NCJ Number
92843
Date Published
1983
Length
116 pages
Annotation
Witnesses at this hearing spoke in favor of stricter laws to alleviate the suffering and financial loss caused by drug-related crimes against small businesses.
Abstract
This was the fourth in a series of hearings on the impact of drug-related crime on small businesses. The average small business is 10 times more likely than the average individual to be victimized by crime. Few of these crimes ever result in arrest, and even fewer result in conviction. Senator Alfonse M. D'Amato presented an eight-point plan that would enable the criminal justice system to better handle drug-related crime. The plan would crush the major heroin trafficking operations, increase Federal law enforcement resources, expand law enforcement efforts against newly emerging organized crime groups, free up Department of Justice resources by turning civil litigation over to private law firms, and establish pretrial detention without bail for those who would on release pose a threat to the community. The plan would also assure imprisonment of convicted offenders, set fixed sentences to eliminate parole for convicted offenders, and establish appellate review of lenient sentences. Witnesses at the hearing included government officials, court officials, victims of crime, and survivors of victims. The testimony of the victims and survivors consisted of descriptions of crime against their businesses, along with discussion of the human and economic costs. Government and court officials described cases in which the law only allowed punishment that was, in their view, inadequate. Witnesses favored stricter laws and more stringent enforcement. A New York State Senate-Assembly act to amend criminal procedure laws to deny bail and supporting memoranda from the New York State Law Enforcement Council are appended.