Russian Mafia
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The word Mafia for most Americans conjures up Italian imagery, visions out of The Godfather films, and the belief that a Mafia represents a criminal gang organized within a “family” hierarchy whose membership criteria includes ethnic-specificity. These stereotypical images that are reinforced by the media and widely believed by Americans are not the reality of most International or émigré organized crime rings. In James O. Finckenauer’s and Elin J. Waring’s Russian Mafia In America: Immigration, Culture, And Crime, the authors break some of these stereotypes in their analysis of the Russian “Mafia”, both abroad and in the United States. In breaking many of these stereotypes, the authors convey that most Russian crime bands in the U.S. are not ethnic Russians, but instead the majority are from Armenian, Georgian, Ukrainian, Jewish and Belorussian. They also explain how the Russian Mafia is actually not at all organized like its Italian counterpart, La Cosa Nostra. Instead, criminal activity among Russian émigrés is seldom organized and doesn’t match the criteria equating to our traditional sense of the word Mafia:Russian Mafia is actually a misnomer and perhaps even an oxymoron. The Russian Mafia is neither Russian nor mafia. There is no Mafia—Russian or otherwise—in the United States, nor is there on in Russia itself. The idea of an American-based Russian Mafia is largely a creation of the media and law enforcement.
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In Russia today, that old mafia is very much at the center of organized crime at the highest levels” (Finckenauer et al. 100).
The second perspective of the evolution of the Russian criminal tradition dates back to the 17th century. Large numbers of thieves were common but unorganized. Eventually, as these individuals began to organize they became responsible for a larger portion of criminal activity in the Soviet Union. Committing crime according to a code and their own jargon, they became known as vory or thieves. In order to be admitted to the vory, one had to be voted in by other members. This group of criminals evolved less successfully in Russia because of their lack of association with corrupt government officials, something many view as necessary to have status and influence in Soviet crime. While some view the vory as sitting at the apex of Russian organized crime, others view them as little more than street hoods because of their determination to have no connection to the state “Other experts dismiss the vory as the smallest and most primitive part of Russian organized crime. According to this perspective, vory are mostly involved in street crimes…because they have been unable to join those who commit more sophi
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Approximate Word count = 1604
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page)
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