The California Department of Justice initiated Operation Exposure in 1977 to meet the threat posed by a large influx of organized crime figures from the East Coast. Data were collected on crime figures who had recently moved to the State, and a team of local and State criminal justice officials visited these figures to inform them that organized crime rackets would be aggressively opposed. Sixty-one visits were conducted between October 1977 and December 1978. Recent law enforcement reports from Illinois and New York have indicated that racketeers may be avoiding California. The Witness Protection Program, which began in July 1978, provides witness protection resources where no others are available to encourage witnesses to testify against dangerous criminals. Thus far, the majority of cases in which assistance was requested involved prison gang criminal activity, individual homicides, and other felonies. The eight-member Organized Crime Control Commission was formed on July 28, 1977, to identify the scope and nature of the State's organized crime problem, to assess current State and local efforts at combatting organized crime, and to develop recommendations to improve the level of effort needed to meet the problem. Over 18 months, the commission held 15 hearings throughout the State to receive testimony from local, State, and Federal law enforcement and regulatory agencies and from confidential informants who could reveal an insider's perspective on organized crime groups. In May 1978, the commission submitted its first report to the Attorney General. The report's 22 legislative and general recomendations are listed including enacting statutes to permit court-authorized electronic surveillance by law enforcement agencies against organized crime activities, to revise the present witness immunity law, and to provide for the prosecution of racketeering activities and conspiracy to commit racketeering.