Disorganized Crime

by Peter Reuter

Winner of the 1984 Leslie T. Wilkins Award for the best book in criminology and criminal justice.

Bookmaking, numbers, and loansharking are reputed to be major sources of revenue for organized crime, controlled by the "visible hand" of violence. For years this belief has formed the basis of government policy toward illegal markets. Drawing on police files, confiscated records, and interviews with police, prosecutors, and criminal informants, Reuter systematically refutes the notion that the Mafia, by using political connections and the threat of violence, controls the major illegal markets. Instead, he suggests that the cost of suppressing competition has ensured that these markets are populated with small enterprises, many of them marginal and ephemeral.

Peter Reuter is a Senior Economist at the Rand Corporation. "Disorganized Crime" is included in The MIT Press Series on Organization Studies, edited by John Van Maanen.

256 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 1985

Reviews

[Judith]

"A report on some empirical research on illegal gambling and loansharking in New York gradually turned itself into an analysis of the principles underlying the organization of illegal markets generally" (Introduction). Analysis of the 1. Organized crime--United States. 2. Mafia. 3. Racketeering--United States.

Weeding this book at my library and the title piqued my interest. The 1983 edition is titled Disorganized Crime: The Economics of the Visible Hand

[Krotpong · Rating 3 out of 5]

Complicated, but an enjoyable read.