16. Organised Crime
Summary and Review
Dr. Sundeep Sunny Mangat and Dilvur Dub, M.A.
✅ Summary
- Organised crime generally refers to serious criminal activity carried out by groups, networks, or associations for material benefit, while gangs are defined as any durable, street-oriented youth group whose own identity includes involvement in illegal activity.
- While gangs and organised crime can overlap, when a gang or gang-connected network becomes involved in serious offences for material benefit, they are not always overlapping.
- The definitions of organised crime and gangs change over time and are socially constructed.
- Social network analysis is useful because it encourages us to look at relationships, exchanges, conflicts, and opportunities rather than assuming that gang boundaries are obvious or permanent.
- From the 1960s through to the early 2000s, immigration changes, urban growth, and shifting patterns of racism and exclusion created conditions that led to a rise of gangs and organised crime.
- Contemporary gang involvement among some Indigenous people must be understood in relation to the structural harms of colonialism.
- British Columbia provides an important case study because many contemporary gang conflicts do not fit older images of territorially fixed, ethnically uniform gangs.
- There are five broad types of organised crime and gang activities: drug trafficking, firearms trafficking and illegal firearm possession; human trafficking, sexual exploitation, and labour exploitation; extortion and intimidation; and fraud, cybercrime, money laundering, and the use of legitimate businesses for crime.
🖊️ Key Terms
criminal organisation: a group, however organised, that is composed of three or more persons in or outside Canada and one of its main purposes or activities is the facilitation or commission of one or more serious offences that would likely result in a material benefit, which includes financial benefit. This definition excludes groups that form randomly for the immediate commission of a single offence.
gang: a broad term that can refer to friendship groups, youth groups, street groups, criminal networks, prison groups, or media-labelled groups. Because the word carries fear and stigma and may change based on interpretation from one place or time to another, it needs to be used carefully.
organised crime: serious criminal activity carried out by groups, networks, or associations for material benefit. This includes, but is not limited to, fraud, money laundering, firearms trafficking, extortion, migrant smuggling, human trafficking, labour exploitation, cybercrime, and the use of legitimate businesses to hide or support illegal activity.
social network analysis (SNA): a form of analysis that encourages examining relationships, exchanges, conflicts, and opportunities rather than assuming that gang boundaries are obvious or permanent, as implied by traditional rigidity or by gangs or organised crime. SNA interprets the complexity of phenomena, such as gangs, gang groups, and their networks, through the fluidity perspective of social relations.
street gang: any durable, street-oriented youth group whose own identity includes involvement in illegal activity.
🧠 Chapter Review
Crossword
Fill in the term in the right-hand column and it will display in the crossword puzzle. Be sure to include spaces where appropriate.
Discussion Questions
- Why do definitions matter when studying gangs and organised crime? What are the risks of a definition that is too broad or too narrow?
- How can criminologists explain the relationship between colonialism and contemporary gang involvement without stereotyping Indigenous peoples?
- Why can ethnic labels be misleading when discussing gangs? When, if ever, are they analytically useful?
- How does a social network approach change the way we think about gang membership, alliances, and violence in British Columbia?
- How should the media report on gang violence without increasing fear or stigmatising entire communities?
