Criminal Constitutions
Global Crime, Vol. 11, No. 3, pp. 279-298, 2010
Posted: 20 Aug 2009 Last revised: 29 Jul 2010
Date Written: August 18, 2009
Abstract
Why do criminals use constitutions? This paper argues that constitutions perform three critical functions in criminal organizations. First, criminal constitutions promote consensus by creating common knowledge among criminals about what the organization expects of them and what they can expect of the organization’s other members. Second, criminal constitutions regulate behaviors that are privately beneficially to individual criminals but costly to their organization as a whole. Third, criminal constitutions generate information about member misconduct and coordinate the enforcement of rules that prohibit such behavior. By performing these functions, constitutions facilitate criminal cooperation and enhance criminals’ profit. To examine our hypothesis we examine the constitutions of two criminal organizations: 18th-century Caribbean pirates and the contemporary Californian prison gang, La Nuestra Familia.
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