INVESTIGATION AND PROSECUTION UNITS State and Local Manpower. There is, as described above, minimal concentrated law enforcement activity directed at organized crime. Only a few cities have established police intelligence and prosecutorial units specifically for developing organized crime cases. Legal tools such as electronic surveillance and immunity will be of limited use unless an adequate body of trained and expert investigators and prosecutors exists to use those tools properly. The Commission recommends: Every attorney general in States where organized crime exists should form in his office a unit of attorneys and investigators to gather information and assist in prosecution regarding this criminal activity. Investigators should include those with the special skills, such as accounting and undercover operations, crucial to organized crime matters. Members of the State police could be assigned to this unit. In local areas where it appears that the jurisdiction's law enforcement agencies are not adequately combatting organized crime, State police should conduct investigations, make arrests, or conduct searches upon request of any branch of the local government. This should be done without the knowledge of local officials if, because of apparent corruption, it is necessary. The State police should cooperate with and seek advice from the State attorney general's special unit. For local enforcement, The Commission recommends: Police departments in every major city should have a special intelligence unit solely to ferret out organized criminal activity and to collect information regarding the possible entry of criminal cartels into the area's criminal operations. Staffing needs will depend on local conditions, but the intelligence programs should have a priority rating that insures assignment of adequate personnel. Perhaps the enormous amount of manpower devoted to petty vice conditions should be reduced and the investigative personnel for organized crime cases increased. Criteria for evaluating the effectiveness of the units, other than mere numbers of arrests, must be developed. The background of potential intelligence unit members should be investigated extensively and only the most talented and trustworthy assigned to those units. Salary levels should be such that membership in the unit could be a career in itself. One of the duties of the police legal advisers 145 should be consultation with the intelligence unit. Special training programs should be used to teach the necessary skills involved in organized crime investigative work. Because of the special skills and extensive time involved in organized crime cases, prosecution thereof requires concentrated efforts. 145 See Caplan, The Police Legal Advisor, Report of the Police Task Force (appendix A, ch. 3). The Commission recommends: The prosecutor's office in every major city should have sufficient manpower assigned full time to organized crime cases. Such personnel should have the power to initiate organized crime investigations and to conduct the investigative grand juries recommended above. Special training in these legal tactics should be provided; the prosecutors should work closely with the police units. Development and dissemination of intelligence. Since the activities of organized crime overlap individual police jurisdictions, the various law enforcement agencies must share information and coordinate their plans. On the Federal level, enforcement agencies are furnishing a large amount of intelligence to the Organized Crime and Racketeering (OCR) Section in the Department of Justice. But there is no central place where a strategic intelligence system regarding organized crime groups is being developed to coordinate an integrated Federal plan for enforcement and regulatory agencies. The Commission recommends: The Federal Government should create a central computerized office into which each Federal agency would feed all of its organized crime intelligence. Intelligence information in the OCR Section is now recorded manually in a card catalog. Much information, such as that discovered in grand jury proceedings, has not been incorporated because of limited resources. Many Federal agencies do not submit information on a case until it has been completed. A central office in the Department of Justice should have proper recording facilities and should analyze intelligence information fed to it by all relevant Federal agencies keeping current with events. A pool of information experts from the FBI, Secret Service, Central Intelligence Agency and other departments and private companies should help build the system, which would employ punch cards, tapes, and other modern information storage and retrieval techniques. Each agency, of course, would maintain its own files, but being able to draw upon the capability of the central computer would eliminate duplication of effort and justify the cost of the new operation. A strategic intelligence system necessary to satisfy investigative, prosecutive, and regulatory needs must have specialists in economics, sociology, business administration, operations research, and other disciplines, as well as those trained in law enforcement. Since organized crime crosses State lines, the Commission recommends the creation of regional organizations, such as that established by the New England State Police Compact. Large States could develop statewide systems, such as exists in New York,146 as well as participate in regional compacts. These systems should permit and encourage greater exchange of information among Federal, State, and local 146 For a description of the New York State system, see N.Y. STATE IDENTIFICATION & INTELLIGENCE SYSTEM, A NEW CONCEPT IN CRIMINAL JUSTICE INFORMATION-SHARING (1966). agencies. Currently, information sharing proceeds on a personal basis; i.e., information is given officers who, through personal contact with agents of the disseminator, have proved their trustworthiness. Perhaps a central security system should be developed (like the military system), in which one who has been cleared to receive information and who demonstrates a need for it can obtain information, whether or not the disseminator and recipient are personally acquainted. Standards for clearance should be established, and any agency with available manpower could conduct the investigation of potential recipients of information. Sharing information on other than a person-to-person basis of mutual trust will be a delicate evolutionary process. Preservation of the secrecy of each confidential informant's identity is an absolute requirement for any successful intelligence-gathering agency. Law enforcement agents are loath to make information available when its source could be guessed or inferred. However, great amounts of intelligence can be shared without revealing the possible identity of the informant, and information. sharing by means of a mechanical, central security system would still be of great value. The proposed organized crime intelligence program of the New York State Identification and Intelligence System is one way to solve the problem of keeping the source of information secret. By that system the agency that commits information to central storage would be allowed to choose what other agencies may draw upon those par ticular data. The Commission recommends: The Department of Justice should give financial assistance to encourage the development of efficient systems for regional intelligence gathering, collection and dissemination. By financial assistance and provisions of security clearance, the Department should also sponsor and encourage research by the many relevant disciplines regarding the nature, development, activities, and organization of these special criminal groups. Federal Law Enforcement. The Attorney General should continue to be the focal point of the Federal enforcement drive against organized crime. The Organized Crime and Racketeering (OCR) Section is the coordinating and policymaking body within the Department of Justice. The Commission believes that greater centralization of the Federal effort is desirable and possible. Experience in some areas has shown that an effective partnership can be built between OCR Section attorneys and prosecutors in the 94 U.S. Attorneys' offices throughout the Nation. Such cooperation should be the rule for the organized crime program, which should not be the exclusive province of either the OCR Section or the U.S. Attorneys. Different responsibilities within the Federal agencies have produced investigators with special skills and talents. The expertise of these agents should be used by organizing them into investigative teams that work exclusively 117 On Feb. 23, 1967, Cong. William C. Cramer (R. Fla.) introduced a bill calling for the creation of a joint congressional committee on organized crime to implement the recommendation of this Commission. H.R. 6054, 90th Cong., 1st Sess. (1967). on organized crime matters under the direction of the OCR Section. The Commission recommends: The staff of the OCR Section should be greatly increased, and the section should have final authority for decisionmaking in its relationship with U.S. Attorneys on organized crime cases. The Federal Government could also do much to assist and coordinate the work of State and local organized crime enforcement. There is very little such assistance at present. The Commission recommends: A technical assistance program should be launched wherein local jurisdictions can request the help of experienced Federal prosecutors from the OCR Section. The Department of Justice, through the FBI and the OCR Section, should conduct organized crime training sessions for State and local law enforcement officers. This training could supplement the extensive general enforcement sessions now conducted by the FBI and the narcotics enforcement training offered by the Federal Bureau of Narcotics. The proposed training would concentrate on the development of special investigative and prosecutive techniques necessary in organized crime investigations. In view of the additional responsibilities cast upon the OCR Section by these recommendations, perhaps its status should be raised to a division-level operation which would be headed by an Assistant Attorney General appointed by the President. These recommendations for the OCR Section would not remove any of the existing responsibility of Federal investigating agencies. Legislative Investigations. To give necessary impetus to a continuing drive against organized crime, the public must be constantly informed of its manifestations and influences. The changing nature of organized criminal activities also requires that legislators constantly analyze needs for new substantive and procedural provisions. The Commission recommends: A permanent joint congressional committee on organized crime should be created.147 A permanent committee would focus the interest of those members of Congress who have in the past displayed concern with the problem, and would involve a greater number of legislators than at present. It could mean that there would be a larger staff to concentrate on the problem and to permit consideration of the implications of any new legislation for organized crime. In addition, the creation of such a committee would place the prestige of the U.S. Congress behind the proposition that organized crime is a national problem of the highest priority. PUBLIC AND PRIVATE CRIME INVESTIGATING COMMISSIONS Crime investigating commissions financed by State governments, such as in New York and Illinois, have proved to be effective for informing the public about organized crime conditions. Legislative proposals to combat organized crime also result from the hearings of these committees. The Commission recommends: States that have organized crime groups in operation should create and finance organized crime investigation commissions with independent, permanent status, with an adequate staff of investigators, and with subpoena power. Such commissions should hold hearings and furnish periodic reports to the legislature, Governor, and law enforcement officials. Independent citizen crime commissions in metropolitan areas can provide enlightened resistance to the growth of organized crime and to the formation of alliances between it and politics. A citizen crime commission can give reliable and determined community leadership to assess the local government's effort to control organzed crime. It can provide impartial public education, marshal public support for government agencies that have committed resources to special organized crime drives, monitor judicial and law enforcement performance, organize public responses, and enlist business cooperation against infiltration by organized crime. The Commission recommends: Citizens and business groups should organize permanent citizen crime commissions to combat organized crime. Financial contributions should be solicited to maintain at least a full-time executive director and a part-time staff. At this time there are not enough citizen crime commissions functioning effectively in the Nation. A national coordinating headquarters could be established in Washington, D.C., to encourage and guide the creation of new commissions and to provide services to improve existing ones. Private foundation funds should be sought to help establish and administer the headquarters. It would provide channels for communication among citizen crime commissions, between such commissions and national agencies of government, and between crime commissions and mutual interest associations such as the International Association of Chiefs of Police, the National District Attorneys Association, the National Council on Crime and Delinquency, and others. Such a headquarters could give concerned citizens in any community the technical assistance necessary for initiating a crime commission. In addition to making trained personnel avail 118 Johnson, Organized Crime: Challenge to the American Legal System (pt. 2), 54 J. CRIM. L., C. & P.S. 1, 22-26 (1963). able for short-term assignments with local commissions, a headquarters could establish formal procedures for training professionals in crime commission management. A national headquarters could also motivate States and communities to undertake reforms in their criminal justice systems and to deal with other community problems unrelated to organized crime. PRIVATE AND GOVERNMENT REGULATION Law enforcement is not the only weapon that governments have to control organized crime. Regulatory activity can have a great effect. One means to diminish organized crime's influence on politics, for example, would be legislation subjecting political contributions and expenditures to greater public visibility and providing incentives for wider citizen contributions to State and local political activity. Tax regulations could be devised to require disclosure of hidden, or beneficial, owners of partnerships and corporations that do not have public ownership. Government at various levels has not explored the regulatory devices available to thwart the activities of criminal groups, especially in the area of infiltration of legitimate business. These techniques are especially valuable because they require a less rigid standard of proof of violation than the guilt-beyond-a-reasonable-doubt requirement of criminal law. Regulatory agencies also have powers of inspection not afforded to law enforcement. State income tax enforcement could be directed at organized crime's businesses. Food inspectors could uncover regulatory violations in organize crime's restaurant and food processing businesses. Liquor authorities could close premises of organized crime-owned bars in which illicit activities constantly occur.148 Civil proceedings could stop unfair trade practices and antitrust violations by organized crime businesses. Trade associations could alert companies to organized crime's presence and tactics and stimulate action by private business. The Commission recommends: Groups should be created within the Federal and State departments of justice to develop strategies and enlist regulatory action against businesses infiltrated by organized crime. Private business associations should develop strategies to prevent and uncover organized crime's illegal and unfair business tactics. NEWS MEDIA In recent years, the American press has become more concerned about organized crime. Some metropolitan newspapers report organized crime activity on a continuing basis, and a few employ investigative reporters whose exclusive concern is organized crime. The television in dustry, as well, has accepted a responsibility for informing the American citizen of the magnitude of the problem. In some parts of the country revelations in local newspapers have stimulated governmental action and political reform. Especially in smaller communities, the independence of the press may be the public's only hope of finding out about organized crime. Public officials concerned about organized crime are encouraged to act when comprehensive newspaper reporting has alerted and enlisted community support. The Commission recommends: All newspapers in major metropolitan areas where organized crime exists should designate a highly competent reporter for full-time work and writing concerning organized criminal activities, the corruption caused by it, and governmental efforts to control it. Newspapers in smaller communities dominated by organized crime should fulfill their responsibility to inform the public of the nature and consequence of these conditions. PARTICIPATION BY LOCAL GOVERNMENT LEADERS Enforcement against organized crime and accompanying public corruption proceeds with required intensity only when the political leaders in Federal, State, and local governments provide aggressive leadership.149 They are the only persons who can secure the resources that law enforcement needs. They are the only ones who can assure police officials that no illegal activity or participating person is to be protected from proper enforcement action. They are the only ones who can insure that persons cooperating with organized criminal groups are not appointed to public office. They are the only ones who can provide for effective monitoring of regulatory action to expose irregular practices or favors given to businesses dominated by criminal groups. They are the ones who can provide full backing for a police chief who institutes. internal inspection, promotion, and other practices 150 for controlling police corruption. Mayors, Governors, and the President of the United States must be given adequate information concerning organized crime conditions. Dissemination of incomplete or unevaluated intelligence about individuals would present grave civil liberties problems. However, government leaders must be made aware of the particular activities of organized crime groups. The Commission recommends: Enforcement officials should provide regular briefings to leaders at all levels of government concerning organized crime conditions within the jurisdiction. The briefings should be supplemented by written reports further describing those conditions as well as current governmental action to combat them. Reports of con 119 The results of the program initiated by Gov. John Dempsey in Connecticut illustrate the improvements in law enforcement which can be achieved against organized crime. In response to growing concern over the problems of organized gambling, on Feb. 25, 1965, the Governor created a Committee on Gambling "to take a hard look at illegal organized gambling in Connecticut and to initiate steps to deal with the problems that it presents." CONN. GOV.'s COMM. GAMBLING REP. 4 (1965). The committee was composed of judges, State and local law enforcement officials, representative Federal officials, and State prosecutors. Pursuant to its first report and recommendations, a significant increase in the number and term of jail sentences imposed by the courts on convicted ON ditions should also be furnished periodically by the Federal Government to State and local jurisdictions, and by State governments to local jurisdictions. Reports should be withheld from jurisdictions where corruption is apparent and knowledge by a corrupt official of the information in the report could compromise enforcement efforts. Public fears of reporting organized crime conditions to apparently corrupt police and governmental personnel must also be met directly. If an independent agency for accepting citizen grievances is established,151 it should be charged with accepting citizen complaints and information about organized crime and corruption. Information obtained in this way could be forwarded to Federal, State, or local law enforcement officials, or to all of them, at the direction of the agency. Names of sources should be kept confidential if the citizen so requests or if the agency deems it necessary. The above program is not intended as a series of independent proposals. It represents an integrated package requiring combined action by the American people, its governments and its businesses. Organized crime succeeds only insofar as the Nation permits it to succeed. Because of the magnitude of the problem, the various branches of government cannot act with success individually. Each must help the other. Laws and procedures are of no avail without proper enforcement machinery. Prevention fails unless citizens, individually and through organizations, devise solutions and encourage their elected representatives. Regulation must accomplish what criminal law enforcement cannot. Above all, the endeavor to break the structure and power of organized crime--an endeavor that the Commission firmly believes can succeed-requires a commitment of the public far beyond that which now exists. Action must replace words; knowledge must replace fascination. Only when the American people and their governments develop the will can law enforcement and other agencies find the way. In many ways organized crime is the most sinister kind of crime in America. The men who control it have become rich and powerful by encouraging the needy to gamble, by luring the troubled to destroy themselves with drugs, by extorting the profits of honest and hardworking businessmen, by collecting usury from those in financial plight, by maiming or murdering those who oppose them, by bribing those who are sworn to destroy them. Organized crime is not merely a few preying upon a few. In a very real sense it is dedicated to subverting not only American institutions, but the very decency and integrity that are the most cherished attributes of a free society. As the leaders of Cosa Nostra and their racketeering allies pursue their conspiracy unmolested, in open and continuous defiance of the law, they preach a sermon that all too many Americans heed: The government is for sale; lawlessness is the road to wealth; honesty is a pitfall and morality a trap for suckers. The extraordinary thing about organized crime is that America has tolerated it for so long. |