Organised crime narratives : towards the understanding of pull factors and career contingencies within organised crime

Abstract

The criminal underworld is a peril to human security. Fluidity of organised crime groups connotes that the term ‘organised crime’ is intricate. The perplexity of the social background along the personal characteristics of the offender contribute to the complexity of the subject. The limited amount of literature on the criminal career in organised crime inspired this research. The study was conducted by the use of secondary data analysis. Five published autobiographies of notorious personalities in the criminal underworld were used to this effect. The data was investigated using the thematic analysis approach (Braun & Clarke, 2006). The analysis examined the pull factors of organised crime according to these five detailed narratives. Understanding desistance from such criminal groups was also explored. The study illustrates that a combination of personality characteristics and their criminal’s social background were the main contributors towards their affiliation with organised crime families. Certain pull factors which triggered their engagement in organised crime were the same contributors towards their desistance. The study concludes with suggestions for future research, implications for criminal justice policy and recommendations for youth work practice.