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2019 | OriginalPaper | Chapter

2. History of Crime and Violence

Authors : Jonathan D. Rosen, Hanna Samir Kassab

Published in: Drugs, Gangs, and Violence

Publisher: Springer International Publishing

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Abstract

This chapter traces the history of crime and violence and their interaction in the formulation of sophisticated, global illicit markets. It conceptualizes violence as an important tool of the underworld to enforce contracts, eliminate rivals, communicate and, ultimately, to coerce others. The chapter highlights specific cases such as the history of prohibition, the Italian-American mafia, and other organized criminal groups, to demonstrate the use of violence in the criminal underworld. It also explores new, technological developments in the criminal landscape, such as the use of the Dark Web and Bitcoin.

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previous chapter Introduction

next chapter Fragile States, Corruption, and Crime

Moisés Naím, Illicit: How Smugglers, Traffickers and Copycats are Hijacking the World Economy (New York: Doubleday, 2005), p. 4; for more, see: Peter Reuter and Victoria Greenfield, “Measuring global drug markets,” World Economics 2, no. 4 (2001): pp. 159–173; Phil Williams, “Illicit markets, weak states and violence: Iraq and Mexico,” Crime, Law and Social Change 52, no. 3 (2009): pp. 323–336.

For more, see: Bruce A. Jacobs and Richard Wright, Street Justice: Retaliation in the Criminal Underworld (New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2006); H. Richard Friman, “Drug markets and the selective use of violence,” Crime, Law and Social Change 52, no. 3 (2009): pp. 285–295.

For more, see: James O. Finckenauer, “The Russian ‘mafia,’” Society 41, no. 5 (2004): pp. 61–64; Federico Varese, “Is Sicily the future of Russia? Private protection and the rise of the Russian Mafia,” European Journal of Sociology/Archives Européennes de Sociologie 35, no. 2 (1994): pp. 224–258.

For more, see: Reuben Grinberg, “Bitcoin: An innovative alternative digital currency,” Hastings Sci. & Tech. LJ 4 (2012): p. 159.

For more, see: Frank E. Hagan, “‘Organized Crime’ and ‘organized crime’: indeterminate problems of definition,” Trends in Organized Crime 9, no. 4 (2006): pp. 127–137; Jay S. Albanese, “The causes of organized crime: do criminals organize around opportunities for crime or do criminal opportunities create new offenders?” Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice 16, no. 4 (2000): pp. 409–423.

Oyster Bay Conference on Organized Crime (1965), quoted in N. W. Philcox, An Introduction to Organized Crime (Springfield: Charles C. Thomas Publisher, 1978), p. 4.

N. Gregory Mankiw, Principles of Macroeconomics (Mason: South-Western Cengage Learning, 2009), p. 90.

Mark Thornton, The Economics of Prohibition (Salt Lake City, UT University of Utah Press: 1991), p. 91.

Beverly Merrill Kelley, Reelpolitik Ideologies in American Political Film (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2012), p. 83.

Lisa McGirr, The War on Alcohol: Prohibition and the Rise of the American State (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2015), p. 43; for more, see also: Harry Gene Levine, “The alcohol problem in America: From temperance to alcoholism,” Addiction 79, no. 1 (1984): pp. 109–119.

“Committee on the Judiciary, House of Representatives, Sixtieth Congress: Argument of Hon. Richard Bartholdt, Representative from Missouri, in Opposition to the Several Bills to Restrict Interstate Commerce in Certain Cases,” Libertarianism.org, April 10, 1908, 2017, https://www.libertarianism.org/publications/essays/wet-dry-richard-bartholdt-against-prohibition accessed June 20, 2017. The Congressman had the foresight to see how the eventual ‘war on drugs’ would fail as well.

Quoted in Beto O’Rouke and Susie Byrd Dealing Death and Drugs: The Big Business of Dope in the U.S. and Mexico (El Paso: Cinco Punto Press, 2010), pp. 77–78.

For more on this, please see: Nicholas Dorn and Nigel South, “Drugs and Leisure, Prohibition and Pleasure: From Subculture to the Drugalogue” in Leisure for Leisure, ed. Chris Rojek (London, Palgrave Macmillan), pp. 171–190.

For more on money laundering, see: Peter J. Quirk, “Macroeconomic implications of money laundering,” Trends in Organized Crime 2, no. 3 (1997): pp. 10–14; Michael Levi, “Money laundering and its regulation,” The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 582, no. 1 (2002): pp. 181–194; Donato Masciandaro, “Money laundering: the economics of regulation,” European Journal of Law and Economics 7, no. 3 (1999): pp. 225–240; Jason C. Sharman, “Power and Discourse in Policy Diffusion: Anti-Money Laundering in Developing States,” International Studies Quarterly 52, no. 3 (2008): pp. 635–656; Jason C. Sharman and David Chaikin, “Corruption and Anti-Money-Laundering Systems: Putting a Luxury Good to Work,” Governance 22, no. 1 (2009): pp. 27–45.

Peter Lupsha, “Transnational organized crime versus the nation-state,” Transnational Organized Crime, Vol. 2. No. 1 (Spring 1996): p. 28.

For more on the mafia, see: James B. Jacobs and Ellen Peters, “Labor racketeering: The mafia and the unions,” Crime and Justice 30 (2003): pp. 229–282; Robert J. Kelly, Ko-Lin Chin, and Jeffrey A. Fagan, “The dragon breathes fire: Chinese organized crime in New York City,” Crime, Law and Social Change 19, no. 3 (1993): pp. 245–269.

President’s Commission on Organized Crime, The Impact: Organized Crime Today, 1985.

Ibid., pp. 28–29.

Selwyn Raab, Five Families: The Rise, Decline and Resurgence of America’s Most Powerful Mafia Empires (St. Martin’s Press, New York, 2016), p. 5.

Goodfellas, 1990, http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0099685/quotes.

Cocaine Cowboys, 2006, http://www.springfieldspringfield.co.uk/movie_script.php?movie=cocaine-cowboys.

President’s Commission on Organized Crime, The Impact: Organized Crime Today, 1985.

For more, see: Louis B. Schlesinger, “The contract murderer: Patterns, characteristics, and dynamics,” Journal of Forensic Science 46, no. 5 (2001): pp. 1119–1123; Maurizio Catino, “How Do Mafias Organize?: Conflict and Violence in Three Mafia Organizations,” European Journal of Sociology/Archives Européennes de Sociologie 55, no. 2 (2014): pp. 177–220; Alastair Smith and Federico Varese, “Payment, protection and punishment: The role of information and reputation in the mafia,” Rationality and Society 13, no. 3 (2001): pp. 349–393.

Selwyn Raab Five Families: The Rise, Decline and Resurgence of America’s Most Powerful Mafia Empires (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2016), p. 374.

Ibid., pp. 375–376.

Taran Volckhausen, “Colombia recognizes responsibility for Palace of Justice massacre,” Colombia Reports, November 12, 2013.

“1985 Palace of Justice siege” Colombia Reports, December 15, 2016.

Sibylla Brodzinsky “Colombia signs historic peace deal with Farc” The Guardian, November 24, 2016.

Nick Miroff “A side effect of peace in Colombia? A cocaine boom in the U.S.” Washington Post, May 8, 2017.

For more on Al Capone, see: Daniel C. Richman, and William J. Stuntz, “Al Capone’s Revenge: An Essay on the Political Economy of Pretextual Prosecution,” Colum. L. Rev. 105 (2005): p. 583; Peter Reuter, “The decline of the American Mafia,” The Public Interest 120 (1995): p. 89; James D. Calder, “Al Capone and the internal revenue service: state-sanctioned criminology of organized crime,” Crime, Law and Social Change 17, no. 1 (1992): pp. 1–23.

Jack Levy, The causes of war: A review of theories and evidence (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989), p. 226.

Ricardo Ravelo, “Bajo la amenaza del pacto,” Proceso, No. 1606, August 12, 2007, p. 9.

Elyssa Pachico, “Investigation: Medellín’s Turbulent Comuna 13,” InSight, May 13, 2011, https://www.insightcrime.org/investigations/medellins-turbulent-comuna-13/, January 2018.

Peter Andreas, Smuggler Nation: How Illicit Trade Made America (New York, NY: Oxford University, Oxford, 2013).

N. W. Philcox, An Introduction to Organized Crime (Springfield: Charles C. Thomas Publisher, 1978), p. 18.

John Dickle, Blood Brotherhoods: A History of Italy’s Three Mafias (New York: PublicAffairs, 2013), p. 192.

Selwyn Raab Five Families: The Rise, Decline and Resurgence of America’s Most Powerful Mafia Empires (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2016), pp. 23–24.

John Dickle, Blood Brotherhoods: A History of Italy’s Three Mafias (New York: PublicAffairs, 2013), p. 192.

Quoted in Selwyn Raab Five Families: The Rise, Decline and Resurgence of America’s Most Powerful Mafia Empires (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2016), p. 202.

Peter Reuter, “The Decline of the American Mafia,” Public Interest, (Summer 1995): p. 89.

Selwyn Raab, Five Families: The Rise, Decline and Resurgence of America’s Most Powerful Mafia Empires (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2016), p. 76.

For more, see: G. Robert Blakey and Brian Gettings, “Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO): Basic Concepts-Criminal and Civil Remedies,” Temp. LQ 53 (1980): p. 1009; Jeffrey G. MacIntosh, “Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act: Powerful New Tool of the Defrauded Securities Plaintiff,” U. Kan. L. Rev. 31 (1982): p. 7; Barbara Black, “Application of Respondeat Superior Principles to Securities Fraud Claims Under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO),” Santa Clara L. Rev. 24 (1984): p. 825.

Center for Strategic & International Studies (CSIS), Russian Organised Crime (Washington, DC: CSIS, 1997), pp. 23–24.

Vadim Valeryevich Radaev, “Corruption and violence in Russian business in the late 90s,” in Economic crime in Russia (Kluwer Law International: 2000), pp. 64.

J. O Finckenauer, “The Russian ‘mafia,’” Society 41, no. 5 (2004): p. 61.

J. O Finckenauer, “The Russian ‘mafia,’” p. 62; see Caldwell, Gillian, Steve Galster, Jyothi Kanics, and Nadia Steinzor, “Capitalizing on transition economies: The role of the Russian mafia in trafficking women for forced prostitution,” Transnational Organized Crime 3, no. 4 (1997): pp. 42–73.

Margaret E. Beare, “Russian (East European) Organized Crime Around the Globe.” A paper presented at the Transnational Crime Conference, Canberra, Australia, March 9–10, 2000, pp. 1–2.

James O. Finckenauer and Yuri A. Voronin “The Threat of Russian Organized Crime” US Department of Justice (2001), p. 18.

Ibid., p. 8.

Juanita Darling “Submarine Links Colombian Drug Traffickers With Russian Mafia” LA Times, November 7, 2007.

Milreya Navarro, “Russian Submarine Drifts Into Center of a Brazen Drug Plot,” The New York Times, March 7, 1997.

For more on this topic, see: Coretta Phillips, “‘It ain’t nothing like America with the Bloods and the Crips’: Gang narratives inside two English prisons,” Punishment & Society 14, no. 1 (2012): pp. 51–68; Scott H. Decker, “Collective and normative features of gang violence,” Justice Quarterly 13, no. 2 (1996): pp. 243–264; Marshall I. Goldman, “Why is the Mafia so dominant in Russia?” Challenge 39, no. 2 (1996): pp. 39–47.

Quoted in Andria Simmons “An interview with a Crip” Gwinnett Daily Post, July 31, 2005.

For more, see: Russell Luyt and Don Foster, “Hegemonic masculine conceptualisation in gang culture,” South African Journal of Psychology 31, no. 3 (2001): pp. 1–11; Scott H. Decker, “Collective and normative features of gang violence,” Justice Quarterly 13, no. 2 (1996): pp. 243–264; G. David Curry, and Irving A. Spergel, “Gang involvement and delinquency among Hispanic and African-American adolescent males,” Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency 29, no. 3 (1992): pp. 273–291.

This is similar to the environment described by John Maynard Keynes well over a century ago: “The inhabitant of London could order by telephone … the various products of the whole earth … and reasonably expect their early delivery upon his doorstep; he could … adventure his wealth in the natural resources and new enterprises of any quarter of the world, and share … in their prospective fruits and advantages.”

EMCDDA project group, J. Mounteney, A. Bo and A. Oteo “The Internet and Drug Markets” European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction, 2016, http://www.emcdda.europa.eu/system/files/publications/2155/TDXD16001ENN_FINAL.pdf, accessed June 19, 2017, p. 135.

EMCDDA project group, J. Mounteney, A. Bo and A. Oteo “The Internet and Drug Markets” European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction, 2016, accessed June 19, 2017, p. 135.

Angus Crawford, “Dark net ‘used by tens of thousands of paedophiles,’” BBC News, June 19, 2014.

EMCDDA project group, J. Mounteney, A. Bo and A. Oteo “The Internet and Drug Markets” European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction, 2016, accessed June 19, 2017, p. 136.

For more, se: Hanna S. Kassab and Jonathan D. Rosen, Illicit Markets, Organized Crime and Global Security (New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, forthcoming 2018).

For more on the Dark Web, see: Jamie Bartlett, The Dark Net: Inside the Digital Underworld (Brooklyn, New York: Melville House Publishing, 2015).

Bitcoin.org , https://bitcoin.org/en/ accessed February 14, 2016.

Ibid.

Thom Patterson, “Inside the illegal online weapons trade” CNN, August 11, 2016.

Kim Sengupta, “The dark web is a dangerous new frontier for those who try to keep terrorists at bay,” The Telegraph, accessed June 13, 2017.

Bitcoin price as of December 11, 2017, https://charts.bitcoin.com/chart/price; for more on Bitcoin, see: Angela Walch, “The Bitcoin blockchain as financial market infrastructure: A consideration of operational risk,” NYUJ Legis. & Pub. Pol’y 18 (2015): p. 837; Johannes Göbel, Holger Paul Keeler, Anthony E. Krzesinski, and Peter G. Taylor, “Bitcoin blockchain dynamics: The selfish-mine strategy in the presence of propagation delay,” Performance Evaluation 104 (2016): pp. 23–41.

Fah-Chun Cheong, Internet Agents: Spiders, Wanderers, Brokers, and Bots (Indianapolis, IN: New Riders: 1996), p. 92.

Quoted from Tianjun, Fu, Ahmed Abbasi, and Hsinchun Chen, “A focused crawler for Dark Web forums,” Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 61 no. 6 (2010): p. 1218.

Patrick Tucker, “How the Military Will Fight ISIS on the Dark Web,” Defenseone, February 24, 2015.

James Mackintosh, “Is It Time to Regulate Bitcoin?” Wall Street Journal, December 4, 2017.

Quoted in Evelyn Cheng “Bank system better at tracking illegal activity than digital currencies like Bitcoin, says BofA CEO Moynihan” CNBC, October 26, 2017.

Cade Metz, “The Plan to Unite Bitcoin With All Other Online Currencies,” wired.com , January 6, 2016.

Patrick Tucker, “How the Military Will Fight ISIS on the Dark Web,” Defenseone.com , February 24, 2015.

For more on this topic, see: Peter Andreas and Joel Wallman, “Illicit markets and violence: what is the relationship?” Crime, Law and Social Change 52, no. 3 (2009): pp. 225–229; Peter Andreas, “Illicit international political economy: the clandestine side of globalization,” Review of International Political Economy 11, no. 3 (2004): pp. 641–652.

Peter Lupsha, “Transnational organized crime versus the nation-state,” Transnational organized crime 2, no. 1 (Spring 1996): p. 28.

“RICO (Racketeer Influence and Corrupt Organizations Act) – Penalties”, law.jrank, n.d., http://law.jrank.org/pages/1962/RICO-Racketeer-Influenced-Corrupt-Organizations-Act-Penalties.html, accessed January 24, 2018.

Cocaine Cowboys, directed by Billy Corben (Magnolia Pictures, 2006).

Title: History of Crime and Violence
Authors: Jonathan D. Rosen
Hanna Samir Kassab
Publisher: Springer International Publishing
Book: Drugs, Gangs, and Violence
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-94450-0

Electronic ISBN: 978-3-319-94451-7

Copyright Year: 2019
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-94451-7_2