This paper presents the main findings of quantitative and qualitative research into the criminal careers of about 1000 offenders who were involved in 80 extensively analysed cases of organized crime. The paper analyses how and when offenders become known to the criminal justice authorities, studies in depth the criminal careers of `starters' and analyses in detail the criminal careers of (ring)leaders and `nodal' offenders. Because social ties play an important role in organized crime, the paper emphasizes that the social opportunity structure, defined as social ties providing access to profitable criminal opportunities, is extremely important for explaining involvement in organized crime. It explains why certain offenders `progress' to certain types of organized crime whereas others become involved only later on in life. Social opportunity structure may also explain interesting phenomena such as `late starters' — people without any appreciable criminal history — and people in conventional jobs who switch careers.

In 2 experiments the authors investigated how verb choice in question formulation influences respondents' answers. These studies show that (a) as hypothesized, the choice of verb type (action vs, state) in forming a question influences interviewees' narratives systematically by impacting, inter alia, which individual is implicitly described as the causal originator of a social event; (b) interviewees are not aware of how their answers are manipulated; and (c) others who listen to or read the very same answers are sensitive to the linguistic differences in the narratives that are shaped by verb choices in question formulation. The implications of these findings for the self-fulfilling prophecy are discussed.How one answers questions can have dramatic consequences. It can make a difference between getting or losing a job, being convicted or released, and being trusted or distrusted. Obviously, the way one asks questions is also crucial and can have similar existential implications, such as making the difference between getting married or being dumped or between going out on a date or picking daisies. In two studies, we investigated how answers are shaped by the verbs used in forming the questions. This issue gives rise to three interrelated questions that we address here: (a) Are respondents' answers influenced by the types of predicates (verbs) that are used in question formulation? (b) If so, are respondents aware of this influence? (c) Moreover, do third parties detect the influence of question formulation on the answers when they read or listen to the answers? The match or mismatch between respondents' and third parties' perceptions clearly also becomes a critical issue, because the implications of mismatches can be far reaching.The research paradigm that we used to investigate these questions is the question-answer paradigm (QAP; Semin, Rubini, & Fiedler, 1995). The core theme of the QAP is that there are systematic differences in the way in which people answer two questions that are similar on the surface but differ in terms of the type of verb used in formulating the question. Consider the questions ''Why do you like the Washington Post?" and "Why do you read the Washington Post?" Both questions may appear to be requests to explain one's newspaper preference. If, however, the different verbs used in these two questions lead to answers that differ systematically in terms of how the explanation is grounded, then one would conclude that the choice of verb influences answers.

Organized crime differs substantially from high-volume crime, at least theoretically. But do offenders differ as well? This study makes an extensive comparison between offenders who engage in organized crime at a particular moment in their lives and general offenders, based on various dimensions of their criminal careers. Many organized crime offenders do not have judicial contacts before adulthood. Surprisingly, this turns out to be the case for the comparison group as well. However, organized crime offenders do more often have previous judicial contacts, and those previous contacts are also far more serious. These general findings are robust; they also hold when the comparisons are restricted to organized crime offenders and general offenders who have engaged in drug crimes and fraud cases. Organized versus ordinary crimeOrganized crime differs substantially from ordinary crime, leading one to assume that organized crime offenders differ from ordinary crime offenders in ways that translate

No abstract