Criminal Activities

Controlling Organized Crime Organized crime is a threat that does not only affect the United States and its domestic security and economy, but also the worldwide community. Indeed, with the development of the Internet and new communications technology, it has become very easy for criminals to conduct their activities without being detected. Terrorist attacks such as the events of 9/11/2001 have also created a distraction that allowed organized crime to flourish in the shadow of counter terrorism efforts.

This is why those agencies that fight organized crime must renew their efforts and establish relevant policies and laws to more effectively combat organized crime today. According to Finklea (2010), one agency that has been created to combat organized crime is the Organized Crime Council. Because of the increasing threat of not only domestic but also international organized crime, the Council has reconvened to address this threat for the first time in 15 years in 2008.

The first steps Congress has taken to fortify the federal government's anti-crime efforts were taken in 1967 and 1968, via a series of congressional hearings. This led to the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968. This allowed grants to state law enforcement agencies to help them combat organized crime. This effort included allowing crime fighting agencies to wiretap communication devices where criminal activities were suspected. Finklea identifies the illegal activities involved in organized crime as: gambling, prostitution, labor racketeering, smuggling, trafficking, extortion, theft, murder, and money laundering.

Still, it appears that the federal government's tools fell somewhat short of effectively combating criminal organizations as a whole. The Organized Crime Control Act of 1970 was an effort to remedy this situation. This Act provided a platform for Special Grand Juries to investigate and report on criminal organizations across jurisdictions (Finklea, 2010). Through the Act, witnesses were also granted special protection when providing information on criminal activities. A further result of the Act was the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO).

This Act provided for the prosecution of anyone taking part in criminal activities via an enterprise or organization within a 10-year period. As such, RICO has taken a dominant position in the repertoire of tools to combat organized crime (Finklea, 2010). More recently, the rules for civil forfeiture proceedings were revisited via the Civil Asset Forfeiture Reform Act of 2000. This provided a better way for the federal government to prosecute those involved in organized crime.

The meeting of the Organized Crime Council in 2008 focused on the transnational nature of organized crime, fueled by the spread of globalization and the use of communication technology. To combat this, the FBI currently uses the Enterprise Theory of Investigation (ETI) as an analytical tool to identify criminal organizations, their activities, and their financial assets. Buscaglia and Van Dijk (2003) confirm the international and integrated nature of organized crime. The authors note that there are interdependent links between organized crime and the political, socio-economic,.