NCJ Number
82791
Journal
Crime and Delinquency Volume: 28 Issue: 2 Dated: (April 1982) Pages: 211-232
Date Published
1982
Length
22 pages
Annotation
Failures to curb corporate and organized crime result from legislators misunderstanding the marketplace dynamics of these crimes. An examination of Senate investigations of Lockheed and the Cosa Nostra, and of the resulting legislation, illustrates this problem.
Abstract
Senate investigators overlooked the circumstances surrounding Lockheed's illicit payments to foreign officials for securing sales abroad. Equating the payments with bribes rather than extorted payments made to allow Lockheed's operation in the international market, the Senate passed the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. American multinational corporations were restricted from making payments abroad and were subsequently faced with market pressures from foreign competitors who could make such payments legally. In its investigation of the Cosa Nostra, the Senate believed Joseph Valachi's unconfirmed and incomplete testimony about the organization's nationwide criminal conspiracy, since it correlated with predisposed ideas about organized crime. The Senate then passed the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act (authorizing wiretapping) and the Organized Crime Control Act (providing for special grand juries and witness immunity). Neither has been effective, as the laws reflected ideological assumptions rather than the reality of how the Cosa Nostra operates. In terms of Dwight Smith's enterprise theory, both Lockheed and the Cosa Nostra were using criminal activities as a mediating technology to maintain or stabilize their position in their respective industries -- aerospace and gambling. This theory, rather than legislators' preconceptions, should have been taken into account when designing enforcement legislation.