Organized Crime: Causes

a 19th century criminologist once said a
society gets the criminals it deserves
hi I’m Rebecca Brayton and welcome to
watchmojo.com and today we’re speaking
with criminologist Stephen Schneider to
learn more about the causes of organized
crime as well as possible cures for this
social pandemic is there something that
specifically causes organized crime
there’s no specific causal factor the
causes of crime just like organized
crime are complex and multifaceted
certainly you have a demand for for
goods and services that are prohibited
by the government so drugs gambling
prostitution you have a large market
which drives it today what you find in
the United States and Canada other
countries we look for organized crime
problem is a underclass of young man
often racial minorities there one option
out of this kind of despair in poverty
is crime
what makes organized crime so difficult
for law enforcement agencies there’s a
symbiotic relation with society in that
there’s a fairly sizable population that
supports organized crime because they
buy the drugs they pay for the the
prostitution the gamble is there
anything that can be done to prevent it
I certainly have no server bullet that’s
for sure there’s no panacea even if we
legalize drugs you’ll still have an
organized crime problem it’s a reality
that we’re always going to have crime
and we’re always going to organized
crime what we need in North America is
more strategic approach something that
is national in scope something that’s
international scope and quite frankly we
have to start looking at alternatives to
the prohibition enforcement model and
yes that includes legalization we have
to start seriously discussing it and
looking at it as an option to the war on
drugs because quite frankly the wrong
drugs has been a dismal failure does the
idea of jail time ever deter a career
criminal the whole idea of deterrence is
very controversial there’s some
criminologist like myself who argued
that deterrence may work for you and I
but does it work for the chronic
offender generally not you’re not going
to dissuade a chronic offender
especially one that’s been brought up
you know in terrible poverty and it’s
going to be
newsstand has seen criminals and drug
dealers all their lives it’s a
socialization process that sort of robs
them of the ability to make rational
decisions to anticipate the consequences
of their action so deterrence Theory
generally only works in people who are
not going to commit crimes in the first
place the law-abiding citizen so
deterrence generally doesn’t work and
especially doesn’t work with organized
criminals who you know can make millions
and millions of dollars maybe you’ve
spent two years in jail when you talk
about organized crime it’s really a
reflection of society there’s an old
saying Society gets the crime it
deserves and that’s true enough in the
u.s. you can