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22 Am. Crim. L. Rev. 213 (1984-1985)
Racketeering and the Federalization of Crime

handle is hein.journals/amcrimlr22 and id is 221 raw text is: RACKETEERING AND THE FEDERALIZATION OF CRIME Craig M. Bradley* The federal anti-racketeering effort has grown steadily since its incep- tion in response to the lottery schemes of the late nineteenth century. Yet, as this article demonstrates, it has done so in the absence of a clear understanding of just what the problem is, and how the ever-expanding body of legislation is going to deal with it. While not wholly critical of the efforts of the Department of Justice and the Congress to stamp out racketeering, Professor Bradley raises substantial questions about the government's assessments of the scope of the problem and the effec- tiveness of the methods employed in fighting it. It appears that when the Congress does not seem to have anything else to do, we must meet here and make some more crimes. -Statement of Congressman Young concerning the 1934 anti-racketeering legislation This is not an article about organized crime. For the purposes of this article it is assumed, as President Reagan, reflecting the view of virtually every government of- ficial who has ever addressed himself to the issue, recently stated: [O]rganized criminal activity is a continuing threat to the domestic security of our nation. Illegal drug trafficking, gambling, extortion, pornography, fraud, and other crimes com- mitted by highly-organized, well-financed criminal organizations take a tremen- dous toll on the criminal justice system and its resources., To agree that a national problem of organized crime exists, however, is not necessarily to agree that the government's declarations as to its scope are accurate or that the methods used in fighting it are appropriate or effective. This article is about those methods. It traces the history of federal anti-racketeer- ing legislation back to the late nineteenth century when Congress acted under the * Charles L. Whistler Professor of Law, Indiana University at Bloomington. A.B. 1967, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; J.D. 1970, University of Virginia. The author is a former Assistant United States Attorney (Washington, D.C.) and Senior Trial Attorney, Criminal Divison, United States Depart- ment of Justice. The author wishes to express his appreciation to Ralph Gaebler for his able research assistance and to Profesors G. Robert Blakey, Ralph Fuchs, Louis Schwartz and Alex Tanford for their helpful comments on an earlier draft of this article. 1. Letter from President Reagan to Senator Thurmond (January 26, 1983), reprinted in Organized Crime in America, Hearings Before the Comm. on the Judiciary, United States Senate, 98th Cong., 1st Sess. 3 (1983) [hereinafter cited as Organized Crime in America].