ORGANIZED CRIME: A COMPARISON BETWEEN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA AND WESTERN EUROPE

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BRIT.J. CRIMINOL. VOL.30 No. 3 SUMMER 1990 ORGANIZED CRIME: A COMPARISON BETWEEN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA AND WESTERN EUROPE CYRILLE FIJNAUT* Introduction Over the past few years, the subject of organized crime and its suppression has become a highly important issue, even in Western Europe. Its importance is shown by its growing prominence on the agenda of public discussions and, in a narrower sense, of political debates. It is particularly important because a wide variety of drastic measures are either being implemented, or are being considered for implementation, in order to step up and intensify efforts towards the suppression of this particular type of crime. In Germany, Great Britain, Belgium, and The Netherlands, for instance, special police squads have been created and accorded local, supra-local and even national operational scope in order to dismantle criminal organizations through the deployment of a wide range of proactive techniques, such as surveillance, infiltration, and crime pattern analysis (Fijnaut 1988). In several of these countries, proposals are also being hatched to seize financial assets acquired by such criminal organizations through their illegal activities (Bundeskriminalamt 1987; Schwind, Steinhilper, and Kube 1987; Groenhuijsen and van Kalmhout 1989). Of late, both the Council of Europe and the European Economic Community have been voicing within the framework of the European Parliament and the European Political Co-operation (TREVI) urgent calls for more co-operation among the police forces of the member states in their efforts to control organized crime (Fijnaut 1987). The forthcoming 'elimination' of the inner frontiers within the European Economic Community in 1992, for the benefit of a free traffic of goods and people, gives this call for more far-reaching police co-operation even more momentum. Precisely because organized crime is currently such a major driving force behind prevailing government policy on the subject of crimefighting throughout Western Europe, it is vitally important to stop and reflect on the question of just what the problem of organized crime in this part of the world really amounts to. In other words: what are we talking about when we talk about organized crime? What would be the right angle from which to approach this question? My answer, for several reasons, is: through a comparison of the situation in Western Europe and in the United States. First of all, far more scientific studies have been made on this subjectmatter in the United States than in Western Europe. Secondly, in the ongoing debate in Western Europe, reference is frequently made to the situation in the United States. And thirdly, since World War II, and in particular from the 1960s onwards, relations between Western Europe and the United States have become increasingly close, not just with respect to the phenomenon of organized crime itself, but also in the area of police and judicial efforts towards its suppression. Examples of this latter aspect include the assignment of FBI and DEA agents at the US embassies in Western Europe, the co- * Professor of Criminal Law and Criminology, Erasmus University, Rotterdam and Catholic University, Leuven. 321

CYRILLE FIJNAUT operation agreement existing since 1984 between the Italian and American police agencies in the fight against the Mafia, the attendance of American observers at TREVI meetings, and the training opportunities for police officers from Western Europe at the FBI Academy (McWeeney 1987). This paper will therefore attempt, on the basis of significant policy documents and scientific studies of the subject, to make a comparative study of the issue of organized crime in the United States and Western Europe. Furthermore, it will review not only the overall picture, but also the situation in each of the countries discussed. One major difficulty, of course, is the great differences in the literature that is accessible for investigation from country to country. Nevertheless, I believe that there is substantial material for discussion of the situation in West Germany, Great Britain, Italy and the Low Countries (especially The Netherlands). Therefore, the comparison will concentrate on these countries in particular. The Debate in the United States The term 'organized crime' is often instantly associated, not only in Western Europe but also in North America itself, with the Mafia and la cosa nostra. This is quite natural, since these are the only names that usually crop up in any public discussion on the matter. However, among social scientists there are wider and more differentiated notions of organized crime. Although it is a risky venture to try and create even a little order in these notions it can be stated that the term organized crime refers to three different, although in reality more or less interrelated types of criminality. Three types of organized crime To begin with, there is professional crime, that is, the crimes that are committed by professional criminals. In The Professional Thief, the world-famous reference work on such criminals, E. H. Sutherland (1987) writes that: Professional theft is organized crime. It is not organized in the journalistic sense, for no dictator or central office directs the work of the members of the profession. Rather it is organized in the sense that it is a system in which informal unity and reciprocity may be found. This is expressed in the Report of the (Chicago) City Council Committee on Crime as follows: 'While this criminal group is not by any means completely organized, it has many of the characteristics of a system. It has its own language; it has its own laws; its own history; its traditions and customs; its own methods and techniques; its highly specialised machinery for attack upon persons and particularly upon property; its own highly specialised modes of defense. These professional criminals have interurban, interstate and sometimes international connections.' Sutherland continues to observe, and rightly so, that by these standards not everybody can become a professional criminal, and, by the same token, not every criminal is a professional criminal: this is only true of those who are recognized as such by the rest. The fact that Sutherland's book dates back to 1937'should not tempt us to think that his definition of organized crime is now out of date. This is certainly not the case, as is clearly demonstrated in studies conducted by, among others, Inciardi (1975), Lemert (1967), and Einstadter (1969), on burglars, swindlers, shoplifters, counterfeiters, muggers, etc. In the second place, the term organized crime refers to the activities of crime syndicates 322

ORGANIZED CRIME: THE USA AND WESTERN EUROPE in the major cities. The definition of this type of organized crime which was most often applied until recently comes from the report of the Katzenbach Committee, The Challenge of Crime in a Free Society, published in 1967. This report gives the impression that organized crime is basically a large criminal corporation dedicated to supplying illegal goods and services to countless citizens, thereby completely circumventing all the control mechanisms of the American people and their government; moreover, it warns that through the use of intimidation, extortion, tax evasion, corruption, etc., organized crime has also gained a stronghold in legitimate trade and industry and has even penetrated the trade unions. This representation is increasingly regarded as outdated nowadays. The report of the committee of inquiry headed by I. R. Kaufmann, installed by President Reagan in 1983, which bears the title: The Edge: Organized Crime, Business and Labor Unions (1986) presents organized crime not as one huge mastodon, but as a number of different criminal organizations la cosa nostra, outlaw motorcycle gangs, the Mexican Mafia, la nuestra familia, the Chinese Triads, etc. all of which share a number of characteristic features. These common elements are: 1. a long-lasting hierarchical internal organization with a limited number of hardcore members, aimed at financial gain from illegal activities, and using the threat of violence, or actual violence, in order to achieve this goal; 2. the enjoyment of protection from corrupt government officials, lawyers, and businessmen; 3. their ability to rely on support and social prestige from specialists, trendsetters in trade and industry, prominent residents, etc. The accuracy of this typology is not only inferred from the committee's report itself, but is also evident on reading, for instance, the interim report published by the New York State Organized Crime Task Force in July 1987 on Corruption and Racketeering in the New York City Construction Industry. Having gained control of both vital sectors of the construction industry, such as concrete construction, and the labour unions, the five cosa nostra families in New York got into a position where they can demand usurious profits, huge bribes, etc. (Goldstock et al. 1987). Following this line, it should be noted, thirdly, that for the past few years the term organized crime has been used in North America to an increasing extent to describe that type of white-collar crime whereby persons who may or may not be members of organized criminal groups, exploit all legal instruments available within legitimate trading and industrial concerns as tools in the secret and illegal expansion of their assets, to the detriment of law-abiding critizens, other business corporations and/or the state (Maltz 1975, 1976; Pace and Styles 1975; Wheeler and Rothman 1982; Edelhertz 1983; Hochstedler 1984). This description of organized white-collar crime is a far remove from the basic definition given by E. H. Sutherland in his other, equally famous book White Collar Crime (Sutherland 1961), namely, 'crime committed by a person of respectability and high social status in the course of his occupation'. Three views of crime syndicates In the United States, then, the term organized crime is used to denote a wide area of punishable and reprehensible behaviour. However, in scientific circles particularly the 323

CYRILLE FIJNAUT second characterization of this type of criminality, namely the so-called 'crime syndicates', has given rise to major disputes. Since this concept is featuring prominently in the current debate in Western Europe, it makes sense to review these controversies in more detail. These disputes all boil down to the same question, namely, whether this type of organized crime should or should not be regarded as an alien, parasitical corporation, out to gain control of American society, surreptitiously making use of all possible reprehensible and illegal means in the process. Official US agencies have for years held the view that there was one single, albeit segmented, nationwide crime syndicate, which was alien to American society, posing a serious threat to it in various areas, hungry for power and money. This representation, which until recently featured Italian crime organizations as the leading groups, had already been expressed in the first official postwar report on organized crime, namely that published by the Congressional committee of inquiry headed by Senator Estes Kefauver (Kefauver 1951); it is also clearly evident from the definition of organized crime given in the 1967 report of the Katzenbach Committee, and it also shines through in the report published in 1976 on Organized Crime by the National Advisory Committee on Criminal Justice Standards and Goals. However, these official agencies were not alone in taking this view. The well-known criminologist Donald Cressey (one of the advisers to the Katzenbach Committee), not only shares this view but also firecely defends it in his advice to the Katzenbach Committee, later published in book form as Theft of the Nation (Cressey 1969). This, let us say, 'Americanistic' view is challenged radically by various other scientists and researchers, most radically and most comprehensively in neo-marxist circles. The most coherent such critique is Pearce's study Crimes of the Powerful (1976). He starts out by claiming that the 'national Mafia' is a myth. Not only has its existence never been proven conclusively, he says, but it is also in sharp contrast to the findings of empirical studies into crime syndicates, which rather establish the absence of any coherence and uniformity. But the myth does fit in with the culture of the ruling class in America, enabling it to dismiss all behaviour that might endanger its interests as un- American. However, from time to time that same class also uses the crime syndicates that actually do exist to safeguard its own interests from political opposition both from the labour movement and from radical groups, while never allowing organized crime itself to affect its vested interests. That is why the influence of the syndicates in question is limited to the marginal sectors of society and of trade and industry. In other words: the ruling class is making use of organized crime but will not be used by it. Alongside this neo-marxist view there is also what might be called a 'functionalistic' view of organized crime. In common with the neo-marxists, these commentators disclaim the existence of one nationwide Italian-dominated crime syndicate, and do not look upon the existence of numerous crime syndicates as an un-american phenomenon. But whereas Pearce links the rise and persistence of organized crime mainly to the vested interests of the ruling class, people such as Bell, Ianni, Chambliss, and Gardiner prefer to regard organized criminality as an integral part of the general structures that make up American society (Gardiner 1970; Conklin 1973; Ianni 1974; Bell 1976; Ianni and Reuss-Ianni 1976; Nelli 1976; Chambliss 1978; Block 1980; Reuter 1985). Indeed, they look upon this type of crime as a significant example of these structures. Or, to put it differently, they regard this type of crime as typically 324

ORGANIZED CRIME: THE USA AND WESTERN EUROPE American: as they see it, these syndicates are actually making a substantial, albeit illegitimate, contribution towards preservation of these structures and, in the process, providing their members with prospects of a legitimate place in the respectable upperworld. In other words, in the absence of anything better, organized crime functions as a social ladder for the peripheral groups in society, particularly immigrants. The studies by Chambliss and Gardiner in particular, which cover a protracted period of time, have established this close confederation, this extremely complex entanglement of crime syndicates with the urban 'powers that be'. There are not enough empirically based studies to make a definitive choice out of these three views. The available research does provide a justification for rejecting- the Americanistic view as no longer credible; while at this stage, it is impossible decisively to refute the neo-marxist view. The approach that is at this point best supported by empirical research is the functionalistic view. It should be noted that the advocates of this approach can refer not only to research that has been conducted into the power structures in society, but also to the work that has been done on the internal organization of crime syndicates (Ianni and Reuss-Ianni 1972; Homer 1974; Anderson 1979). As elaborated by A. K. Cohen, this work has revealed that the organizational structures of crime syndicates and legitimate corporations have countless major aspects in common (Cressey 1972; Cohen 1977): the only difference is that between companies whose business is legal and those whose business is crime. Crime as the purpose of a concern will naturally give a characteristic dimension to certain issues, such as the problem of secrecy, the deactivation of government controls, and the maintenance of internal order and peace, but these issues do not fundamentally differ from those faced by every normal business corporation. More recent studies, by Reuter, among others, into the actual functioning of the Mafia in the illegal gambling business and the illegal money business have once more underlined the accuracy of this representation (Reuter 1984, 1985). The Debate in Western Europe Despite the fact that a number of significant studies have been published in Western Europe on subjects such as the milieu and the modus operandi of professional criminals, the contemporary literature available on organized crime in this part of the world does not amount to much, and is, on the whole, quite superficial. It is also conspicuously of mixed American and European origin. Some American impressions In the American literature available on the subject (of which there is very little), the definition of the term 'organized crime' is restricted to the activities of crime syndicates. On the face of it, it would seem that the authors in question have completely disregarded the other two forms of this type of criminality. Block and Chambliss, the most authoritative writers in the field, maintain in their fairly recent, neo-marxistinspired study Organizing Crime (1981), dealing with the evolution of organized crime in America and Europe, that the only definition they can give to this term is: 'those illegal activities involving the management and coordination of racketeering and vice'. When, however, they proceed to review the evolution of organized crime up to the present in 325

CYRILLE FIJNAUT the chapter dealing with Western Europe, they take the traditional concept of the 'underworld' as their starting-point, but fail to take into consideration that this world has known professional criminals and crime syndicates ever since time began. This omission can presumably be attributed to the fact that, like other American researchers who have written on the subject in relation to Western Europe, they have gathered their background information on the actual situation in only a superficial, tourist-like manner. Whatever the reason for their failure to probe any deeper, their criticism of one of the most significant European authors in this field, namely Mack, becomes the more interesting.because of it. For they dismiss his research, and that of other authors with him displaying an arrogance entirely inappropriate for researchers who cannot themselves read a single word of German, French, Italian, Spanish and Dutch as negligible: It is, in the main, theoretically weak and disorganized, receiving almost no foundation or governmental support. It is permeated with a kind of chronic racism. It is confused about the state and nature of American organized crime. And, finally, it lacks historical perspective and shows little sign of merging the insights of contemporary social historians with the views of critical criminology. According to Block and Chambliss and this is the most interesting issue to us the underworlds in the larger European cities have far more elements in common with organized crime in America than Mack and similar authors believe. The latter think of this kind of crime in terms of some 'national Mafia'. However, this point of view is incorrect; such a 'Mafia' is an official myth. Just as in North America, there are underworlds in Western European cities, whose members engage in all sorts of activities, and where a number of these members maintain contacts with each other at supra-local, national, and international levels. So it is downright nonsensical to claim that 'organized crime' does exist in the United States and does not in Europe. It is also interesting to see why Block and Chambliss claim that Mack and others hold this view. Apart from a great lack of factual knowledge on America and Europe itself, they feel that the idiefixc of the good, old, and pure (Western) Europe as opposed to the new, evil, and corrupt (North) America is also an underlying theme. It is this very idiefixe, they claim, which is responsible for the Dutch authorities' failure to make any effort to deal with the flourishing heroin trade in Amsterdam. It is because they feel that this heroin trade is something alien and foreign; a problem of the Chinese, Moluccans, and Surinamese. For the 'true' Dutch are 'clean' people, aren't they? Whether such a cultural hypothesis has much factual backing is doubtful, but it is certainly intriguing particularly because its proponents infer from it the conclusion that this idiefixe explains why in New York corruption is rampant, while in Amsterdam it is virtually nonexistent. Indeed, in the latter city the criminals do not need to deactivate the authorities: they are not bothered by them (Block and Chambliss 1981). Apart from Block and Chambliss, Aibini also ventured a couple of years ago on a skin-deep comparative 'study' of organized crime in America and Great Britain (Aibini 1975). This led him to the conclusion that this type of crime does unquestionably exist in both countries, in the sense of juvenile gangs and organizations of professional criminals, such as gangs of burglars. However, he came to the conclusion that crime syndicates did not exist in such a large scale in Great Britain as in United 326

ORGANIZED CRIME: THE USA AND WESTERN EUROPE States. And what is Albini's explanation? That the British have made legal provisions to deal with the need for gambling and narcotic drugs, because it is their motto not to make laws that cannot be enforced, and because their judicial authorities are not elected but appointed. The only forms of organized crime which he had come across, here and there, were the sex business, the hashish trade and the loan sharks. However, he claims that there are, nevertheless, groups of professional criminals in Britain, making up local and inter-local networks, which in organizational and technical respects are far more reminiscent of the American crime syndicates than is usually believed. So even he observed on closer examination strong analogies between the 'underworld' in America and in Europe. Some West European impressions I mentioned in the introduction that ample effort is being dedicated at present in Western Europe to the formulation of a crimefighting policy aimed at suppression of organized crime. But anyone who thought that this campaign is supported by any indepth analysis of this form of criminality would be quite mistaken. The report compiled by Stoffelen on the subject in 1985-6 for the Council of Europe merely identifies the various crime sectors concerned, namely the illegal trade of narcotic drugs, illegal firearms trafficking, exploitation of women, trafficking of stolen objects of art, terrorism, and economic crime (Council of Europe 1985-6). Likewise the recent, more sensational, report of the former President of the European Parliament concerning fraud within the EEC contains only some superficial hints on the participation of organized criminals, notably Italian Mafiosi, in this problem (European Parliament 1989-90). A thorough analysis of the situation, similar to that recently produced by the Kaufmann Committee for the United States, is nowhere to be found. The view of Mclntosh of the situation in Western Europe This last conclusion means that in fact nobody in Europe has produced any follow-up to the brilliant analysis published by Mclntosh in 1978 of the evolution of the organization of crime in this part of the world, whose findings certainly have a lot in common with the conclusions arrived at by researchers in the United States (Mclntosh 1971, 1975a, 19756). Mclntosh maintains that criminals adapted their organizations in the course of the nineteenth century to the growing complexity of society and the increasing sophistication of its police and judicial control mechanisms. This resulted in the organization of crime in projects, since this structure was the most appropriate given the needs to plan the crime well in advance, to co-ordinate its commission by a wide range of specialists or accomplices as well as possible, and to protect the proceeds from government interference as much as possible. In addition, there were two coinciding factors that resulted in the organization of crime into corporations, namely, on the one hand, the increasing number of 'victims' citizens with a demand for all sorts of illegal services and goods and on the other hand, states whose law enforcement machinery was not adequate to enforce the relevant criminal laws effectively, or whose operation could easily be paralysed by criminals through corruption, etc. So even if Mclntosh rejects the idea of an underworld organized in hierarchical 327

CYRILLE FIJNAUT structures, existing in Western Europe, similar to the one in the United States, she certainly does not rule out the possibility that new judicial control mechanisms in particular will (even) in Europe cause a tendency towards centralization, along the lines of vertical integration of various forms of organized crime in many different illegal and legal sectors of society. Whether this centralization will eventually materialize depends, according to her, on whether the advancing 'crime industry' will succeed in getting control of the police and prosecution system, which will in turn depend, she maintains, on whether organized crime and the inherent corruption will or will not adversely affect the vested interests of dominant groups in society. If these interests will not be affected, she foresees that this centralization of organized crime will actually take place. The introduction to this section has sufficiently demonstrated that there is no way at all, certainly not in Europe, to verify the accuracy of Mclntosh's provocative view, not only because there has been no proper international research into the subject-matter in this part of Europe, but also because in the majority of the countries involved there are no studies of the subject-matter available worth mentioning. This applies not only to the smaller countries such as Denmark and Switzerland, but also to a country such as France, where journalistic publications and more or less vivid personal accounts like Graham Greene's J'accuse are all we have to go by (Greene 1982; Chairoff and Le Saint 1987). These accounts, certainly, are not without value: they indicate that not only in Paris but also in Nice, Marseilles, Lyon and other big cities, organized crime with all its associated phenomena like official corruption is a reality in daily life. However, these reports, frightful as they sometimes are, cannot form the foundation of a scientific study. Still, the situation is not entirely hopeless, because in the past few years some studies have been made of the situation in Germany, Great Britain, and Italy. The situation in Great Britain and Germany The situation in these two countries was reviewed in the early 1970s by, among others, Mack and Kerner, who conducted separate studies as well as one joint survey. Mack concentrated his attention primarily on the organization, size, and similar aspects of 'criminal networks' in British cities. His publications on this topic, and on organized crime in general, do voice a strong opposition, as Block and Chambliss rightly observe, to the idea that there exist in Great Britain and the rest of Western Europe crime syndicates similar to those in North America (Mack 1972, 1973; Clarke 1980). In fact he takes as his starting-point the Americanistic view of organized crime, as described above. Such criminality, he claims, actually does not exist outside North America, and particularly not in Western Europe. There are criminal 'mobs', 'gangs', 'networks', etc., in Western Europe, but they have no political entanglement, they have little or no influence on legitimate trade and industry, and they are usually short-lived. How then, is it possible that there are no 'American-type' crime syndicates in Western Europe? This, says Mack, has everything to do with the enormously wide discrepancies between the two continents. However, like Cressey, he does not entirely rule out the possibility that in the long run, even in Europe, 'real' Mafia organizations will come into being: firstly, because it is not unlikely that the existing gangs will gradually evolve into this shape as a matter of course, and secondly, because it is also not unlikely 328

ORGANIZED CRIME: THE USA AND WESTERN EUROPE that the American syndicates might want to spread their wings towards Western Europe someday. As far as traditional professional crime in Europe is concerned, Mack claims that the definition given by Sutherland no longer describes the actual situation accurately. The organizational features of this type of crime in particular, he says, are not sufficiently recognized in this description, which also gives little scope for a distinction between the characters operating in the front-lines and those who pull the strings in the background. Kerner is especially noted for the survey that he conducted at the request of the Council of Europe as part of a project in which Mack was also participating (Kerner 1973). In this survey the term 'organized crime' is mainly used to refer to the same sort of criminals described by Sutherland in The Professional Thief. Kerner describes extensively the characteristics attributed in the (traditional) German (police) literature on die Berufsverbrechertum to its members in general, and how the German literature distinguishes all sorts of specific crimes and categories of offenders: safe-blowers, jewelthieves, smugglers of weapons and drugs, antique-robbers, etc. It is interesting to note his observation that there is an increasing degree of contact between these various criminals nationally and internationally. But he goes even further and claims that in Western Europe a single world of professional criminals is evolving, headed at the top by a few hundred major receivers and consisting at the roots of countless more or less specialized small gangs. However, the question whether there is organized crime across the whole of Europe in the form of the Sicilian Mafia or the American cosa nostra is answered in the negative by Kerner. The Mafia that he refers to has not (yet) spread across the whole of Europe, not even in its new shape, and notwithstanding the influence of the migration of Italian workers. But the chances of this all happening should not be ruled out altogether. It is closely connected with the role that the American Mafia will be playing in Europe, especially through the illicit trade in narcotic drugs (the French Connection). This does not mean that Kerner shares the Americanistic view of organized crime held by Mack. Quite the contrary: he rejects this view strongly and is more inclined in the functionalist direction. Why he does not wonder what exacdy is the nature of the discrepancies between America and Europe, he unfortunately does not explain. Although in their separate publications Mack and Kerner differ in their views of what organized crime in the United States really is, and consequently where the United States is different from Western Europe in this respect, no such discrepancy is evident in their joint publications on the subject (Mack and Kerner 1975, 1976). Mack seems to have yielded a little on his Americanistic position in these joint papers, while Kerner ventures to draw parallels between organized crime in United States and in Western Europe. Anyway, they maintain here that syndicated crime is a phenomenon primarily existing in North America, although analogous forms do exist in other continents as well, and consequently in Europe too. But, strange as it seems, they do not proceed to explain these analogies. They just repeat their earlier reference to the existence of differences between the two continents in this particular area. Again, they fail to establish whether these differences are real, even diough there is reason enough to question, for instance, the accuracy of the statement that criminal organizations in Western Europe are usually short-lived by comparison widi their American equivalents. Whatever these differences may be about, in their joint publications the two authors persist in their view that the 329

CYR1LLE FIJNAUT dominant form of organized crime in Western Europe is professional crime, and they describe the situation in most of the states of Western Europe accordingly in The Crime Industry (Mack and Kerner 1975). If we compare the more recent publications on the situation in Great Britain and Germany to those of Mack and Kerner, it is clear that there must have been some changes during the past fifteen to twenty years. As far as Great Britain is concerned, the literature of the past few years leaves no doubt about the fact that professional criminals still exist, even though they make up a small core only in the midst of a tremendously large number of non-professional burglars, robbers, sneak-thieves, fraudsters, etc. In particular, the studies of Maguire (1982) and Walsh (1986), and the travel report of Taylor (1985), should be mentioned in this context. But it is also appropriate to mention the book by Hogg, McDougall and Morgan on the Brinks-Mat robbery (1988), because this account gives a fair picture of how project-like the carrying out of such operations sometimes are. Levi, in his compelling book about white-collar crime and its regulation, suggests that 'gangster involvement in money-laundering, in the illegal dumping of toxic waste, and in financial fraud is slowly altering the focus of policing, widening the aperture of its lens so that it brings into view at least those parts of the upperworld which intersect with the activities of organized crime groups,' but unfortunately neither he nor any other researcher has yet elaborated this thesis (Levi 1987). In any case, when it comes to organized crime in terms of syndicates, corporations, etc., there is not that much literature available. All the same, the memoirs of the former head of CID of New Scotland Yard, Mr G. Kelland, which were recently published under the title Crime in London: From Postwar Soho to Present-day Supergrasses (1987), give the impression that the activities of the American criminal organizations in particular have come to influence the evolution of similar organizations in London, particularly in the area of illegal gambling, the sex business, drug-trafficking and money fraud. This circumstance does not in itself, according to Kelland, mean that the organizations in London are in every respect identical to their American equivalents. The similarities between the two types are strikingly large in the areas of internal organization, the use (and threats) of violence, etc., but one significant difference, according to Kelland, remains between the American and the British variants: the fact that in the latter case there is no question of persistent corruption of government authorities, particularly not within the police force, in spite of all rumours to the contrary. So, to a certain extent, these memoirs confirm the views held by Albini and Mack discussed earlier (Albini, 1986), which are in turn confirmed by the only in-depth publication on any organized criminal group which has so far appeared in great Britain, namely the compelling account by Pearson of the Kray twins' criminal empire (1982). A case apart are the organized crimes committed in Northern Ireland, notably on account of the IRA. Not only in the mass media but also in the literature concerning the IRA, it is time and again brought to the fore that this movement pays its costs partly by means of subtle pressures on contractors, shopkeepers and so on in Catholic areas to contribute to Republican funds. Whether straightforward protection rackets are operated by the IRA is not certain, however; nor is there any clear picture of the incidence of this peculiar form of usual organized crime. Nothing at all is known about activities in the field of organized crime by Protestant movements (Crenshaw 1984; Bishop and Mallie 1988). 330

ORGANIZED GRIME: THE USA AND WESTERN EUROPE If we now turn to Germany, we find (according to the literature from police and journalistic writers) trends similar to those in Great Britain (Behr 1985; Stumper 1985). Here too, it was established, some years ago, by researchers from police circles in particular, that organized groups of criminals have grown to maturity side by side with the former traditional professional criminals. W. Sielaff in particular, one of the highest-ranking police officers of Hamburg, in the early 1980s went to the trouble of mapping these trends, as they were reflected in his city (Sielaff 1983). Using basically the same parameters which had been applied by the last Presidential committee of inquiry, the Kaufman Committee, he came to the conclusion that in the areas of prostitution, intimidation, receiving, the illegal drugs trade, illegal gambling, trade in illegal labour, and theft of high-value motor cars there existed in Hamburg organizations which more or less answered these criteria. But just as Kelland did, he also concluded that there is no question of systematic corruption of police officers and other government officials. Or, to put it better, there is no question of corruptions^, because even in Hamburg some very spectacular individual cases of corruption have occurred, just as in London, namely in the areas just mentioned. It is also noticeable that Sielaff links the latter form of criminality, much more explicitly than Kelland does, with the presence of foreigners in Germany. He maintains that it is in particular the Italian groups who were and still are committing extortion on (former) compatriots, in a style which is strongly reminiscent of the operations of the Mafia organizations in Italy. It is observations such as these which further highlight a positive comparison between the United States and Western Europe in this area: was it not and is it not still specifically the Italian immigrants who have modernized organized crime? Last year Sielaff's findings were confirmed by the results of a 'national' analysis of the situation made by two researchers of the Bundeskriminalamt in Wiesbaden. On the basis of extensive interviews with experienced investigators throughout Western Germany they too came to the conclusion that there exist mainly networks of professional criminals in which a single person or group of persons sometimes fills key roles on a permanent basis. As an extension of these networks there are also groups here and there which operate more individually. These have a rather rigid hierarchy and a fairly strict division of tasks, and could be called criminal organizations. It is beyond argument that the persons who are active in the inner circle of this organized crime attempt in all sorts of ways to shield the nature of their relations with each other as far as possible from the outside world, especially the police. But researchers have not established that the main figures often have recourse to threats of violence against associates or rivals: nor did they note that networks or organizations are systematically 'protected' by corrupt police officers or have easy access to important circles of high society. However, they collected clear indications pointing to the presence of members of the Italian mafia in the Federal Republic. These criminals seem to use the country both to hide from the Italian authorities and, on the other hand, to launder their 'black' money (Rebscher and Vahlenkamp 1988). The situation in Italy This last question brings us quite naturally to the situation in Italy, especially the South. But there have been only very few authors who have examined the question of what the Mafia really is. Until recently the best literature that was available on the 331

CYRILLE FIJNAUT subject consisted of two books, one by Hess (1970) and one by the anthropologist Blok (1974). Blok more than anybody else shows how the huge socio-economic and political changes which took place in Italy, particularly in Sicily, during the nineteenth century, were accompanied by a horrifying impoverishment of its population, while at the same time a thin upper layer was amassing incredible wealth. This elite was able to successfully control the masses with the help of the 'Mafia' because the process of state formation was stagnating. By the term 'Mafia', Blok does not mean one particular organization, still less any secret association, because they simply did not yet exist at that time. He is referring to the wilful use of violence by those who were in de facto power as a means to control society. The migration of the 'Mafia' and 'mafiosi' from rural areas to the cities during the 1860s and the 1870s is explained by him along the same lines. According to him, the migration was a result of the largely unplanned yet structural processes of workmen looking for new horizons, and the gradual disappearance of the peasant farms which were traditionally very small, rather than a fundamental transformation of the tragic circumstances which form the background of the lives of the characters portrayed in his book. The analysis provided by Hess fits in perfectly well with that of Blok, although it has a stronger neo-marxist ring to it. However, in the present context it is even more interesting, because at the end it provides a link with the 'Mafia' in the United States and the 'new Mafia' in Italy itself. Hess, like Blok, does not characterize the traditional Mafia as an organization or association, but he describes it as a private means, a private method to preserve, with the use and threats of violence, a society governed by major discrepancies, and incapable of enforcing its prerogatives. He tries to prove the validity of this view by showing how in the days of Mussolini the downfall of the mafia was caused not only by reinforcement of judicial repression, but rather, and above all, by radical change within the political and socio-economic structures. It was this change in particular which rendered the mafiosi practically defenceless against the police and judiciary. However, it is doubtful whether this line can be maintained since the publication of Duggan's book about the Fascist campaign against the mafia in the second half of the 1920s (Duggan 1989). Duggan surely shows not only that, in spite of the fact that thousands of (presumed) mafiosi were arrested or dislodged by the prefect C. Mori, the Mafia was not defeated, but also that the socio-economic and political reforms were not as sweeping as Hess suggests. Whereas Blok reviews the downfall of the mafiosi in the rural areas at the end of his study, Hess, as already stated, examines the differences and similarities between the Italian and American mafias. He begins his review of this comparison by pointing out that the two phenomena have a lot more in common then their mutual origins. In his view, the particularly significant shared features are their internal structure, based on kinship, and the outward secrecy obligation; it is precisely these two 'qualities' which were so extremely useful to the underprivileged Italians in their struggle to win themselves a place in American society. But what really distinctly distinguished the American mafiosi in the long run from their Italian predecessors was their role in society. Whereas the latter in fact wield their influence through their many-sided role in society, the former rely exclusively on violence, commit crimes for their personal gain only, and are no longer held in any esteem by the public. Blok maintains that the contacts with the latter gave rise to the nuovi mafiosi, or better put, the mafia gangsterica in 332

ORGANIZED CRIME! THE USA AND WESTERN EUROPE southern Italy, the urban areas in particular. These contacts with the old country were both maintained by the emigrants and intensified by the forced re-emigration of notorious nuovi mafiosi back to their native country. At this point it is appropriate to bring in the results of the impressive research conducted by Arlacchi (1986) into the activities of the Mafia in Calabria in particular. Arlacchi relates in his book what the amalgamation in this region of Italy during the 1970s has eventually led to: the existence of Mafia families who have not only built up the traditional range of illegal activities such as prostitution, illicit trade in narcotic drugs, etc. in corporate fashion, but who have also succeeded in gaining control of vital sectors of the regular, legitimate business life, including the construction of houses and roads, the banking world, fruit-growing, and, last but not least, vital segments of the labour market! The emergence of these empires in the early 1970s was above all possible for two reasons: first the parlous socio-economic condition of Calabria provided mafiosi businessmen with unprecedented opportunities for profitable business; and secondly, the police and judiciary of Calabria were not capable at the time of keeping the mafiosi who were violently blundering their way to power in check. And now that these empires exist, it is extremely difficult to dismantle them, not only because their leaders are frequently violent in dealing with anyone who poses a real threat to them whether this be an informant from their own ranks, a competitor in business, or officers of the police and judicial authorities but also because they can now avail themselves of massive capital resources, call on a wide variety of specialist assistance (lawyers, accountants, bankers, etc.), conclude profitable business alliances with legitimate corporations, and rely on co-operation from the police and other government officials. Nowadays the opposite process more frequently occurs: these empires are working towards the formation of political power, partly by building up political lobbies and partly by getting people from their own ranks into the political circuit by having them appointed into key positions in the civil service, etc. Consequently, in my opinion, it looks as if the Mafia in Italy, in Calabria at any rate, is at present better organized and managed, and so more powerful, than its American counterpart. The Situation in the Low Countries The evolution of the situation in Belgium and The Netherlands, seems to have gone along much the same lines as in Great Britain and Germany, in the sense that while also in these regions traditional organized crime is still an undeniable phenomenon, here too trends have been identified which indicate that more novel forms of organized crime are developing. This situation did not, by the way, escape the attention of foreign observers, such as Chambliss, Blok, and, at an earlier stage, Mack and Kerner. But their comments on the situation are so superficial that it is not really worth dwelling on them. The statements of Chambliss and Blok on the suppression of the heroin trade in Amsterdam, which I quoted earlier, are quite revealing as to the validity of these comments. However, it would not be fair to blame these foreign authors too much for the faultiness of their information. Until recently, there were no studies of organized crime, nor is it easy to carry out such a study. Neither the criminal statistics, nor the annual reports of police intelligence agencies, nor the annual reports of the public prosecution 333

CYRILLE FIJNAUT agencies contain the necessary data which is essential to get a more or less reliable and differentiated picture of the nature, the size, and the evolution of organized crime in The Netherlands and Belgium. In the first place, the data from these sources are too much concentrated on the offence and the offender; secondly, the information is too impressionistic and casuistic. In other words, this information is far more revealing with respect to the agencies that produce it, than with respect to the background of the phenomenon at issue. The Rotterdam police commissioner J. A. Blaauw has been alone in The Netherlands in studying the systematic suppression of the phenomenon of organized crime during the 1960s and 1970s. His views on the matter were best put in his article published in the Dutch police journal, Algemeen Politieblad (Blaauw 1974). In this article he states that he did not find it difficult to conclude that American-style organized crime, as described in the report of the Katzenbach Committee, does not exist in The Netherlands, but at the same time, the existence of professional criminal organizations or gangs can hardly be denied. As far as the counter-measures on the part of the police towards these gangs are concerned, he states quite candidly that these are entirely outdated: too fragmented, too much aimed at local suppression only, too little expertise, not international enough, etc. According to him, it would even be justified to say that to a large extent organized crime exists because of the incapacity of the police. In Belgium the problem of the emergence of new forms of organized crime was extensively debated by politicians such as A. Vranckx and by officials from police and judicial agencies, such as, for instance, van Honste. And the downfall of the police squads which they had set up at the time to deal with this problem, in hindsight proves them right to a certain extent however contradictory this may sound since corruption of such special units is a proven counter-strategy on the part of organized criminals (Fijnaut, 1983). But apart from the concise study by Dupont and Peters (1975) of the concept and policy related to robberies, no specific research was conducted in Belgium during these years into the size, evolution, and methods of organized crime. The present status in The Netherlands of the criminal offences mainly committed by professional criminals is not known. The fairly recent studies by Berghuis, van Duyne, and others on the subject of fraud are highly significant in this context, even though they do not primarily address the issue (Berghuis and Paulides 1983; Berghuis, van Duyne, and Essers 1985). In the first place, their study shows, beyond reasonable doubt, that a number of professional criminals have during the past few years switched from traditional sectors of crime to economic crime, in particular the area of fraudulent use of 'empty' limited liability companies. This means that here too, the same trend, identified earlier in the international literature on organized crime, is visible in the direction of white-collar crime committed through the use of corporate entities, and in a wider sense, the field of economic crime. Secondly, these researchers came to the conclusion that in this field 'the formation of something similar to crime syndicates' is taking place. In the circles of sub-contractors, for instance, they came across a nationwide network of persons in varying contexts' operating such limited liability companies which were different every time; and in their research into the effects of the law regulating the ultimate resonsibility for payment of taxes and social security contributions, they came upon large-scale criminal networks operating in a wide range of fields, such as the supply of workmen, illicit trade in narcotic drugs, intimidation of people with hire-purchase contracts, etc. Taking into consideration that in the case of 334

ORGANIZED CRIME: THE USA AND WESTERN EUROPE these networks we are not speaking of a long-term stable structure in which individuals and legal entities have their own place, but that intimidation and use of violence are among their favourite operating methods, this is reminiscent of the analyses of the American Mafia made by Ianni and others over the past few years. This gives rise to the question whether the views expressed by Blaauw in 1974 on the issue of organized crime in The Netherlands have not become out-dated as well: more strongly when we include in this review the report by Buijs and Verbraken (1985) on the subject of the exploitation of women in The Netherlands, because this latter study in fact shows that in this traditional sector of organized crime international crime syndicates who are also operating in other areas, such as the trafficking of firearms and drugs, are active in The Netherlands side by side with other professional and semi-professional criminals. The question was answered to some extent recently by the National Criminal Intelligence Service (CRI) in The Hague, in a report compiled by this agency with the co-operation of the entire regular Dutch police force (Centrale Recherche Informatiedienst 1988a). One of the results of this relatively comprehensive analysis of the situation is that three out of nearly 200 groups that were identified turned out to fulfil all five criteria which had been set as characteristic of organized crime. Seventeen groups fitted four of the five criteria, eighteen groups met three of the five, thirty-four answered two, sixty-one to one; and thirty-six groups showed none of these characteristics. These features (which, by the way, fit into the definition given by the Kaufman Committee in America), are: 1. Is there a hierarchical structure with a more or less fixed division of tasks? 2. Is the group applying sanctions to maintain control among itself (threats, assaults)? 3. Is the money obtained from criminal activities invested in legal operations ('laundering')? 4. Are government officials or employees working in legitimate corporations being bribed or intimidated (corruption)? 5. Are these groups engaging in more than one type of crime? Of course, this analysis and its findings are not exhaustive, either when we are talking about organized crime in The Netherlands, or when we are speaking of the analogies and discrepancies as compared to this type of crime in other European countries and in the United States. But to my mind this report is so significant that the question which is at issue here, can safely be answered positively, yes, in The Netherlands too, certain segments of organized crime are evolving towards the formation of criminal organizations such as have already been firmly established in the United States and Italy for quite some time. Only segments, because it should be borne in mind that, as recently established by the CRI in another analysis focused on the subject of robberies of financial institutions and security transports during 1973 87, gangs of professional criminals have certainly not all become history yet (Centrale Recherche Informatiedienst 19886). There are no Belgian equivalents of these CRI analyses for comparison, we cannot say anything about the evolution of organized crime there. Obviously, it can be inferred from the daily reports in the newspapers that here too criminal organizations are operating, particularly in the field of narcotic drugs. But not much is known about the ins and outs. Meanwhile, readers of newspapers have obviously acquired far more 335

CYRILLE FIJNAUT information on the 'Bende van Nijvel' (the Nijvel gang), who committed a large number of violent robberies of shops, department stores, etc. between March 1982 and November 1985. However, the information available is still not extensive enough to justify any further conclusions, other than the observation that in these instances small groups of professional (violent) criminals had been active, each time operating with different members. On the whole, no further investigation is being done into the backgrounds of such gangs (Ponsaers and Dupont 1986). General Conclusion After reading this paper, it will be almost self-evident that the discrepancies between the United States of America and Western Europe concerning organized crime are no longer as wide as has been claimed by some from time to time. At any rate, there is every reason to believe that there are hardly any discrepancies at all when we are talking about the more traditional forms of professional crime: the professional burglars, robbers, fraudsters, etc. They present a familiar picture on either side of the Atlantic Ocean. As far as the other sector of organized crime is concerned, i.e. the criminal organizations, the crime syndicates, the criminal corporations, etc., the picture is somewhat more differentiated. The similarity between the Italian and American Mafia families is conspicuous. Not only are they based on similar structures, they are also both active in the most varied sectors of social life: from prostitution to trade and industry and the banking world. But this parallel with this type of organized crime is more difficult to draw in other countries of Western Europe; not so much because there are no groups operating in these other countries which might more or less fit the 'American' criteria the 'police research' conducted in The Netherlands and Germany has sufficiently established this but because their radius of activities has (so far) appeared to be limited to traditional criminal operations (prostitution, gambling, etc.), and consequently their influence has not systematically penetrated trade and industry, the trade unions, and government agencies, especially the police and judiciary. Given this status quo it is quite understandable that in Western Europe the prevailing policy is aimed at reinforcement of the police and judicial system in order to adequately control the rise of 'really' organized crime. By the same token, it would be understandable too if means were to be allocated to conduct scientific studies into the backgrounds, forms, and consequences of this trend in criminality, as well as into the background, contents, and effects of the policy that is pursued, because even the policy on the subject of crimefighting is not without its problems. It not only prompts significant questions in the areas of efficiency and effectiveness, but it also very clearly broaches the issue of the delicate balance between safety and freedom. REFERENCES ALBINI, J. L. (1975), 'Mafia as Method: A Comparison between Great Britain and the USA regarding the Existence and Structure of Types of Organized Crime', International Journal of Criminology and Penology, 3: 295-305. (1986), 'Organized Crime in Great Britain and the Caribbean', in Kelly, ed. 336

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