ABSTRACT
In 1970 Congress passed a criminal statute aimed at those who held executive positions in large illegal drug-selling enterprises, known as the offense of conducting a continuing criminal enterprise (CCE). The provisions of criminal statute were soon interpreted by prosecutors and courts in the most expansive fashion, so that its stringent penalties, although clearly designed only for drug "kingpins", came to be applied also to lesser lights in the drug business. The criminal statute exemplifies both good and bad aspects of a recent expansion of sanctions in the criminal justice systems. Finding classic crimes, even with the loose offense of conspiracy to hand, to be clumsy tools for attacking criminal combinations, it has devised new offenses, the essence of which is participation in the affairs of a criminal enterprise. Criminological literature certainly displays little enthusiasm for the incremental deterrent power of sanctions as a general remedy.
