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Strategic Mobsters or Deprived Migrants? Testing the Transplantation and Deprivation Models of Organized Crime in an Effort to Understand Criminal Mobility and Diversity in the United States
Author(s) -
Arsovska Jana
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
international migration
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.681
H-Index - 64
eISSN - 1468-2435
pISSN - 0020-7985
DOI - 10.1111/imig.12217
Subject(s) - criminology , law enforcement , government (linguistics) , organised crime , transplantation , diversity (politics) , immigration , relevance (law) , enforcement , political science , law , sociology , medicine , linguistics , philosophy , surgery
The aim of this research is to study the emergence and mobility of organized crime in the United States. Focusing on Albanian organized crime in New York City, it investigates whether organized crime groups move abroad easily and reproduce their territorial control in a foreign country. This research explores the relevance of two perspectives on organized crime: the transplantation/importation model, and the deprivation model. Findings are based on analysis of court documents, interviews with law enforcement officials, Albanian immigrants, and Albanian offenders. The study did not find strong support for either the transplantation or the deprivation model of organized crime. There is no evidence of strategic organized crime transplantation. The findings suggest that the mobility of organized crime groups is functional and varies across criminal markets, and that not only economic foundations but also social forces and symbolic rewards of criminal migration need to be examined for better government policies.