Personal Perception of Organized Crime Paper

Personal Perception of Organized Crime Paper

Nijera Wildman

CJA/325

September 23, 2015

David Thomas

There have been many questions that some people in society have about organized crimes. Some of the questions may have been, “What is organized crime?” or “What went on behind the scenes of organized crimes?” The back story of organized crimes is exciting and fascinating all at the same time. For some, the answers may be too much to accept, but it is however the reality of how things work. Hopefully this paper will be able to answer some of the questions that most may have about organized crimes and their backstory. While many do have questions, there are others that feel that it would be a safe and excellent idea not to ask any questions at all. Although I do not blame them, how else as a society are we supposed to learn about what it unknown to most?

From my point of view, I would say that organized crime consists of two or more people, which will be committing unlawful acts. These unlawful acts produce a profit and are set against others in the society. In fact according to the website (www.ushistory.com) describes organized crimes as being “systematically unlawful activity for profit.”  What is interesting is that any business that are not” legitimate” are kept quit, a secret even. Someone once told me that a store front is almost always the way to go. I asked them why? And they told me that it helps the criminals to not only launder their money, but to make it seems that their money is legitimate. For me, that was a clever explanation and a genius idea for them. My take on that is, I wonder how many businesses have we all went to that could have very well been store fronts?  An example of that would be a laundry mat, we have all been there at some point. How about the carwash? Our cars get dirty too. Organized crime consists of a group of people that form a family and or already a family. The things that they do to keep their organization going are illegal and dangerous. I am not too sure, but I do think that majority of their money comes from drugs and possibly selling items that are not drug related, but that are possibly counterfeit. I can’t say that is a fact, but I think that it is pretty close. Sometimes I feel like the movies got it right.

        My perception of organized crime as defined in the readings would be a mixed one. With the readings, the definitions and explanations were at times what I thought that I already knew. I figured it was true, since that is what I grew up watching and read about in the papers. The fact is that what I thought the definition was, there was much more to it. A stereotype definition of organized crime is what I thought at first. Because that’s only what people lead we to think about those said organized crimes. To be honest, that is what I have always thought since I was a kid. What I perceived the definition to be was not all true, but I was on the right path. The terms that I attributed to the definition was “Mafia”, “John Gotti” etc.  After reading more information about it, I found that I had limited myself by just putting organized crime in a small box. While most would say that my perception of what organized crime is a common one, a lot of important information and facts are lost. At first, I thought am I the only one that could be so closed minded and think this way? But after reading some of my classmate’s posts during our readings, I found that I was not the only one.