1. In his book, Choice and Consequence, economist Thomas Schelling (1984) sought to explain why certain crimes, such as burglary or embezzlement, did not lend themselves to monopolized control by organized crime (OC) whereas others, such as gambling, prostitution or drug dealing have. He concluded that "some businesses lend themselves more than others to monopolization" (p. 183). They are businesses in which small-time criminals are victimized, where the "primary target of organized crime is itself an underworld activity," such as the bookmaker, the prostitute or the drug dealer. The drug dealer is prone to extortion by OC because he cannot seek recourse to the law, his activities are highly visible and therefore, vulnerable to protection rackets, he runs a cash business and therefore can't claim that he cannot afford to pay for protection and he has fairly regularized earnings which lend themselves to a standardized 'cut' for the OC syndicate.
Schelling suggests that these are fairly 'victimless' crimes which, if legalized, OC would have difficulty monopolizing and, therefore, would have less of a social cost. This has been proven in the case of gambling. Health concerns would be less if prostitution were legalized and controlled. Drug dealing costs would go down if currently controlled substances were legalized. For example, addicts would not need to commit crimes to get the funds to buy cheaper drugs; however, powerful elements in society still oppose legalization because of the damage allegedly done by narcotics to users and those who come into contact with them.
2. In the United States, primary responsibility for enforcing the criminal law rests with states and localities. However, as OC has become national and international, federal criminal jurisdiction has expanded. As of 1997, 140 federal agencies were involved in enforcing 4100 federal criminal laws (Kronenwetter, 1997, p. 17). Some of them, such as the Organized Cri...