Organized Crime in the 21st Century

“People don’t realize that it’s still happening and going on, and we should be paying more attention to it. The longer we don’t, the more it’ll go underground.”

Alexa Hradek ’25, ’26 is discussing organized crime. Through Pace’s 4+1 combined degree program, she’s currently earning a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice and a master’s in homeland security. Given her burgeoning area of expertise, she’s gravitated toward an interesting academic focus—how organized crime has evolved in the 21st century.

At Pace, the breadth and depth of academic expertise means that no matter your interest, you can almost always find a faculty mentor. This was certainly Alexa’s experience, as she gravitated toward the work of her professors—specifically Dyson Professor and Criminal Justice Chair Cathryn Lavery, PhD (who, in addition to her impressive body of academic research, hosts the podcast Crimes, Coffee, and Conversations), and Adjunct Professor David Mulcahy, who has spent three decades in field on both the state and federal levels.

Alongside co-researcher Heath Grant, PhD, at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, Lavery and Mulcahy began discussing research ideas, and homed in on the dearth of recent academic literature in organized crime. As both Lavery and Mulcahy explain, the vast majority of academics researching the field pivoted from organized crime to terrorism after September 11, leaving a wide gap of research over the past two decades. This reality, combined with the major technological and societal changes that have subsequently occurred, meant that the subject was ripe for exploration.

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“The three of us got together and one of the questions we were thinking about is, with the opioid crisis and influx of fentanyl from drug cartels, there was this emerging issue of whether organized crime is still pervasive,” says Lavery. “You don’t see it a lot unless you’re looking at press releases from the Department of Justice or courthouses, and they generally seem to be very quick arrests at the local level. We decided we wanted to move forward with a publication looking specifically at what is the new face of organized crime?”

Any academic research requires an enormous amount of brain power combined with time-intensive scouring of literature. In this case, the trio wanted to start by building a very thick annotated bibliography while diving into journal articles from other criminologists in the field, which would then help the team build a timeline. They required a research assistant for this tall task and knew just where to turn.

“Alexa has taken courses with both me and Professor Mulcahy, and has always been interested in the topic,” says Lavery. “And due to our workload and research loads I thought, she’s a great student, she could really help us. It’s great to work with a research assistant who you trust enough to work independently.”

In addition to scouring academic journals for previous related research, Alexa has been spending her time sifting through local news—she cites the New York Post’s organized crime section as particularly helpful—and has done deep dives into specific metro areas such for anything from low-level gambling busts to drug trafficking, to everything in between.

“I’m actually surprised I haven’t been called by the authorities from my Google searches,” she jokes.

“I’m actually surprised I haven’t been called by the authorities from my Google searches.”

While the team is still in the research gathering phase of the operation, they’ve noted a few key findings. One point of emphasis is the way traditional organized crime has increasingly blended in with other forms of crime, as family and relative ties within organized crime continue to wane as harsher sentencing laws make it more likely for arrested members to “flip” on associates.

“Back in the day if you were the Genovese crime family, you were not working with the Russian mob, or the Bloods, or the Colombian drug cartels,” notes Mulcahy. “Now you’re seeing such a cross reference of these groups. Each of them has an expertise, and they’re working together to get drugs, guns, etc. into communities, as well as other contraband.”

“If you go back to the ’90s you had organized crime, terrorists, and gangs. There was no cross-collaboration,” adds Lavery. “Then all of a sudden, to see them working together, you realize there’s so many more hands in the pot, and you wonder why they are still profiting if there’s so many hands. But they’ve gotten very smart and are interlinking different avenues of crime and are not as specific or challenged with who they work with.”

There is still much work to be done and many more avenues to explore. For instance, their preliminary research has observed increased organized crime activity in cities such as Baltimore, Philadelphia, and Boston. The group spent a lot of time discussing the way the internet and social media have changed both the recruitment and “business” side of organized crime; while also completely changing the way law enforcement investigates illicit activities. Alexa will continue to work with Professors Lavery, Mulcahy, and Grant through the spring semester, as they begin to prepare their work for eventual publication.

All in all, Alexa is excited to continue to delve into this unique research topic while further building her skill set as she prepares for her master’s in homeland security and ultimately, an impactful career in the field.

“This experience has been surreal,” says Alexa. “I never expected something like this to come out of my college experience. I’ve had so much fun, and I’ve appreciated the trust from professors Lavery, Mulcahy, and Grant, and I feel like I’ve built a lot of confidence in my academics and knowledge in criminal justice.”