Personal Perception Of Organized Crime Essay

Organized CrimeMy personal perception of organized crime before this class is that it is a term used to describe the crimes that are committed by major criminal organizations like the mafia or cartels. When I hear the term organized crime, I automatically think of the mob putting out hits on their enemies or the Mexican cartel smuggling drugs across the borders. My personal perception of organized crime is largely based off of the movies that I have seen. Movies like Goodfellas and The Godfather trilogies, have largely influenced my perception of what organized crime is. While reading the assigned chapters, I realized that my perception is not that far off.
My personal definition of organized crime would be crimes that are committed by criminal
The Probation Era saw a rise in individuals making a huge profits from bootlegging alcohol, and this is the reason why I believed that this was the beginning of organized crime. Organize crime in the United States actually started during America’s colonial period. Piracy was one of the earliest forms of organized crime, pirated would attack Spanish shipping. The pirates would take the stolen goods and sell the merchandise to the colonist. This form of selling stolen merchandise still continues today. The groups that committed the earliest forms of organized crimes have similar attributes to the criminal organizations that are seen today. Criminal organizations are all different but they all have similar attributes that include: Uses long term planning to reach goals of organized crime, governed by rules and codes f secrecy, seeks to monopolize products and services, organized hierarchy, obtains profits by criminal acts,, uses force and intimidation, uses legal businesses as fronts for illegal activity (Mallory, 2007). As the world changes, so do the criminal organizations that take part in organized crime, but, they usually all share the same