This paper examines the inner workings of Chinese human smuggling organizations. Contrary to widely held conceptions about Chinese organized crime, most alien smugglers are otherwise ordinary citizens whose familial networks and fortuitous social contacts have enabled them to pool resources to transport human cargoes around the world. They come from diverse backgrounds and form temporary alliances to carry out smuggling operations. With the exception of a shared commitment to making money, little holds them together. The smuggling organizations mostly resemble ad hoc task forces and are assembled for specific operations. These organizations have clear divisions of labor with limited hierarchical structures. We discuss the theoretical implications of their unique organizational characteristics.

Despite extensive sociological research on gender and organizations, criminologists have paid insufficient attention to how organizational context and market demands may shape the extent and nature of women's participation in illicit enterprises. This study uses an organizational framework to examine the case of Chinese human smuggling to the United States. Drawing from interviews with 129 human smugglers, we propose a gendered market perspective for understanding the place of women in the human smuggling enterprise. We argue that the limited place of violence and turf as organizing features of human smuggling, the importance of interpersonal networks in defining and facilitating smuggling operations, gender ideologies about work and caregiving, and the impact of safety as an overriding concern for clients combine to create a more meaningful niche for women in human smuggling operations than is found in other criminal endeavors. Our research suggests that organizational and market contexts are significant explanations for gender stratification in illicit enterprises.

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The past few years have seen heightened concern about the spread of the use and sale of smokable cocaine (“crack”) and its effects on crime and public order. In particular, the criminal justice system has responded to these concerns with an unprecedented emphasis on apprehending street drug dealers and users in record numbers, overwhelming the courts and jails of many urban jurisdictions. The public perception that crack is a particularly dangerous and addictive drug, together with the growth of an unregulated street drug market, media accounts of crack-related violence, and the lack of treatment facilities, has placed pressure on the system to process crack arrests differently from other drug arrests. This study of the response of the New York City criminal justice system to the early stages of the crack “epidemic” is based on analyses of the 3,403 crack arrests that occurred between August and October 1986, including the characteristics of defendants, charges, case dispositions, and sentences. The comparison sample consisted of powdered cocaine arrests from 1983 to 1984. The results suggest that crack cases had a higher probability of pretrial detention, felony indictment, and jail sentence. Logit analyses of lower court disposition and the bail decision indicated that being charged with a crack-related offense was a relatively strong determinant of these case decisions compared to such traditional factors as prior criminal record.