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Book Review 103

BOOK REVIEW

Mafia and Organized Crime: A Beginners Guide

James O Finckenauer, Mafia and Organized Crime: A Beginners Guide, One-world Oxford, 2007, pp. 220, ISBN 978-1-85168-526-4.

Tuncay Gnaydn*

Mafia or criminal organization is a fact that the society has a frightened-interest in.

James O. Finckenauer deals with the issues of crime, crime that is well-organized and

organized crime in his book Mafia and Organized Crime: A Beginners Guide. The book

aims to provide the reader with an overall picture of organized crime, describe its recently

developing transnational nature and to prove to the citizens of the U.S. that organized crime

is, in fact, not so alien.

The book consists of seven chapters: Organized crime and Mafia; Truth, Fiction and

Myth-The Role of Popular Culture; Explaining the Past, Present, and Possible Future; TheMany Faces of Organized Crime; Organized Crime Is What Organized Crime Does; An Evil

Business: The Traffic in People; and Confronting the Enemy. The first part is assigned for

the explanation of concepts such as mafia, organized crime, violence, harm etc., as well

as comparison between the phenomena such as mafia vs. organized crime and crime

that is organized vs. organized crime. Beginning in here and continuing throughout the

following chapters, Finckenauer uses the term organized crime and mafia to define

basically a group of people who repeatedly get involved in crime and violence in hierarchical

collaboration within a period of time for the sake of financial and/or reputation-related gains.

However, although he separates organized crime from crime that is (well) organized hedoes not use the term criminal organization instead of organized crime. This leads to a

confusion since it is denominated differently. It must be called an organized crime when

a group of people gather together for once and organize an illegal act to be carried out in

hierarchical collaboration for the sake of financial gains though they are not necessarily to

be defined as a criminal organization. Additionally, stressing the culture and family-based

nature of mafia, the writer successfully decouples the popularly attached concepts mafia

and organized crime from each other.

In the second chapter, the influence of the media in the perception of organized crime

and criminal organizations in society is discussed. With extracts from some movies andserials like The Godfather, Sopranos, La Piovra etc., this was one of the most entertaining

chapters to read.

* Turkish National Police Academy, Institute for Security Sciences (GBF), Graduate Student

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International Journal of Security and Terrorism Cilt: 3 (1)104

Finckenauer claims that the romanticized view of mafia and organized crime in

the media and film industry hides the dark reality of murderous and predatory criminalorganization(s) that extends from time to time.

In the following chapter, various theories concerning the reasons why people turn

into crime in general and into organized crime in particular are discussed. Here, what he

specifically claims is that the alien conspiracy theory which is attributed as the core reason

behind rise of criminal organizations in the United States is a quite poor theory and there

had been crime and organized crime in the United States even before the Italian and Irish

migration. Not objecting to his claim, I think that the stress is on the U.S. in the book. The

same emphasis on the U.S. is noticeable in many other parts of the book.

In the next chapter, several examples of criminal organizations such as La CosaNostra, Urban Street Gangs, One Percent Biker Clubs, The Russian Mafia, The Japanese

Yakuza and Chinese Mafia are described in the light of all theoretical analyses that has

been discussed before. Here, again, an American perspective is dominant as it can be seen,

for example from the Russian or Japanese titles.

The fifth chapter, which seems more like an introductory part for the sixth chapter

presents the criminal activities in details. It is specified that organized crime deals with many

illegal activities that can be carried out in collaboration with profitable activities. What the

writer specifically points out here is that by providing services like gambling, sex, and drugs,

organized crime appeals to human desires for forbidden fruit and it exploits sin.

The chapter entitled An Evil Business: The Traffic in People establishes an in depth

analysis of the relationship between organized crime and human trafficking. He claims that

organized crime plays a facilitator role for both the pushing and the pulling factors in the

source and the destination countries. However, this connection can be established between

many of the transnational crimes and organized crime, and why Finckenauer added this

chapter remains unclear and it seems as if it is out of the general context of the book.

In the last chapter, many advices such as grants of immunity, witness protection,

and enhancement of international co-operation are presented for law enforcement agenciesand any concerned parties.

From a stylistic perspective, the writer has a direct and enjoyable style. The

theoretical parts of the book provide many examples and attributions of the genuine criminal

organizations. Additionally, short reading texts of which can be found plenty in the book

made it like a journal which makes it a very easy to read.

The literature review is one of the distinguished parts of the book and it is evident that

the writer is an expert in the field.

In conclusion, Mafia and Organized Crime: A Beginners Guide is recommended

bachelor and master students of international and national security studies and all professionallaw enforcement agencies that are combating against organized crime. The book is also a

very beneficial source for individuals who intend to relieve him/her from the illusionary effect

of media and romances on the perception of organized crime.