As originally conceived, RICO was to serve a particular, relatively narrow purpose, but it was drafted and has been interpreted as an all-purpose prosecutorial tool. This occurred because of the practical and theoretical deficiencies of the original RICO idea and a legislative dynamic by which the problems of draftsmanship caused by those deficiencies were solved by repeated expansion of the statutory coverage. Given a tool that can be used against virtually any kind of criminal behavior, prosecutors have used RICO in identifiable patterns which correspond to what law enforcement officials believe to be substantive and procedural gaps in the Federal criminal code. The most innovative and questionable use of RICO is as an expanded conspiracy statute to prosecute members of criminal enterprises for a variety of offenses. This is a continuation and expansion of trends visible in Federal conspiracy law that move away from the traditional focus on conduct in specific transactions and toward a focus on broader conduct and associations. To the extent that RICO is not fully consistent with traditional notions of what constitutes a crime, it should be re-examined. The article offers suggestions for statutory reform. 426 footnotes.