Introduction: Outlaw bikers as organized crime?

The title of this volume Outlaw Bikers as Organized Crime reluctantly combines two highly contested concepts into a statement that is perhaps disputed even more. Who and what do we refer to when we talk about ‘outlaw bikers’ and ‘outlaw biker clubs’? What is meant by ‘organized crime’? And, how – if at all – are these two concepts related? All chapters in this volume deal with these questions some way or another, either explicitly or implicitly, each providing its own answers based on the data and methods at hand. Rather than forestall these answers, here, by way of introduction, we want to focus on the three questions raised by the volume's title, laying out the backcloth against which the research in subsequent chapters is to be understood.