Wiki gives protection rackets, numbers rackets, and spyware as examples, giving a “see also” to “extortion”. I get that racketeering involves an illegal business that perpetuates its own existence, but:
Which begs the question - is there any meaningful distinction between racketeering and extortion, or are they synonyms? Looking for both a lexicographic answer and a legal answer.
For that matter, is there a difference between extortion and blackmail? Or is blackmail a form of extortion?
ETA: um… don’t need answer fast. Inspired by this weeks Castle episode.
Racketeering is one of those vague terms. it’s basically setting up a business or enterprise to do illegal things for profit.
As far as the difference between blackmail and extortion, blackmail is a form of extortion. Extortion is obtaining goods and services through coercion or threat. Blackmail is a specific type of extortion, where goods or services are obtained through the threat of revealing information the person threatened would like to keep private.
The most popular version or Racketeering, the one most people think of is for protection. As in “Give us $1000 a month and we’ll make sure nothing bad happens…oh, you don’t need our protection, we’ll we’d hate to see this place accidentally burn down” In other words, we’ll protect you from bad things, but if you don’t pay us, we’ll be the bad things.
All us produce vendors are still subject to a legal, government version of racketeering called PACA. I’m sure they do other things, but one of the things they do is help us out in court with any bad debts owed to us by restaurants/stores etc. The problem is we have to, by federal law, accept their protection. Even businesses that don’t extend credit to anyone, like your local grocery store, have to pay for their protection. Oh, and last year the annual fee went from $550 to $995 and if you’re late the penalty is something stupid like $250 per day.
My feeling is that racketeering is organized extortion. If one or two guys are going around collecting money via threats it’s extortion. If a group of people has made a business out of collecting money via threats it’s racketeering.
As Wikipedia notes, racketeering simply means engaging in a “racket”, which in turn just means any illegal business. As already noted, “rackets” include “protection rackets” (extortion), but also “numbers rackets” (illegal gambling).
Thus, U.S. law includes the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, which includes a definition of “racketeering activity” that is…quite lengthy. Anything from extortion to drug dealing to counterfeiting to money laundering to stealing interstate shipments of kitchen sinks can qualify as “racketeering”.
Exactly what the previous poster said, in regard to RICO. The law, and its definition of racketeering was intentionally made vague to make it a feasible to prosecute any large-scale criminal organization.
Colloquially, “running a racket” is typically synonymous with “charging exorbitant fees for goods/services that I absolutely need right now.” That could be drugs, murder-for-hire, or price-fixing on shovels during a blizzard.
When you pay protection to the mob, yes, they won’t burn down your place. Do that actually offer real protection beyond that? If someone not connected to the mob threatens to burn down your place, or gang kids want to take the place over, will the mob that you are paying take action against the outsiders?