Vol. 10 No. 1 (January 2000) pp. 71-73.

GOTHAM UNBOUND: HOW NEW YORK CITY WAS LIBERATED FROM THE GRIP OF ORGANIZED CRIME by James B. Jacobs with Coleen Friel and Robert Radick. New York: New York University Press, 1999. 327 pp.

Reviewed by Gerald J. Russello, Attorney at Law, New York City.

This book fills a sorely needed gap in the literature on the intersection among organized crime, public policy, economics and law. Academic study of organized crime in America is stretched across a number of disciplines, and only rarely is a coherent and comprehensive examination offered of the large role it has played in shaping the economic and legal life of the nation. In New York City alone, for example, the role of organized crime has been (and is) staggering. It has infiltrated scores of industries, and has been a major component of economic and political life in the city for almost a century. Yet, as the authors note, organized crime's connections with and influences on urban economics has rarely been told (pp. 125-26). GOTHAM UNBOUND points in the direction of fulfilling that task. Jacobs, a professor at New York University School of Law, and Friel and Radick, both former Glass Fellows of Crime and Justice at NYU, explore the deep and systemic influence that organized crime has had on New York City. The study concentrates on organized crime's effects in six areas: the garment industry, the Fulton Fish Market, John F. Kennedy Airport, the Javits Convention Center, and the carting and construction industries. Part I of the book examines how organized crime became involved and assumed control over each of these areas; Part II describes the legal strategies used to eliminate their influence. There is a brief introductory section that sketches the central players in the story: the federal and state law enforcement authorities, the crime "families," and the city itself. Although the book obviously is centered on one city, its conclusions and methodology can be adapted to examine other cities in which organized crime has had an historic or continuing influence.

The outstanding strength of GOTHAM UNBOUND is its careful explanation of how organized crime actually infiltrates industries. This is crucially important initially as an empirical matter, since academic study of this process is scarce and popular misconceptions often color the picture. Although one can sometimes quibble with the larger generalizations made about organized crime -- whether, for example, the Italian and American organized crime networks are one organization or two (p. 7), nevertheless, their more important points regarding the influence of organized crime remain. The operations of each area are described in detail, as is the manner in which organized crime assumed control and the major elements constituting the economic and legal landscape.

The extended analyses the authors give to each of the selected industries is also important in the context of assessing and implementing appropriate legal strategies to

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deal with organized crime. One of the major themes of GOTHAM UNBOUND is its contention that traditional law enforcement techniques to counter the mob, such as prison terms and other criminal penalties, have failed, despite decades of battle. Only in recent years have measurable, and not merely symbolic, changes occurred in the city's economic life that seem to indicate that the new legal strategies have been a success.

Organized crime emerges from this study as a concrete and identifiable entity in the city's economic framework. It is structured, highly organized, economically intelligent and extremely flexible and opportunistic. Indeed, in some industries, control by organized crime may have had certain economic benefits, for example in the Fulton Fish Market, which further assisted its dominance (pp. 47-48). These characteristics made organized crime highly resistant to traditional law enforcement techniques, and arrests and long prison terms did not restrict its activity or reduce its allure to potential recruits. The law enforcement approach changed upon the enactment, in 1970, of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO). RICO provided an avenue to reach organized crime, both as an entity itself and as an influence on other organizations such as labor unions (pp. 131-32). The statute enabled law enforcement to engage organized crime in the one area in which it could suffer significant short and long-term damage: its economics.

A turning point came during the trial of brothers Joseph and Thomas Gambino over their illegal control of the garment trade. Mid-trial the brothers settled on a single antitrust count, in exchange for the government dropping the remaining fifty-four counts of extortion and other violations (pp. 139-40). The Gambino brothers agreed to leave the garment trade and paid a $12 million fine. Law enforcement had shifted, at least a little, to concentrate on removing the economic effects of organized crime rather than seeking prison terms that were likely not to have long-term effects.

RICO also spurred other legal innovations, such as the "megatrials" of crime families, and the use of court-appointed supervisors over labor unions or markets to monitor organized crime activity; one such was appointed as part of the Gambino plea bargain. Prosecutors have begun to utilize other economic-based efforts, such as requiring that contractors hire a certified investigative auditing firm to ascertain whether the contractor has any links to organized crime before commencing on a government project. The authors also raise the possibility of other regulatory reforms, such as a proactive use of the many licensing requirements that are needed to do business in the industries traditionally dominated by organized crime. In New York, for example, there has been great success in reducing the influence of organized crime in the waste-hauling industry through the Trade Waste Commission headed by a former prosecutor. These techniques may become even more useful in the future, as organized crime extends its reach into more ophisticated and highly regulated industries, such as the securities markets.

These initiatives have met with varying success, and the authors raise some questions on the wisdom of appointing former prosecutors to the task of monitor or trustee, which has thus far been the usual practice in New York. On the whole they have been effective. Further, the authors note that these new techniques require political will to implement, because they require time and resources devoted to

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investigation and expertise in examining (pp. 229-30). The authors raise a cautious hope that the influence of traditional organized crime may have been significantly reduced, if not eliminated (p. 232). Numerous statistics are included regarding the decrease in prices, for example in the manufacturing of clothes and the price of fish demonstrate the effectiveness of these new techniques.