Describe the Legal Limitations Associated with Combating Organized Crime, Including a Critique

Suggest a realistic solution to control organized crime by discussing and evaluating the effectiveness of organized crime prosecutions

Organized crime presents itself in so many ways. Even the smallest crime where two people have planned to work together can be considered “organized crime” and when you finally get to the highest level and the rise of the Mafia in New York, growing on the gangs of immigrants from the end of the 1800’s, you have crime occurring on a large scale that brings in enough money that the top man will easily be making as much or more than your Fortune 500 Chief Executive Officer. “As long as there have been cities, there have been gangs of one sort or another. In the United States, gangs have traditionally been a sort of halfway house for recent immigrants. In the 1920’s, Chicago alone had more than 1,300 street gangs, catering to every ethnic, political, and criminal leaning imaginable. … Some fancied themselves commercial enterprises, and a few – the Mafia, most notable – actually did make money….” (Levitt & Dubner)

Growing from those patterns we have everything from motorcycle gangs to the Black Disciples and their drug distribution system that operates, in essence, nationwide. All of these different criminal patterns are easily considered organized crime, and they each develop their own political, financial, and social bases of power and strength.

These groups form relationships with each other as needed and dissolve them just as quickly. It is almost like trying to track terrorists and tie them to specific organizations when for decades they survived by changing their affiliations overnight. The Black Disciples readily adjust their operations in Chicago to allow gun smugglers to use their system in exchange for a discounted price on the guns they need to buy. The Mafia has been known for decades for their ability to “loan” hit men, enforcers, or whatever else another branch needed so that it would be harder to track the crime back to the visiting “staff.”

Organized crime also goes through great measure to make sure that the community where it operates has the occasional party or other activity to show they are giving back to the local community in exchange for being allowed to commit crimes. The Black Disciples “liked to brag that [their criminal activity] kept black money in the black community” (Levitt & Dubner)

In addition, the organized crime leadership does everything it can to keep involved with politicians in the city the “serve,” providing them with all the support they can muster fin order to keep themselves in a position where they can continue to do their “work.” And their connections to the street-level police officer and detective force in many cities is as close or closer than the same officers have with the public they are supposed to serve. As long as there is money, there will be someone who will be willing to look the other way in exchange for some. It sounds bad, it sounds mean, but there is a need to realize that this can and does occur.

It is because of this local connection that the Federal government has worked and acted to try to stop organized crime. After their many embarrassments – even being unable to put Al Capone into prison for his alcohol sales during prohibition and instead having to jail him for income tax evasion – they have tried to devise laws that would stop what is called racketeering.

The law they finally enacted in 1970 is called the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, or RICO. Under this law, anyone who has committed two of thirty-five crimes within a ten-year period can be charged with racketeering. If found guilty they face a fine of up to $250,000 and/or 20 years in prison per racketeering count. In addition, they must forfeit all ill-gotten gains and interest in any business they gained through this racketeering activity. In addition to all of that, any private individual can file a civil suit for treble the damages. For the Federal government to use this law, the U.S. Attorney needs to first temporarily seize a defendant’s assets so that the Mafia-owned shell companies cannot take the money that would be needed to pay fines and damages.

The problem with such a strong law is that it immediately makes the defendant want to plead guilty to a lesser charge to avoid the fines and damages and the additional jail time. In addition, the seizure the U.S. Attorney places on the assets makes it extremely hard to hire an attorney.

Which is fine if the goal is to put organized crime bosses behind bars, but not if the goal is to get as much back from the criminal financially as they removed from the economy in the first place. In addition, settling on lesser crimes does not allow a civil suit that will collect treble damages for an injured party.

What is truly needed to stop organized crime is something that will stop all of it in its many incarnations. While RICO gives the Federal government a chance to stop the men at the top, it does little to stop the gang crimes of the drug crimes that are also part of the racketeering organizations that should be able to be closed. Its easy to say we need to make it so that crime does not pay, but the fact is that it does pay, for the men at the top, quit lucratively. For the foot soldiers at the bottom, not so well. If there exists a place to hit the gang and drug portions of organized crime, that location is the foot soldiers, the guy who has to be on the street corned in all kinds of weather, dealing with junkies and prostitutes. Provide them with a good paying job and you may well make it hard for the man at the top to survive and may well make those types of gang crimes disappear. But if you go after the foot soldiers with RICO, you again are aiming for the people without the money to pay the fines or the civil penalties and letting those people who are able to set up shell corporations and handle all the other portions of the business, the organized part, a chance to continue and survive.

REFERENCES

Department of Justice. U.S. Attorneys Criminal Resource Manual. “Organized Crime and Racketeering.” Retrieved 2/5/10.
foia_reading_room/usam/title9/110mcrm.htm.

Levitt, Steven & Stephen Dubner. (2005) Freakonomics. HarperCollins. New York.