• E4J University Module Series: Organized Crime

• Module 6: Causes and Facilitating Factors of Organized Crime

• Introduction and learning outcomes

• Key issues

• Positivism: Environmental Influences
• Classical: Pain-Pleasure Decisions
• Structural Factors and Organized Crime
• Ethical Perspective: Moral Failure in Decision-Making
• Perspectives on Crime Causes and Facilitating Factors
• Summary
• References

• Exercises

• Exercises
• Case studies
• Thinking critically through fiction

• Possible class structure

• Core reading

• Advanced reading

• Student assessment

• Review and assessment questions
• Quiz 6
• Research and independent study questions

• Additional teaching tools

 

Published in May 2018

Regional Perspectives: Pacific Islands Region - added in November 2019

Regional Perspectives: Eastern and Southern Africa - added in April 2020

 

 

  This module is a resource for lecturers  

 

Summary

 

This Module presented a four-part typology of explanations of the cause and facilitating factors for organized crime: positivistic, classical, structural, and ethical. A single explanation cannot account for the different motivations of all offenders, yet some explanations offer important insights into criminal decision-making and, as Figure 6.2 shows, a combination of explanations on the causes and facilitating factors of organized crime provides clear direction regarding how criminal decisions are made and how they might be prevented in the future.