Executive Order

Executive Order  No. 102: Establishing a Massachusetts Organized Crime Control Council as a subcommittee of the Committee on Criminal Justice

Date: 01/31/1974
Issuer: Donald R. Dwight, Acting Governor
Revoked by: Executive Order 383

Table of Contents

WHEREAS, organized criminal groups have long operated within the Commonwealth and they are known to engage in numerous racketeering enterprises conducted on local, regional, and Statewide levels in Massachusetts; and

WHEREAS, organized criminal activities in Massachusetts consist of ongoing illicit enterprises involving syndicated gambling, loansharking, narcotics traffic, major theft operations, and the infiltration of economic and financial institutions; and

WHEREAS, organized criminal groups readily employ illicit tactics involving force, violence, fraud, and corruption which together operate to increase the amount of fear and coercion in society, to diminish the strength of economic institutions, and to compromise the integrity of government: and

WHEREAS, the Committee on Criminal Justice is responsible for advising the Governor on all phases of the system of law enforcement and criminal justice in the Commonwealth and for planning and devising programs to upgrade criminal justice agency operations, including those directed against organized crime;

NOW, THEREFORE, I, Donald R. Dwight, Lieutenant Governor, Acting Governor of the Commonwealth, by virtue of the authority of supreme executive magistrate vested in me, do hereby order as follows:

(1) There shall be created a Massachusetts Organized Crime Control Council, hereinafter referred to as the Council, which shall function as a special subcommittee of the Committee on Criminal Justice, hereinafter referred to as the Committee, and which shall discharge the following responsibilities:

(a) develop an annual comprehensive program for the prevention and control of organized criminal activities in Massachusetts, which shall involve setting priorities for the expenditures of federal Crime Control Act funds, and the adoption of improved investigative, prosecutorial, and/or regulatory methods;

(b) through the Executive Director of the Committee, arrange for such research to be conducted as the Council deems necessary in order to analyze the nature and extent, including the structure and operations, of organized criminal groups and their activities in Massachusetts so that future illegal ventures undertaken by organized criminals may be predicted and targeted in advance, and the damage of such activities thereby prevented or reduced to the greatest extent possible;

(c) review and make recommendations to the Committee for the improvement of current procedures and methods for collecting, analyzing, disseminating, and sharing intelligence information relating to organized criminal groups and their operations, so that all procedures and methods, and particularly those relating to interagency sharing of intelligence information, can be improved;

(d) formulate and, through the Executive Director of the Committee, make provisions for the implementation of a public information program, which may include the issuance of research and/or fact-finding reports, to alert citizens of the Commonwealth to the nature, extent and impact of organized criminal activities on governmental, social, and economic institutions in Massachusetts; and

(e) review existing and proposed laws and administrative regulations and existing governmental efforts directed against organized criminal operations in Massachusetts, and recommend any revisions, changes, or modifications which the Council feels are needed.

(2) The Council shall be composed of the Attorney General of the Commonwealth, who will serve as chairman, Commissioner of the Department of Public Safety, the Police Commissioner of the City of Boston, and four other persons who shall be appointed by the Governor and who shall serve for a term of one year, two of whom shall be district attorneys of districts of the Commonwealth. Upon the expiration of the term of an appointive member, he shall serve until the qualification of his successor, who shall be appointed in like manner.

(3) The Council shall meet at the call of the chairman but no less than four times per year.

(4) The Council shall be assisted in its work by technical resource personnel chosen by the chairman from the ranks of officials representing federal, State and local governmental bodies concerned with organized criminal activities, as well as representatives of the business, educational and civic sectors. The technical resource personnel shall meet pursuant to the call of the chairman.

(5) The Council shall encourage the establishment of such special task forces, composed of its own members and of appropriate technical resource personnel, as it deems necessary to coordinate joint investigative, prosecutorial, and/or regulatory attacks on particular problems determined to be critical by the Council.

(6) The Council shall operate under the auspices of the Committee on Criminal Justice as provided in Sections 156 and 156B of Chapter 6 of the General Laws, as amended by Section 2 of Chapter 1021 of the Acts of 1973.

Given at the Executive Chamber in Boston this thirty-first day of January in the year of Our Lord one thousand nine hundred and seventy-four and of the Independence of the United States of America, one hundred and ninety eighth.

DONALD R. DWIGHT
Lieutenant Governor,
Acting Governor.

JOHN F. X. DAVOREN
Secretary of the Commonwealth.

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