRUG ENFORCEMENT, VICE CONTROL, AND ORGANIZED CRIME

Theoretical background
1. Criminal psychology

c. Social Learning
• the success of organized crime is dependent
upon the strength of their communication and
the enforcement of value systems, the
recruitment and training processes
• close associations between criminals, imitation
of superiors, and understanding of value
systems, processes and authority as the main
drivers behind organized crime

e.g., an individual who witnesses someone they respect committing a crime, who is then reinforced for that crime, is
then more likely to commit a crime themselves.
 DRUG ENFORCEMENT, VICE CONTROL, AND ORGANIZED CRIME

Theoretical background
1. Criminal psychology

d. Enterprise
• organized crime exists because legitimate
markets leave many customers and potential
customers unsatisfied

• low level of risk detection and high profits

lead to a conducive environment for
entrepreneurial criminal groups

include bootlegging (secret drinking clubs and liqour distilleries), human trafficking, and money laundering
 DRUG ENFORCEMENT, VICE CONTROL, AND ORGANIZED CRIME

Theoretical background
1. Criminal psychology

d. Enterprise
• legal substitution of goods or services may
force the dynamic of organized criminal
operations to adjust
• deterrence measures (reducing demand)
• the restriction of resources (controlling the
ability to supply or produce to supply)
• high demand for a particular good or service
(e.g. drugs, prostitution, arms, slaves)
 DRUG ENFORCEMENT, VICE CONTROL, AND ORGANIZED CRIME

Theoretical background
1. Criminal psychology

e. Differential Association
• the ability to effect social norms and practices
through political and economic influence

• preoccupation with methods of accumulating

profit highlight the lack of legitimate means
to achieve economic or social advantage
 DRUG ENFORCEMENT, VICE CONTROL, AND ORGANIZED CRIME

Theoretical background

2. Critical criminology and sociology

a. Social Disorganization
• intended to be applied to neighborhood level
street crime

• upper and lower-classes live in close proximity

this can result in feelings of anger, hostility,
social injustice and frustration
 DRUG ENFORCEMENT, VICE CONTROL, AND ORGANIZED CRIME

Theoretical background
2. Critical criminology and sociology

a. Social Disorganization
• criminals experience poverty and witness
affluence they are deprived of and which is
virtually impossible for them to attain
through conventional means

• fear of or lack of trust in mainstream

authority may also be a key contributor
 DRUG ENFORCEMENT, VICE CONTROL, AND ORGANIZED CRIME

Theoretical background
2. Critical criminology and sociology

b. Anomie (isolation)
• criminality becomes attractive when
expectations of being able to fulfill goals by
legitimate means cannot be fulfilled

• criminal organizations capitalize on states of

normlessness by imposing criminogenic
needs and illicit avenues to achieve them
 DRUG ENFORCEMENT, VICE CONTROL, AND ORGANIZED CRIME

Theoretical background
2. Critical criminology and sociology

c. Cultural Deviance
• criminals violate the law because they belong
to a unique subculture
• the counter-culture - their values and norms
conflicting

Slum dwellers are forced to violate the law because they obey the rules of the deviant culture in order to fit into their
 DRUG ENFORCEMENT, VICE CONTROL, AND ORGANIZED CRIME

Theoretical background
2. Critical criminology and sociology

d. Alien conspiracy/queer ladder of mobility

• states that ethnicity and 'outsider' status and
their influences are thought to dictate the
prevalence of organize crime in society

• Bell Queer ladder of mobility theory. - that sucession develops as one group relplaces the other on the queer ladder of
crime, while the eariler group moves on to respectability along with legitimate social status and livelihood.