Causes of organized crime
In order to assess what are the causes of organized crime, we have to begin by assessing what organized crime is. But here we encounter the first big problem. As to date, there is no clear and widely accepted definition of organized crime. There have been several attempts to try and define organized crime but all of these attempts have not produced the desired consensus. Nevertheless, there have been positive steps made in this regard. Among investigators, there is a rising consensus on what constitutes an organized crime. They have determined four pillars, principles, around which a criminal organization is formed. Understanding these four principles will enable us to understand the roots of organized crime. These principles are that the criminal organization first of all should be a continuing organization, one that operates rationally and for-profits, it does this through the use of threats and force if necessary and, finally, it uses corruption as a means of maintaining immunity from law enforcement.
In fact, it would seem that a criminal organization operates as a business firm. Many authors would agree that actually, a criminal organization is a criminal enterprise that rationally works for profits from illicit activities. Furthermore, the criminal organization achieves these results by exploiting criminal opportunities which are:
- Those that provide easy access to illegal funds without creating high risks;
- And those formed by motivated offenders;
Thus, we can conclude that the causes of organized crime can be attributed to the opportunities presented to conduct illegal activities and benefit from those more than you would benefit from conducting legal activities.
Another source is the efforts that criminals themselves make to expand and enhance their profit activities. They realize that organizing and working in groups can achieve better results than what they can achieve alone.
Difference between people smuggling and human trafficking
People smuggling cannot be defined only as the crossing of the borders from one country to the other without having a visa or permission. Smuggling is also to move goods, products, from one country to the other without paying custom taxes or registering them. This is a big difference with human trafficking.
Human trafficking is to move people to another country and sell them as they were products, not human beings. In fact, most of the people that are trafficked are used for cheap labor resources or for sex labor slaves. Horribly they are even used for human organs trading. That is the most horrible aspect.
So, the difference between smuggling and human trafficking is very big. Nevertheless, they have in common that criminal organizations are those who are behind both of them. The criminal organization makes smuggling to introduce in the market of another country products which may be illegal and which will make them lots of profits. Drug smuggling is a good example of this. Or they can smuggle legal products but introduce them in the other country without paying custom taxes and fees so that they can sell them cheaper and profit more.
For human trafficking criminal organizations are famous for trafficking young girls and using them for sex slavery. This is far worse than smuggling products because these are human beings we are talking about…