wasnt for RICO the streets would be safer
But short of a corporate death penalty (and that ain't happening anytime soon) it's pretty much the tool of choice when organizational structures are used to shield criminal acts.
I much prefer laws that address the situation at hand to gaming the system. It bugs me that Capone went down for tax evasion. But when the actions are outrageous and people are gaming the system, well sometimes those people lose in a gaming the system way. Which is why, while the Capone outcome looks ugly to me, it isn't really unjust. And if the situation with Newscorp is the way it looks, RICO may be a way to get some justice, or at least make that kind of thing not a competitive advantage.
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What I mean by a corporate death penalty is that the corporation is dissolved, the assets are seized, and the principals are forbidden to do any kind of business with each other. All the way down to if a board member gets a job as a buss-boy his former co-members can't eat at that restaurant. Inconvenient? Career destroying? Harsh? Hell yeah - don't do the crime, don't let your buddies do it.
