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15 American J. Crim. Just. 1 (1990-1991)

handle is hein.journals/acnjrlocm15 and id is 1 raw text is: AJCJ, Vol. XV, No. 1 (1990) A COMMUNITY PARADIGM OF ORGANIZED CRIME Gary Potter Department of Police Studies Eastern Kentucky University and Terry Cox Department of Police Studies Eastern Kentucky University ABSTRACT This article reviews the available empirical research on organized crime and suggests that an important dimension of that research is the close symbiosis between organized crime groups and the communities in which they operate. As such, it is hypothesized that the concept of community may be important to explaining the persistence and durability of organized crime. A community model proposed by Roland Warren, which seeks to integrate much of the sociological literature on the community, and which delineates the basic functions of the community is presented as a means of organizing the available data about organized crime and explaining organized crime's functional and latent aspects. INTRODUCTION The scholarly literature is replete with attempts to explain the persistence of organized crime in American society. Scholars favoring structural explanations, argue that organized crime is a highly integrated and structured, tightly controlled, secret conspiracy with such complex organizational designs that rooting it out is next to impossible (Task Force on Organized Crime, 1967, Salerno and Tompkins, 1969; President's Commission on Organized Crime, 1983). Other explanations point to ethnicity, suggesting that organized crime persists because it has roots in alien values and is sheltered by cultures differing from our own (lanni, 1972). 1