NCJ Number
175770
Journal
Howard Journal of Criminal Justice Volume: 37 Issue: Dated: Pages: 0-438
Date Published
1998
Length
16 pages
Annotation
This study examines how credit-card fraudsters address the barriers to the commission of their crimes and how the organization of fraud prevention affects both their techniques and their organization.
Abstract
This article focuses on two aspects of organized crime at opposite ends of the spectrum of serious crime. The first section summarizes preliminary findings from Hobbs and Dunnighan that relate to traditional local neighborhood organized crime in two areas of England: Upton and Downton. The second section profiles some organized-crime personnel and suggests that for a contemporary understanding of organized crime, the criminal career trajectories suggested by life histories emphasize characteristics of the current serious crime market that require a different reading from that required of the traditional model. The author argues that the dialectic between the local and the global substantiates the indirect nature of the power wielded by large multinationals crime groups. There are elements of flexibility, autonomy, and independence that were absent during previous eras dominated by increasingly arcane institutions such as the mob, the firm, or the gang. Trading relationships between coalitions of criminals of different national origins involves a coagulation of local interests. It is at the local level that organized crime manifests itself as a visible, tangible process of activity; however, research indicates that there are wide variations in local crime groups. The notion of organized crime, particularly in the current vogue form of "transnationality" needs to be reconsidered in the context of empirical research, which shows that ever mutating, interlocking networks of locally based serious criminality typifies the current situation. 77 references