View the Table of Contents.
Read the Introduction.

aI am not aware of a book that covers the same ground as this one--let alone one that does so using such thorough research and with such technical competence.a
Anthony M. Gould, Universite Laval

"Jacobs offers a history of the federal government's efforts to curb labor racketeering. The heart of his text focuses on the results achieved by employing Civil RICO suits to weed out organized crime from unions long mired in corruption. The Justice Department has mounted twenty such efforts since 1982, and Jacobs's book is the first to provide a comprehensive assessment of this controversial tactic. He tackles this ambitious project with a combination of detailed research, clear writing, and judicious consideration, all of which have been a hallmark of his previous texts on corruption and organized crime. The result is a must read book for anyone interested in the problem of union corruption and what to do about it."
--"Industrial and Labor Relations Review"

"Jacobs, legal scholar and expert on the Mafia, sets out to show how the Mob has distorted American labor history, explaining the relationship between organized crime and organized labor, as well as recent federal efforts to clean up unions"
--"Booklist"

"James Jacobs, a New York University law professor and author of Mobsters, Unions and Feds, says Mafiosi were hired by union organizers in the early twentieth century to combat company toughs. Now, he says, they specialize in 'selling the rights of workers.'"
--"USA Today"

"Jacobs further burnishes his reputation for advancing the study of organized crime in America with his latest work of scholarship, billed by the publisher as 'the only book to investigate how the mob has distorted American labor history.' This worthy successor to "Gotham Unbound" and "Busting the Mob" is an exhaustive, albeit sometimes repetitive, survey of the grip La Cosa Nostra has exerted on the country's most powerful unions. While many will be familiar with the broad outlines of the corruption that riddled the Teamsters, which is recounted by the author, his summary of some lesser-known examples of pervasive labor corruption help illustrate his thesis that the entire American union movement has suffered from the intimidation and fear the mob used to gain and maintain control of unions. Especially valuable is Jacobs's examination of the relatively recent use of the RICO law to bring dirty unions under the control of a federally appointed independent trustee, and the book's posing of hard questions about the mixed success those monitorships have had."
--"Publishers Weekly"

"Jacobs has covered a wide range of legal issues, including such hot-button topics as hate crime laws and gun control, but he always returns to the world of mobsters and the men and women who investigate, prosecute, and sentence them."
--"NYU Today"

"James Jacobs brilliantly documents and analyzes a remarkable and untold chapter in the history of American law enforcement. This groundbreaking book should be a starting point for officials around the world who confront powerful organized crime groups."
--Jeremy Travis, President, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, The City University of New York and former Director, National Institute of Justice

"A pathbreaking work. For 50 years, organized crime has been the elephant inorganized labor's living room, unacknowledged and unexplained. Jacobs has critically analyzed every facet of this apparently intractable problem--from its roots to the federal government's various efforts to challenge organized crime's influence. From this point forward, no one can think critically about this problem without relying on Jacobs' work."
--Robert Luskin, General Executive Board Attorney, Laborers' International Union of North America

"Jacobs presents a near encyclopedic account of the Mafia's infiltration, control and exploitation of four major national unions and a number of large local unions. It is a sordid frightening story of violence, corruption and oppression, the betrayal of union members and extortion of employers, defiance of the law and disregard for human decency. This disturbing story should be required reading for all who seek strong and more democratic unions, all who would protect the rights of workers, and all who are concerned for the health of our political and social processes."
--Clyde Summers, Jefferson B. Fordham Professor of Law, Emeritus, University of Pennsylvania Law School

"A fabulous and fascinating book. Jacobs demonstrates the continuing impact of organized crime on the American union movement, and details the legal mechanisms developed in recent years to combat mob influence. History has come home to haunt us, and Jacobs makes the case for using law to fight against the mob for union democracy."
--Stanley N. Katz, Professor of Public Affairs, Woodrow Wilson School, Princeton University

"Jacobs demonstrates that while it has been remarkably difficult to defeat labor racketeering, much has been achieved. This will be welcomenews to all who root for the revitalization of the labor movement."
--Ronald G. Ehrenberg, Irving M. Ives Professor of Industrial and Labor Relations and Economics, Cornell University

Nowhere in the world has organized crime infiltrated the labor movement as effectively as in the United States. Yet the government, the AFL-CIO, and the civil liberties community all but ignored the situation for most of the twentieth century. Since 1975, however, the FBI, Department of Justice, and the federal judiciary have relentlessly battled against labor racketeering, even in some of the nation's most powerful unions.

Mobsters, Unions, and Feds is the first book to document organized crime's exploitation of organized labor and the massive federal clean-up effort. A renown criminologist who for twenty years has been assessing the government's attack on the Mafia, James B. Jacobs explains how Cosa Nostra families first gained a foothold in the labor movement, then consolidated their power through patronage, fraud, and violence and finally used this power to become part of the political and economic power structure of 20th century urban America.

Since FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover's death in 1972, federal law enforcement has aggressively investigated and prosecuted labor racketeers, as well as utilized the civil remedies provided for by the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization (RICO) statute to impose long-term court-supervised remedial trusteeships on mobbed-up unions. There have been some impressive victories, including substantial progress toward liberating the four most racketeer-ridden national unions from the grip of organized crime, but victory cannot yet be claimed.

The only book to investigate how the mob has exploited the American labor movement, Mobsters, Unions, and Feds is the most comprehensive study to date of how labor racketeering evolved and how the government has finally resolved to eradicate it.

An in-depth study of the U.S. v. the International Brotherhood of Teamsters In 1988, Manhattan U.S. Attorney Rudy Giuliani brought a massive civil racketeering suit against the leadership of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT), at the time possibly the most corrupt union in the world. The lawsuit charged that the mafia had operated the IBT as a racketeering enterprise for decades, systematically violating the rights of members and furthering the interests of organized crime. On the eve of trial, the parties settled the case, and twenty years later, the trustees are still on the job. Breaking the Devil's Pact is an in-depth study of the U.S. v. IBT, beginning with Giuliani's lawsuit and the politics surrounding it, and continuing with an incisive analysis of the controversial nature of the ongoing trusteeship. James B. Jacobs and Kerry T. Cooperman address the larger question of the limits of legal reform in the American labor movement and the appropriate level of government involvement.

"John Gotti's downfall is one of the five major criminal and civil cases cited in Busting the Mob which illustrate the grand strategy devised by the Federal Government to cripple, if not destroy, America's entrenched Mafia groups. . . Jacobs believes it is premature to prepare an obituary for America's Mob families." -Times Literary Supplement "In Busting the Mob, Jacobs proves that sound historical and analytical criminology are not incompatible with entertaining-often gripping-narrative." -Freda Adler, Rutgers University, Former President, American Society of Criminology "Busting the Mob by Jim Jacobs is both enlightening and entertaining. It is immensely refreshing that at long last scholarship, as distinct from sensationalism, comes to the analysis of Organized Crime-and scholarship with a sprightly style." -Norval Morris, Professor of Law and Criminology, University of Chicago "Busting the Mob is a must read on organized crime for academics, prosecutors, and concerned citizens, in particular because it includes the text of primary material: indictments, trial testimony, etc." -G. Robert Blakey, Professor, Notre Dame Law School, author of Rico, the federal anti-racketeering statue "Jacobs quotes . . . verbatim trial testimony and bugged conversations. . . . T]renchant materials for budding prosecutors and investigators." -Times Literary Supplement "Essential and readable." -Choice "For those non-believers who refuse to acknowledge the chicanery engaged in by the mob, Busting the Mob makes a compelling case. . . . The most definitive analysis of the government's war against the mob. A superb piece of research." -Frederick T. Martens, Executive Director, Pennsylvania Crime Commission Since Prohibition, the Mafia has captivated the media and, indeed, the American imagination. From Al Capone to John Gotti, organized crime bosses have achieved notoriety as anti- heroes in popular culture. In practice, organized crime grew strong and wealthy by supplying illicit goods and services and by obtaining control over labor unions and key industries. Despite, or perhaps because of, its power and high profile, Cosa Nostra faced little opposition from law enforcement. Yet, in the last 15 years, the very foundations of the mob have been shaken, its bosses imprisoned, its profits diminished, and its influence badly weakened. In this vivid and dramatic book, James B. Jacobs, Christopher Panarella, and Jay Worthington document the government's relentless attack on organized crime. The authors present an overview of the forces and events that led in the 1980s to the most successful organized crime control initiatives in American history. Enlisting trial testimony, secretly taped conversations, court documents, and depositions, they document five landmark cases, representing the most important organized crime prosecutions of the modern era-Teamsters Local 560, The Pizza Connection, The Commission, the International Teamsters, and the prosecution of John Gotti. James B. Jacobs is Professor of Law and Director of the Center for Research in Crime and Justice at New York University. Among his books are Drunk Driving and Corruption and Racketeering in the New York City Construction Industry. Chris Panarella and Jay Worthington are Fellows at Center for Research in Crime and Justice at New York University.

This book is an in-depth critique of the USA's dominant political and legal response to "hate crime". The authors show how the media and politicians have constructed a hate crime epidemic without any solid evidence to support it. They argue that hate crime laws make no sense from a law enforcement or criminal justice standpoint, but are only comprehensible as symbolic politics. The well-intentioned effort to denounce prejudice motivated crime may end up dividing the community rather than bringing it together.

Through an investigation of Cosa Nostra's activities, reveals the role of organized crime in the urban power structure Cosa Nostra. Organized crime. The Mob. Call it what you like, no other crime group has infiltrated labor unions and manipulated legitimate industries like Italian organized crime families. One cannot understand the history and political economy of New York City-or most other major American cities-in the 20th century without focusing on the role of organized crime in the urban power structure. Gotham Unbound demonstrates the remarkable range of Cosa Nostra's activities and influence and convincingly argues that 20th century organized crime has been no minor annoyance at the periphery of society but a major force in the core economy, acting as a power broker, even as an alternative government in many sectors of the urban economy. James B. Jacobs presents the first comprehensive account of the ways in which the Cosa Nostra infiltrated key sectors of New York City's legitimate economic life and how this came over the years to be accepted as inevitable, in some cases even beneficial. The first half of Gotham Unbound is devoted to the ways organized crime became entrenched in six economic sectors and institutions of the city-the garment district, Fulton Fish Market, freight at JFK airport, construction, the Jacob Javits Convention Center, and the waste-hauling industry. The second half compellingly documents the campaign to purge the mob from unions, industries, and economic sectors, focusing on the unrelenting law enforcement efforts and the central role of Rudolph Giuliani's mayoral administration in devising innovative regulatory strategies to combat the mob.

Forget what you think you know about the Mafia.  After reading this book, even life-long mob aficionados will have a new perspective on organized crime.

Informative, authoritative, and eye-opening, this is the first full-length book devoted exclusively to uncovering the hidden history of how the Mafia came to dominate organized crime in New York City during the 1930s through 1950s.  Based on exhaustive research of archives and secret files obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, author and attorney C. Alexander Hortis draws on the deepest collection of primary sources, many newly discovered, of any history of the modern mob.

Shattering myths, Hortis reveals how Cosa Nostra actually obtained power at the inception.  The author goes beyond conventional who-shot-who mob stories, providing answers to fresh questions such as:    

* Why did the Sicilian gangs come out on top of the criminal underworld?  
* Can economics explain how the Mafia families operated?  
* What was the Mafia's real role in the drug trade?  
* Why was Cosa Nostra involved in gay bars in New York since the 1930s? 

Drawing on an unprecedented array of primary sources, The Mob and the City is the most thorough and authentic history of the Mafia's rise to power in the early-to-mid twentieth century.

View the Table of Contents.
Read the Introduction.

aI am not aware of a book that covers the same ground as this one--let alone one that does so using such thorough research and with such technical competence.a
Anthony M. Gould, Universite Laval

"Jacobs offers a history of the federal government's efforts to curb labor racketeering. The heart of his text focuses on the results achieved by employing Civil RICO suits to weed out organized crime from unions long mired in corruption. The Justice Department has mounted twenty such efforts since 1982, and Jacobs's book is the first to provide a comprehensive assessment of this controversial tactic. He tackles this ambitious project with a combination of detailed research, clear writing, and judicious consideration, all of which have been a hallmark of his previous texts on corruption and organized crime. The result is a must read book for anyone interested in the problem of union corruption and what to do about it."
--"Industrial and Labor Relations Review"

"Jacobs, legal scholar and expert on the Mafia, sets out to show how the Mob has distorted American labor history, explaining the relationship between organized crime and organized labor, as well as recent federal efforts to clean up unions"
--"Booklist"

"James Jacobs, a New York University law professor and author of Mobsters, Unions and Feds, says Mafiosi were hired by union organizers in the early twentieth century to combat company toughs. Now, he says, they specialize in 'selling the rights of workers.'"
--"USA Today"

"Jacobs further burnishes his reputation for advancing the study of organized crime in America with his latest work of scholarship, billed by the publisher as 'the only book to investigate how the mob has distorted American labor history.' This worthy successor to "Gotham Unbound" and "Busting the Mob" is an exhaustive, albeit sometimes repetitive, survey of the grip La Cosa Nostra has exerted on the country's most powerful unions. While many will be familiar with the broad outlines of the corruption that riddled the Teamsters, which is recounted by the author, his summary of some lesser-known examples of pervasive labor corruption help illustrate his thesis that the entire American union movement has suffered from the intimidation and fear the mob used to gain and maintain control of unions. Especially valuable is Jacobs's examination of the relatively recent use of the RICO law to bring dirty unions under the control of a federally appointed independent trustee, and the book's posing of hard questions about the mixed success those monitorships have had."
--"Publishers Weekly"

"Jacobs has covered a wide range of legal issues, including such hot-button topics as hate crime laws and gun control, but he always returns to the world of mobsters and the men and women who investigate, prosecute, and sentence them."
--"NYU Today"

"James Jacobs brilliantly documents and analyzes a remarkable and untold chapter in the history of American law enforcement. This groundbreaking book should be a starting point for officials around the world who confront powerful organized crime groups."
--Jeremy Travis, President, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, The City University of New York and former Director, National Institute of Justice

"A pathbreaking work. For 50 years, organized crime has been the elephant inorganized labor's living room, unacknowledged and unexplained. Jacobs has critically analyzed every facet of this apparently intractable problem--from its roots to the federal government's various efforts to challenge organized crime's influence. From this point forward, no one can think critically about this problem without relying on Jacobs' work."
--Robert Luskin, General Executive Board Attorney, Laborers' International Union of North America

"Jacobs presents a near encyclopedic account of the Mafia's infiltration, control and exploitation of four major national unions and a number of large local unions. It is a sordid frightening story of violence, corruption and oppression, the betrayal of union members and extortion of employers, defiance of the law and disregard for human decency. This disturbing story should be required reading for all who seek strong and more democratic unions, all who would protect the rights of workers, and all who are concerned for the health of our political and social processes."
--Clyde Summers, Jefferson B. Fordham Professor of Law, Emeritus, University of Pennsylvania Law School

"A fabulous and fascinating book. Jacobs demonstrates the continuing impact of organized crime on the American union movement, and details the legal mechanisms developed in recent years to combat mob influence. History has come home to haunt us, and Jacobs makes the case for using law to fight against the mob for union democracy."
--Stanley N. Katz, Professor of Public Affairs, Woodrow Wilson School, Princeton University

"Jacobs demonstrates that while it has been remarkably difficult to defeat labor racketeering, much has been achieved. This will be welcomenews to all who root for the revitalization of the labor movement."
--Ronald G. Ehrenberg, Irving M. Ives Professor of Industrial and Labor Relations and Economics, Cornell University

Nowhere in the world has organized crime infiltrated the labor movement as effectively as in the United States. Yet the government, the AFL-CIO, and the civil liberties community all but ignored the situation for most of the twentieth century. Since 1975, however, the FBI, Department of Justice, and the federal judiciary have relentlessly battled against labor racketeering, even in some of the nation's most powerful unions.

Mobsters, Unions, and Feds is the first book to document organized crime's exploitation of organized labor and the massive federal clean-up effort. A renown criminologist who for twenty years has been assessing the government's attack on the Mafia, James B. Jacobs explains how Cosa Nostra families first gained a foothold in the labor movement, then consolidated their power through patronage, fraud, and violence and finally used this power to become part of the political and economic power structure of 20th century urban America.

Since FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover's death in 1972, federal law enforcement has aggressively investigated and prosecuted labor racketeers, as well as utilized the civil remedies provided for by the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization (RICO) statute to impose long-term court-supervised remedial trusteeships on mobbed-up unions. There have been some impressive victories, including substantial progress toward liberating the four most racketeer-ridden national unions from the grip of organized crime, but victory cannot yet be claimed.

The only book to investigate how the mob has exploited the American labor movement, Mobsters, Unions, and Feds is the most comprehensive study to date of how labor racketeering evolved and how the government has finally resolved to eradicate it.

Through an investigation of Cosa Nostra's activities, reveals the role of organized crime in the urban power structure Cosa Nostra. Organized crime. The Mob. Call it what you like, no other crime group has infiltrated labor unions and manipulated legitimate industries like Italian organized crime families. One cannot understand the history and political economy of New York City-or most other major American cities-in the 20th century without focusing on the role of organized crime in the urban power structure. Gotham Unbound demonstrates the remarkable range of Cosa Nostra's activities and influence and convincingly argues that 20th century organized crime has been no minor annoyance at the periphery of society but a major force in the core economy, acting as a power broker, even as an alternative government in many sectors of the urban economy. James B. Jacobs presents the first comprehensive account of the ways in which the Cosa Nostra infiltrated key sectors of New York City's legitimate economic life and how this came over the years to be accepted as inevitable, in some cases even beneficial. The first half of Gotham Unbound is devoted to the ways organized crime became entrenched in six economic sectors and institutions of the city-the garment district, Fulton Fish Market, freight at JFK airport, construction, the Jacob Javits Convention Center, and the waste-hauling industry. The second half compellingly documents the campaign to purge the mob from unions, industries, and economic sectors, focusing on the unrelenting law enforcement efforts and the central role of Rudolph Giuliani's mayoral administration in devising innovative regulatory strategies to combat the mob.

An examination of the forces and events that led to the most successful organized crime control initiatives in American history Since Prohibition, the Mafia has captivated the media and, indeed, the American imagination. From Al Capone to John Gotti, organized crime bosses have achieved notoriety as anti- heroes in popular culture. In practice, organized crime grew strong and wealthy by supplying illicit goods and services and by obtaining control over labor unions and key industries. Despite, or perhaps because of, its power and high profile, Cosa Nostra faced little opposition from law enforcement. Yet, in the last 15 years, the very foundations of the mob have been shaken, its bosses imprisoned, its profits diminished, and its influence badly weakened. In this vivid and dramatic book, James B. Jacobs, Christopher Panarella, and Jay Worthington document the government's relentless attack on organized crime. The authors present an overview of the forces and events that led in the 1980s to the most successful organized crime control initiatives in American history. Enlisting trial testimony, secretly taped conversations, court documents, and depositions, they document five landmark cases, representing the most important organized crime prosecutions of the modern era-Teamsters Local 560, The Pizza Connection, The Commission, the International Teamsters, and the prosecution of John Gotti.

A comprehensive assessment of real gun reform legislation with recommendations for better design, implementation and enforcement A month after the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, New York State passed, with record speed, the first and most comprehensive state post-Sandy Hook gun control law. In The Toughest Gun Control Law in the Nation, James B. Jacobs and Zoe Fuhr ask whether the 2013 SAFE Act —hailed by Governor Andrew Cuomo as “the nation’s toughest gun control law” – has lived up to its promise. Jacobs and Fuhr illuminate the gap between gun control on the books and gun control in action. They argue that, to be effective, gun controls must be capable of implementation and enforcement. This requires realistic design, administrative and enforcement capacity and commitment and ongoing political and fiscal support. They show that while the SAFE Act was good symbolic politics, most of its provisions were not effectively implemented or, if implemented, not enforced. Gun control in a society awash with guns poses an immense regulatory challenge. The Toughest Gun Control Law in the Nation takes a tough-minded look at the technological, administrative, fiscal and local political impediments to effectively keeping guns out of the hands of dangerous persons and eliminating some types of guns altogether.

In this ambitious interdisciplinary study, James B. Jacobs provides the first comprehensive review and analysis of America's drunk driving problem and of America's anti-drunk driving policies and jurisprudence. In a clear and accessible style, he considers what has been learned, what is being done, and what constitutional limits exist to the control and enforcement of drunk driving.

Few schisms in American life run as deep or as wide as the divide between gun rights and gun control advocates. Awash in sound and symbol, the gun regulation debate has largely been defined by forceful rhetoric rather than substantive action. Politicians shroud themselves in talk of individual rights or public safety while lobbyists on both sides make doom-and-gloom pronouncements on the consequences of potential shifts in the status quo.
In America today there are between 250 and 300 million firearms in private hands, amounting to one weapon for every American. Two in five American homes house guns. On the one hand, most gun owners are law-abiding citizens who believe they have a constitutional right to bear arms. On the other, a great many people believe gun control to be our best chance at reducing violent crime. While few--whether gun owner or anti-gun advocate--dispute the need to keep guns out of the wrong hands, the most important question has too often been dodged: What gun control options does the most heavily armed democracy in the world have? Can gun control really work?
The last decade has seen several watersheds in the debate, none more important than the 1993 Brady Bill. That bill, James B. Jacobs argues, was the culmination of a strategy in place since the 1930s to permit widespread private ownership of guns while curtailing illegal use. But where do we go from here? While the Brady background check is easily circumvented, any further attempts to extend gun control--for instance, through comprehensive licensing of all gun owners and registration of all guns--would pose monumental administrative burdens. Jacobs moves beyond easy slogans and broad-brush ideology to examine the on-the-ground practicalities of gun control, from mandatory safety locks to outright prohibition and disarmament. Casting aside ideology and abstractions, he cautions against the belief that there exists some gun control solution which, had we the political will to seize it, would substantially reduce violent crime.
In Can Gun Control Work?, James B. Jacobs, one of our most fearless commentators on intractable social problems, has given us the most sober and even-handed assessment of whether gun control can really be made to work.

A comprehensive assessment of real gun reform legislation with recommendations for better design, implementation and enforcement A month after the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, New York State passed, with record speed, the first and most comprehensive state post-Sandy Hook gun control law. In The Toughest Gun Control Law in the Nation, James B. Jacobs and Zoe Fuhr ask whether the 2013 SAFE Act -hailed by Governor Andrew Cuomo as "the nation's toughest gun control law" - has lived up to its promise. Jacobs and Fuhr illuminate the gap between gun control on the books and gun control in action. They argue that, to be effective, gun controls must be capable of implementation and enforcement. This requires realistic design, administrative and enforcement capacity and commitment and ongoing political and fiscal support. They show that while the SAFE Act was good symbolic politics, most of its provisions were not effectively implemented or, if implemented, not enforced. Gun control in a society awash with guns poses an immense regulatory challenge. The Toughest Gun Control Law in the Nation takes a tough-minded look at the technological, administrative, fiscal and local political impediments to effectively keeping guns out of the hands of dangerous persons and eliminating some types of guns altogether.

Stateville penitentiary in Illinois has housed some of Chicago's most infamous criminals and was proclaimed to be the world's toughest prison by Joseph Ragen, Stateville's powerful warden from 1936 to 1961. It shares with Attica, San Quentin, and Jackson the notoriety of being one of the maximum security prisons that has shaped the public's conception of imprisonment. In Stateville James B. Jacobs, a sociologist and legal scholar, presents the first historical examination of a total prison organization--administrators, guards, prisoners, and special interest groups.
Jacobs applies Edward Shils's interpretation of the dynamics of mass society in order to explain the dramatic events of the past quarter century that have permanently altered Stateville's structure. With the extension of civil rights to previously marginal groups such as racial minorities, the poor, and, ultimately, the incarcerated, prisons have moved from society's periphery toward its center. Accordingly Stateville's control mechanisms became less authoritarian and more legalistic and bureaucratic. As prisoners' rights increased, the preogatives of the staff were sharply curtailed. By the early 1970s the administration proved incapable of dealing with politicized gangs, proliferating interest groups, unionized guards, and interventionist courts.
In addition to extensive archival research, Jacobs spent many months freely interacting with the prisoners, guards, and administrators at Stateville. His lucid presentation of Stateville's troubled history will provide fascinating reading for a wide audience of concerned readers.
. . . an] impressive study of a complex social system.--Isidore Silver, Library Journal

This book is an in-depth critique of the USA's dominant political and legal response to "hate crime". The authors show how the media and politicians have constructed a hate crime epidemic without any solid evidence to support it. They argue that hate crime laws make no sense from a law enforcement or criminal justice standpoint, but are only comprehensible as symbolic politics. The well-intentioned effort to denounce prejudice motivated crime may end up dividing the community rather than bringing it together.

For over sixty million Americans, possessing a criminal record overshadows everything else about their public identity. A rap sheet, or even a court appearance or background report that reveals a run-in with the law, can have fateful consequences for a person s interactions with just about everyone else. The Eternal Criminal Record "makes transparent an all-pervading system of police databases and identity-screening that has become a routine feature of American life.

The United States is unique in making criminal information easy to obtain by employers, landlords, neighbors, even cyberstalkers. Its nationally integrated rap-sheet system is second to none as an effective law enforcement tool, but it has also facilitated the transfer of ever-more sensitive information into the public domain. While there are good reasons for a person s criminal past to be public knowledge, records of arrests that fail to result in convictions are of questionable benefit. Simply by placing someone under arrest, a police officer has the power to tag a person with a legal history that effectively incriminates him or her for life.

In James Jacobs s view, law-abiding citizens have a right to know when individuals in their community or workplace represent a potential threat. But convicted persons have rights, too. Jacobs closely examines the problems created by erroneous recordkeeping, critiques the way the records of individuals who go years without a new conviction are expunged, and proposes strategies for eliminating discrimination based on criminal history, such as certifying the records of those who have demonstrated their rehabilitation."

In 1988, despite powerful Congressional opposition, U.S. Attorney Rudy Giuliani brought a massive civil racketeering (RICO) suit against the leaders of the behemoth International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT) and more than two dozen Cosa Nostra (LCN) leaders. Intending to land a fatal blow to the mafia, Giuliani asserted that the union and organized-crime defendants had formed a devil's pact. He charged the IBT leaders with allowing their organized-crime cronies to use the union as a profit center in exchange for the mobsters' political support and a share of the spoils of corruption. On the eve of what would have been one of the most explosive trials in organized-crime and labor history, the Department of Justice and the Teamsters settled.
Breaking the Devil's Pact traces the fascinating history of U.S. v. IBT, beginning with Giuliani's controversial lawsuit and continuing with in-depth analysis of the ups and downs of an unprecedented remedial effort involving the Department of Justice, the federal courts, the court-appointed officers (including former FBI and CIA director William Webster and former U.S. attorney general Benjamin Civiletti), and the IBT itself. Now more than 22 years old and spanning over 5 election cycles, U.S. v. IBT is the most important labor case in the last half century, one of the most significant organized crime cases of all time, and one of the most ambitious judicial organizational reform efforts in U.S. history. Breaking the Devil's Pact is a penetrating examination of the potential and limits of court-supervised organizational reform in the context of systemic corruption and racketeering.

Anticorruption reforms provide excellent political cover for public officials, but do they really reduce corruption? And do the benefits outweigh the costs? In this comprehensive and controversial case study of anticorruption efforts, Frank Anechiarico and James B. Jacobs show how the proliferating regulations and oversight mechanisms designed to prevent or root out corruption seriously undermine our ability to govern. Using anticorruption efforts in New York City to illustrate their argument, Anechiarico and Jacobs demonstrate the costly inefficiencies of pursuing absolute integrity. By proliferating dysfunctions, constraining decision makers' discretion, shaping priorities, and causing delays, corruption control - no less than corruption itself - has contributed to the contemporary crisis in public administration. This book begins a new and vital discourse on how to free public administration from burdensome corruption controls without sacrificing government integrity. It will interest scholars in political science, sociology, public administration, policy studies, and criminology.