The United States Senate Special Committee to Investigate Crime in Interstate Commerce was a special committee of the United States Senate which existed from 1950 to 1951 and which investigated organized crime which crossed state borders in the United States. The committee became popularly known as the Kefauver Committee because of its chairman, Senator Estes Kefauver.

In 1950, the essentials of two distinct interpretations of organized crime existed side by side in the United States. One was essentially socioeconomic, one conspiratorial. The Kefauver Crime Committee of 1950-1951 was to play a vital role in orienting both professional and popular opinion toward a conspiracy interpretation. In doing so, the Committee ignored the nascent but promising body of sociological literature, and it dismissed out of hand the economic and legal arguments for regulation. In years to come, its widely heralded reports provided the essential material for college textbooks and journalistic accounts and became a model for the McClellan investigation and other official studies. This effort was intended as a study of the Committee and not of crime.

This volume presents five documents from the President's Commission on Law Enforcement and Administration of Justice: the chapter containing the findings and recommendations relating to the organized crime problems facing the United States and four background papers submitted by outside consultants. The analyses in the Commission report chapter focused on the types and locations of organized crime, the corruption of law enforcement and political systems, the membership and organization of criminal cartels, efforts to control organized crime, and a proposed national strategy against organized crime. Recommendations related to methods of proving criminal violations, investigation and prosecution units, citizens crime commissions, and noncriminal controls such as regulations and media coverage. The four consultants' reports examined the functions and structure of criminal syndicates, corruption of public officials in one jurisdiction, evidence collection in organized crime, and the economic analysis of organized crime.