Careers in Organized Crime Research Paper

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This research paper elaborates upon theoretical and empirical insights into criminal careers in organized crime. The first section provides an overview of life-course criminology, older offenders, and adult onset. The second section briefly reviews literature on criminal careers in white-collar crime and concludes that situational context is a key concept in explaining a large proportion of involvement in white-collar crime. The third section explores involvement mechanisms in organized crime: recruitment, social ties, work ties, leisure activities and sidelines, and life events (including financial setbacks). The fourth section reviews major studies on criminal careers in organized crime and describes how the findings of these studies differ from the main findings of developmental and life-course criminology. The last section comprises the main conclusions and suggestions for further research.

Traditional research on criminal careers has mainly focused on juveniles, adolescents, and high-volume crime. Although much empirical progress has been made in developmental and life-course criminology (e.g., Farrington 2005), this research tradition tends to ignore certain kinds of offenders, particularly adult offenders, and certain types of crime, particularly organized crime, white-collar crime, and terrorism (Weisburd and Waring 2001; Leeper Piquero and Benson 2004; Steffensmeier and Ulmer 2005). Mainstream research focuses on property crimes and violent crimes, crimes for which opportunities are ubiquitous and open to anyone. Furthermore, many empirical longitudinal studies focus on a relatively early and short lifespan (Piquero 2008). These studies are therefore unable, almost by definition, to identify offenders who become engaged in crime only later on in life.

There are several reasons why criminal careers in organized crime may be different from high-volume crime. Anybody is able to steal something or commit a violent act, but things are somewhat more complex in organized crime and particularly in cases of cross-border crime or “transit crime.” Nowadays, many activities of organized crime groups boil down to international smuggling activities such as drug trafficking, smuggling illegal immigrants, human trafficking for sexual exploitation, arms trafficking, trafficking in stolen vehicles, and other transnational illegal activities, such as money laundering and evasion of taxes (e.g., cigarette smuggling, value-added tax fraud, and European Community fraud) (Kleemans 2007). Such activities pose different requirements than traditional high-volume crime (Kleemans and De Poot 2008).

The first distinct feature is the greater importance of social relations in organized crime. It is simply impossible to get started without access to suppliers, clients, co-offenders, and profitable criminal opportunities. Trust is also important, as the financial stakes are high and the rules and mechanisms that make transactions in the legal world so much easier are absent: entering into contracts, paying via the official banking system, and – in case of disagreement – the availability of mediation or the judiciary (Reuter 1983). For this reason, existing social ties are used or illegal business relationships have to be built up. Not everyone has suitable ties that provide access to these profitable illegal opportunities, whereas building up such relationships takes time and energy.

The second distinct feature of organized crime is the transnational character of many of these criminal activities. Many types of organized crime are based on international smuggling activities. Yet many people lack international contacts that may connect them to these illegal opportunities, as social networks are typically constrained by laws of geographical and social distance (e.g., Feld 1981). Thus, not all offenders have access to these transnational contacts and some only later on in life.

A third common feature is that the activities are logistically considerably more complex and call for more co-offenders and specific expertise (e.g., Cornish and Clarke 2002). As more cooffenders are generally required for the successful commission of these crimes, seeking and finding suitable co-offenders is important (see, e.g., Tremblay 1993). Reliance on co-offenders from within one’s own social circle is not always sufficient, as they may not possess the necessary capabilities. Contacts with the legal world are also salient for transport, money transactions, and shielding activities from the authorities. Many people lack these contacts and expertise, and some acquire them only later on in life, e.g., through their professional activities and contacts.

This research paper elaborates upon theoretical and empirical insights into criminal careers in organized crime. The first section provides an overview of life-course criminology, older offenders, and adult onset. The second section briefly reviews literature on criminal careers in whitecollar crime and concludes that situational context is a key concept in explaining a large proportion of involvement in white-collar crime. The third section explores involvement mechanisms in organized crime: recruitment, social ties, work ties, leisure activities and sidelines, and life events (including financial setbacks). The fourth section reviews major studies on criminal careers in organized crime and describes how the findings of these studies differ from the main findings of developmental and life-course criminology. The last section comprises the main conclusions and suggestions for further research.

Life-Course Criminology, Older Offenders, And Adult Onset

Developmental and life-course criminology place a strong emphasis on individual characteristics and long-term risk factors when explaining differences in criminal careers (see, e.g., Moffitt 1993). For example, Moffitt’s well-known “dual taxonomy” distinguishes between a large group of people who engage in crime and antisocial behavior mostly during adolescence (“adolescence-limited” offenders) and a small group of people who are antisocial from an early age, engage in crime in adolescence, and remain active in crime and other forms of antisocial behavior throughout their lives (“life-course persistent”). The explanation for “life-course-persistent” criminal behavior is generally sought in fairly stable biological or psychological characteristics – often deficiencies – such as low intelligence, high impulsivity, or low self-control. Moffitt argues that early problem behavior is an indicator that a person belongs to the life-course-persistent group and that antisocial and criminal behavior is likely to continue into later life.

Gottfredson and Hirschi (1990) follow a similar route in their “general theory of crime.” Although they deny the very existence of different “types” of offenders, their basic approach is quite comparable: people develop self-control early in life, and those who lack sufficient self-control engage in criminal acts and similar behavior – with short-term benefits and long-term costs such as drinking, smoking, and adultery – at higher rates than others throughout their lives. Many developmental and life-course theories of offending, though often more nuanced and empirically grounded, share this strong emphasis on individual characteristics and long-term risk factors and treat antisocial behavior in children as essentially similar to offending in adults (Farrington 2005).

In this light, many theories assume that onset occurs early in life and that adult offending requires childhood antisocial behavior (see, e.g., Robins 1978). From this perspective, adult-onset offending is a rare phenomenon that needs no serious research effort (e.g., Gottfredson and Hirschi 1990). As a result, adult onset is an anomaly in developmental and life-course criminology and is treated in the same way as anomalies are generally treated in “normal science” (e.g., Kuhn 1962). Anomalies are discovered now and then but are often brushed aside empirically or theoretically (for an overview on adult onset, see Van Koppen et al. 2010).

The general neglect of adult-onset offending can be attributed to two major factors. First, almost all research on criminal careers is concerned with high-volume crime, in which adult-onset offending seems relatively scarce. Second, the majority of trajectory research focuses on a relatively small (and mostly young) age frame and is therefore unable to identify adult-onset offenders by definition. Piquero (2008) provides an overview of all research using trajectory methodology in studying criminal activity over the life course between 1993 and 2006. These 90 studies reflect about 50 different samples. Only half of the samples include individuals after age 18, and only a fifth have data available after age 30. Birth cohort studies that do follow individuals long enough into adulthood systematically identity a significant share of adult-onset offenders. A quarter up to half of the criminal samples of cohorts drawn in Racine, Stockholm, and Philadelphia turn out to start offending in adulthood (e.g., Eggleston and Laub 2002).

Hence, the dominant way in which criminal careers are studied – longitudinally, over a short (adolescent) life-span, using self-reports with limited follow-ups, and mainly focused on high-volume crime and (re)traceable young offenders – reinforces received wisdoms that might be challenged by other types of research, focusing on other types of crime, such as white-collar crime and organized crime.

Criminal Careers In White-Collar Crime

Over the past years, a number of studies have examined criminal careers in white-collar crime. Although there is a difference between white-collar crime and organized crime, both concern more uncommon types of crime, and both may reveal different patterns than the ones discovered in more traditional research. Until 1980, most of what was known concerning white-collar offenders and their crimes was extracted from case studies. From 1980 on, datasets were constructed containing white-collar crimes committed in the United States (Leeper Piquero and Benson 2004; Weisburd and Waring 2001). These new efforts immediately refuted a common belief about white-collar offenders. They are not all one-time offenders, as had been stated before (see, e.g., Edelhertz and Overcast 1982). Almost half of the white-collar offenders have had at least one other official contact with the criminal justice system (Benson and Moore 1992). Furthermore, these criminal careers turn out to differ substantially from careers of high-volume crime offenders on several aspects. Or as noted by Leeper Piquero and Benson (2004), “the typical white-collar offender greatly differs from the typical street offender and does not appear to fit into the proposed explanations of life-course-offending patterns.”

Based on their findings on white-collar criminals, Leeper Piquero and Benson (2004) propose a theory on career patterns in white-collar crime called punctuated situation-ally dependent offending. It assumes that white-collar criminals are criminally active during adolescence (just like high-volume crime offenders), then desist for a while, and begin to offend again when they reach their 30s or 40s. External factors are used to explain this revival later in life. One explanation involves a personal or occupational crisis the offender is going through. A second explanation relates to opportunities presented when a certain occupational status has been reached. Situational context is a key concept in explaining a large proportion of involvement in white-collar crime (see for a review, e.g., Benson and Simpson 2009). Results of a study by Weisburd and Waring (2001) corroborate this idea: the white-collar offenders studied differ on various career aspects from offenders of high-volume crime, the age of onset was relatively late, and they were criminally active for a substantially longer period and were arrested for fewer offenses throughout their criminal career. These lines of research show the importance of incorporating new groups of offenders.

Organized Crime: Involvement Mechanisms

Before contemporary research on criminal careers in organized crime will be discussed further below, several involvement mechanisms are presented, explaining processes and situations that provide opportunities for organized crime. How do people get involved in organized crime?

Recruitment

According to the standard idea of recruitment, criminal “organizations” recruit outsiders who may move up in the hierarchy by proving their suitability. They start by doing dirty jobs and are ultimately rewarded. Behind this idea lies the assumption of a more or less static criminal organization (cf., e.g., Cressey 1969), while research shows that, much more often, the world of organized crime consists of criminal networks in which offenders may cooperate with one another in changing constellations (for a review, see, e.g., Morselli 2009). Within these criminal networks, there often are nodal actors, on whom many other offenders depend because of their money, knowledge, and contacts. These nodal actors resurface time and again, in different criminal investigations and different criminal collaborations. Still, other offenders may gradually become less dependent on these nodal actors because they accumulate money, knowledge, and contacts for themselves and subsequently develop increasingly more criminal activities of their own.

Social Ties And The Social Snowball Effect

Social ties are very important in organized crime. Opposite to the standard view of recruitment, social ties create a “social snowball effect”: people get involved in organized crime through their family, friends, and acquaintances; as they go along, their dependency on the resources of other people (such as money, knowledge, and contacts) gradually declines; and they generate new criminal collaborations. They involve people from their own environment in their activities, keeping the snowball in motion (Kleemans and Van de Bunt 1999: 29–34). Examples comprise partners, girlfriends, spouses, sons, daughters, brothers, sisters, and half-brothers, who get involved in criminal activities; a father who starts helping his son in drug trafficking; or a smuggled Iranian who ultimately becomes responsible for human smuggling operations himself. Hence, the choices people make are prestructured, and the opportunities that present themselves are not presented to anyone.

Similar prestructured choices relate to three other involvement mechanisms, which are encountered when analyzing starters in organized crime. Within the context of the Dutch Organized Crime Monitor, 120 major investigations into organized crime groups have been analyzed systematically (see for more information: Kleemans 2007). In 2008, the criminal careers of 92 “starters” were analyzed, suspects that did not have any other judicial contacts before and who had not “progressed” from high-volume crime into organized crime (Kleemans and De Poot 2008). Next to deliberate recruitment, emphasis was placed upon social ties and the social snowball effect, work ties, leisure activities and sidelines, and life events (including financial setbacks).

Work Ties

Generally, people associate occupations with white-collar crime, yet organized crime is equally dependent on contacts with the licit world. Therefore, occupations are also important in explaining involvement in organized crime. Just like social ties cross boundaries between legality and illegality, so do some work settings in which people spend a considerable share of their daily life. Several occupational characteristics may help in providing opportunities for organized crime (Kleemans and Van de Bunt 2008). First, the social nature of work activities may create opportunities; individuals who often interact with others can meet with potential co-offenders. Second, international contacts and travel movements may create such opportunities. Contacts with other countries and other social groups enable someone to discover and effectuate certain possibilities to commit (transnational) criminal activities. Examples are occupations involving mobility, transport, and logistics. It is the story of the fruit trader who also uses his contacts and knowledge for the import and export of drugs; airline personnel who travel on a regular basis, and who know how to evade baggage checks in airports; and an international trader in clothes who also engages in human trafficking and underground banking. Third, the individual freedom of action of particular occupations is important, or in other words: autonomy. This explains the involvement of directors of (usually) small businesses, independent professionals, and relatively autonomous persons employed by larger organizations, such as corporations and banks. It also explains the relative absence of professionals in the salaried employment of the government or large organizations. Similar findings on occupations that emphasize the assets of international social contacts and autonomy follow from interviews with incarcerated offenders, most notably highlighting the salience of people working in logistically important sectors such as boating, fishing, import and export, transport, and the airline sector (e.g., Dorn et al. 2005).

Leisure Activities And Sidelines

The chances of getting into contact with organized crime differ from person to person and from occupation to occupation. Yet people from different social worlds, involved in disconnected networks, may also run into each other through leisure activities and sidelines. Local bars, nightlife, parties, after parties, drug joints, brothels, shooting clubs, or motor clubs, these are all places where all sorts and conditions of people can meet. These meeting places are especially important for forging contact between representatives of the “underworld” and the “licit world,” who would not meet each other so easily in everyday life. This is why these places also play a vital role in the coming about of involvement in organized crime.

Life Events And Financial Setbacks

A final involvement mechanism relates to life events. In developmental and life-course criminology, the emphasis is on the positive effects of life events such as getting a permanent job, a stable relationship, or having children (Laub and Sampson 2003). These positive life events make problems like crime disappear like snow in summer. Involvement in organized crime, however, results from the negative sides of life events, particularly among men in middle age: divorce, illness, disability, unemployment, and bankruptcies; these are all moments when people are suddenly confronted with setbacks, socially and financially. They are down and out, bankrupt or deeply in debt, and subsequently some of them weigh pros and cons differently when generous financial investors appear on the scene or lucrative illegal opportunities present themselves.

What these five involvement mechanisms have in common is that the opportunities presenting themselves to people are prestructured in a way which those people do not necessarily have to realize. Options differ from person to person and are different at the beginning of one’s life course compared to later on in life. This is also one of the reasons why criminal careers in organized crime may evolve differently than traditional high-volume crime careers, as the options are not open to anyone and generally only provide themselves later on in life for a selected group of criminals and noncriminals.

Criminal Careers In Organized Crime

Empirical research into criminal careers in organized crime is scarce, yet recent studies have challenged several basic facts and received wisdoms of developmental and life-course criminology. For one, the age-crime curve describing that in general the prevalence of offending rises steeply in the early teenage years and reaches a peak between the ages of 15 and 17, followed by a decline over the rest of the life course. For another, the dominance of individual differences (risk factors) explaining persistence in offending for a very small group of offenders (“life course persistent offenders”) as opposed to the majority of “adolescence-limited offenders” (e.g., Moffitt 1993).

First, juveniles are almost absent in organized crime, and most offenders are quite old, in their 30s, 40s, 50s, or even older. Second, a large share of organized crime offenders get involved in crime only at a later age. Late starters are not exceptional, as in traditional research on criminal careers, yet comprise a substantial group of offenders (Kleemans and De Poot 2008). This finding of a substantial presence of “late-onset” offenders is robust across several different criminal activities (drugs, fraud, and other activities) and different roles in criminal groups (leaders, coordinators, and lower-level suspects) (Van Koppen et al. 2010). These findings contradict the general idea that crimes at a later age should be preceded by crimes in adolescence and that individual characteristics and long-term risk factors are the major explanation for a life in crime, let alone a life in serious and organized crime.

The scarce literature on organized crime offenders often resonates the preoccupation with special characteristics of offenders. For instance, Bovenkerk (2000) states that certain characteristics that are conducive to a career in business (based on the “Big Five” from test psychology) are also conducive to a career in organized crime. Basically, the personality traits of successful legal entrepreneurs would be mirrored in the personality traits of illegal entrepreneurs: extraversion, controlled impulsiveness, a sense of adventure, megalomania, and narcissistic personality disorder. This line of reasoning is based upon ideas of “the survival of the fittest” in which only offenders with certain characteristics end up in organized crime or in certain leadership positions.

However, there are important lines of research that raise objections against this traditional focus on individual characteristics. Some offenders of organized crime are quite normal and well adapted in many respects, even though they are involved in serious forms of crime. A significant amount of offenders have legitimate jobs and sources of income. Moreover, not all crimes are the same nor just symptoms of latent characteristics such as low self-control and a variety of people can become involved in organized crime (e.g., Steffensmeier and Ulmer 2005). Next to individual personality differences, these studies draw attention to situational factors that may be important to explain involvement in organized crime.

Most of what is known on organized crime offenders, comes from (auto)biographies and case studies of mafia groups (e.g., Paoli 2003; Steffensmeier and Ulmer 2005). These studies, based on memoirs and testimonies, illustrate the complexity of a criminal life course, including contacts, situational context, and processes such as persistence and desistance. Morselli (2005) describes in detail the careers of Howard Marks and “Sammy The Bull” Gravano. Based upon Burt’s work on brokerage (Burt 2005), he has put forward the idea that “brokers do better” and that advancements in criminal careers can be explained by deliberate choices people make in investing in certain relationships. Based upon Marks’ autobiography, Morselli focuses on the personal network that explains why Marks was able to be successful in the cannabis trade. Central issues are brokerage (linking disconnected networks), the number of (non-redundant) contacts, and social network dynamics.

One of the main problems of case studies is that one may wonder whether these case studies reflect the average or exceptional offender in organized crime and whether these case studies are able to capture the full range of different pathways in organized crime. Case studies may be biased toward more interesting, more talkative or defective, atypical offenders. Moreover, autobiographies often focus on people with long criminal careers instead of “late-onset” offenders. Two studies, however, comprise a broader, comparative view on several criminal careers in organized crime.

The first study is based upon quantitative and qualitative information about the criminal careers of 979 suspects who were involved in 79 different organized crime cases that have been analyzed in the context of the Dutch Organized Crime Monitor (Kleemans and De Poot 2008). First, key figures of these criminal careers are compared to careers of the total offender population. Offenders in the studied organized crime cases are mostly men between 30 and 50 years old. They are generally older than the total offender population, and the studied group of suspects includes no juveniles at all. The age distribution seems to reflect the fact that it is a highly specific group that does not come within the focus of traditional research into criminal careers. Kleemans and De Poot also analyzed criminal careers of 92 “starters,” suspects who did not have any other judicial contacts before and who had not “progressed” from high-volume crime into organized crime. Five involvement mechanisms were described in more detail: deliberate recruitment by criminal groups, social ties and the social snowball effect, work ties, leisure activities and sidelines, and life events (including financial setbacks) (see above). Finally, they analyzed the careers of 66 (ring) leaders and “nodal” offenders in more detail to find out how their criminal careers had developed. Some (ring) leaders had a long criminal career: the versatile but regionally constrained “local hero” (versatility as a result of both opportunities and constraints of the local context); progression through an increase in scale (specialization, particularly in international drug trafficking); progression through capital accumulation (investing in drug transports (while refraining from hands-on activities) and becoming a “background operator”; and expertise, contacts, and network formation (people getting a central position in criminal networks because many offenders and criminal groups need their contacts and expertise). Surprisingly, a significant share of (ring) leaders could be typified as “late-onset” offenders, who had made a switch from a legal occupational background to organized crime. Among these 32 offenders, a distinction could be made between a group of 19 with a background in legal trade (including import and export) and a group of 13 with other types of occupation – people from the business sector, the construction industry, assembly, hotels and catering, financial services, or government. Three different types of “late onset” were described: criminal activities extending from legal activities (opportunities that arise during day-to-day work, particularly in fraud cases); people who obviously switch careers, from legal to illegal commodities, motivated by the big profits that can be obtained in the trade in prohibited commodities such as narcotics; and finally, people seizing upon criminal opportunities only later on in life after specific, significant life events (including financial setbacks and problematic debt situations).

Both the research on “starters” and on “lateonset (ring) leaders” illuminate the mechanisms behind the “anomaly” of “adult onset.” In essence, the story is that explaining involvement and success in organized crime requires more than a focus on individual differences and longterm risk factors. Kleemans and De Poot (2008) explain their findings by social opportunity structure – social ties providing access to profitable criminal opportunities. Social opportunity structure is unequally distributed across the population and across age. Certain kinds of people have social ties that give them direct access to illegal opportunities. Major examples are migrants, who connect source countries of narcotics to Western consumer markets, and people with occupations that are connected to mobility, transport, and logistics. Furthermore, social opportunity structure is unequally distributed across age. Some offenders lack necessary social ties at a younger age, which explains why some offenders become involved in organized crime only at a later age. It also explains the interesting phenomenon of “late starters” – people without any appreciable criminal history – and legally employed people switching careers.

The second study that takes a comparative view on careers in organized crime was a follow-up study by Van Koppen et al. (2010). They elaborated upon this research and investigated criminal trajectories of 854 suspects, based upon quantitative and qualitative data from the Dutch Organized Crime Monitor. A semiparametric group-model was used to cluster 854 individuals into groups with similar developmental trajectories. The most important finding of this study relates to the substantial group of adult-onset offenders (40 %) and a group without any previous criminal records (19 %), next to a group of early starters (11 %) and a group of persisters (30 %). Up till then, no trajectory study had ever discovered such a vast share of adult-onset offenders. Furthermore, the findings turn out to be quite robust across different kinds of criminal activities (drugs, fraud, and other criminal activities) and different roles in criminal groups (leaders, coordinators, and lower-level suspects). Adult-onset offenders emerge in several kinds of criminal activities and in several kinds of roles in criminal groups. Hence, it is not true that the amount of fraud cases in the sample would explain the substantial share of late-onset offenders; late onset is equally important in other types of criminal activities such as drug trafficking. Neither could roles in criminal groups explain “late onset”: late onset seems to be equally present in lower-level suspects as in coordinators and (ring) leaders. The mechanisms described in the study by Kleemans and De Poot (2008) may explain these robust findings, as these mechanisms may equally apply to different kinds of criminal activities and to people with different types of roles in criminal groups.

Conclusion And Challenges For Future Research

Differences between organized crime and high-volume crime may explain several interesting findings that challenge basic findings from developmental and life-course criminology. First, juveniles are almost absent in organized crime, and most offenders are quite old, in their 30s, 40s, 50s, or even older. Second, a large share of offenders get involved in organized crime only at a later age. Late starters are not exceptional, as in traditional research on criminal careers, yet comprise a substantial group of offenders. This finding of a substantial presence of “late-onset” offenders is robust across several different criminal activities (drugs, fraud, and other activities) and different roles in criminal groups (leaders, coordinators, and lower-level suspects). These findings contradict the general idea that crimes at a later age should be preceded by crimes in adolescence and that individual characteristics and long-term risk factors are the major explanation for a life in crime, let alone a life in serious and organized crime. The findings can also be explained by different involvement mechanisms that play a role in organized crime. Next to deliberate recruitment, four other involvement mechanisms play a key role: social ties and the social snowball effect, work ties, leisure activities and sidelines, and life events (including financial setbacks). What these involvement mechanisms have in common is that the opportunities presenting themselves to people are prestructured. Options differ from person to person and are different at the beginning of one’s life course compared to later on in life. This is also one of the reasons why criminal careers in organized crime may evolve differently than traditional high-volume crime careers, as the options are not open to anyone and generally only provide themselves later on in life for a selected group of criminals and non-criminals.

Kleemans and De Poot (2008) use the theoretical concept of social opportunity structure – social ties providing access to profitable criminal opportunities. Social opportunity structure is unequally distributed across the population and across age. Certain kinds of people have social ties that give them direct access to illegal opportunities. Major examples are migrants, who connect source countries of narcotics to Western consumer markets, and people with occupations that are connected to mobility, transport, and logistics. Furthermore, social opportunity structure is unequally distributed across age. Some offenders lack necessary social ties at a younger age, which explains why some offenders become involved in organized crime only at a later age. It also explains the interesting phenomenon of “late starters” – people without any appreciable criminal history – and legally employed people switching careers.

An important new insight from the literature is that occupations do not only play a major role in white-collar and corporate crime but in organized crime as well. Many studies on organized crime tend to draw a sharp distinction between licit activities and illicit activities and between the licit world and the underworld. Some studies focus on the infiltration or extortion of licit economic sectors by organized crime, while other studies tend to emphasize symbiosis and “interfaces” between legal and illegal actors. Empirical research, however, indicates that both worlds may converge. Occupations, work relations, and work settings may provide the breeding ground for organized crime activities, particularly transit crime. Furthermore, occupations offer work relations and work settings that are directly relevant for providing opportunities to search for suitable co-offenders, to gain trust, and to exercise control. Social ties cross boundaries between legality and illegality, as do some work settings in which people spend a considerable share of their daily life. Empirical research highlights the salience of social relations, work relations, and work settings for criminal activities, also in cases of organized crime. From a theoretical point of view, these findings are important in bridging ideas from social network theory and opportunity theory.

Social relations are influenced by “foci of interaction” (Feld 1981). Social relations do not happen at random but often obey the laws of social and geographical distance, producing a certain kind of clustering based on geographical distance, ethnicity, education, age, etc. (e.g., Burt 2005). For many people, work is also an important focus of interaction. Second, social relations and work relations often coincide, either because people find a job through social relations or because working relationships develop into more or less close social relations. Third, the blending of work relations and social relations may also contribute to the effective concealment of illegal activities. For a variety of reasons, potential witnesses may remain silent, look the other way, or feel reluctant to blow the whistle. Effective concealment does not require secret societies. “Walls of silence” may also emerge in licit worlds that are mobile, dynamic, and social (Van de Bunt 2010).

Studies on criminal careers in organized crime pose several challenges for criminal career research. First, these studies might refocus attention to social context and co-offenders promoting certain pathways in crime. Co-offending is still an understudied aspect in criminal career research. Second, these findings challenge the traditional boundaries between legality and illegality. Social ties cross boundaries between legality and illegality, as do some people’s activities at particular times in their lives. Third, the studies on organized crime careers suggest that criminal career research should focus not only on adolescence but also on later stages in life, as important changes in criminal careers occur with age. Fourth, studying these stages in life should go beyond a preoccupation with desistance. Steffensmeier and Ulmer (2005) state that desistance cannot be explained by stakes in conformity alone; another important factor is a lack of profitable criminal opportunities or the reverse. One could argue that this is particularly salient during stages in life when making money is more important than in adolescence. It could also provide an answer to the question why successful offenders in organized crime never seem to “retire” and continue along the path of crime. Finally, some people seize upon illegal opportunities, while others do not. Clearly, there is both “agency” and “opportunity” (Laub and Sampson 2003). The question why, when confronted with opportunities, some people turn to crime and others do not, and under which conditions, is still unresolved and needs further exploration.

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