Organized Crime and Inner-City Youth

Abstract

Although organized crime touches every American, the direct victims are the citizens living in the deteriorated areas of our large cities. Not all the persons making a living from organized crime are members of Cosa Nostra, and very few of the public of ficials corrupted by Cosa Nostra are members-yet alliances be tween organized criminals and public officials directly, certainly, and rapidly break down "respect for law and order" among inner- city youth. Similarly, not many of the persons occupying the low est levels of the division of labor constituting organized crime are Cosa Nostra members. These "street men" work as commission agents for members. In doing so, they efficiently and effectively provide inner-city youngsters with criminalistic norms, values, and ways of behaving. Inner-city delinquency rates can be re duced by eradicating the kind of behavior patterns diffused by organized criminals, and by discovering and then taking advan tage of those anticriminal behavior patterns that keep many inner-city children out of trouble, even in organized-crime areas.