Organized Crime And Terrorism

Although organized crime and terrorism share some similarities, they are also very different. Organized crime is a way of committing crimes. These crimes require a certain amount of planning and the coordinated participation of different individuals.

Terrorism, on the other hand, is characterized by extremely violent events. Terrorism uses violence as a way to fight civilians and provoke a political response.

Thus terrorism seeks to confuse, frighten or irritate citizens and/or their rulers. It seeks international public attention, questions the legitimacy of a political regime, provokes internal conflict in endangered societies, and supports and mobilizes followers.

Terrorism and Organized Crime

The main difference between the two forms is that organized crime seeks profit. Criminal organizations want money – and the more, the better. Terrorism, on the other hand, seeks to change systems, achieve independence, or gain a political or religious advantage.

However, these two variables also have certain similarities. Terrorist organizations need money to finance themselves. For example, they have to buy weapons, organize recruitment and propaganda, prepare and carry out the attacks, among other things. And this all costs money.

Organized crime seeks to exploit, but not to change, the established order, while terrorism seeks to transform or destabilize existing institutions or forces its representatives to take measures contrary to their principles and interests.

The frequency of criminal activity

In short, both terrorism and organized crime seek to profit economically and influence political activities. The big difference is that where profit is the ultimate goal for organized crime, terrorism has political goals. Despite these differences, they both commit criminal activities.

However, organized crime is more common than terrorism. What this means is that crime is more often committed by criminal organizations than by terrorist groups.

This is because organized crime is more willing to sacrifice security to get more money. By contrast, carrying out terrorist attacks usually does not provide funding. It’s actually the exact opposite. That is why terrorist groups often prefer security.

The use of force

A final but significant difference between organized crime and terrorism is the way they use violence. The effectiveness of a terrorist attack depends on its impact.

A terrorist group can attack a small group of people to intimidate many. The more extravagant the attack, the greater the reaction. However, the attack can backfire if many people die from it. If this happens, they won’t get any followers.

Organized crime, on the other hand, strives for anonymity. The criminals carry out their crimes in secret to avoid jeopardizing their criminal careers. For that reason, organized crime tends to avoid all kinds of publicity.

Finally, while terrorism and organized crime have some things in common, they are also different in many ways. Where organized crime seeks to profit economically, terrorism seeks political change. In addition, organized crime is usually anonymous, while terrorist violence is striking.