Course overview

• Instructor: Julian E. Gerez (please call me Prof. Gerez)
• TA: Erin Aubele
• Lectures Mondays and Wednesdays 9:30–10:50 a.m. (Humanities Hall 178)
• Grades
  • Participation (primarily via Perusall and Poll Everywhere) - 20%
  • 3 in-class quizzes - 30%
  • Short film response paper - 10%
  • Final group project: policy brief and presentation - 40%
• My office hours: Mondays 1–3:00 p.m. (Social Ecology II 3317)
  • Sign up here!
• My email: jgerez@uci.edu
• TA office hours: Wednesday 11 a.m.-12 p.m. (Social Ecology II 3323 or Zoom)
• TA email: eaubele@uci.edu

Why does this course matter? Puerto Vallarta, 2026

• Mexican military kills Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes (“El Mencho”)
  • Head of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG)
• CJNG response: burning vehicles, blocked roads across 12 states
• Flights canceled; tourists told to shelter in place
• 25 members of Mexico’s National Guard killed in retaliatory attacks

This is just one example of organized crime in practice

• Private organizations with military capacity
• Capable of disrupting state authority
• Embedded in everyday life: local economies, public services, and social order
• With own internal structure, succession logic, and political strategies

Guiding questions

This course studies organized crime as a social and political phenomenon. We will ask:

• Why do criminal organizations emerge where they do? How do they expand?
• How do criminal organizations “organize” internally?
• How do they govern territory—and why do some provide order while others inflict chaos?
• When and why are they violent? When are they not?
• How do they interact with states, politicians, and citizens?
• What works to reduce organized crime… and at what cost?

A note on the material

• I want lectures to be interactive: come prepared to discuss, critique, and comment
• This course can sometimes deal with very difficult materials
  • This includes real violence, real victims, and ongoing events
  • Treat them with the seriousness they deserve
• We are bound to disagree on some issues
  • No one in this room has a monopoly on opinion or reason, including me
• Respect others’ backgrounds, identities, and perspectives
  • Critique an idea, not the person
  • When in doubt… err on the side of kindness
• Let people express themselves without interruption or derision
• Let me know if you feel these norms are being violated
• If something in the course is affecting you personally, please reach out

This course deals with deeply political and social issues

Course calendar

Part I: Foundations (Weeks 1–3)

• What is organized crime?
• The state and crime
• Why criminal groups form and how they organize internally

Part II: Case Studies (Weeks 4–5)

• Protection rackets
• Trafficking organizations
• Street and prison gangs
• Vigilantes and self-defense groups

Course calendar

Part III: Consequences (Weeks 6–7)

• When are criminal groups violent—and when are they not?
• Criminal governance
• Organized crime and politics

Part IV: Policies Against Organized Crime (Weeks 8–9)

• Active confrontation
• Alternatives to confrontation
• Student presentations

Required materials

• All readings uploaded to Perusall, accessible through Canvas
• Perusall is a collaborative annotation platform—more in a moment
• Film response requires watching one film from a provided list
  • Stream, rent, or borrow from the UCI Library
  • You can also propose your own film with instructor approval
• You need access to the internet and a computer
  • If this is an issue, please tell me immediately—we will find accommodations

Assignments at a glance

Participation - Readings (10%)

• Readings are completed on Perusall, not just read
• You will be randomly assigned to a group of ~15 students
• You are expected to read all the material
• … and leave thoughtful annotations: comments, questions, responses
• Do this before class!

Participation - Poll Everywhere (10%)

• Lectures will include polls
• You will not be graded on the “correctness” of your answers

Testing Poll Everywhere

In-class quizzes (30%)

• Three short quizzes on April 15, April 29, May 13
• Each consists of a short-answer prompt related to recent readings and lecture
• Closed-note
• If you miss a maximum of one quiz
  • …You can visit a campus event, museum, historical site, etc., related to the class
  • Submit documentation (proof of your presence) and a short reflection on Canvas
  • You are responsible for finding an appropriate activity, subject to approval by professor/TA

Film response paper (10%)

• Watch one film from the list on the syllabus (or propose your own with approval)
• Write a 4-page double-spaced individual response
• Connect what you observed to one or more topics or theories from class
• You can approach it however feels most meaningful—but:
  • Clearly describe what you saw
  • Explain how it relates (or doesn’t!) to course material
• Due: end of Week 7

Film list

Policy brief (40%)

• In groups of ~4, you will produce a policy brief

  • In the style of a professional think tank/media organization

    • (e.g., InsightCrime, International Crisis Group)

  • …on an organized crime challenge

• You will:

  • Analyze the situation

  • Explain how it developed

  • Assess what has been done to address it

  • Recommend concrete steps for governments, international organizations, or other actors

• Self-select into groups—if you’re having difficulty, contact me.

• Part of your grade will be based on peer evaluation, so don’t shirk!

Policy brief: three components

Proposal (5%) — Due end of Week 4

• 2–3 pages (double-spaced)
• Describe your topic, how it connects to course material, your timeline
• Goal: early feedback on viability

Presentation (20%) — Week 10

• ~5 minutes with slides
• Present your brief to the class

Written brief (15%) — Due during finals week

• 6 pages (double-spaced); citations don’t count toward page limit
• Draw on secondary and primary sources
• Make a clear, evidence-based argument

Email and office/student hours

Email: for logistics and small conceptual questions

• I will attempt to respond within 24 hours on business days
• If I don’t respond within 48 hours, email again
• This policy also applies to emailing the TA
• Always use your UC Irvine email address
• Always copy both me and the TA on all your communications

Office/student hours: for deeper questions, feedback, career/academic advice

• Mondays 1:00–3:00 p.m., Social Ecology II 3317
• Sign up here!
• Come! This is what they are for

TA office/student hours:

• Wednesday 11:00 a.m.-12:00 p.m. (Social Ecology II 3323 or Zoom)

• First-come, first-served

Late work, grade disputes, and other course policies

Late work

• Extensions must be requested in writing at least 24 hours before the deadline
• Without an approved extension: −1/3 letter grade per 24 hours (B+ → B → B− …)
• Work submitted more than 72 hours late without approval: failing grade

Grade disputes

• Submit a written explanation (<1 page) within two weeks of receiving the assignment back
• Wait 48 hours after receiving the assignment or your request will not be considered!
• I reserve the right to raise or lower your grade upon re-evaluation

Other policies

• Something is bound to happen that I do not have a policy for
• Please just communicate with me
• We can figure it out!

Artificial intelligence

• My view on LLMs: like most tools, they can help or harm learning
• LLMs are great at engineering (this includes computer programming)
• Why are LLMs great at engineering?
  • Well-defined problem
  • Try a bunch of different solutions
  • Evaluate solutions against clear criteria
• However, this logic breaks down in other contexts, aka this class:

  • This course is about reading, thinking, writing

  • LLM output can be polished but substantively wrong, shallow, or fabricated

  • Moreover, without knowing what the LLM is doing, you are less able to find errors

  • And, you learn less while using LLMs (Anthropic Study)

Academic integrity

The upshot on LLMs: always verify sources and output directly—you own the consequences

• I will not police LLM use for take-home work and won’t pretend I can
• But LLM-generated writing tends to be detectable, and we will grade accordingly
• Build the habit of drafting your own work; if you want to use AI, use for feedback only
• Any hallucinated reference submitted as your work will be treated as plagiarism

For Wednesday: what is “organized crime,” anyway?

Is it defined by:

• The type of activity? (drug trafficking, extortion, racketeering)
• The structure of the group? (hierarchy, membership, rules)
• The relationship to the state? (operating outside the law)
• Something else?