Gangs as contractors: the social organization of American Taiwanese youth gangs in Southern California

Abstract

This paper examines the organizational structure and operations of Taiwanese organized crime and youth gangs in Southern California. In-depth interviews were used as the principle method of research. In contrast to transnational criminal conspiracy claims and the La Cosa Nostra model of vertically integrated organizations, our findings suggest that these criminal groups consist of discrete local Taiwanese youth gangs which operate as largely independent economic units that show no substantive and operational ties to criminal organizations in Taiwan. The formation of Taiwanese criminal organizations and gangs in Southern California is primarily governed by the availability of financial opportunities. Furthermore, both the inter-gang relations and intra-gang structures exhibit a distinct form of contractor arrangement which consists of market-like weak ties that are simultaneously circumscribed by the criminal embeddedness. We argue that that these economic weak ties, which seem to render conventionally understood criminal organizational boundaries administratively less meaningful, still function as an operationally significant governance mechanism of the organizational structures of American Taiwanese youth gangs. In addition, the paper discusses the implications that the embeddedness has on the somewhat paradoxical and incoherent organizational structure.

Cannibalism and Gang Involvement in the Cinematic Lives of Asian Gangsters

“…Asian gangsters and the American television family Jeffersons have much in common: they are all trying to "move on up" to acquire a "piece of the pie." This theme permeates across the gangster films from the respective three countries, and reinforces existing scholarship on why individuals join gangs (e.g., Pih et al, 2010). Moreover, upward striving suffuses the relationships of low-level gangsters to middle-level gangsters (dai-los, hyoung-nims, and oyabuns), and the preceding two to the chieftains of a crime group.…”

“…Furthermore, their participation has led to a reconfiguration of ideology and identities within gangs, as members become entrenched in the logic and ethos of capitalism (Sassen, 2007). In fact, Pih et al (2010) found that the very essence of Asian gangs has undergone a dramatic transformation, with branches of Asian organized crime groups beginning to refer to themselves as "the company." That is to say, gangs as a whole have transitioned from a loosely organized playgroup turned criminal network to economic machines, the difference between legitimate enterprises and criminal ones being the level of coercion and illegal methods employed to achieve their financial objectives (Pih et al, 2010).…”

Gang change and evolutionary theory

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“…The bureaucratic model is a rationalized, hierarchical system which is impersonal and rigid in form (Abadinsky 2007). Criminal organisations like the Italian Mafia are "tightly structured in a hierarchical manner, resembling the bureaucracy found in the legitimate economy" (Pih, Hirose and Mao 2010). Various definitions of the bureaucratic model suggest that its characteristics include: a single leader, defined hierarchy, extensive division of labour, rigid and impersonal, various subordinates and code of conduct.…”