Strategy Paper for Reducing the Incidences of Organized Crime in the USA

Crime and violence are the major development issue in America. Apart from suffering and Trauma of individual victim, the crime carries staggering economic costs to the country. In 2015 alone, more than 24 million criminal offenses were reported, a trend that led to approximately $17 billion loss to victims while the federal government spends more $200 billion on legal activities and police protection (Finklea, 2009). The United States faces some crimes, some of them appeared to be difficult to address such as organized crime while others can be can easily be solved if a proper strategy is put in place. Programs that either directly or indirectly reduces the rates of crime can be beneficial to the economy as they bring down crime related costs incurred by individuals. The report proposes some of the approaches that can be adopted by the federal government to reduce the incidences of organized crime.

The most difficult type of crime to address is the organized crime. Organized crime as its sounds is carried out by structured groups that individually participate in the distribution and selling of illegal good and services. Organized do exercise control over large criminal enterprises, for instance, there are drug trade, weapon smuggling and illegal gambling among others. One of the main reason why fighting this kind of crime is that these enterprises are organized along the same lines as legitimate businesses that take on the corporate form (Brown & Spiropoulos,2014). The rate of organized crime is rampant as more illegal drugs are being smuggled in the United States on daily basis and drug trafficking is one of the organized crime that poses a threat. The upward trend of drug smuggling and use is attributed to the economic globalization and improved communication. The smuggling of drugs in the United States is catalyzed by the ready market as drug trends among youths in the country has remained relatively stable in the recent past.

The federal government has invested a lot of money in states law agencies to combat the rising rate of drug use and trafficking in the United States. Since this is a well-organized enterprise, the strategies of fighting require a lot of involvement, and one agency cannot handle such pressure. There should be proper coordination between the FBI, CSI, and other federal agencies and do this attracts a lot of money. Also, the individual that run this enterprise are influential people, and the do everything at their disposal to ensure that the federal effort bears no fruit. Correspondingly, most of the organized crime groups that are operating in the United States are managed by individuals from foreign countries. The FBI investigates the organized crime group that falls into three categories: the Middle Eastern organized group, the Asian and African criminal enterprise and the Italian organized the group, and all these groups play an essential role in smuggling drugs in the country (Finklea,2009).

Plans to combat organized crime specifically drug trafficking and usage among youths

This problem persists because of increased used of the drug among young people in the United States. Therefore, the plan should start by focusing on the reduction of drug use among the youths to kill the market.

Firstly, there should be a creation of domestic working groups and task workforce. The FBI that is mandated with fighting off this crime should ensure that it collaborates with both state and local partners to combat illegal drug use in the society. Local partners include vigilante groups and all need to be empowered and even finance as they will provide the FBI with the necessary intelligence required to suppress such activities. Schools can also be used as an approach to preventing youth from engaging in drug activities. The school should be utilized as the early intervention that aims at reducing the early involvement of young people in drug-related activities. Studies have shown that the peak of substance and drug use is mostly between 5th and 8th grade when teen are not doing well in their education (Sherman et al..2013).

Another step is providing employment opportunities to unemployed youths be it full time or part time. Local companies should come together and look for the way of providing employment. This will be essential in pulling young people from drug addiction and socialize them to foreseeable careers. The unskilled youth should also be given with vital surviving skill through taking them to technical colleges to pursue various programs (Decker, 2007). The government will require providing the scholarship to such students as some of them cannot afford the cost of education. Lastly, legislation plays an essential role in combating crime, and various laws have been implemented but appears to do little. The plan entails reviewing some of this law such as the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Street Act. The definition of organized crime in the law focuses on activities rather that stipulating what constitutes an illegal organization.

The first part of the plan have on suppressing the market since any given product is driven by consumer demand, and if there is no demand, the supply is also not there. The second step focuses on suppliers, traffickers that smuggle or even manufacture all kind of drugs and it will involve various activities. The first measure is the use of electronic surveillance that will be helpful in reducing smuggling drugs from outside as it enables the law enforcement agencies to intercept conspirators in the US discussing drug deals with their crime associate countries. The second approach is undercover operations that will enable law enforcement agents to penetrate the highest level of organized crime by pretending to be criminal when real drug dealers are discussing business (Ohr, 1999).

Hate crimes are crimes against individuals or property are committed while invoking prejudgments of race, religion gender among others. Since the rate of such crime in the United is relatively constant, the federal government has not invested much money, and it is easy to prevent.

Conclusively, organized crime in the United States especially drug trafficking and use among youths is on the rise and remains difficult to be addressed. The report has tried to highlight some of the steps that the government can implement, to deal with this kind of crime by either reducing or eliminating entirely. The first step has focused on suppressing the market which is our youth before embarking on the main players that smuggle drugs into the United States. However, it is our role to ensure that this menace is completely reduced, and everything starts at the community level through the proper approach that has been discussed in the report.

References

Sherman, L. W., Gottfredson, D. C., MacKenzie, D. L., Eck, J., Reuter, P., & Bushway, S. D. (1998). Preventing Crime: What Works, What Doesn't, What's Promising. Research in Brief. National Institute of Justice.

Decker, S. H. (2007). Responding to gangs, guns and youth crime: Principles from strategic problem-solving approaches. Retrieved April 25, 2012

Miron, J., & Waldock, K. (2010). The Budgetary Impact of Ending Drug Prohibition. The Cato Institute, Washington, DC. Retrieved April 2017, from http://www.cato.org/pubs/wtpapers/DrugProhibitionWP.pdfFinklea, K. M. (2009). Organized crime in the United States: trends and issues for congress. Diane Publishing.

Ohr, B. G. (1999). Effective methods to combat transnational organized crime in criminal justice processes. 116th International Training Course, Visiting Experts Papers, October, 42-4.

Brown, C., & Spiropoulos, R. (2014). Marijuana Inc. Black Enterprise 45(3), 42-48.