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Dec 31,2006 - Jan7,2006 |
Understanding the Mafia
Part 20 - A recent survey exposes Canadians’ knowledge of organized crime
By Antonio Nicaso
Originally Published: 2001-06-24
How do we cope with organized crime? How much do we know about it? Which crimes do we connect it with? How do we think our country should be defended from this global emergency? These were the subjects of a study commissioned by the Solicitor General to the Angus Reid Group Inc., Canada’s top surveyors.
The survey was conducted on 1,509 Canadians and resulted in some interesting facts.
Few surveys had grappled this issue in such detail: this is the reason why the job done by Reid is an important starting point in understanding our reality. As the Angus Reid institute wrote, "results will be useful not only for the RCMP, but also for politicians and cultural operators." Organized crime, in fact, must be fought on two fronts: prevention and repression (and this is the field for politicians and police forces) and knowledge (spreading awareness on this phenomenon is a task for cultural operators, from schools to social structures.)
According to the survey, we tend to identify organized crime with: drug dealing (30 percent,) gang violence (28 percent,), prostitution (26 percent,) smuggling (15 percent), car theft (13 percent,) and money-laundering (10 percent.)
One element is outstanding: the low percentage (10 per cent) of people who relate organized crime with money-laundering, while in reality this is the economic engine of all the mobs operating in this country.
"Cleaning up" dirty money coming from illicit sources means allowing the "white collar Mafia" (the emerging Mafia, dangerous because unknown) to carry out unscrupulous economic operations that further strengthen the organization.
The fact that organized crime is not seen as related to "white collar" activities is also demonstrated by another survey, made by Environics: those Canadians who consider financial crimes a priority for governmental intervention are a minority.
"People tend to see what’s going on around them as a crime," explains Professor Carmelo Carabetta, who teaches Sociology at the University of Messina. "They only decode what is nearest to them, that’s why they don’t perceive white collar crime as a threat."
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