ABSTRACT
Organized crime has existed in one form or another throughout much of recorded history. Maritime piracy, highway robbery, and banditry were precursors to modern organized crime, all products of rapidly changing conditions in earlier historical eras. The findings of the President's Commission on Organized Crime (PCOC) in 1986 marked a major step toward moving away from the traditional Italian-American model of organized crime. During the 1940s the Federal Bureau of Narcotics (FBN) took the lead in attacking organized crime, but in doing so it made the mistake of exclusively linking American organized crime to one specific ethnic group, Italian-Americans, an unfortunate conclusion that would resonate in the findings of the influential 1950-1951 Kefauver Hearings. For many years, one of the most sanctified and accepted characteristics of organized crime was the lack or absence of political or ideological motivation; another has been the notion of limited or exclusive membership.
