NCJ Number
184810
Date Published
December 1999
Length
8 pages
Annotation
This paper examines some of the issues related to transnational organized crime.
Abstract
This working paper was prepared for the 10th United Nations Congress on the Prevention of Crime and the Treatment of Offenders, April 2000. The paper presents definitions of transnational organized crime and describes concerns surrounding the growth of this type of crime. It also examines some controversial issues arising from research. Those issues include the extent to which more economically advanced countries foster transnational crime and the fact that transnational crime is seen by many officials as the result of the growing numbers and variety of individuals and groups reaching more economically advanced countries, groups perceived as being difficult to control and resistant to integration. It is also controversial whether organized criminal groups teach or learn from deviant entrepreneurs and politicians. In brief, the encounter between transnational organized crime and the official economy is not the result of an unnatural relationship between a harmonious entity and a dysfunctional one. Rather, it amounts to a joint undertaking of two loosely regulated worlds, both deviating from the rules they officially establish for themselves. Notes