§ 460.00 Legislative findings.
The legislature finds and determines as follows:
Organized crime in New York state involves highly sophisticated, complex
and widespread forms of criminal activity. The diversified illegal conduct
engaged in by organized crime, rooted in the illegal use of force, fraud,
and corruption, constitutes a major drain upon the state's economy, costs
citizens and businesses of the state billions of dollars each year, and
threatens the peace, security and general welfare of the people of the
state.
Organized crime continues to expand its corrosive influence in the state
through illegal enterprises engaged in such criminal endeavors as the theft
and fencing of property, the importation and distribution of narcotics and
other dangerous drugs, arson for profit, hijacking, labor racketeering,
loansharking, extortion and bribery, the illegal disposal of hazardous
wastes, syndicated gambling, trafficking in stolen securities, insurance
and investment frauds, and other forms of economic and social exploitation.
The money and power derived by organized crime through its illegal
enterprises and endeavors is increasingly being used to infiltrate and
corrupt businesses, unions and other legitimate enterprises and to corrupt
our democratic processes. This infiltration takes several forms with
legitimate enterprises being employed as instrumentalities, injured as
victims, or taken as prizes. Through such infiltration the power of an
enterprise can be diverted to criminal ends, its resources looted, or it
can be taken over entirely, either on paper or de facto. Thus, for purposes
of making both criminal and civil remedies available to deal with the
corruption of such enterprises, the concept of criminal enterprise should
not be limited to traditional criminal syndicates or crime families, and
may include persons who join together in a criminal enterprise, as defined
by subdivision three of section 460.10 of this article, for the purpose of
corrupting such legitimate enterprises or infiltrating and illicitly
influencing industries.
One major cause of the continuing growth of organized criminal activities
within the state is the inadequacy and limited nature of sanctions and
remedies available to state and local law enforcement officials to deal
with this intricate and varied criminal conduct. Existing penal law
provisions are primarily concerned with the commission of specific and
limited criminal acts without regard to the relationships of particular
criminal acts or the illegal profits derived therefrom, to legitimate or
illicit enterprises operated or controlled by organized crime. Further,
traditional penal law provisions only provide for the imposition of
conventional criminal penalties, including imprisonment, fines and
probation, for entrenched organized crime enterprises. Such penalties are
not adequate to enable the state to effectively fight organized crime.
Instead, new penal prohibitions and enhanced sanctions, and new civil and
criminal remedies are necessary to deal with the unlawful activities of
persons and enterprises engaged in organized crime. Comprehensive statutes
enacted at the federal level and in a number of other states with
significant organized crime problems, have provided law enforcement
agencies with an effective tool to fight organized crime. Such laws permit
law enforcement authorities (i) to charge and prove patterns of criminal
activity and their connection to ongoing enterprises, legitimate or
illegal, that are controlled or operated by organized crime, and (ii) to
apply criminal and civil penalties designed to prevent and eliminate
organized crime's involvement with such enterprises. The organized crime
control act is a statute of comparable purpose but tempered by reasonable
limitations on its applicability, and by due regard for the rights of
innocent persons. Because of its more rigorous definitions, this act will
not apply to some situations encompassed within comparable statutes in
other jurisdictions. This act is vital to the peace, security and general
welfare of the state.
In part because of its highly diverse nature, it is impossible to
precisely define what organized crime is. This article, however, does
attempt to define and criminalize what organized crime does. This article
focuses upon criminal enterprises because their sophistication and
organization make them more effective at their criminal purposes and
because their structure and insulation protect their leadership from
detection and prosecution.
At the same time, this article is not intended to be employed to
prosecute relatively minor or isolated acts of criminality which, while
related to an enterprise and arguably part of a pattern as defined in this
article, can be adequately and more fairly prosecuted as separate offenses.
Similarly, particular defendants may play so minor a role in a criminal
enterprise that their culpability would be unfairly distorted by
prosecution and punishment for participation in the enterprise.
The balance intended to be struck by this act cannot readily be codified
in the form of restrictive definitions or a categorical list of exceptions.
General, yet carefully drawn definitions of the terms "pattern of criminal
activity" and "criminal enterprise" have been employed. Notwithstanding the
provisions of section 5.00 of this chapter these definitions should be
given their plain meaning, and should not be construed either liberally or
strictly, but in the context of the legislative purposes set forth in these
findings. Within the confines of these and other applicable definitions,
discretion ought still be exercised. Once the letter of the law is complied
with, including the essential showing that there is a pattern of conduct
which is criminal under existing statutes, the question whether to
prosecute under those statutes or for the pattern itself is essentially one
of fairness. The answer will depend on the particular situation, and is
best addressed by those institutions of government which have traditionally
exercised that function: the grand jury, the public prosecutor, and an
independent judiciary.
NYSentencing