Unit 9 Bachelors Capstone In Criminal Justice ✓ Solved

Unit 9 [CJ499: Bachelors Capstone in Criminal Justice] Unit

Unit 9 [CJ499: Bachelors Capstone in Criminal Justice] Unit 9: PowerPoint Assignment: Transnational Crime. Explore a culture that has been linked to criminal behavior. In a 12–15 slide PowerPoint presentation (excluding title and reference slides) complete the following: Identify one culture or ethnicity that has ties to transnational crime, and describe its links to criminal behavior. Evaluate its role in transnational crimes. Analyze and explain how this culture or ethnicity has had an impact on systems of justice. Be sure to discuss the role that socialization and religion play in shaping the beliefs of this culture.

Provide examples determining why these beliefs are formed, and how culture and religion shaped these beliefs.

Paper For Above Instructions

Introduction: Transnational crime describes offenses that cross borders and involve networks that span multiple countries. To illuminate the mechanisms by which culture intersects with criminal enterprise, this paper centers on the Sicilian Mafia (Cosa Nostra) as a historically influential culture-linked actor in transnational crime. Although criminal activity is not inherent to any culture, the Sicilian Mafia exemplifies how certain social structures, norms, and religious embeddedness can shape criminal behavior, legitimate governance, and international policing responses. This analysis identifies the culture's links to criminal behavior, its role in transnational crime, and its impact on justice systems, with particular attention to socialization and religion as shaping forces. The discussion draws on classic and contemporary scholarship about organized crime to ground the evaluation (Gambetta, 1993; Dickie, 2004; Paoli, 2003/2004).

Culture, links to criminal behavior and transnational crime: The Sicilian Mafia emerged from tightly knit kinship and neighborhood networks in Sicily, leveraging informal protection rackets, corruption, and violence to create a private system of order. Its business model centers on private protection and monopoly control over illicit markets, a structure described as the “private protection” economy. The mafia’s identity, coded through omertà (the code of silence) and ritual solidarity, fosters loyalty and resilience against external enforcement. As Gambetta argues, private protection schemes rely on trust built within a community that views the Mafia as a guarantor of order, even as it operates illegitimately (Gambetta, 1993). The transnational dimension emerges as Italian criminal networks expanded into emigration channels and established ties with other organized crime groups, facilitating cross-border drug trafficking, money laundering, and arms movement. Dickie’s historical narrative traces the Mafia’s evolution from localized protection to sophisticated international trafficking networks, illustrating how cultural norms can scale into global criminal activity (Dickie, 2004). Paoli further underscores how Mafia organizations recruit through family ties and intimate social networks, embedding criminal practices within everyday social life, which enabled cross-border operations and alliances (Paoli, 2003/2004).

Impact on justice systems and the role of socialization and religion: The Mafia’s infiltration of political, legal, and law-enforcement institutions in Sicily and abroad demonstrates how cultural embeddedness can distort formal justice processes. In Italy, state responses evolved from suppression to targeted anti-mafia strategies, legal reforms, and the use of informants—pentiti—whose testimonies dismantled traditional protective networks. The socialization process within Mafia communities—where loyalty to the group supersedes formal authority—complicates policing and judicial proceedings, requiring specialized investigative approaches and anti-corruption measures. Religion and Catholic cultural norms shape community perceptions of legitimacy, authority, and honor. While Catholicism does not cause organized crime, it simultaneously provides moral language and ritual frameworks that affect communities’ attitudes toward violence, family honor, and social responsibility. The result is a complex interaction where religious narratives can both reinforce in-group norms and offer platforms for counter-narratives that support crime-fighting and social solidarity against criminal influence (Gambetta, 1993; Paoli, 2003/2004).

Religious and socialization dynamics shaping beliefs: The Mafia’s identity rests on a triad of family loyalty, honor, and secrecy, all of which are socialized within extended kin networks. Catholic religious calendar events, communal patron saints, and rural church communities historically reinforced local solidarity and gendered roles, which criminals sometimes co-opted to bolster legitimacy and mutual aid among members (Gambetta, 1993; Paoli, 2003/2004). The code of silence (omertà) can be understood as a socialization mechanism that binds members to the group’s norms, creating a cycle in which loyalty and fear of retribution perpetuate criminal activity. Religion and ritual also contribute to the moral economy of the organization, providing narratives of fate, honor, and justice that justify collective action against outsiders or perceived threats. However, religious institutions can also serve as sites for rehabilitation, community resilience, and anti-crime advocacy, illustrating the dual potential of religion to both sustain and challenge criminal ecosystems (Dickie, 2004; Paoli, 2003/2004).

Examples of belief formation and cultural-religious shaping processes: 1) Family endogamy and loyalty norms cultivate a worldview in which outsiders are viewed with suspicion and outsiders’ laws are questioned; 2) Oath-taking rites at initiation ceremonies frame criminal allegiance as sacred, differentiating “insiders” from “outsiders” and legitimizing risk-taking behavior; 3) Religious observances embedded in community life—such as church feasts and patron saint processions—provide social venues for mutual aid, networking, and recruitment, while also offering opportunities for community-level anti-crime messaging and intervention; 4) Catholic social teaching on charity and social order can be leveraged by community leaders to promote noncriminal channels for grievance resolution or to criticize violence, creating potential points of tension and reform within Mafia territories. These processes illustrate how culture and religion shape beliefs about legitimacy, loyalty, and the acceptability of criminal activity within transnational networks (Gambetta, 1993; Paoli, 2003/2004; UNODC, 2020).

Conclusion: The Sicilian Mafia exemplifies how culture—through socialization, family networks, and religiously-inflected norms—can influence criminal behavior and fitness for transnational crime, while also shaping interactions with justice systems across borders. Understanding these dynamics is essential for formulating effective, culturally informed anti-crime strategies and for recognizing the limits of purely punitive approaches. By analyzing how beliefs are formed and reinforced within a culturally embedded criminal organization, scholars and practitioners can better anticipate vulnerabilities in justice systems and develop interventions that engage communities, support legitimate governance, and reduce transnational criminal activity.

References

• Gambetta, D. (1993). The Sicilian Mafia: The Business of Private Protection. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
• Dickie, J. (2004). Cosa Nostra: A History of the Italian Mafia. London: Hodder & Stoughton.
• Paoli, L. (2003/2004). Mafia Brotherhoods: Organized Crime, Italian Style. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Naim, M. (2005). Illicit: How Smugglers, Traffickers, and Copycats Are Hijacking the Global Economy. New York, NY: Anchor Books.
• Varese, F. (2010). The Organizing of Transnational Crime: A Global Perspective. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Albanese, J. S. (2011). Organized Crime in Our Times. New York, NY: Routledge.
• UNODC. (2020). Global Transnational Crime: An Overview. Vienna: United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.
• Europol & European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction. (2022). SOCTA 2022: Serious and Organized Crime Threat Assessment. The Hague: Europol.
• Reuter, P. (2011). Dr ugs, Law, and Public Policy. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
• Boyd, C. (2009). The World of Organized Crime: A Global Perspective. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers.