Assessing the Effectiveness of Organized Crime Control Strategies ...

Assessing the Effectiveness of Organized Crime Control Strategies:
A Review of the Literature
attack upon local OC by identifying the power structure of the local OC family, targeting key
individuals within the organization, and initiating prosecutions that were most likely to seriously
disrupt its operations. The Buffalo Strike Force operated until the end of 1968 and brought
indictments against more than 30 individuals involved in OC (General Accounting Office,
1989:8).
Because of the apparent success of the Buffalo Strike Force, these forces were established
throughout the US. As of February 1989, there were 14 such strike forces. The strike forces
concentrated their efforts on La Cosa Nostra and succeeded in convicting high-level OC figures
in Boston, Chicago, New York, Milwaukee, and Cleveland (General Accounting Office,
1989:14). Many of these individuals received lengthy prison sentences. However, no
information is available from the 1989 audit as to the number of indictments or convictions
achieved. An earlier audit revealed that strike forces convictions, including those of highechelon
figures, often yielded non-custodial or short prison sentences (General Accounting
Office, 1977:24-27). However, no comparison is provided in terms of the conviction rates or
sentences imposed for comparable cases prosecuted by offices other than the strike forces.
The General Accounting Office (1989:27; 1977:17) lamented the fact that no overall measures of
effectiveness were established for the strike forces. Notwithstanding the lack of an evaluation
strategy, the GAO (1977:7), in its 1977 audit, declared the strike forces unsuccessful because
there had been no coordinated national effort to fight OC. Rather, “ Federal efforts against
organized crime are more the result of individual decisions made at the local level than the result
of a national strategy, as originally envisioned…In practice, each participating agency fights
organized crime as it sees fit” (General Accounting Office, 1977:7). Variations in the definition
of OC and the lack of agreed-upon aims were seen by the GAO as contributing to this failure.
In addition, jurisdictional disputes arose between the strike forces and US Attorney’s Offices
(General Accounting Office, 1989:21). US Attorneys are the chief federal prosecutors in the
judicial districts and they, too, prosecute OC cases in the same regions covered by the strike
forces. The conflicts and coordination problems led to the call by an advisory committee to
phase out the strike forces and to integrate them within the US Attorneys’ Offices as early as
1974. The strike forces were ultimately disbanded in 1989 as independent entities and were, in
fact, merged into US Attorneys’ Offices. As a result, many experienced strike force prosecutors
resigned from the US Justice Department (Jacobs and Gouldin, 1999:160).
Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces, headed by US attorneys, were established in
1983 to identify, investigate, and prosecute high-level drug traffickers (General Accounting
Office, 1989). Their aim was to eliminate high-level drug operations through the coordination of
federal resources. As of 1989, there were 13 drug task forces in the US and participating
agencies included US attorney offices, Drug Enforcement Administration, FBI, US Customs
Service, US Marshals Service, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, Internal Revenue
Service, the Coast Guard, and state and local law enforcement agencies. Housed in US
Attorneys’ Offices, assistant US attorneys work with the initiating law enforcement agency in
establishing electronic surveillance, engaging in undercover operations, using investigative grand
juries, administering asset forfeitures, and performing other activities usually required in
complex drug investigations (Lyman and Potter, 1997:430-431).
42 | Research and Statistics Division / Department of Justice Canada