I'm looking at creating a fantastic version of Ancient Greece for a game. In the process I've been doing a bit of light research on Greek culture, law, entertainment, etc. While I've found interesting things about law and courts (Draco being a nice highlight) there hasn't been a lot of articles on the other side of things.
Did criminals organize in any significant way?
I found a single reference to a group of criminals called 'Kakoujrgi' but wasn't sure if that was just a class of extreme crime or what?
I am not equipped to answer this question, but I know where you should look: the volume Organised Crime in Antiquity, edited by Keith Hopwood (Swansea 1999).
Hans van Wees' contribution to the volume is particularly relevant. He argues that the entire elite of early Archaic society (c. 800-600 BC) may well be considered a collection of competing mafia syndicates. Men of wealth were obsessed with acquiring "honour" through fighting, plundering, and aggressively dominating lesser members of society. They demanded "gifts" and service in return for supposedly protecting their community from violence, while at the same time being the primary source of such violence themselves.
In all Greek city-states, the Archaic period is marked by the increasing power of laws and political institutions, and the diminishing influence of individuals over their communities. Effectively, collective support for the rise of formal codes of law broke the power of the "mafiosi", who had to find a new way to fit within the system. By 500 BC, there is practically no evidence left for what we would call organised crime. The main (and perpetual) exception is piracy.
(Draco being a nice highlight)
This is interesting. We know next to nothing about Drakon. What did you read about him?
a group of criminals called 'Kakoujrgi'
Kakourgos is simply the Ancient Greek word for "criminal". It literally means "one who does bad things". The plural is kakourgoi.