Final answer:
Merton conceived of organized crime as a social adaptation to the strain caused by the gap between societal goals and the means available to achieve them, especially when legitimate paths are blocked. This was evident during the Prohibition Era where figures like Al Capone turned to illicit means to achieve financial success.
Step-by-step explanation:
Sociologist Robert Merton was influential in developing the strain theory, which proposes that crime and deviance occur when there is a disjunction between society's valued goals and the available means to achieve them. In Merton's perspective on organized crime, it is an adaptation by a group to the pressures of an environment that hampers the achievement of success by legitimate means. Thus, when there is a significant strain between the goal of financial success and the lack of legitimate opportunities to achieve this success, a person or group may turn to crime to bridge this gap.
During the Prohibition Era, this form of crime expanded significantly with crime bosses such as Al Capone creating their own empires through illicit activities. Merton's analysis suggests that these crime syndicates arose because the social structure limited access to the culturally approved goal of monetary success by legal paths, inducing these individuals to innovate new, illicit paths to achieve their goals.
While Durkheim earlier discussed how deviance, including crime, has a functional side in affirming cultural values, Merton's strain theory focuses specifically on the pressures that lead individuals and organizations to deviance when they are blocked in their pursuit of socially prescribed ambitions. He identified different adaptation methods to this strain, and one such adaptation can involve created systems of organized crime to accumulate wealth and success outside the boundaries of societal norms and laws.