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Rico Reform: How Much Is Needed?, William J. Hughes Congressman

Vanderbilt Law Review

RICO reform has been one of the most time-consuming and difficult issues in the 101st Congress. The House Subcommittee on Crime has held three full-day hearings on RICO reform, listening to testimony from a vast array of witnesses on both sides of the reform issue, and several in the middle. From a personal perspective, hardly a day has passed in the last nine months that I have not had a meeting, a discussion with a House colleague, or a staff session on the subject of RICO reform.At the outset I should mention that I do not have a magic "silver …

Foreword, G. Robert Blakey

Journal Articles

The past twenty years witnessed a sea change in the way that organized crime is investigated, prosecuted, and sanctioned, both criminally and civilly. RICO allowed the law to catch up with the rest of society. In the twentieth century, organizations, not people, control the important elements of society such as: government, commerce and labor. Until the passage of RICO, organizations as such were seldom the fcus of the law-outside of, perhaps, the antitrust statutes. This is no longer true.

RICO, however, is not limited to the activities of traditional Mafia families. It does not matter to a racketeering victim what …