The political-criminal nexus in the united states

Summary The 1967 Task Force Report on Organized Crime (TFR) found that “...all available data indicate that organized crime flourishes only where it has corrupted public officials.” 48 From that standpoint, neutralizing local law enforcement would appear to be central to criminal operations. That conclusion would depend on (a) how one defines “organized crime” and (b) the assumption that organized crime described by the Task Force covers all cases and species of it including what is referred to as “non-traditional” organized crime. A conclusion that seems unchallengeable in the Report is the observation that it was impossible to determine “the extent of the corruption of public officials in the United States.” The lack of information on this question was aggravated by the fact that many of those who provided information to the Task Force were themselves public officials.