Racketeering and the Federalization of Crime
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Craig M. Bradley*
The federal anti-racketeering effort has grown steadily since its incep-
tion in response to the lottery schemes of the late nineteenth century.
Yet, as this article demonstrates, it has done so in the absence of a clear
understanding of just what the problem is, and how the ever-expanding
body of legislation is going to deal with it. While not wholly critical of
the efforts of the Department of Justice and the Congress to stamp out
racketeering, Professor Bradley raises substantial questions about the
government's assessments of the scope of the problem and the effec-
tiveness of the methods employed in fighting it.
It appears that when the Congress does not seem to have anything
else to do, we must meet here and make some more crimes.
-Statement of Congressman Young
concerning the 1934 anti-racketeering legislation
This is not an article about organized crime. For the purposes of this article it is
assumed, as President Reagan, reflecting the view of virtually every government of-
ficial who has ever addressed himself to the issue, recently stated: [O]rganized
criminal activity is a continuing threat to the domestic security of our nation. Illegal
drug trafficking, gambling, extortion, pornography, fraud, and other crimes com-
mitted by highly-organized, well-financed criminal organizations take a tremen-
dous toll on the criminal justice system and its resources.,
To agree that a national problem of organized crime exists, however, is not
necessarily to agree that the government's declarations as to its scope are accurate or
that the methods used in fighting it are appropriate or effective.
This article is about those methods. It traces the history of federal anti-racketeer-
ing legislation back to the late nineteenth century when Congress acted under the
* Charles L. Whistler Professor of Law, Indiana University at Bloomington. A.B. 1967, University of
North Carolina at Chapel Hill; J.D. 1970, University of Virginia. The author is a former Assistant United
States Attorney (Washington, D.C.) and Senior Trial Attorney, Criminal Divison, United States Depart-
ment of Justice.
The author wishes to express his appreciation to Ralph Gaebler for his able research assistance and to
Profesors G. Robert Blakey, Ralph Fuchs, Louis Schwartz and Alex Tanford for their helpful comments
on an earlier draft of this article.
1. Letter from President Reagan to Senator Thurmond (January 26, 1983), reprinted in Organized
Crime in America, Hearings Before the Comm. on the Judiciary, United States Senate, 98th Cong., 1st
Sess. 3 (1983) [hereinafter cited as Organized Crime in America].](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/amcrimlr22&div=14&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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Racketeering and the Federalization of Crime
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