Methodological Problems in the Study of Organized Crime as a Social Problem

The secrecy of participants, the confidentiality of materials collected by investigative agencies, and the filters or screens on the perceptive apparatus of informants and investigators pose serious methodological problems for the social scientist who would change the state of knowledge about organized crime. There is overwhelming evidence that an organization variously called "the Mafia," "La Cosa Nostra," and "the syndicate" operates in the United States, but its activities are perceived as a "social problem" by "insiders" who have access to confidential information, not by most of the public. The social scientist has a duty to tell the members of his society when he believes they are in trouble. This is not necessarily unscientific because, once established as a social problem, a phenomenon can be studied scientifically with the help of funds appropriated for its eradication. Even if not established as a social problem, organized crime can be studied from the perspective of organizational theory. In this kind of study, social scientists will have to borrow methodological techniques from archaeologists and geologists, who manufacture data by reasoning that knowledge about inaccessible affairs can be obtained from considering affairs that are accessible to study. This kind of process can be used to create, from study of the structure of organized crime, information about criminals' norms and interaction processes.