NCJ Number
128447
Journal
Criminal Law Forum Volume: 1 Issue: 1 Dated: (Autumn 1989) Pages: 1-39
Date Published
1989
Length
39 pages
Annotation
This article examines the nature of and potential negative consequences of new "ancillary" offenses, which typically bear some direct or indirect auxiliary relationship to primary-harm offenses.
Abstract
The criminal law traditionally proscribes behavior, accompanied by the requisite mental state, which causes an identifiable harm ("primary harm") either to a person or property interest. In the past two decades, however, in response to the the perceived threat of organized crime, drug trafficking, and white-collar crime, new kinds of offenses have been introduced into substantive criminal law. These "ancillary" offenses do not describe any new primary harms. Instead, they characterize group activity or conduct leading up to or involved generally in the commission of primary-harm offenses. They may also define criminal conduct in the aftermath of a primary-harm crime. This article characterizes and describes several types of new ancillary offenses: "derivative" offenses, i.e., crimes that stem from primary-harm offenses (money laundering); enforcement and information-gathering offenses, e.g., offenses that involve falsity or secrecy that hampers the investigation into a primary-harm offense; and "catchall" crimes, which are defined in broad terms so as to be used to increase the penalties associated with primary-harm crimes, e.g., mail and wire fraud. In reviewing the impact these offenses may have on the criminal enforcement system, this article concludes that their overuse can erode the traditional concept of a crime as causing primary harm to persons or property interests. Ancillary offenses also focus on the mental element of a crime rather than on actual harm. Remedies for such overuse are suggested. 90 footnotes.