What is RICO?

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

The Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations statute, usually referred to as RICO, is the most important single piece of legislation ever enacted against organized crime. "RICO's criminal enterprise model represented a new approach in the government's prosecution of organized crime groups."
RICO (Title IX of the Organized Crime Control Act of 1970) defines racketeering in an extremely broad manner, and includes many offenses that do not ordinarily violate any federal statute: "[A]ny act or threat involving murder, kidnapping, gambling, arson, robbery, bribery, extortion, or dealing in narcotic or other dangerous drugs, which is chargeable under State law and punishable by imprisonment for more than one year." The thrust of RICO is to prove a pattern of crimes conducted through an organization—an enterprise: "any individual, partnership, corporation, association, or other legal entity, and any union or group of individuals associated in fact, although not a legal entity.".
In order for racketeering to be a RICO violation, there must be a "pattern," which requires the commission of at least two of the specified crimes within a ten-year period, although, in ruling against anti-abortion activists, the Supreme Court has determined that RICO does not require defendants to have an economic motive. Isolated criminal acts, however, do not constitute a "pattern.".