Racketeering

Racketeering is a type of organized crime in which the persons set up a coercive, fraudulent, extortionary, or otherwise illegal coordinated scheme or operation (a "racket") to repeatedly or consistently collect a profit. Originally and often still specifically, racketeering may refer to an organized criminal act in which the perpetrators offer a service that will not be put into effect, offer a service to solve a nonexistent problem, or offer a service that solves a problem that would not exist without the racket. However, racketeers may offer an ostensibly effectual service to solve an existing problem. The traditional and historically most common example of such a racket is the "protection racket", in which racketeers offer to protect a business from robbery or vandalism; however, the racketeers will themselves coerce or threaten the business into accepting this service, often with the threat (implicit or otherwise) that failure to acquire the offered services will lead to the racketeers themselves contributing to the existing problem. In many cases, the potential problem may be caused by the same party that offers to solve it, but that fact may be concealed, with the intent to engender continual patronage. The protection racket is thus often a method of extortion, at least in practice. However, the term "racket" has expanded in definition over time and may now be used less strictly to refer to any continuous or repeated illegal organized crime operation, including those that do not necessarily involve fraudulent or coercive practices or extortion. For example, "racket" may refer to the "numbers racket" or the "drug racket", neither of which generally or necessarily involve extortion, coercion, fraud, or deception with regard to the intended clientele. Because of the clandestine nature of the black market, most proceeds made from criminal rackets often go untaxed. The term "racketeering" was coined by the Employers' Association of Chicago in June 1927 in a statement about the influence of organized crime in the Teamsters Union.

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Related concepts (17)

Black market

A black market, underground economy, or shadow economy is a clandestine market or series of transactions that has some aspect of illegality or is characterized by noncompliance with an institutional set of rules. If the rule defines the set of goods and services whose production and distribution is prohibited or restricted by law, non-compliance with the rule constitutes a black market trade since the transaction itself is illegal. Parties engaging in the production or distribution of prohibited goods and services are members of the .

Organized crime

Organized crime (or organised crime) is a category of transnational, national, or local groupings of highly centralized enterprises run by criminals to engage in illegal activity, most commonly for profit. While organized crime is generally thought of as a form of illegal business, some criminal organizations, such as terrorist groups, rebel forces, and separatists, are politically motivated. Many criminal organizations rely on fear or terror to achieve their goals or aims as well as to maintain control within the organization and may adopt tactics commonly used by authoritarian regimes to maintain power.

Shoplifting

Shoplifting, retail theft, or retail fraud is the theft of goods from a retail establishment during business hours, typically by concealing a store item on one's person, in pockets, under clothes or in a bag, and leaving the store without paying. With clothing, shoplifters may put on items from the store and leave the store wearing the clothes. The terms shoplifting and shoplifter are not usually defined in law. The crime of shoplifting generally falls under the legal classification of larceny.