Organized Crime and Terrorism

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

This chapter provides a brief introduction of the whole research paper including the major areas of focus. The chapter will also contain the problem to be addressed in the research. Under this chapter, the research questions and objectives will be developed; they are a key part of the research since they will provide a guideline for the whole research. The chapter will also provide the relevance and significance of the research.

The paper is aimed at examining the relationship between organised crime and terrorism. The main goal of this research is to provide a sound empirical research on the most heinous crime 'terrorism' and how it relates to or is caused by organised criminal activities like human trafficking and drug smuggling. There have been a number of studies in criminological research but the primary focus of such research is on 'crimes of the powerless', whereas the current research focuses on how terrorist activities and collective crime threatens the present world. Further research on terrorism will not only induce more advanced discussions on anti-terrorism policy measures, but will also help in expansion of criminology's empirical and theoretical domain.

Terrorism is the actual use or threat to use violence for political or criminal motives (Gilbert 2006). Terrorism is directed not only against individual victims but also against groups often transcending the international boundaries. The term implies an action undertaken by nongovernmental groups or secret or irregular units, operating outside the usual parameters of the wars, sometimes carrying the objective to promote the revolution. Moreover the terror of State, exercised by a state against its own nationals or the conquered communities, is sometimes seen as a form of terrorism (Wilson 2009). Rather than conducting military purposes, the goal of terrorists is the spread of panic in the community on which violence is directed. Consequently, the community is coerced to act in accordance with the wishes of the terrorists. Terrorists often seek the destabilization of a state by causing as much chaos as possible, through a radical transformation of the existing order. Specifically, the present research aims to obtain answers for the following questions:

Is there a direct or absolute relationship between organised crime and terrorism?

Which types of organised crime can easily go together with which variants of terrorism? And which types are less compatible?

Is all organised crime strictly centred on profit-making or are there exceptions where certain activities serve to acquire political spoils or gains?

CHAPETR 2: LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter will be split into different sections depending on the type of information each chapter will be bearing. The chapter will examine what is already known under the topic of crime terrorism. Some of the sources are listed in the references page part of this proposal, which are intended to offer insights on the subject of research. Gaps will be identified in the existing literature and theories, and from such gaps, hypotheses will be developed. Hypotheses will be used to develop a theoretical framework on which the research will be ...