Summary

The federal effort to coordinate the fight against organized crime involved the creation of the Department of Justice's strike forces. The operations of the strike forces located in Cleveland, Ohio; Detroit, Michigan; Los Angeles, California; New Orleans, Louisiana; and Brooklyn and Manhattan, New York were investigated.

The strike forces are located in areas of major organized crime activity and are composed primarily of representatives from federal investigative agencies and attorneys of Justice. Work at the strike force locations showed that: (1) the government has not developed a strategy to fight organized crime; (2) there is no agreement on what organized crime is; (3) the strike forces have no statements of objectives or plans for achieving those objectives; (4) individual strike forces are hampered because the Justice attorneys-in-charge have no authority over participants from other agencies; and (5) a costly computerized organized crime intelligence system is of dubious value.