Organized crimes describe national, local, or transnational group categories of highly centralized enterprises which are led by criminals to engage in illegal activities, mainly for making profits. The organized criminal groups are mostly politically motivated though others have other motivating factors such as religion, for instance, the terrorist groups. Some organizations operate by forcing people to conduct business with them, such as through money extorts to be offered “protection.” These gangs are usually disciplined, and that is why they are considered organized. Organized crimes range from political offenses, war crimes, white-collar crimes, treason, and financial crimes. The organized crimes can be traced back in the 1920s and have stretched to the present creating concern to form Acts and policies to eradicate such crimes in the United States.
The Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization Act (RICO) is a federal law in the United States applied in the provision of extended criminal penalties and cause of action to be taken against an ongoing criminal organization. The RICO Act is used in ensuring that leaders of the syndicates are tried as well as people who participated in the offenses (DuCharme, Levitt, Mont, Newbraugh, Salem, & Seidman, 2019). The Act had a specific way of charging those involved in the crimes. The Act provides a list of 35 crimes which are charged, with twenty-seven being federal crimes and eight being stated crimes. For an individual to be persecuted by the RICO Act, they must have had committed two of the crimes, within a period of ten years and the crimes have to be related to an enterprise. The racketeer is required to pay for all their actions and with interest to the business affected.
Delegate your assignment to our experts and they will do the rest.
The Organized Crime Unit plays an essential role in eradicating organized crimes. Organized crimes which are covered by the RICO Act range from varying activities. The violence crimes are such as assault, murder terrorism, sexual assault, coercion, arson, extortion, and others. Offenses related to finances are such as laundering of money, making money counterfeits, and evading tax. Cybercrimes are such as web fraud, infringement of copyright, and cyber warfare. Others are drug trafficking, white-collar crimes and corruption, and human trafficking. Organized Crime Unit can be used in determining how these different crimes are committed. Organizations such as CIA and FBI can be used to collect intelligence on the organizations to determine the leaders so that they can be comprehended and charged using the RICO Act (Kapucu & Demirhan, 2019).
There are various strategies and tools that can be used in eradicating organized crimes. RICO Act has proven ineffective due to the “pattern of racketeering” used in a prosecution. However, the lengthy imprisonment such as twenty years with a fine of about 20,000 dollars is used to discourage organized crimes. RICO Act effectiveness can be improved by working with other laws such as the Continuing Criminal Enterprise (CCE), which was enacted in 1987. The law is used to limit crimes such as drug trafficking, where most drug trafficking syndicates are organized groups. Taxation laws can be used by the Organized Crime Units in solving controlled offenses. When filing taxes, businesses are required to file tax returns, and they submit the complete business records, and that will help the Unit note any cases of the business being extorted. The Organized Crime Unit will be in charge of monitoring financial transactions and tracking money laundering. Therefore, keeping the Organized Crime Unit will be essential in eradicating the crime syndicates.
References
DuCharme, J., Levitt, M., Mont, W., Newbraugh, A., Salem, A., & Seidman, D. (2019). Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations. Am. Crim. L., Rev., 56, 1323.
Kapucu, N., & Demirhan, C. (2019). Managing collaboration in public security networks in the fight against terrorism and organized crime. International Review of Administrative Sciences, 85(1), 154-172.
