Pathways into organized crime: comparing founders and joiners

Abstract

This paper outlines research on the engagement processes and pathways into organised crime (OC). In recent years research on OC has increased, however there is still little understanding of how individuals become engaged in OC, and specifically whether differences exist in engagement patterns between certain groups of OC offenders. A content analysis was undertaken on the auto/ biographies of one-hundred OC offenders to collect data on engagement processes. Quantitative analysis was used to identify significant differences in the engagement processes between OC offenders who join ('joiners') or form ('founders') an OC operation. The results revealed that measures pertaining to riskfactors, criminal trajectories, turning points, criminal motivations and social influences in engagement statistically differed between the groups. It was concluded that 'founders' were influenced by short-term criminal opportunities and economic considerations towards OC engagement, whilst 'joiners' were impacted more so by long-term social dynamics arising from ties and exposure to OC, such as one's parents being engaged in OC. Both groups however, directly engaged through social dynamics. The current study provides preliminary findings which increase academic and practical understanding of the OC fraternity, but also the findings offer a basis on which to target legal interventions. Additionally, the new knowledge may be instrumental for building theories of OC engagement. Specifically, it is theorised that the circumstances in how 'joiners' become engaged in OC represents a 'contagion process'.

Organized crime groups: A systematic review of individual‐level risk factors related to recruitment

“…Qualitative studies. Four studies mentioned prison experience as a turning point toward organized crime engagement (Chalas & Grekul, 2017;Kemp et al, 2020) or as a desired characteristic in organized criminal groups recruits (Densley, 2012;Van Koppen & De Poot, 2013).…”

Organized Crime and Criminal Careers

“…Anecdotal evidence from case studies, biographies, and autobiographies shows that the social embeddedness of organized crime has implications for its intergenerational continuity (Savona et al 2017;Kemp, Zolghadriha, and Gill 2019). Besemer et al (2017) show in their systematic review and meta-analysis of intergenerational transmission of criminal behavior that a specific focus on organized crime families is often lacking in more general quantitative studies.…”

“…Analyses of career continuity and discontinuity should therefore rely more on qualitative analyses of offenders' life course than on quantitative analyses of criminal records. Data for qualitative analyses are available from intensive police investigations, statements of defectors, interviews with offenders, biographies, and autobiographies (Morselli 2005;Savona et al 2017;Kemp, Zolghadriha, and Gill 2019). Morselli (2005) produced seminal work using a social network perspective.…”

“…Given, however, that the types of offenses and offenders studied in this literature and the literature itself are mostly separate from the organized crime literature, we exclude gang research. More studies based on qualitative research have been published, often based on autobiographies, biographies, and case studies (Savona et al 2017;Kemp, Zolghadriha, and Gill 2019). Studies of criminal careers in organized crime have produced three lines of new findings.…”

Criminal Careers Prior to Recruitment into Italian Organized Crime

“…The involvement in organized criminal groups has received limited scholarly attention. This is primarily due to a lack of reliable data (see Hobbs & Antonopoulos, 2014;Kemp et al, 2019) and the need to combine quantitative and qualitative methods . Comunale et al (2020) conducted a systematic review of the factors leading to recruitment into organized crime and found that only a minority of the empirical studies analyzed directly addressed the topic of recruitment (e.g., Kleemans & De Poot, 2008;Van Koppen & De Poot, 2013); in the majority of cases, indications on recruitment were derived as collateral results from studies with different objectives (e.g., comparing offending levels between organized crime members and the general population) (e.g., Kirby et al, 2016;Van Koppen, De Poot, & Blokland, 2010).…”