Bureaucratic Model

Models of Organized Crime

Bureaucratic organizations

To begin the analysis of this type of organization is convenient to define bureaucracy as a direction system based on rules and procedures. This definition identifies the advantages of this type of organization, such as the safety, stability and the coherence, but also derived from the same advantages, disadvantages are pointed out such as rigidity, lack of motivation and resulting cumbersome administration. Its origin is based on the statements of Max Weber, the German sociologist late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Social institutions have many aspects similar to the aspects that make a criminal organization. One of these is the political aspect that can be adapted
These are guided by rules which are communicated from the top of the hierarchy to the people who occupy the lower positions, these features have been adopted by legitimate and criminal organizations, where the success of the operation depends on the experience and organization of their leaders.

The fear of compromising important information makes the bureaucratic model more suited and impractical for criminal organizations. For these reasons, information, money, and orders are typically handled face to face, due to the limited control in the lengthy chains of command. These organizations are networks that characterize most of the Mafia groups in America and networks are conformed by chains of individuals with whom a person or organization can make contact. Because the contact can be set up through an extensive chain of people, an individual can establish a connection with a lot more people. These contacts are "friends of a friend" a phrase well known in Sicilia, which refers to mafiosi. This arrangement provides an unbalanced social exchange, where employers provide protection and economic aid and customers pay with intangibles such as loyalty and