Premium
ILLEGAL ENTERPRISE: A THEORETICAL AND HISTORICAL INTERPRETATION *
Author(s) -
HALLER MARK H.
Publication year - 1990
Publication title -
criminology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.467
H-Index - 139
eISSN - 1745-9125
pISSN - 0011-1384
DOI - 10.1111/j.1745-9125.1990.tb01324.x
Subject(s) - interpretation (philosophy) , language change , order (exchange) , politics , business , subdivision , goods and services , law and economics , political science , law , market economy , economics , engineering , finance , art , civil engineering , literature , computer science , programming language
Illegal enterprise—defined as the sale of illegal goods and services to customers who know that the goods or services are illegal—has long been a central part of the American underworld, but it has received little attention as a separate criminological category. Although such activities are often relatively short term and small scale when compared with legal businesses, three major factors explain the cooperation that sometimes emerges among illegal entrepreneurs. The first factor is systematic corruption, which often permits police or politicians to bring order to illegal activities within a political subdivision. A second factor is overlapping partnerships by which entrepreneurs often launch and maintain illegal businesses. A third factor is the internal economic characteristics of illegal businesses, which shape the manner in which they operate. The paper explores the implications of each factor through historical examples and suggests hypotheses concerning the changing structure of illegal enterprises in American cities.