Roots of Organised Crime in Developed and Underdeveloped Country Contexts: A Critical Review of the Rational Choice Theory, Routine Activity Theory and Crime Opportunity Theory

The organised crime literature is replete with issues underlying organised criminal groups in underdeveloped countries like Nigeria. They include acute poverty, lack of basic amenities, unavailability or unaffordability of standard education, corruption, un-manned border crossings, and poor capacity of law enforcement personnel. Others are policy, legislative and institutional gaps in the frameworks deployed to combating human trafficking, drug trafficking, arms trafficking, terrorist financing, wildlife laundering, smuggling and illegal migration. However, while these underlying influences are common denominators when examining organised crime in underdeveloped-country contexts, they fail to sufficiently explain the escalating criminal activities in developed and advanced economies. Which is to say, if underdevelopment is the primary precursor to crime in third world countries, what are the justifiable reason(s) for the growing wave of organised criminal groups in developed economies? The paper explores three criminological theories of crime - The Rational Choice Theory, Routine Activity Theory, and Crime Opportunity Theory to examine the dynamics by highlighting three important conditions that must converge for crime to occur. They are motivated offenders who can act on criminal intentions, an ideal victim or target, and the absence of a capable guardian to prevent the crime from happening (Siegel and McCormick, 2006). These three elements were critically examined to reflect underlying conditions bolstering transnational organised around the world. They border essentially on individual or group tendencies towards anti-social behaviour, the opportunity to carry out criminal intentions and the inability of the criminal justice system to limit the commission of crime through punishment and deterrence.