Street gang violence is a common phenomenon that takes place in the urban areas. Although the problem is widespread and long-standing, the U.S. government began to see the criminal gangs as a serious threat to public security just recently. The states elaborate and adopt the laws meant to fight organized crime and gangs and prevent their violence. However, as many researchers observe, the urban criminal groups are dynamic and multilateral in their nature, and it is thus highly challenging to combat them.
Although it may seem that organized crime and street gangs are different, it is often hard to make a distinction between them. In the modern academic debate, there are many controversial and vague definitions of organized crime. Overall, the criminologists see human trafficking, arms, and drug dealing as the major illegal activities enabled by organized crime (Hauck, 2010, p. 409). It is possible to say that organized criminality is related to a category of serious crimes that have a large scope of functioning and proliferation. This category of illegal activities is practiced by “professionals” in the large organizations.
According to one point of view, gangs are scattered and self-interested aggregations of individuals who work primarily for themselves (Decker, Bynum, & Weisel, 1998, p. 396). However, nowadays gangs’ activities are usually regarded as organized criminal groups because of the multiple structural and organizational features (Decker, Bynum, & Weisel, 1998, p. 195). “City gangs within the United States have evolved in the past several decades to become sophisticated organizations with clear objectives beyond random crimes and territorial protection” (Fox, 2012, p. 3). Thus, the modern gangs can be considered as entrepreneurs – they often implement conventional economic and investment strategies and adopt the group values that motivate the gang members in goals achievement. Many gangs are characterized by a high level of differentiation within the organizational structure – each of the members has his own role and duties within the group (Decker, Bynum, & Weisel, 1998). As well as in the criminal organizations, the gangs are constituted of leaders and their subordinates. As the result, the distinction between organized crime and gangs is blurred. Moreover, criminal organizations are frequently developed from gangs and also employ the street gangs’ participants to serve them.
In the U.S. legislation, there is no particular difference drawn between gangs and organized crime. Most of the states punish participation in any kind of criminal group that are described as “ongoing organizations” or associations with more than two participants who share a common identifying signs and pattern of unlawful activities (Hauck, 2010, p. 415). Nevertheless, organized crime can be distinguished from the small “non-organized” street gangs by the intensity of criminal activities. In this case, intensity can be understood as the extent and strength of the groups’ confrontation with the state security, political, and public forces and the level of threat to the public well-being.
Throughout the history, the government and legal institutions adopted severe anti-gang regulations and legislation for fighting organized crime. According to Fox (2012), the police crackdowns are the most common method of criminality reduction (p. 7). U.S. government spends significant amounts of money for building prisons to house the criminal groups’ participants. However, despite all the undertaken measures the statistic data shows that organized and gang crime rates are rising. Many researchers in criminology suggest the state legislators to implement alternative methods and techniques of fighting these dynamic and complicated phenomena (Fox, 2012). For example, the development of the community interrelations, elaboration of national programs promoting the community values, and other protective measures may provide the potential solution needed for the reduction of the urban violence.
References
Decker, S. H., Bynum, T., & Weisel, D. (1998). A tale of two cities: Gangs as organized crime groups.Justice Quarterly, 15(3), 395-425. Web.
Fox, J. P. (2012). Legitimacy and law enforcement: The counterinsurgency against gang crime in the united states. ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Full Text. Web.
Hauck, P., & Peterke, S. (2010). Organized crime and gang violence in national and international law.International Review of the Red Cross, 92(878), 407-436. Web.