Session 9
Paoli, L., & Fijnaut, C. (2006). OC and its control policies. European Journal
of Crime, Criminal Law and Criminal Justice, 14 (3), 307-327.
– Till 1980s: European countries, besides Italy, felt unaffected by OC changed
o 1. Directly effect on the activities and perpetrators associated with OC, i.e.
illegal drug and human smuggling industries
o 2. Indirectly, by the causes of globalization, the fall of the Iron Curtain, the
completion of the internal market, and the abolition of internal border
controls within the countries of the European Community.
– Murders of Judges and Bomb attacks – OC – led to a sense of insecurity and public
anxiety
– OC crime has been stigmatized as a ‘folk devil' and became a powerful political
instrument to justify criminal law and criminal justice reforms.
– Concept of OC -> (a) provision of illegal good and services, (b) a criminal
organization: a large-scale entity primarily engaged in illegal activities with a well-
defined collective identity and subdivision of work among its members
– US mafia-centered view: OC was like a nationwide, centralized criminal
organization dominating the most profitable illegal markets, which allegedly derived
from an analogous parallel Sicilian organization and was headed by and, to a great
extent, consisted of migrants of Italian origin
o 1960s – Social scientist rejected this view was ideological, serving personal
political interests, and lacking in accuracy and empirical evidence
o 1970s – Illegal enterprise/ supply of illegal products and services: a continuing
enterprise operating in a rational fashion and focused toward obtaining
profits through illegal activities
– Also, in Europe: OC was an enterprise
– 1990s – Call for increase of the power of domestic law enforcement agencies and to
enhance international police and judicial co-operation & the transnational
dimension of OC been strongly emphasized
o However, obscuring the fact that most OC activities are anchored locally
– Scholars in Italy distinct the Italian mafia groups and other more businesslike forms of
organized qua enterprise crime
o The mafia has been viewed as ‘a specific economic enterprise, an industry
which produces, promotes, and sells private protection'
o Others emphasized the cultural and political dimension: ritualized secret
brotherhoods
o Most important functions: exercise of political dominion within their
communities