Books by James M. O'Kane

Ethnic organized crime is a phenomenon that has been largely ignored by social scientists and historians, and dismissed as a subject not to be taken too seriously by those researching the mobility patterns of their own ethnic ancestors or current minority newcomers

This work aims to show how some members of ethnic minorities have utilized organized crime as one vehicle of upward mobility, advancing from lower-class status to middle-class power and respectability.

James O'Kane shows that homicide is rather predictable, and patterned with respect to its assailants and victims, the circumstances in which it takes place, the time and location where it occurs, and the motives which precipitate the murderous act.