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Article: Crime, Organized
- Article from:
- Dictionary of American History
- Author:
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CRIME, ORGANIZED
CRIME, ORGANIZED.
Organized crime is a term that has been used selectively in the twentieth century to identify particular criminal coalitions, often ethnically based, that others wished to define as dangerous criminal conspiracies. The criminals identified to be part of "organized crime" have seldom possessed the hierarchical structure or the power ascribed to them. Yet, labeling them as "organized crime" often influenced popular attitudes and the policies of law enforcement. A history of organized crime, then, includes both a history of criminal structures and of the selective use of the term.
From the 1860s into the twentieth century, certain types of gambling ...