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What organized crime is and how it can be prevented are two of the key questions in both organized crime research and criminal policy. However, despite many attempts, organized crime research, the criminal justice system and criminal policy have failed to provide a shared and recognized conceptual definition of organized crime, which has opened the door to political interpretations. Organized crime is presented as an objective reality—mostly based on anecdotal empirical evidence and generic descriptions—and has been understood, as being intrinsically different from social organization, and this has been a justification for treating organized crime conceptually separately. In this dissertation, the concept of organized crime is deconstructed and analyzed. Based on five studies and an introductory chapter, I argue that organized crime is an overarching concept based on an abstraction of different underlying concepts, such as gang, mafia, and network, which are in turn semi-overarching and overlapping abstractions of different crime phenomena, such as syndicates, street-gangs, and drug networks. This combination of a generic concept based on underlying concepts, which are themselves subject to similar conceptual difficulties, has given rise to a conceptual confusion surrounding the term and the concept of organized crime. The consequences of this conceptual confusion are not only an issue of semantics, but have implications for our understanding of the nature of criminal collaboration as well as both legal and policy consequences. By combining different observers, methods and empirical materials relating to dimensions of criminal collaboration, I illustrate the strong analogies that exist between forms of criminal collaboration and the theory of social organization. I argue in this dissertation that criminal organizing is not intrinsically different from social organizing. In fact, the dissertation illustrates the existence of strong analogies between patterns of criminal organizing and the elements of social organizations. But depending on time and context, some actions and forms of organizing are defined as criminal, and are then, intentionally or unintentionally, presumed to be intrinsically different from social organizing. Since the basis of my argument is that criminal organizing is not intrinsically different from social organizing, I advocate that the study of organized crime needs to return to the basic principles of social organization in order to understand the emergence of, and the underlying mechanism that gives rise to, the forms of criminal collaboration that we seek to explain. To this end, a new general analytical framework, "criminal organizing", that brings the different forms of criminal organizations and their dimensions together under a single analytical tool, is proposed as an example of how organizational sociology can advance organized crime research and clarify the chaotic concept of organized crime.

What organized crime is and how it can be prevented are two of the key questions in both organized crime research and criminal policy. However, despite many attempts, organized crime research, the criminal justice system and criminal policy have failed to provide a shared and recognized conceptual definition of organized crime, which has opened the door to political interpretations. Organized crime is presented as an objective reality—mostly based on anecdotal empirical evidence and generic descriptions—and has been understood, as being intrinsically different from social organization, and this has been a justification for treating organized crime conceptually separately. In this dissertation, the concept of organized crime is deconstructed and analyzed. Based on five studies and an introductory chapter, I argue that organized crime is an overarching concept based on an abstraction of different underlying concepts, such as gang, mafia, and network, which are in turn semi-overarching and overlapping abstractions of different crime phenomena, such as syndicates, street-gangs, and drug networks. This combination of a generic concept based on underlying concepts, which are themselves subject to similar conceptual difficulties, has given rise to a conceptual confusion surrounding the term and the concept of organized crime. The consequences of this conceptual confusion are not only an issue of semantics, but have implications for our understanding of the nature of criminal collaboration as well as both legal and policy consequences. By combining different observers, methods and empirical materials relating to dimensions of criminal collaboration, I illustrate the strong analogies that exist between forms of criminal collaboration and the theory of social organization. I argue in this dissertation that criminal organizing is not intrinsically different from social organizing. In fact, the dissertation illustrates the existence of strong analogies between patterns of criminal organizing and the elements of social organizations. But depending on time and context, some actions and forms of organizing are defined as criminal, and are then, intentionally or unintentionally, presumed to be intrinsically different from social organizing. Since the basis of my argument is that criminal organizing is not intrinsically different from social organizing, I advocate that the study of organized crime needs to return to the basic principles of social organization in order to understand the emergence of, and the underlying mechanism that gives rise to, the forms of criminal collaboration that we seek to explain. To this end, a new general analytical framework, "criminal organizing", that brings the different forms of criminal organizations and their dimensions together under a single analytical tool, is proposed as an example of how organizational sociology can advance organized crime research and clarify the chaotic concept of organized crime. ; At the time of the doctoral defense, the following paper was unpublished and had a status as follows: Paper 5: Manuscript.

Tavistock Press was established as a co-operative venture between the Tavistock Institute and Routledge & Kegan Paul (RKP) in the 1950s to produce a series of major contributions across the social sciences. This volume is part of a 2001 reissue of a selection of those important works which have since gone out of print, or are difficult to locate. Published by Routledge, 112 volumes in total are being brought together under the name The International Behavioural and Social Sciences Library: Classics from the Tavistock

"Terrorist organizations, groups, cells or just 'bunches of guys' are systematically compared with other types of criminal or deviant organizations: organized crime such as the mafia, street gangs and religious sects. Of course there are many differences between them, especially where motivation is concerned, but they share the common factor that it is almost impossible or very difficult for individual members to step out. However, de-radicalization may follow analogous paths: aging out, accepting exit programs in prison or disengaging ideologically. The article discusses the obstacles that a government strategy that encourages desistance from terrorism by stepping out may encounter. It may be sufficient and more realistic to discourage radicals from using violence than to try to de-radicalize them by using counternarrative techniques." [author's abstract]

This article concentrates on Finnish professional criminals and their organisations in Finland and in cross-border crime operations. It is based on qualitative empirical material. It focus on 14 different Finnish groups active in the 1990s in smuggling (alcohol, tobacco and drugs), and/or procuring prostitutes, and/or handling stolen goods. The objective of the study was twofold: 1) to gather collective information about the world of the Finnish professional criminals by studying the personal characteristics of the group members, the crimes they commit, and the structures of the criminal groups, 2) to compare differences and similarities of professional criminals and organised crime groups in Finland and abroad. The study clearly shows, that Finnish professional criminal groups are loosely structured networks that based on trade relations between the participants. The operational time of the groups is short and laundering of profits is not planned beforehand. The comparison of studied groups and internationally well known organised crime groups shows, that the Finns are a long way behind in all matters related on organised crime and its criminality. Finnish groups are loosely structured networks working on ad hog basis, at the moment and a certain time. International groups are monopolistic business enterprises that corrupt and threats state authorities and surrounding society to leave them in peace, promote its own business matters and reputation of top men.

The concept of accumulation by dispossession implemented by criminal organizations is a suitable reflection to explain theft, fraud, predation, plunder, and punishment, and the enclosure of territories to force people to crop drugs or to take possession of and/or to cont
rol productive sectors (agriculture and services) in order to collect dues (taxes), and thus, to do illicit businesses, which optimize their value chain, from the primary production to their marketing. The assumption underpinning this research is to explain how the drug business is part of accumulation by dispossession, both in its form and its content. These shady and illegal businesses function as a capitalist, economically rational company, which exploits the labor force and commodifies natural goods.