Power Structures within Berlin's Underworld from the 1840s to the Present Time.

This paper examines the patterns and trends of hegemonic order within the underworld of Berlin, Germany, since the 1840s. Illegal power structures that subordinate offenders and offender groups to common or particular interests within a given territory or illegal market are a central theme in the study of organized crime. However, little research has been done to date on such structures outside the United States, Italy, Russia and Japan.Data are drawn from two studies, an historical study of the Ringvereine (associations of criminals that existed in Berlin and other parts of Germany from the 1890s until the 1950s) and an ongoing ethnographic study of mid- and upper-level drug dealers. In addition data were obtained from a variety of other sources, including law enforcement and media reports.It is argued that (a) power structures within criminal milieus persist only when they are based on the reputation of identifiable groups, (b) different groups can acquire such a reputation by different means, and (c) in the absence of such groups, to a certain degree, functional equivalents in the form of informal and ad-hoc structures may emerge. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]