First Predictable Reaction Of The Organized Crime example essay topic

Although in the recent years the government and FBI were able to fight the organized crime rather efficiently, the changes that occurred after the September 11 events might drastically change the situation. The criminal world, knowing that now FBIs attention is concentrated on terrorism mainly, would certainly enjoy the opportunity to expand its activities and to initiate various criminal schemes that would bring additional profits to them. Since FBI would have to confront two major enemies at the same time terrorism and organized crime, it certainly would not be able to perform at its best, simply due to the lack of resources and staff necessary to fight both those enemies at the same time. It is not that hard to predict the reaction of the organized crime on the changes made within the FBI and other law enforcement agencies.

It is a known fact that organized crime members have their informers in most of the governmental structures. (Tyler, p. 99) Therefore they would be able to anticipate and predict the pattern of resource reassignment in certain areas, as well as the changes in the FBI activities. Being informed means a lot nowadays, and certainly the organized crime members will put forth their best efforts in order to use all the opportunities possible while the governmental agencies fighting it are preoccupied with war on terrorism. The first predictable reaction of the organized crime would be to initiate new gangs and criminal structures as well as to expand their criminal activities in all of the major areas where they rule, such as gambling, prostitution, drugs, etc. Previously, the FBI would have been able to spend that expansion by using their resources, however in the current situation it would be impossible. The more freedom organized crime perceives because of the FBIs resource reallocation, the more the chances are that it will penetrate the new spheres of everyday life, such as Internet and Internet related technologies.

The economic impact of this shift of governmental resources would be tremendous. Not only additional amounts of money would have to be spent on war with terrorism, but also the shade economy would certainly make more money than ever because of lack of attention from the FBI, which would mean decrease of money flow from the legal economy to government funds. The effect on state and local law enforcement agencies would also be significant, since they would definitely have to restructure in order to be able to fight terrorism efficiently. Undoubtedly, those changes in resource allocation would enable the organized crime to grow stronger than ever, with criminals in various areas expanding their activities to ensure more profits. With FBIs attention devoted mostly to war on terrorism, organized crime would enjoy the freedom they have never enjoyed in the last couple of decades, and that would certainly upset most of the ordinary citizens. It is hard to tell after the September 11 events what is more important to fight terrorism or organized crime, however the decision has been made already by the government, and now the general public will have to bare the consequences of that decision.

The worst thing about that issue is that there is not that many things that can be done to prevent organized crime from further growth and expansion. A good idea would be to increase the FBIs staff and funding, however those additional funds are not that easy to obtain, and new personnel would have to be trained, which would also consume a lot of time and resources. It is up to the US government to design the course of actions to prevent the growth of the organized crime, however in the given situation it might be useful to give more authority to the states, in order to make them develop their own course of actions.