EN
Organized crime is a problem widely described in literature. Despite this, the constant change in the structure of criminal groups and the nature of organized crime committed by organized crime, encourages to further considerations. One of the ways is to conduct research that focuses on social assessments of this phenomenon. The aim of this article is to describe the author's own research results, which were respondents from Bialystok and the employees of the Custody and Penitentiary in Bialystok. The study was conducted to show the perception of the problem by people who do not have daily contact with the phenomenon or having only information from media reports, and by respondents who deal with perpetrators of this type of crimes in professional life. The study also focused on comparing the perception of organized crime from 2000-2016 with that of the 1990s. Questionnaires filled out by respondents included issues related to assessment of the scale of the phenomenon, the most serious forms of this crime, the amount of the imprisonment provided in Article 258 of the Polish Penal Code, institutions established to fight with organized crime, gender of the perpetrators and the level of recidivism of convicts. Analysis of respondents' responses allowed to show social awareness about the phenomenon of organized crime.