Understanding Organised Crime Businesses [OCBs] from a Practice-Based and Theoretical Perspective

There is an increasing body of academic and practice-based work positioning serious and organised crime [SOC] and organised criminals [OCs] as being entrepreneurial in nature and thus more difficult to interdict using traditional policing methodologies and strategies. Whilst there is also an increasing appreciation of this development amongst academics and policing agencies, there is still an understandable tendency to view and police OCs from the established paradigm of being organised crime gangs [OCGs]. This model is well-established and, in some cases, is the correct terminology for many of the criminal gangs under scrutiny because there are elements of disorganisation and criminal idiosyncrasies about them, but as we know ourselves as professionals and practitioners, not all OCGs are organised on similar lines nor run as gangs. From our work in the field, we appreciate that many have evolved to such an extent that we are forced to consider a new theoretical category of organised crime businesses [OCBs] because they are structured and operated as businesses, not gangs. Granted there are alternative voices that warn of the anti-entrepreneurial nature of SOC and that not all OC is entrepreneurial per se. This more nuanced understanding is of vital importance from an academic and investigative perspective because OCBs operate as businesses with business structures and practices, and thus, an understanding of such business practices is required to understand their unusual modus operandi and modus vivendi, which differ from that of traditional OCGs we have come to understand. We are not challenging the veracity of the OCG phenomenon but merely pointing out that there is room for other categories and hence the need to acknowledge and think about OCBs as a viable category alongside OCGs. This conceptual work introduces and marshals relevant and extant literature to work towards establishing the theoretical category of OCBs as a useful academic and practice-based position and reality.