Organized Crime: Political & Corporate.

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Organized Crime,

 Organized Crime:  Political & Corporate

Amanda L. Wilson

CJA300

Mr. Louviere

April 6, 2004


        There has been a relationship between organized crime and the political and corporate world since organized crime began.  These relationship has served a purpose for  all and in a sense is looked upon as a normal way of “doing business”.  Organized crime is not likely to go away in the political and corporate world.  This is a relationship that feeds off of each other for the rights to the one thing the world is searching for: money and power.

        The year 2002 was one of the biggest years yet for corporate scandal.  Corporations were at an all time high for corruption.  The fine line between organized and the corporation is being blurred.  Enron was one of the big corporate players until the corruption became public in 2002.  Enron was a large energy company that was caught raising profits and hiding debts that came to the total of more than $1 billion dollars.  Enron was also caught bribing foreign government officials and manipulating prices and supplies in Texas. WorldCom was another huge company who inflated its reported cash flow by nearly $3.8 billion dollars.   Late WorldCom was forced to file bankruptcy with over $400 billion dollars worth of debt.  Other companies include Rite Aid, ImClone, and Adelphia, to name a few.  (Lyman & Potter, 2004)

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        In the political world it is no different.  Organized crime practices and the scandalous and corrupt practices in the political world is a blurred one which is hard to separate.    Chambliss argued that political corruption is critical to he survival of organized crime ( cited in Lyman & Potter, 2004).The relationship between politics and organized crime is a symbiotic one.  Politicians give organized crime “official favors” and in returns they get campaign money, private graft, investment opportunities, and direct assistance in bargaining and negotiations.  Morrisburg was a comprehensive study of corruption that found organized crime syndicates making above-the-board contributions to ...

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