Albanese
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As Table 1-1 indicates, there is great consensus in the literature that organized crime functions as a continuing enterprise that rationally works to make a profit through illicit activities, and that it insures its existence through the use of threats or force and through corruption of public officials to maintain a degree of immunity from law enforcement. There also appears to be some consensus that organized crime tends to be restricted to those goods and services that are in great public demand, but happen to be illegal. (...)

As a result, it appears that a definition of organized crime, based on a consensus of writers of the last 15 years, would read as follows:
Organized crime is a continuing criminal enterprise that rationally works to profit from illicit activities that are in great public demand. Its continuing existence is maintained through the use of force, threats, and/or the corruption of public officials. (...)

(...) perhaps organized crime does not exist as an ideal type, but rather as a "degree" of criminal activity or as a point on the "spectrum of legitimacy". (Albanese 1989: 4-5)

Albini
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It appears that the most primary distinguishing component of organized crime is found within the term itself, mainly, organization.
...Interaction is a key concept here: a mere aggregation of individuals performing a criminal act in the presence of one another would not, in itself, constitute an organized act.
Organization, then, is the basic distinguishing element between organized and other types of crime. (Albini, 1971: 35)

In a very broad sense, then, we can define organized crime as any criminal activity involving two or more individuals, specialized or nonspecialized, encompassing some form of social structure, with some form of leadership, utilizing certain modes of operation, in which the ultimate purpose of the organization is found in the enterprises of the particular group.
This definition permits us to view organized crime on a vast continuum allowing for freedom of analyzing and defining a (38) given particular criminal group as an entity in titself possessing a variety of characteristics, as opposed to a rigid classification based upon certain specific attributes. Viewed from this wide perspective there are many forms which organized crime can take, with variations, of course, to be found within each form. (Albini, 1971: 37-38)

Rather than developing more complex systems of categorization, we suggest that the description of a criminal group be based upon the nature of a specific criminal act which it has committed at any given time, not on the basis of its possession of certain traits. Criminal groups are dynamic entities, not static ones. As such, they change with the nature of the criminal acts they commit. Only when this is recognized can we begin to appreciate the basic similarities as well as differences between criminal groups. (Albini, 1971: 49)

American Heritage Dictionary
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organized crime n. 1. Widespread criminal activities, such as prostitution, interstate theft, or illegal gambling, that occur within centrally controlled formal structure. 2. The people and the groups involved in such criminal activities. (The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Third Edition, Boston/New York/London 1992)

Block
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In the Introduction I suggested that organized crime is part of a social system in which reciprocal services are performed by criminals, their clients and politicians. And I would argue that the Seabury investigations provide ample proof of this system, of these relationships. At the same time, this definititon, if strictly followed, seems to preclude many of the organized conspiracies uncovered by Seabury and his staff. The definition demands three distinct entities functioning for some illicit purpose. What, then, do we call all those conspiracies composed of politicians and their upper-world patrons and clients? Are they sufficiently different from conspiracies in which all three elements are present? Part of the problem lies in the need to explain what are clearly organized crimes in which the personnel do not fulfill all the criteria. One way to handle this is to hold that criminal justice agents and politicians involved in criminal conspiracies ace in reality professional criminals in which case they hold two roles. But for many reasons that seems to be confusing. Another even less satisfactory way is to hold that the Seabury examples are forms of organizational deviance. But this only obscures the system of informal power in which these conspiracies are endemic. Much the most economical solution is to treat or term conspiracies lacking one of the three elements as organized criminality. These conspiracies are not only the ones mentioned above, but also those in which one is hard pressed to ind the client. One example should suffice: the vice racket in the Magistrates' Courts which had as racketeers: lawyers, bondsmen, police, professional informers, Magistrates' and so on. By no stretch of the imagination could the women framed be called clients. They were victims, pure and simple. And that racket was an expression of organized criminality. (Block, 1980: 57)

Block and Chambliss
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Thus we suggest that organized crime is a term that refers to those illegal activities connected with the management and coordination of racketeering (organized extortion) and the vices - particularly illegal drugs, illegal gambling, usury, and prostitution. (Block/Chambliss, 1981: 12)

California Control of Profits of OC Act
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"Organized Crime" means crime which is of a conspiratorial nature and that is either of an organized nature and which seeks to supply illegal goods and services such as narcotics, prostitution, loan sharking, gambling, and pornography, or that, through planning and coordination of individual efforts, seeks to conduct the illegal activities of arson for profit, hijacking, insurance fraud, smuggling, operating vehicle theft rings, or systematically encumering the assets of a business for the purpose of defrauding creditors. (California Control of Profits of Organized Crime Act 1982, Penal Code Part 1, Title 7, 21; 186)

California Commission on Organized Crime (1948)
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The operations of two or more persons who combine to obtain financial advantages or special privileges by such unlawful means as terrorism, fraud, corruption of public officers or by a combination of such methods. (First Interim Report of the Special Crime Study Commission on Organized Crime, Sacramento: California Board of Corrections, 1 March 1948; quoted in Woodiwiss 2001, 241)

California Commission on Organized Crime (1953)
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Organized crime... is a technique of violence, intimidation and corruption which, in default of effective law enforcement, can be successfully applied, by those sufficiently unscrupulous, to any business or industry which produces large profits. The underlying motive ... is always to secure and hold a monopoly in some activity which will produce large profits. Sometimes the basic business is illegal... Sometimes the basic activity is legal and is a racket only because of the violence and corruption with which the business has become permeated. (Special Crime Study Commission on Organized Crime, 1953: 11)

Comptroller General
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'Organized Crime' refers to those self-perpetuating, structured and disciplined associations of individuals or groups, combined together for the purpose of obtaining monetary or commercial gains or profits, wholly or in part by illegal means, while protecting their activities through a pattern of graft and corruption. (U.S. Comptroller General, 1981: 10)

Cressey
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The organized criminal, by definition, occupies a position in a social system, an "organization", which has been rationally designed to maximize profits by performing illegal services and providing legally forbidden products demanded by the members of the broader society in which he lives. (Cressey, 1969: 72)

The only definition of organized crime really suggested is "continuing criminal activity in concert", and this sounds like two or more homosexuals practicing their trade in Carnegie Hall. Together, the two criteria apply to members of check-passing rings as well as to Cosa Nostra bosses. (Cressey, 1969: 304)

The prior efforts of social scientists to define categories of crime in nonlegal terms are not very helpful in the task of precisely identifying the division of labor which is organized crime, for two reasons. First, one who would define organized crime precisely enough to outlaw the category of behavior itself must be concerned with formal and informal structure. It is the necessity for this concern that puts organized crime in the scholarly domain of systems analysts and other organizational specialists. Second, categories such as "white-collar crime" and "crime against property" can be defined without specific reference to the attitudes and values of the criminals involved, even if nice problems of "criminal intent" arise. this is not true of organized crime, where rules, agreements, and understandings forming the foundation of social structure appear among the individual participants as attitude...Whether a person is properly labeled an "organized criminal" depends in part on whether he exhibits the antilegal attitudes which accompany his adherence to the code of conduct...
The social category "organized crime" is being used as if it were a legal category, thus hindering both the understanding and control of a serious economic, political, and social problem...(311) Now we are faced with the task of outlawing a social category of behavior because it consists of more than the legal categories it started out to describe. (Cressey, 1969: 310-1)

Is is helpful to specify, in a perliminary way, that an organized crime is any crime committed by a person occupying a position in an established division of labor designed for the commission of crime...any o criminal's activities are coordinated with the activities of other criminals by means of rules...each organized criminal occupies a position in a set of positions which exist independently of the incumbents. Each has his criminal obligations, duties, and rights specified for him. (Cressey, 1969: 313)

organized crime "is an established division of labor designated for the commission of crime" helps a little but not much. This definition does not differentiate between the division of labor making up small working groups of criminals, the division of labor making up the structure of small illicit businesses such as policy wheels, and the division of labor characterizing an illicit cartel and confederation like Cosa Nostra. Only the latter is organized crime in the traditional sense of the term, and it is the latter which must be controlled if we are to keep criminals from nullifying the democratic process. But the deficiency in definition must remain until much more is known about the structures of each of these kinds of criminal systems.
The Oyster Bay Conferences have identified a configuration of three positions in the criminal division of labor that might, upon further study, be found to be unique to the criminal organization in question...corrupter...corruptee...enforcer..
In one publication they named the following as the characteristics of the "most highly developed forms" of organized crime: (1) totalitarian organization; (2) immunity and protection from the law through professional advice or fear or corruption, or all, in order to insure continuance of their activities; (3) permanency and form; (4) activities which are highly profitable, relatively low in risk, and based on (315) human weakness; (5) use of fear against members of the organization, the victims, and, often, members of the public; (6) continued attempt to subvert legitimate gov; (7) insularity of leadership from criminal acts; and (8) rigid discipline in a hierarchy of ranks.
business venture...muscle...corrupt or have influence...Insulation...Discipline...public relations...way of life...
While some small working groups of criminals also possess these positions, such groups can operate without them for long periods of time. The business of bet-taking and selling illicit products and services cannot. The position of corrupter is as essential to an illicit business as the position of negotiator is to a labor union. (Cressey, 1969: 314-5)

We believe that only the illicit division of labor customarily called "organized crime" and now called "Cosa Nostra" contains a position to be occupied permanently or temporarily by persons whose duty it is to secure immunity from the law by bribing or otherwise illegally influencing public officials (corrupter), a position to be occupied permanently or temporarily by persons whose duty it is to be so influenced (corruptee), and a position to be occupied permanently or temporarily by persons whose duty it is to maintain organizational integration by making arrangements for penalizing, maiming, and killing members who do not conform to organizational "law" (enforcer). (Cressey, 1969: 316)

An organized crime is any crime committed by a person occupying, in an established division of labor, a position designed for the commission of crime, providing that such division of labor also includes at least one position for a corrupter, one position for a corruptee, and one position for an enforcer. (Cressey, 1969: 319)

The efforts to define organized crime in explicit legal terms which would satisfy this requirement have not, as indicated above, been a smashing success. It would appear wise to abandon this approach to the control of organized crime, 'professional crime', and 'dangerous offenders'. (Cressey, 1972: 89)

Finckenauer and Voronin
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Organized crime is crime committed by criminal organizations whose existence has continuity over time and across crimes, and that use systematic violence and corruption to facilitate their criminal activities. These criminal organizations have varying capacities to inflict economic, physical, psychological, and societal harm. The greater their capacity to harm, the greater the danger they pose to society. (Finckenauer and Voronin, 2001: 2)

Homer
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This book is a reorientation of the study of organized crime away from the popular myths, away from the treatment of organized crime as deviant, aberrant behavior, and toward the study of organized crime as an aspect of the American experience, rather than something divorced from it. Organized crime will be studied from the standpoint of individual and organizational behavior in much the same way a social scientist would study any other organization.

From this orientation comes a definition which highlights organized crime as a system of power and interaction, not as an invincible organization with mystical powers. (Homer, 1974: 4)

It would be preferable if the definition merely designated organized criminal groups and allowed us to generate our own series of hypotheses. This would permit the testing of hypotheses and the drawing of inferences about these groups and their activities. Instead, the definition draws conclusions as to how organized, monolithic, and distinctive the behavior of organized criminal groups is. These are researchable questions and analysis of them should not be precluded by the definition of organized crime. (Homer, 1974: 7)

Ianni
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Criminologists have usually used the term 'organised crime' to distinguish the professional from the amateur in crime and to indicate that the criminal activity involved is structured by cooperative association among a group of individuals. Thus, any gang or group of criminals organised formally or informally to extort money, shoplift, steal automobiles or rob banks is part of organised crime regardless of its size or of whether it operates locally or nationally. In recent years, however, governmental commissions and agencies have used a different definition of organised criine, based on the notion of a nationwide conspiracy involving thousands of criminals, mostly Italian-American, organised to gain control over whole sectors of both legitimate and illegitimate enterprise in order to amass huge profits. In both cases the definitions focus on the criminals themselves and they differ mainly in terms of size and complexity of organisation (relatively small local groups as contrasted to a national syn15 dicate) and the nature of the crimes involved (crimes in which there is a perpetrator and a victim and crimes in which illegal goods and services are supplied to those willing to pay for them). In my own work, I have preferred to focus not on the aggregation of individuals who join together to perform specific criminal acts or on particular types of crime. Rather, I have defined organised crime as an integral part of the American social system that brings together a public that demands certain goods and services that are defined as illegal, an organisation of individuals who produce or supply those goods and services, and corrupt public officials who protect such individuals for their own profit or gain.

It was towards the end of the Lupollo study that I became convinced that organised crime was a functional part of the American social system and should be viewed as one end of a continuum of business enterprises with legitimate business at the other end. But if this is so, why then is organised crime so universally condemned while it is so widespread and so patently tolerated by the public and protected by the authorities? It seemed obvious that this contradiction is a structural means of resolving some of the conflicts, inconsistencies and ambiguities that plague us because our desires and our morals are so often in opposition. Organised crime, then, could be more than just a way of life ; it could be a viable and persistent institution within American society with its own symbols, its own beliefs, its own logic and its own means of transmitting these attributes systematically from one generation to the next. (Ianni, 1974: 14-5)

IIT Research Institute/Chicago Crime Commission
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Organized crime consists of the participation of persons and groups of persons (organized either formally or informally) in transactions characterized by:
(1) An intent to commit, or the actual commission of, substantive crimes;
(2) A conspiracy to execute these crimes;
(3) A persistence of this conspiracy through time (at least one year) or the intent that this conspiracy should persist through time;
(4) The acquisition of substantial power or money, and the seeking of a high degree of political or economic security, as primary motivations.
(5) An operational framework that seeks the preservation of institutions of politics, government, and society in their present form. (IIT Research Institute/Chicago Crime Commission 1971, 264)

Kelly
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...Do we adopt an operational definition of organized crime in which the meaning of the concept would always be closely associated with the procedures employed in investigating the phenomenon, and in which controversies over meanings would thereby be avoided and research progress accordingly enhanced? Or, on the contrary, is it more advantageous to allow a definition to emerge as one of the results and consequences of inquiry? Perhaps a clear and accurate definition of organized crime can neither be given nor constructed at the beginning of research; that in scientific procedures it is not always desirable to have exact definitions because they have a dampening effect on research by closing off other lines of inquiry. It is unrealistic, therefore, to insist that the term, "organized crime", be clear and precise at the beginning of the research process. A definition that is increasingly accurate and concrete will flow out of research through successive approximations and empirical confirmations. (Kelly 1986, 28 (Fn. 1))

Kenney and Finckenauer
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If we assume public demand to be the stimulus for the illicit entrepreneur, rational profit through illegal activities to be the economic objective of the illegal enterprise, and ethnic ties to result in restricted membership, we have identified three of our attributes of organized crime in this defini-23 tion. This definition says nothing about the other characteristics of organized criminal groups, nor does it say anything about the use ofviolence or corruption. (Kenney/Finckenauer, 1995: 22-3)

Essential to the definition of organized crime is the use of violence or the threat of violence to facilitate criminal activities and to maintain monopoly control of markets. Also essential is that organized crime employs corruption of public officials to assure immunity for its operations. These factors define organized crime and it is that phenomenon we will focus on in the remainder of our book. (Kenney/Finckenauer, 1995: 29)

Our working definition of organized crime includes the following characteristics: a self perpetuating, organized hierarchy that exists to profit from providing illicit goods and services, uses violence in carrying out its criminal activities, and corrupts public officials to immunize itself from law enforcement. (Kenney/Finckenauer 1995, 285)

Lasswell and McKenna
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non-ideological, concerted criminality of sufficient weight and scope of power to inhibit public control (Lasswell/McKenna 1972, 26)

Liddick
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In developing a typology of organized crime, it may be useful to see it as a sub-category of organized criminality, a broad "kingdom" of relatively coordinated criminal activities (as opposed to crimes committed by individuals) that include the following:
1) terrorism (...)
2) organized crime-- the provision of illegal goods and services, various forms of theft and fraud, and the restraint of trade in both licit and illicit market sectors, perpetuated by informal and changing networks of "upper-world" and "under-world" societal participants who are bound together in complex webs of patron-client relationships.
3) corporate crime (...) (Liddick 1999, 50)

Lindesmith
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The term "organized crime" refers to crime that involves the co-operation of several different persons or groups for its successful execution. Organized crime is usually professional crime... In a broad sense, the entire underworld may be said to be organized. It is set apart from the rest of society. It has its own standards, attitudes, and public opinion, and an informal, though effective, means of communication known as the "grapevine."... Organized crime as it now exists in the United States requires the active and conscious co-operation of a number of elements of respectable society. It requires the passive co-operation of many other elements (Lindesmith 1941, 119).

Lupsha
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Organized crime is an activity, by a group of individuals, who consciously develop task roles and specializations, patterns of interaction, statuses, and relationships, spheres of accountability and responsibilities; and who with continuity over time engage in acts legal and illegal usually involving (a) large amounts of capital, (b) buffers (nonmember associates), (c) the use of violence or the threat of violence (actual or perceived), (d) the corruption of public officials, their agents, or those in positions of responsibility and trust. This activity is goal oriented and develops sequentially over time. Its purpose is the accumulation of large sums of captial and influence, along with minimization of risk. Captial acquired (black untaxed monies) are in part processed (laundered) into legitimate sectors of the economy through the use of multiple fronts and buffers to the end of increased influence, power, capital and enhanced potential for criminal gain with increasingly minimized risk. (Lupsha, 1983:60-61)

My perspective is that organized crime is a process - an activity possessing certain attributes and characteristics. As such it cannot be identified with any single temporal starting point.
From this perspective the key conceptual atttributes of organized crime are:
- Ongoing interaction by a group of individuals over time:
- Patterns in that interaction: role, status, and specialization.
- Patterns of corruption of public officials, their agents, and individuals in private positions of trust.
- The use or threat of use of violence.
- A lifetime careerist orientation among the participants:
- A view of criminal activity as instrumental, rather than an end in itself.
- Goal direction toward the long term accumulation of capital, influence, power, and untaxed wealth.
- Patterns of complex criminal activity involving long term planning, and multiple levels of execution and organization.
- Patterns of operation that are interjurisdictional, often international in scope.
- Use of fronts, buffers, and "legitimate" associates.
- Active attempts at the insulation of key members from risks of identification, involvement, arrest and prosecution.
- Maximization of profits through attempts at cartelization or monopolization of markets, enterprises and crime matrices. (Lupsha in: Kelly 1986, 33)

organized crime in the US (1) is not some random or episodic thing; but a patterned and structured activity; (2) (44) finds and exploits opportunities for illicit gain; and (3) operates across time regardless of individual changes in personnel or leadership. (Lupsha in: Kelly, 1986: 43-4)

McCulloch
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Organized crime ...is a confederation of some 24 families consisting of up to 5,000 individuals. The families are organized along military lines and receive general guidance from a select group of family bosses called the commission. (Rep. William McCulloch in: U.S. House of Representatives, 1970: 78)

Michalowski
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Organized Crime = any structurally coordinated and bureaucratically organized association of individuals that relies almost primarily upon illegal subgoals and means to facilitate the accumulation of capital. (Michalowski 1985, 368)

Missouri Task Force
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Organized crime has been defined as a selfperpetuaing criminal conspiracy for power and profit, utilizing fear and corruption and seeking to obtain immunity from the law. (...)
While the organized crime syndicate is certainly the largest and best known organized criminal element, it is by no means the only one. There are local organizations throughout the nation that would certainly fall within the definition of organized crime. These groups, numerous and varied, may be based upon the ethnic or racial ties or be simply the result of a particular criminal endeavor. (Missouri Task Force on Organized Crime, 7-8)

National Advisory Committee
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Organized crime is not synonymous with the Mafia or la Cosa Nostra, the most experienced, diversified, and possibly best disciplined of the conspiratorial groups.
The Mafia image is a common stereotype of organized crime members. Although a number of families of La Cosa Nostra are an important component of organized crime operations, they do not enjoy a monopoly on underworld activities. Today, a variety of groups is engaged in organized criminal activity. (National Advisory Committee 1976, 8)

New Mexico's OC Commission
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When a criminal organization, because of its sophistication or size, eludes the control of local law enforcement, it has entered what may be considered the area of organized crime in New Mexico. This is the practical lower limit of the term; the upper limit is well known and includes the infamous Mafia and La Cosa Nostra, which operate on an international basis. (New Mexico's Governor's Organized Crime Prevention Commission 1973, 2-3)

Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act
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'Organized crime' means the unlawful activities of the members of a highly organized, disciplined association engaged in supplying illegal goods and services, including but not limited to gambling, prostitution, loan sharking, narcotics, labor racketeering, and other unlawful activities of members of such organizations. (Public Law 90-351, Title I, Part F (b) = Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act 1968)

Oyster Bay Conferences
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Organized crime is the product of a self-perpetuating criminal conspiracy to wring exorbitant profits from our society by any means - fair and foul, legal and illegal. Despite personnel changes, the conspiratorial entity continues. (Combating Organized Crime 1966, 19)

Poff
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It is something of an oversimplification, but broadly speaking, crime can be categorized in two major compartments: One, organized crime; and the other, disorganized crime. (Rep. Richard Poff in: U.S. House of Representatives 1970, 80)

Potter
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For purposes of this discussion, we shall define organized crime, following Block and Chambliss ( 1981 ), as the management and coordination of illegal enterprises connected with vice (gambling, prostitution, high-interest personal loans, pornography, and drug trafficking), and racketeering (labor and business extortion). (Potter 1994, 116)

Reuter and Rubinstein
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But despite strong differences about specifics, there is a consensus about the general characteristics of this social threat. Organized crime is viewed as a set of stable, hierarchically organized gangs which, through violence or its credible threat, have acquired monopoly control of certain major illegal markets. This control has produced enormous profits, which have been used to bribe public officials, thus further protecting the monopolies. These funds have also been invested in acquiring legitimate businesses in which the racketeers continue to use extortion and threats to minimize competition. (Reuter and Rubinstein 1978, 46)

Rhodes
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Organized crime consists of a series of illegal transactions between multiple offenders, some of whom employ specialized skills, over a continuous period of time, for purposes of economic advantage, and political power when necessary to gain economic advantage. Normally, but not always, techniques of bribery, intimidation, and violence are used and hegemony over services sought (Rhodes 1984, 4).

Salerno and Tompkins
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By definition, organized crime is a continuous conspiracy for profit, not a haphazard flouting of the law. (Salerno and Tompkins 1969, 111)

Schelling
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There is, I believe, a characteristic of organized crime that is consistent with all of these definitions and characterizations (even the one that treats organized crime as a proper noun) (...) The characteristic is exclusivity, or, to use a more focused term, monopoly. From all accounts, organized crime does not merely extend itself broadly, but brooks no competition. It seeks not merely influence, but exclusive influence. In the overworld its counterpart would be not just organized business, but monopoly. And we can apply to it some of the adjectives that are often associated with monopoly - ruthless, unscrupulous, greedy, exploitative, unprincipled. (...) It is when a gang of burglars begins to police their territory against the invasion of other gangs of burglars, and makes interloping burglars join up and share their loot or get out of town, and collectively negotiates with the police not only for their own security but to enlist the police in the war against rival burglar gangs or nonjoining mavericks, that we should, I believe, begin to identify the burglary gang as organized crime. (Schelling 1971, 73-4)

Sellin
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"organized crime" has come to be synonymous with economic enterprises organized for the purpose of conducting illegal activities and which, when they operate legitimate ventures, do so by illegal methods. They have arisen for the chief purpose of catering to our vices-gambling, drinking, sex, narcotics-which our laws do not tolerate, and they have found many other colleteral ways of gaining illegitimate profits. (Sellin 1963, 13)

Siegel
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... the ongoing criminal enterprise groups whose ultimate purpose is personal economic gain through illegitimate means. (Siegel 1995, 376)

Smith
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(Kefauver Commission) a rough working definition of "organized crime" as "the operations of two or more persons who combine to obtain financial advantages or special privileges by such unlawful means as terrorism, fraud, corruption of public officers or by a combination of such methods." (D.C.Smith 1975, 129)

Illicit enterprise is the extension of legitimate market activities into areas normally proscribed-i.e., beyond existing limits of the law-for the pursuit of profit and in response to latent illicit demand. (D.C.Smith 1975, 335)

Task Force 1967
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"ORGANIZED CRIME is a society that seeks to operate outside the control of the American people and their governments. It involves thousands of criminals, working within structures as complex as those of any large corporation, subject to laws more rigidly enforced than those of legitimate governments. Its actions are not impulsive but rather the result of intricate conspiracies, carried on over many years and aimed at gaining control over whole fields of activity in order to amass huge profits.

The core of organized crime activity is the supplying of illegal goods and services (...)

Today the core of organized crime in the United States consists of 24 groups operating as criminal cartels in large cities across the Nation. Their membership is exclusively men of Italian descent, they are in frequent communication with each other, and their smooth functioning is insured by a national body of overseers. To date, only the Federal Bureau of Investigation has been able to document fully the national scope of these groups, and FBI intelligence indicates that the organization as a whole has changed its name from Mafia to La Cosa Nostra. (Task Force Report 1967, 1, 6)

U.S. Attorney General 1959
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Attorney General's Special Group on Organized Crime in their "definition of a crime syndicate"
"...[For] purposes of discussion in this report, a crime syndicate is defined as a group having most of the following characteristics, although not necessarily all of them:
1 A substantial number of members.
2 A large gross volume of operations.
3 Interstate operations involving at least a substantial geographical part of the Nation.
4 Operations on several vertical levels, such as supplier, manufacturer, wholesaler and retailer; members separated by two or more levels of operation frequently not knowing the identity of each other.
5 Major beneficial interest and management divorced from operation, with top leadership engaging primarily in crimes of conspiracy or of aiding and abetting.
6 Membership usually engaging in more than one kind of criminal activity.
7 Membership habitually engaging in similar criminal conduct, and relying on it as a primary source of income"
Report to the Attorney General, Feb. 10, 1959, Hearings Before Subcommittee No. 5 of the Committee on the Judiciary, House of Representatives, ser. no. 16, 87th Cong. 1st Sess, 103 (1961) (Johnson, 1962: 401, Fn. 17)



Definitions of organized crime from other countries:

Australia: Queensland Crime Commission and Queensland Police Service
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The Police Powers and Responsibilities Act 1997, which governs the activities of QPS officers, defines organised crime as:
'an ongoing criminal enterprise to commit serious indictable offences in a systematic way involving a number of people and substantial planning and organisation.'
(...)
The Crime Commission Act characterises organised crime as criminal activity involving:
'indictable offences punishable upon conviction by a term of imprisonment of not less than seven years, two or more persons, substantial planning and organisation or systematic and continuing activity, and a purpose to obtain profit, gain, power or influence'. (Queensland Crime Commission and Queensland Police Service, 1999:7)

Australia: Pat O'Malley
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Organized crime is defined as "those illegal activities involving the management and coordination of racketeering and vice". The source of this definition would appear to be traditional definitions by politicians, police and bourgeois criminologists rather than Marxist theory. (O'Malley 1985, 83)

Belgium: Black et al./Annual Report Organised Crime
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(...) there is little or no benefit in discussing the merits or otherwise of definitional nuances of organised criminal activity and this project will therefore use the criminological definition as set out in the Belgian Annual Report 1997-Organised Crime 1996, in which organised crime is defined as:
1. The methodical perpetration of offences taht, each separately or collectively, have a considerable impact, for reasons of profit or power;
2. By more than two persons acting together;
3. For a prolonged or indefinite period of time;
4. With a division of tasks, in which they
a. use commercial structures and/or;
b. make an appeal to violence and/or other means of intimidation and/or;
c. exert influence on politics, the media, public administration, the judicial or the business world.
As has been noted elsewhere regarding the Bundeskriminalamt (BKA) definition, upon which the Belgian operational definition is based, such a standard sets wide and potentially unclear parameters within which organised criminal acitvity can be detected. Nonetheless, this same breadth of criminological definition is valuable as it provides enough scope to embrace possible and/or emerging trends rather than being excessively limited or constrained by highly specific attributes. (Black et al., 2000:3)

Canada: Samuel Porteous
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Some prefer to limit the concept of OC within the boundaries of a model organization with a specific type of organizational structure engaged in a fixed set of activities. This study takes a different approach. There is increasing evidence that some of the more familiar OC groups and many of the so-called "emerging" OC groups stubbornly refuse to confine their behaviour to any "standard" list of OC activities or to adhere to any "prescribed" organizational structure. This study sides with those who feel that OC, in order to reflect the realitiy of modern criminal behaviour, is best defined broadly. For the purpose of this study, therefore, the working definition of organized crime is:
economically motivated illicit activity undertaken by any group, association or other body consisting of two or more individuals, whether formally or informally organized, where the negative impact of said activity could be considered significant from an economic, social, violence generation, health and safety and/or environmental perspective.
(...)
The conclusion from the above should not be that organized crime is really not that organized: rather, it acknowledges that many OC groups tend not to have centrally controlled rigid organizational structures. An OC activity can be highly organized despite the fact that those engaged in the activity are acting in fluid groups and alliances.
(...) Recognizing economic or "white collar" crime as a significant OC activity acknowledges that organized criminal activity is not confined to traditional "Mafia" or visible and ethnic minorities. Organized crime encompasses any organized profit-motivated criminal activities that have a serious impact. (Porteous, 1998: 1-2, 10)

Canada: Alfried Schulte-Bockholt
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Organized crime is identified here as a group generally operating under some form of concealment with a structure reflective of the cultural and social stipulations of the societies that generate it; and which has the primary objective to obtain access to wealth and power through the participation in economic activities prohibited by state law. Organized crime is a form of crude accumulation based on the use or threat of physical violence, which emerges - and has emerged - in different socioeconomic formations across time and place, and is generated by the specific conditions of that time and place. (Schulte-Bockholt 2001, 238-239)

Croatia: Ministry of Interior
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Organized crime comprises systematically planed, prepared, share-of-work committed criminal acts, performed by the members associated in a criminal organization with permanent actions with the use of intimidation, violence or corruption regardless of state borders, with the view to obtain financial gain or social power. (Adopted on a seminar organized by the Ministry of Interior, Republic of Croatia, in Zagreb 11.-13.06.1997, with the participation of the Ministry of Justice, Attorney General's office, High Court, Ministry of Interior and representatives from the legal sciences. Submitted via e-mail by bspudic)

Germany: Bundeskriminalamt
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Organised crime is the planned commission of criminal offences determined by the pursuit of profit and power which, individually or as a whole, are of considerable importance and involve more than two persons, each with his/her own assigned tasks, who collaborate for a prolonged or indefinite period of time
a) by using commercial or business-like structures,
b) by using force or other means of intimidation or
c) by exerting influence on politics, the media, public administration, judicial authorities or the business sector. (Bundeskriminalamt 2004, 15)

Link to other German definitions (in German)

Germany: Klaus von Lampe
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...organized crime is what people so label. (von Lampe 2001, 113)

Choosing the illegal cigarette market to study organised crime is premised on two assumptions: 1. that there is - at least potentially - a general understanding of organised crime in the sense of a cumulative body of knowledge, and 2., that the illegal cigarette market can in some way or other be considered a part of or a manifestation of organised crime so that examination of such a market can contribute to this body of knowledge.
These assumptions, of course, are not unique. They arise with any study that sails under the flag of organised crime research, and have to do with the difficulties of translating 'organised crime' from a heterogeneous socio-cultural and political construct into a scientific concept.
So far, attempts to overcome these difficulties have been primarily aimed at finding a generally accepted definition of organised crime. Not surprisingly, these efforts have proved futile as such a definition would require a thorough understanding of the wide range of potentially relevant phenomena and the interplay between them that is currently not available. It is even questionable whether a scientific definition is attainable at all (van Duyne et al., 2001).
Where 'organised crime' is not just used as a non-committal label, a certain degree of reciprocity of research has only been achieved by either taking mafia imagery as a common measuring rod or by reducing the concept of organised crime to partial aspects, namely illegal markets and illegal enterprises (Smith, 1994). The enterprise model allows valuable insights, not least when - as in our case - an illegal market is chosen as the object of study. However, against the background of the public and scientific debate it means that the scope of the concept of organised crime is arbitrarily narrowed down to exclude, for example, criminal structures not directly affected by market dynamics such as criminal fraternities and deviant subcultures and groups engaged in non-market crimes like fraud (von Lampe, 1999; Paoli, 2002).
In the absence of universally accepted defining criteria, it seems that the common ground of organised crime research has to be found not in a mutual understanding of the nature of organised crime but in an agreement on how eventually to reach such a mutual understanding. In other words, instead of engaging in circular debates over the nature of organised crime, a research program should be devised that in the end will allow one to come to such a mutual understanding or, alternatively, to a general agreement that the construct of organised crime has no counterpart in social reality and thus is obsolete as an analytical category. As I have argued elsewhere (von Lampe, 2002a), three notions should guide the study of organised crime:
- the field of study should be determined by the scope of the public and scientific debate on organised crime. Organised crime as a field of research, then, contains what people so label. This would include just about any kind of cooperation for the rational commission of illegal acts, and certainly the illegal cigarette market would fall within these parameters;
- within this broad framework there are a number of recurring issues that need to be carefully conceptualised - for example, the structural patterns of criminal cooperation and the concentration of power in criminal milieux and illegal markets. Instead of indulging in circular debates on how to define organised crime, more efforts should be invested in defining these middle-range concepts.
- the aspects of the social universe that are subsumed under the umbrella concept of organised crime should not be treated as static. Whereas definitions of organised crime have a tendency frantically to focus on one specific constellation of these aspects, namely, complex criminal organisations using violence and corruption to attain control over illegal markets and legal institutions, it seems preferable to place the emphasis on the fluidity and diversity characterising collective criminal behaviour.
This entails exploring, in as many social and historical settings as possible, how the phenomena in question vary in time and space and in what combinations they appear. (von Lampe 2003, 42-3)

Great Britain: Home Office/NCIS (early 1990s)
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Organised crime constitutes any enterprise, or group of persons, engaged in continuing illegal activities which has as its primary purpose the generation of profits, irrespective of national boundaries. (Huber 2001, 216)

Greece: Nestor Courakis
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[Organized crime is] criminal activitiy systematically committed by an hierarchically structured team of criminals who do not hesitate to undermine State guidelines (such as those regarding corruption) and/or resort to violence in order to achieve their illegal aims. (Courakis 2001, 218)

India: Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act, 1999
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2. Definitions, (1)(e) "organised crime" means any continuing unlawful activity by an individual, singly or jointly, either as a member of an organised crime syndicate or on behalf of such syndicate, by use of violence or threat of violence or intimidation or coercion, or other unlawful means, with the objective of gaining pecuniary benefits, or gaining undue economic or other advantage for himself or any person or promoting insurgency; (MAHARASHTRA CONTROL OF ORGANISED CRIME ACT, 1999 [MAHARASHTRA ACT NO 30- OF 1999] online available at: http://www.satp.org/satporgtp/countries/india/document/actandordinances/maharashtra1999.htm)

Italy: Adamoli et al.
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The legal and international definitions of 'organised crime' tend to converge, so that the term denotes a method of conducting criminal operations which is distinct from other forms of criminal behaviour. Its salient features are violence, corruption, ongoing criminal activity, and the precedence of the group over any single member. Organised criminal groups are characterised by their continuity over time regardless of the mortality of their members. They are not dependent on the continued participation of any single individual. (Adamoli et al. 1998, 9)

Italy: Vincenzo Ruggiero
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Organized crime (...) displays features of an industrial type, as it recruits both skilled and unskilled labour, like any other industry. It is the presence of these diverse figures holding varying degrees of professionalism and skills which should be regarded as a significant hallmark of organized crime. (...) (T)he analysis of organized crime can no longer focus exclusively on the variable 'professionalism'. The type of criminal organization prevailing in criminal economies displays a dual process whereby professionalism is fostered by non-professional activites and vice versa. (...) This process entails the disappearance of what could be termed 'crime in association'. This form of illegal activity implies that tasks are collectively planned, the proceeds shared and further activities collectively attempted. Organized crime, in turn, entails a vertical structure, a low degree of cooperation among its members, or rather an abstract, 'Fordist' kind of cooperation among them. Planning and execution are here strictly separated. (Ruggiero 1996, 121)

Italy: Federico Varese
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For some, 'mafia' is a phenomenon typical of Sicily and such a word should be used only in reference to the Sicilian Cosa Nostra. My view is that the mafia (with a lower case) is a species of a broader genus, organized crime, and various criminal organizations - including the American Cosa Nostra, the Japanese Yakuza, and the Hong Kong Triads - belong to it. First a few words on the genus, organized crime.
Evidently, by organized crime we do not mean simply 'crime that is organized'. Three burglars, who get together and plan a robbery, do not qualify as an organized criminal group (OCG). An OCG seeks 'to govern' the underworld, as argued by Thomas Schelling. Burglars may be in the underworld but do not seek to govern it. An OCG aspires to obtain a monopoly over the production and distribution of a certain commodity in the underworld. 'In the overworld', writes Schelling, 'its counterpart would not be just organised business, but monopoly.' Some kinds of crimes are organized in monopolistic fashion, and characterised by occasional gang wars and truces and market sharing arrangements. For instance, loan-sharking, gambling, and drug dealing are criminal businesses that lend themselves more than others to monopolization. We should expect to find OCGs in these specific sectors of the underworld. On the contrary, some illegal markets are difficult to monopolize and police. For instance, the sale of cigarettes to those below the legal age does not lend itself to monopoly. 'Nobody can keep a nineteen-years-old from buying a packet of cigarettes for a seventeen-year-old,' argues Schelling; 'the competition is everywhere'.
A mafia group is a particular type of organized crime that specializes in one particular commodity. Gambetta has identified protection as the specific commodity the mafia 'produces, promotes, and sells'. Mafia groups like drug syndicates are OCGs, but deal in different commodities: they sell and seek to monopolise the supply of protection, rather than drugs. In the abstract, a drug syndicate either internalizes protection or buys it from a mafia group. One may see this as a form of division of labour and even argue that an inevitable logic leads to a division between the production of goods and services (such as drugs and sexual favours), and the production of violent threats. (Varese 2001, 4-5)

The Netherlands: Petrus van Duyne
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'Organized crime' is in many ways a strange concept: it is found in widely diverse contexts, being used as if it denotes a clear and well-defined phenomenon. Nothing is further from the truth. The concept of organized crime has constantly been redefined and contains all sorts of implicit ideologies and myths, ranging from the 'Mr Big' to the 'alien conspiracy theory'. Reviewing the literature on 'organized crime' one gets increasing doubts as to the scientific usefulness of the concept. As a matter of fact, it is difficult to relate the popular concepts and theories of 'organized crime' to the existing empirical evidence. This shows a less well-organized, very diversified landscape of organizing criminals. As Smith (1978; 1980), Reuter (1983), Weschke (1986) and Van Duyne (1990) have shown, the economic activities of these organizing criminals can better be described from the point of view of 'crime-enterprises' than from a conceptually unclear framework such as 'organized crime'. (van Duyne 1996, 53)

The Netherlands: Fijnaut/Bovenkerk/Bruinsma/van de Bunt
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... our definition of organized crime can best be formulated as what ensues when groups primarily focused on illegal profits systematically commit crimes that adversely affect society and are capable of effectively shielding their activities, in particular by being willing to use physical violance or eliminate individuals by way of corruption. (Fijnaut et al. 1998, 26-7)

The Netherlands: A.W. Weenink, S. Huisman, F.J. van der Laan
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A new typology of types of criminal association has been developed for the CBA, and whilst trying to stay in keeping with everyday use of language and existing definitions, we did deviate from that rule, if necessary. We distinguish the following concepts: combination of suspects, criminal association, organised crime, banditry, corporate crime and the criminal network. The concepts combination of suspects and criminal network refer to basically simple forms of cooperation and are indicative of a lower limit. The concepts 'banditry' and organised crime' refer to types of combinations and networks that are distinguished on the basis of the type of offences involving offender groups; corporate crime refers to an offender type. The purpose of the typology below is to come to concepts that enable us to distinguish between forms of criminal association. Thus, we also hope it will allow us to say more about the presence of the different types of crime than just 'organised crime' in the common, yet somewhat vague meaning of the word; one of the considerations here is that crime from our area of attention is very much in motion.
(...)
Definition 3 Organised crime
The combinations of suspects that commit two or more offences on illegal markets that are punishable with 4 years of imprisonment or more are included in organised crime.
Illegal markets concern markets for:
- illegal goods: goods that are illegal as such; the production of, trade in and sometimes also possession of such goods are punishable offences; think of for example narcotic substances and forged brand cigarettes.
- illegal trade in legal goods; this concerns black markets for goods that involve evasion of taxes, duties or import duties and are traded unlawfully on black markets; think of legally produced cigarettes, alcoholic beverages and fuels.
- illegal provision of services; think of facilitation of illegal immigrants (human smuggling) and illegal employment in prostitution (human trafficking).
The definition contains the punishment requirement to ensure that those who commit rather harmless offences are not classed under organised crime.
If combinations of suspects are involved in activities that facilitate their own or other people's activities on illegal markets, then these combinations are also considered organised crime. The following two types of facilitating activities are at any rate included:
- facilitating financial services for the purpose of laundering the profits of activities on illegal markets; - other facilitating activities, such as violent settlements of business disputes.
We note - perhaps unnecessarily - that 'individually' operating facilitators may therefore also be included in organised crime insofar as they are involved in trade or facilitation of trade on illegal markets in association with others. (Weenink et al. 2004, 32-33)

The Netherlands: Van Traa Commission
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There is talk of organized crime when groups of people who are primarily focused on illegal gains systematically commit crimes which have serious consequences for society and, are capable of successfully protecting their interests, in particular by being prepared to use violence or corruption to control or eliminate persons. (Jackson/Herbrink 1996, 6)

Poland: Emil Plywaczewski/official Polish definition
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Any diagnosis of organised crime [...] needs to be preceded by an adequate definition of the phenomenon.
In Poland, the need for such a definition became all the more urgent with the formation of the Agency for Combating Organised Crime. It was eventually agreed that the concept of organised crime should cover the activities of criminal groups set up out of desire for gain for the purpose of carrying out various offences-criminal or economic-which would entail the use of force, blackmail or corruption, and whose end result-as intended by the organisers-would be to bring unlawful gains into the legal economy. (Plywaczewski 2000, 99)


Definitions of organized crime by international agencies

Council of Europe
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Organised crime means: the illegal activities carried out by structured groups of three or more persons existing for a prolonged period of time and having the aim of committing serious crimes through concerted action by using intimidation, violence, corruption or other means in order to obtain, directly or indirectly, a financial or other material benefit. (Council of Europe, 2002, 6)

Interpol
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Any group having a corporate structure whose primary objective is to obtain money through illegal activities, often surviving on fear and corruption. (Paul Nesbitt, Head of Organized Crime Group, cit. in Bresler 1993, 319)

United Nations
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"Organized crime" is understood to be the large-scale and complex criminal activity carried on by groups of persons, however loosely or tightly organized, for the enrichment of those participating and at the expense of the community and its members. It is frequently accomplished through ruthless disregard of any law, including offences against the person, and frequently in connexion with political corruption. (United Nations 1975, 8)



Others

Encyclopaedia Britannica
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...complex of highly centralized enterprises set up for the purpose of engaging in illegal activities. (The New Encyclopaedia Britannica 1986, Vol. 8, 994)

For a treatise on the problem of defining organized crime see Michael D. Maltz, Defining Organized Crime, in: Robert J. Kelly et al. (eds.), Handbook of Organized Crime in the United States, Westport/London 1994, 21-37.

For a discussion of the problem of defining organized crime with a view to the general question of the meaning and purpose of a definition, see Petrus van Duyne, Medieval Thinking and Organized Crime Economy, in: E. Viano et al. (eds.), Transnational Organized Crime, Durham, NC 2003, 23-44.

For a content analysis of definitions of organized crime see also Frank E. Hagan, The Organized Crime Continuum: A Further Specification of a New Conceptual Model, in: Criminal Justice Review 8 (2), Fall 1983, 52-57.

For a list of State's definitions on organized crime (without further references) see Hawaii Crime Commission, Organized Crime in Hawaii, Vol. 1, Honolulu, August 1978, 98-101.

For a list of defining concepts (enterprise, syndicate etc) and the legal use of the phrase "organized crime" see Robert G. Blakey/Ronald Goldstock & Charles H. Rogovin, Rackets Bureaus: Investigation and Prosecution of Organized Crime, Washington D.C. 1978.