RICO: The Anti-Mafia Law

Abstract

After years of sending mob leaders to jail for reasons that may not have been the ones authorities wanted to charge them with, in 1970, the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act was implemented on a federal level. The RICO law was designed to go after mob bosses that were not able to be charged with murder or as intellectual authors of a murder because they were not the ones executing the plan. This law also allowed prosecutors to go after mobsters for crimes such as drug trafficking, extortion, labor racketeering, and other crimes that would usually be under the control of the mafia. In this article, the RICO law will be analyzed. This article will determine whether the RICO law has been a success and if it has fulfilled its purpose after its implementation.