Big Mob Bust May Fizzle Out, Some Criminologists Say
From an article on the Queens Chronicle website by Michael Cusenza, Editor: FBI agents, assisted by the Police Department and state law enforcement agencies, last week executed the largest coordinated organized crime takedown in FBI history, cuffing more than 100 of 127 indicted individuals in the city, New Jersey and Rhode Island. But an academic expert in criminology and criminal organizations noted that while the dramatic pre-dawn raids undoubtedly have struck an economic blow to La Cosa Nostra, the Mafia in New York has always regrouped and regenerated. “They will adjust,” said Howard Abadinsky, professor of criminal justice at St. John’s University in Jamaica. “Whether [the arrests] will have a lasting effect on the structure of the groups — that, I doubt.” Abadinsky also called the simultaneous arrests of so many reputed members of the mob “extraordinary,” because they’re not all tied to the same crime, and said he sensed “a little bit of a suspicion that maybe ther...