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Controlling Organized Crime

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Controlling Organized Crime Controlling organized crime will always be a major task for government and law enforcement agencies within the United States. This is the case because policy makers and the law enforcement communities cling to a faulty model of organized crime in the United States: an alien conspiracy theory. It depicts organized crime as an underworld corporate enterprise comprised of ethnically or culturally distinct alien groups that corrupt fundamentally sound political and economic institutions (Mastrofski, 2010).
Problems presented and the various relationships Organized crime presents a number of problems. Many organized crime families do operate within the family structure and this to an extent creates a less than desirable environment to raise children, organized criminals tend to gear their children into a negative lifestyle. Today's organized crime families are different than those that came about in the past. In the past, criminologists would examine La Cosa Nostra or the Italian Mafia, but criminal activity goes well beyond such crime families. Asian and Russian organizations enter the picture in the United States today. Asian gangs have become quite apparent in modern America. They seem to traffic in illegal goods and practices such as heroin, prostitution, and gambling (Bolz, 1995). They also engage in money laundering schemes (Bolz, 1995). This latter focus is at the heart of many crime organizations because they have to cover their tracks and make it appear as if everything they are doing is legal. Therefore, money laundering appears to be universal. Money laundering is also considered to be the key to the Russian Mafia's operations (Paddock, 1998). It is easy to see why problems are created in respect to the various relationships established by organized crime. Organized crime rings are focused on illegal activity which

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