The Special Citizens Investigating Committee (SCIC) was a crime commission organized by the Commission Council and the Metropolitan Crime Commission to help overcome crime and corruption and to correct situations that bred crime. The SCIC was formed in reaction to the blatant role of organized crime in New Orleans as revealed by testimony given to the investigating committee headed by Senator C. Estes Kefauver (D-Tennessee) in January, 1951. (See The Kefauver Committee Report on Organized Crime, 1951; City Archives call no. LOUR364.973 U58k.)

Interviewed by the New Orleans media on May 22, 1951, Kefauver recommended the local formation of a crime commission to suppress crime on a grand scale. In May 1952, a group of New Orleans businessmen and clergymen organized the Metropolitan Crime Commission. However, subsequent public scandals led to the formation of an independent investigative body, authorized by ordinance of the Commission Council on April 24, 1952. The committee consisted of three citizens (Leon D. Hubert, Jr., George C. Stohlman, and Dudley C. Foley, Jr.). Aaron M. Kohn, lawyer and former FBI agent, was selected to run the SCIC.