One of the most elusive pursuits in the study of organized crime is capturing its complexity and ever-changing nature. A new book by Dr. Stephen Schneider of Saint Mary's University takes a comprehensive approach to unraveling organized crime's intricacies and variations, while putting forth a framework to dismantle criminal groups and networks.
An Ontology of Organized Crime: A Meta-Analytical Framework and Enforcement Implications (New York: Routledge, 2025) is the latest publication in the Routledge Advances in Criminology series. It's available in hardcover, paperback and e-book format.
"For years, there has been a quixotic quest to define, describe and conceptualize organized crime," says Dr. Schneider, who is considered Canada's foremost scholar on organized crime. "Despite more than 150 definitions and at least a dozen conceptual models, none have adequately captured this criminal phenomenon."
Dr. Schneider's latest book provides the most thorough analysis of organized crime to date. He has identified 28 attributes of an "organized criminal association" (OCA), divided into five thematic categories: associational (the relationship among the offenders), commercial (revenue-generating crimes), operational (support functions and expenditures), institutional (factors that sustain an OCA and criminal activities over time), and cultural/behavioral (the norms, values and codes of organized crime). These categories are not simply used to classify the different attributes; each one represents a structural pillar of an OCA.
The book then puts forth an applied enforcement framework, including strategies for denigrating the structural pillars of an OCA. The ambitious strategies laid out in the book go beyond traditional law enforcement approaches of interdicting crimes and arresting offenders. It recommends a "whole of society" approach to dismantling an OCA, including the Italian mafia, outlaw motorcycle gangs, Chinese triads, and international trafficking networks.
The book is an invaluable resource for students and scholars studying organized crime, as well as criminal justice professionals looking for guidance on enforcement strategies and public policies.
Dr. Schneider is a professor of criminology in the Department of Criminology at Saint Mary's. He is the author, co-author or co-editor of six previous books, including four concerned with organized crime:
- Big Policing and Big Crime: All About Big Money?, co-edited with Tonita Murray and Elizabeth Kirley (University of Toronto Press, 2024)
- the textbook Canadian Organized Crime (Canadian Scholars Press, 2022)
- the highly acclaimed, true crime bestseller, Iced: The Story of Organized Crime in Canada (HarperCollins, 2016) and
- Money Laundering in Canada: Chasing Dirty and Dangerous Dollars, co-authored with Margaret Beare (University of Toronto Press, 2007).
Dr. Schneider's research includes studies into money laundering, contraband smuggling, fraud, domestic marijuana production, organized criminal conspiracies at marine ports, human trafficking, organized robberies, corporate crime, and innovations in organized crime enforcement. He has also provided expert testimony in court cases for federal and provincial attorneys general in Canada.
