Only real example that I can speak to is the Italian mafia, and all five family bosses + hundreds of underlings were arrested and given 20+ years to life. The Italian mafia was wiped out. Has a small, much less effective, faction established? Sure, but RICO did what it was intended to do. We just need the same be done to Gov't officials (past & present) and those involved in the corruption at various levels (NGO's, Wall Street, banks, various agencies, etc).
Where Im stuck with this is what did we as law abiding citizens gain by granting this additional power to the government? How else can they use this power?
For example from wikipedia:
"Despite its harsh provisions, a RICO-related charge is considered easy to prove in court because it focuses on patterns of behavior as opposed to criminal acts."
So great, yeah that sounds really nice and all in a hippy dippy happy go lucky honest people world, but in our real world this just seems like a really slick way to get into the gray area as it relates to our supposed "rights" as citizens. Pre-1970 coming to this same conclusion was still possible, it was just more difficult. Given where technology has gone, I would be willing to bet RICO is even less valuable than it was in the 70s.
Im very, very, leery of any expansion of power in any form for any stated reason. The trust quite simply just is not there.
As far as the mafia goes. Our own president was smoked in the 60s. Are you telling me a few dozen of not particularly exceptional foreigners posed such a problem to our government that we had to invent a new law just to handle it? I smell bullshit is all I am saying.
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