Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Crime and Criminal Biography/Organized crime task force/Archives/ 1

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Defining "organised crime"

I have been tagging articles with project banner. For now, I am excluding fiction categories (sopranos, godfather and similar). But I am tagging non-fiction books (biographies, or studies) related to organised crime.

While tagging the articles, I came across some crime incidents which were perpetrated by a group, or "gang" but were more like "one time event". These include mob lynching, gang rapes, incidents of angry mob leading to riots, or mass robbing and so on. I am not sure if these crimes can be considered as "organised crime". As far as I am aware, Indian Penal Code has a few definitions, the most rudimentary being: "[...]those involved, normally working with others, in continuing serious criminal activities".
That is, more than one instance of crime that was pre-planned (pre-organised?) is required to call a group as a "criminal group/gang" or "crime syndicate" (I think, as per the legal definitions, a syndicate requires hierarchical structure).

Anyways, our point here is: I think we should not include one time events as "work of organised crime". But if the one time event is perpetrated by an already established criminal group, it can be considered as an activity of organised crime. I mean, if a gang of narco suppliers (who never do anything except trafficking drugs) gets high on their own drugs, and decide to rob a store out of munchies, and for fun; then we can call it incident of organised crime. But if the same happens with college students, then it should be passed off as an one time event. Kindly let me know what you guys think/what are your opinions? Regards, —usernamekiran(talk)

Apologies for mass ping @Everymorning, Anna Frodesiak, Madreterra, Walker in the Mist, Libertybison, and MX: —usernamekiran(talk) 06:07, 20 September 2017 (UTC)

I think we could see this from the point of view of visitors. What would they expect to be within the scope of 'organized crime'? I would say the dictionary definition. A bunch of college kids who organized themselves for a single evening of crime does not fit the definition. If it were many months and they wore fedoras, then yes, maybe. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 07:44, 20 September 2017 (UTC)

• Thanks for the ping. One thing I want to bring up is that one-time events can be considered works of organized crime if the investigation points in that direction, notwithstanding if the case has a verdict or not (since organized crime sensitives are poorly investigation/rarely receive attention for court in many parts of the world, I don't think a verdict should be our rule of thumb). Take a look at the Murder of Vicente Bermúdez Zacarías, for example. The case is unsolved, and "officially" there were only 2 participants involved. But the nature of the attack (a professional assassin who knew the guy's schedule/location, the person's profession, along with what investigators suspect, etc.), points to an organized crime attack. So to summarize, if the investigation or suspicions of a single-event fall on organized crime, I think we should include it. MX (✉ • ✎) 15:32, 20 September 2017 (UTC)
• Forgot to mention. But in Mexico at least, authorities look at certain signs to determine if a single-event attack was perpetrated by organized crime: type of weapons used, who did they target, the logistics (i.e. did they attack in a group, was it drive-by, did it seem "planned" by experts), was the victim tortured (and how was he/she tortured), did they steal any possessions, where did the attack take place, etc. I know I'm making this more complicated, but sometimes it's important to analyze single-event attacks case-by-case (and with the point above, determine if reliable sources suggest organized crime involvement). MX (✉ • ✎) 15:40, 20 September 2017 (UTC)

Organized crime is synonymous with "racketeering". That requires more than one criminal act and implicitly more than one person. So that definition would include say the Luftansa heist, but exclude the Looting that goes on after a natural disaster, so long as you consider the act of looting as a single act, and not a series of acts. It could include a lynching, if for instance, the people who were doing the lynching did so more than once, and if it was the same people doing it. Informata ob Iniquitatum (talk) 16:18, 20 September 2017 (UTC)

ordinarily, when you're trying to Define crime, you'd look to the laws. The problem with this is that the laws are designed convicted individuals, so in the RICO statute, for instance, there is no definition of organized crime or criminal organization. Instead, it simply talks about conspiring or racketeering Enterprises things like that. I think the simplest way to define organized crime is racketeering. Informata ob Iniquitatum (talk) 16:22, 20 September 2017 (UTC)

Under federal law:

• definition of organization
• continuing criminal Enterprise statute Informata ob Iniquitatum (talk) 16:46, 20 September 2017 (UTC)

I also think one should keep in mind the "conspiracy" element in organized crime. Organized crime has a popular definition and racketeering includes other one-time crimes, say a scam company. So I don't think they're equivalent. Most if not all of organized crime can be considered racketeering, but not all racketeering is organized crime. Libertybison (talk) 22:53, 22 September 2017 (UTC)

Defining organized crime is a seriously contentious issue, and there is no single universally agreed upon definition. There is an academic who keeps a running tally of all the definitions he has seen used, and as of today, there are more than 200: http://www.organized-crime.de/organizedcrimedefinitions.htm. Safest way to do this is to use the approach of the UN Transnational Organized Crime Convention, which describes a criminal group, rather than the act:

"“Organized criminal group” shall mean a structured group of three or more persons, existing for a period of time and acting in concert with the aim of committing one or more serious crimes or offences established in accordance with this Convention, in order to obtain, directly or indirectly, a financial or other material benefit;"

They then use a definition of a "serious crime", as the offence.

I'd definitely agree with Libertybison that you can't equate to racketeering though. And racketeering itself isn't a term that is used either operationally or in policy circles anymore.

Anyway, it's a fun topic to debate. Ciao! TOC24 (talk) 16:51, 1 October 2020 (UTC)

It's a sliding scale with more and more organization. Two people = a bit of organization. A street gang is more organized. Something like the Mafia is highly organized. Harizotoh9 (talk) 22:52, 23 February 2021 (UTC)

References

Loops

@Northamerica1000 and Koavf: Hi. Since last 2-3 days I ran a few categories with recursive mode in AWB, but all of the pages under these cats were already tagged, as they were under some other category that was already worked upon. So the same pages are coming again n again under different categories. What should we do next?

On other note, I think we have tagged enough pages with project banner to begin with. What should be our next move to revive the project? —usernamekiran(talk) 18:52, 22 January 2018 (UTC)

@Usernamekiran: happy to help but I'm not sure what you're saying. Can you please point to me some specific examples (talk pages, diffs, maybe a list you made with AWB)? As for revitalizing, that is a $64,000 question. I have some ideas but I'm not sure how practical any of them are... Can you tell me what you have in mind or what you've already done? ―Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 21:18, 22 January 2018 (UTC)

@Koavf: Not much except tagging talkpages with wikiproject banner. But most of the tagged pages are highly relevant. I excluded the categories like "fictional mob bosses" or "films about organized crime". You can see more details at Wikipedia:WikiProject Organized crime/Bot tagging categories, Wikipedia:WikiProject Organized crime/Bot tagging categories/Sandbox 1, Wikipedia:WikiProject Organized crime/Bot tagging categories/Sandbox 2, and Wikipedia:WikiProject Organized crime/Bot tagging categories/Sandbox 3.
There are some editors who have shown interest to contribute to project, it can be seen on the project page. Also, I am aware of some editors who regularly contribute to the articles that come under the project's scope. Thats all for now. :-/
—usernamekiran(talk) 12:50, 23 January 2018 (UTC)

Oh sorry, I think I see what you are saying now--you feel like you have tagged all of the appropriate talk pages for the time being (or at least a lot of them). Some recommendations that come to mind are posting to the talk page of relevant users, convincing The Signpost to cover you, offering a reward ($20?) for someone bringing a Top-level article to Featured status, going to forums about the topic and encouraging users there to become editors here, seeing if you can get someone who is teaching a course relevant to this topic to have a component of their class about editing Wikipedia... Some of these are more-or-less feasible but they all seem like they may be effective. ―Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 03:00, 24 January 2018 (UTC)

@Koavf: 20 USD? OMG! Thats like around 734,000 Iranian Rials! I dont have that much Rials!
On a serious note, awarding real life money for wikipedia activity (except for the comptetions/events that are large-scale) is never a good idea, and is usually discouraged.
Now that I think about it, I should try to get hold of one rial. Or at the least I should see/touch one in real life. —usernamekiran(talk) 10:47, 24 January 2018 (UTC)

@Usernamekiran: Maybe, maybe not. But the reward could just be on the order of USD$20/TWD$600. E.g. donate that to a charity of the person's choosing. ―Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 17:44, 24 January 2018 (UTC)

@Koavf: Hi. I apologise for the delayed reply. I typed the reply on the day when you replied, but somehow it didnt get saved. I thought it was. Sorry about that. Also, I was just kidding about the amount (I am from India, with Indian rupee. Yes, donating the money to charity of person's choosing is really a good idea. I dont know why but, it still feels a little odd to me. Maybe it is just personal, and nothing to do with wikipedia i think. Anyways, I am still working on the tagging thing. On a side note, I have applied for a BOT to be approved for that task. Lets see what happens with that. —usernamekiran(talk) 19:45, 24 February 2018 (UTC)

bot for adding project banner

Hello. I have opened a bot approval request; to add this wikiproject's banner to the articles that fall under the scope of this wikiproject. If you have any objection, suggestion on which articles should be excluded from tagging or which should be included kindly comment here, or at the discussion section of the bot approval page. The request, and the discussion can be found at Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Usernamekiran BOT 2. —usernamekiran(talk) 20:38, 24 February 2018 (UTC)

Conversion into task force of WikiProject Crime

This project is inactive and does not have an independent enough scope to justify its existence outside of WikiProject Crime. WikiProject Crime includes gangsters/mob violence/organized crime in its scope and always has - it's also listed as a subproject. However organized crime is a genuinely useful subcategory of crime so I think it should be changed into a task force of the broader Crime wikiproject instead of just merged. It isn't particularly active either - the last response on this talk page that wasn't a bot was five years ago. PARAKANYAA (talk) 04:29, 17 October 2023 (UTC)

pinging group memberss (KyleDJF34—W1tchkr4ft 00—Tetsou TheIronman—Skysmith—Scott Sanchez—DonCalo—C i d—Stefanomione—Vaselineeeeeeee—Morogris) PARAKANYAA (talk) 04:46, 17 October 2023 (UTC)

I agree with task force. Vaselineeeeeeee^★★★ 00:58, 18 October 2023 (UTC)

It´s a great name!, hopefully it can attract more people.Tetsou TheIronman--Tetsou TheIronman (talk) 21:48, 20 October 2023 (UTC)

Well, it's been a few days and both responses were in agreement, I'll move the pages soon. Best get it done with while the other templates are still merging PARAKANYAA (talk) 04:33, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

• dang. I didnt see this up until now, or I would have suggested to keep the project active. But now that its done, lets see what happens in future. —usernamekiran (talk) 15:30, 25 October 2023 (UTC)

I think I agree in theory but my experiences are that outside of Wikiproject:Anarchism Wikiprojects tend to be very inactive, so i'm really not sure how we would keep from never ending stagnation with at best bursts of activity. Personally I have no interest in a 'crime Wikiproject' and think that is so broad as to be practically useless. SP00KYtalk 17:35, 28 November 2023 (UTC).

@W1tchkr4ft 00 Eh, I respectfully disagree. Most WikiProjects are pretty dead I agree but I find the organization useful for finding articles I want to work on. I think it’s more useful to merge the projects into a task force as was done instead of having two completely separate projects that have near identical scopes, if anyone who does want to work in this manner wishes to do so. More concentrated efforts.

As for the broadness thing I think that’s a lot of projects, and Crime as a project is more well maintained than most honestly. But yeah WikiProjects are really only for helping organize people who want to be organized - I just tagged you because you were one of the only people added to the participant list who is still active. Sorry for any bother. PARAKANYAA (talk) 17:40, 28 November 2023 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Chaldean Mafia#Requested move 13 April 2024

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Chaldean Mafia#Requested move 13 April 2024 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. – robertsky (talk) 06:35, 24 April 2024 (UTC)