N.Y. Penal Law § 460.00: Legislative findings

§ 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.