From Harvard Law School
INTRODUCTION
Prosecutions under the federal criminal Racketeer Influenced and
Corrupt Organizations Act1(“RICO”) and the related Violent Crimes in
Aid of Racketeering Activity Act2(“VICAR”) have an inappropriate and disproportionately negative impact on young3 Black and Brown4 men and notoriously inaccurate gang databases to target RICO investigations, arrests, and prosecutions. Young people of color are overrepresented in gang databases, and their overrepresentation is a major factor driving their overrepresentation in ang raids and RICO prosecutions. Given the influence of flawed gang databases on the impact of the RICO Act, we must question the legitimacy the RICO Act as applied to alleged street gangs. If gang databases are flawed and may also be infused with bias, then it is appropriate to question whether the raids and prosecutions that
are based on those databases are also flawed and infused with bias.
The inaccurate and biased dragnet created by RICO street gang
prosecutions sweeps up many young people who are not involved in the
targeted organizations at all and certainly are not contributing members
of complex criminal conspiracies. Courts that interpret RICO and VICAR
broadly in these cases create a low bar for prosecutors and a nearly
insurmountable one for defendants.7 Consequently, young Black and
Brown men who were inappropriately charged in the first place decide to
plead guilty to avoid the draconian sentences imposed by the RICO Act.
Read the full report here.
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