The Use of Violence by Organised Crime Groups

Abstract

The use or even the threat of the use of violence is one of the main resources used by organized crime groups to reinforce their reputation, maintain their market position and increase the competitiveness of their businesses. The use of violence can be directed against other members of the group (intra-group), against other groups (inter-group) or against non-criminal individuals (extra-group). Violence may be considered as a tool both aimed at pursuing economic goals within the illegal and legal markets, and at exercising power and influence over other criminal groups and the local society as well. Furthermore, violence may be also conceived as an instrument which allows to impose a ‘territorial control’, thus becoming, in certain circumstances, a mechanism which regulates local economies. It is indeed a resource which can be used by the criminal organization as such and by single individuals who pursue, by this way, specific interests and manage to widen their criminal reputation. From this point of view, the professional use of violence may be considered an ‘expertise’ which actually characterizes members of mafia-type organizations. Starting from this perspective, the panel aims at addressing several topics: a) the use of violence as a tool for solving disputes and impose group’s power over the territory; b) the relationships between the use of violence within illegal markets and/or markets formally legal but characterised by an illegal or criminal management and the development of mafia-type organizations; c) the relationship between organizational orders and the use of violence; d) the use of symbolic violence in order to enhance the reputation of the clans or even of single members of the group, deepening their sphere of respect and securing a certain level of impunity; e) the representations of organised crime violence in the media system.

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