Periodic Reporting for period 2 - UCOC (Understanding the Commitment in Organized Crime)
Berichtszeitraum: 2020-03-01 bis 2021-02-28
The UCOC project emerged from the observation that there was insufficient empirical knowledge of the experience and career paths of organized crime actors. The objective of this research was therefore twofold: to focus on individuals and their experiences and, by extension, to better understand the worlds they frequent.Given the diversity of criminal markets, we decided to focus on drug trafficking, one of the most profitable global industries, which crosses all social fields, from the local to the international and from the street to the financial system. The central question that served as a guiding thread is why and how does one join organized crime? This question led us to study the social conditions of engagement and promotion to the higher spheres of criminality, according to understand the subdivisions, hierarchies, cleavages and the structure of opportunities within the criminal world. This research, based on an in-depth study of the biographies and experiences of major offenders,make it possible to outline a theoretical framework that takes as its object the social stratification of criminal worlds.
My main contribution is to provide new elements of knowledge on the stratification of criminal worlds, that is to say on the system of hierarchical positions according to the unequal access to opportunities, resources, power and prestige, but also according to the unequal exposure to the penal pressure of the authorities. This makes it possible to shift the focus on the role of repressive policies by taking into account their function of protecting societies but also their role as indirect arbiters of criminal underworlds.
These results will be published in the coming months through scientific articles on methodology and presentation of new knowledge. In terms of dissemination the fellow has already participated in several academic conferences and seminars, been interviewed by several media outlets, and participated in a podcast on organized crime in New York, as well as hearings in public institutions and with local actors. Several international public events will also be organized in partnership with the Paris City Hall and the Ministry of Justice.
My main contribution is to provide new elements of knowledge on the stratification of criminal worlds, that is to say on the system of hierarchical positions according to the unequal access to opportunities, resources, power and prestige, but also according to the unequal exposure to the penal pressure of the authorities. This makes it possible to shift the focus on the role of repressive policies by taking into account their function of protecting societies but also their role as indirect arbiters of criminal underworlds.
These results will be published in the coming months through scientific articles on methodology and presentation of new knowledge. In terms of dissemination the fellow has already participated in several academic conferences and seminars, been interviewed by several media outlets, and participated in a podcast on organized crime in New York, as well as hearings in public institutions and with local actors. Several international public events will also be organized in partnership with the Paris City Hall and the Ministry of Justice.
This research has thus allowed me to provide additional empirical arguments, adding to the data accumulated since 2015 during a previous research conducted in France on the pathways of engagement in organized crime and the stratification of criminal worlds. This stratification refers to the system of differentiation and hierarchy and stem from at least four interdependent dynamics:
- differentiated policing and punishment regime
- unequal access to delinquent opportunities
- the quest for upward social mobility of offenders
- finally, the internal structuring of criminal spaces (hierarchization, mobility dynamics, division of criminal labor, etc.)
The first dimension is the subject of numerous studies. It is the last three points that have been the subject of particular scrutiny during the UCOC project, notably through the analysis of the places, norms and actors that structure and animate distinct, hierarchical and sometimes connected domains of crime. In other words, particular attention has been paid to the interactions and plasticity of the boundaries between the "underworld" and the "upperworld".
Our choice to focus primarily on the specific issue of drug trafficking has borne fruit. It is a criminal market with local, national and international ramifications. It implies a division of labor and a hierarchy of positions between implementers, service providers and decision makers, but also an economic and financial division of the market according to the position and strategic role of the different actors.
The initial phase of the UCOC project consisted of collecting literature on organized crime in New York City, as well as multiplying contacts within and outside the university in order to prepare for the empirical phase of data collect. I studied several public reports, police and judicial data, journalistic and autobiographical literature, and conducted a review of recent organized crime court cases in New York federal courts. I then had many meetings with academics, experts and journalists whose work is at least partly focused on the study of organized crime.
The data collect relied primarily on qualitative interviews conducted mostly in detention, with individuals formerly involved in the higher and organized spheres of crime. In order to do this, I made numerous contacts with justice officers, particularly in the probation services. I also met with the former commissioner of the New York City prison system.
The fieldwork then really started from December 2018, with a first interview in a New York State prison with the leader of one of the most important gangs in New York, whose place is central in the wholesale distribution of cocaine. This was followed by ten more interviews conducted both in and out of prison, and a second wave of interviews conducted in New York City and Los Angeles. In parallel, between the months of November 2018 and February 2019, I attended the trial of the former head of the Sinaloa cartel, Joaquin Guzman Loera, in the Federal Court of Brooklyn. The opportunity to collect precise and detailed information on the organization of drug trafficking in its transnational dimension, on the background of the main accused and his former accomplices. I accumulated more than 160 pages of notes, judicial documents and elements of proof presented at the trial by the American government (wiretapping extracts, surveillance reports, testimonies of central characters of the narcotraffic and the action of the security forces).
- differentiated policing and punishment regime
- unequal access to delinquent opportunities
- the quest for upward social mobility of offenders
- finally, the internal structuring of criminal spaces (hierarchization, mobility dynamics, division of criminal labor, etc.)
The first dimension is the subject of numerous studies. It is the last three points that have been the subject of particular scrutiny during the UCOC project, notably through the analysis of the places, norms and actors that structure and animate distinct, hierarchical and sometimes connected domains of crime. In other words, particular attention has been paid to the interactions and plasticity of the boundaries between the "underworld" and the "upperworld".
Our choice to focus primarily on the specific issue of drug trafficking has borne fruit. It is a criminal market with local, national and international ramifications. It implies a division of labor and a hierarchy of positions between implementers, service providers and decision makers, but also an economic and financial division of the market according to the position and strategic role of the different actors.
The initial phase of the UCOC project consisted of collecting literature on organized crime in New York City, as well as multiplying contacts within and outside the university in order to prepare for the empirical phase of data collect. I studied several public reports, police and judicial data, journalistic and autobiographical literature, and conducted a review of recent organized crime court cases in New York federal courts. I then had many meetings with academics, experts and journalists whose work is at least partly focused on the study of organized crime.
The data collect relied primarily on qualitative interviews conducted mostly in detention, with individuals formerly involved in the higher and organized spheres of crime. In order to do this, I made numerous contacts with justice officers, particularly in the probation services. I also met with the former commissioner of the New York City prison system.
The fieldwork then really started from December 2018, with a first interview in a New York State prison with the leader of one of the most important gangs in New York, whose place is central in the wholesale distribution of cocaine. This was followed by ten more interviews conducted both in and out of prison, and a second wave of interviews conducted in New York City and Los Angeles. In parallel, between the months of November 2018 and February 2019, I attended the trial of the former head of the Sinaloa cartel, Joaquin Guzman Loera, in the Federal Court of Brooklyn. The opportunity to collect precise and detailed information on the organization of drug trafficking in its transnational dimension, on the background of the main accused and his former accomplices. I accumulated more than 160 pages of notes, judicial documents and elements of proof presented at the trial by the American government (wiretapping extracts, surveillance reports, testimonies of central characters of the narcotraffic and the action of the security forces).
In terms of results, the description and analysis of the structuring of criminal spaces resulting from this research supports the results of my study conducted in France on the tripartition of drug trafficking spaces. A social space of delinquency designates a coherent domain of delinquency structuring through places, norms and actors. These different spaces are hierarchical and often interconnected. I distinguish a "primary space" from what I called the sphere of «pre-gangsterism", which I distinguish from "organized crime". It is from the analysis of these spaces and frameworks of criminal experience that the logics of mobility have been apprehended. This theorization of the spaces of experience of delinquency contributes to rethinking the theories of involvement and upward mobility in the criminal worlds. This research also examines the intersections between class, gender and race whose importance in the structuring of criminal worlds is less studied than their effects in the functioning of criminal justice. I have particularly insisted on the place and role of women in the functioning of drug trafficking at all levels, as well as in the very closed universe of bank robbers. My research also opens up new questions about the reality of cartels and the drug industry. Concerning the impact, these results will be presented to the academic world as well as to public authorities and NGOs in charge of security issues. A court and a seminar at the university will be dedicated to the presentation of these results which will serve as a basis for the elaboration of a new research project.