Organized Crime In The 1800s

During the late 1800s and early 1900s immigration to a new better world, the United States Of America was in full swing. With all the immigration from so many different countries brought much diversity to America but it also brought a new type of crime, Organized Crime. This was due to a part that the Italian Sicilian Mafia was under attack from Mussolini regime but also the creation of the 18th amendment banning the sales, manufacturing, or transportation of any alcoholic beverage.

Italy was one of the earliest countries to form a mafia due to unjust oppression from foreign governments. When Italian immigrants fled Sicily to enter the United States, they brought along their underground government with them, as well. The US deprived some of those immigrants from entering America which furthermore sparked the Mafia’s foundation. In An Examination of U.S. Immigration Policy and Serious Crime, Horowitz states that immigrant crime has promoted fear. Newcomers brought their criminal features who converted their societies into zones of lawlessness. Tensions between different ethnic groups have caused uneasiness. Jewish gangsters in New York victimized strikers into returning to work and stole from people. Italians ran extortion rings in San Francisco and prostitution houses in Chicago (Horowitz). America realized that allowing immigrants into their country has drastically increased their crime rates. Immigrants have brought corruption into America and illegal services. Italian immigrants brought their clandestine union which gave rise to the Blackhand. In his book, American Dreamers, Groth presents what Michael Woodiwiss said, “bootlegging presented second generation southern and eastern European immigrants that were Jews, Italians, Sicilians, Poles, Slavs and others with opportunities to climb the criminal hierarchy, many of whom accepted this as a form of occupation” (Woodiwiss 8). Immigrants have

Organized crime today differs a lot from the past. For example, during the 1920’s organized crime was primarily a domestic concern and today it is a transnational concern. Before, organized crime was all about having power and looking up for their location and rarely never go beyond there. Today they are just everywhere, per say one group can be in multiple locations at the same time. Today is all about money and controlling licit and illicit enterprises. This new form of organized crime started during the 1970’s and forward, this changed was due to the new era of globalized world, soft borders, and the revolution of technology. All of this opened the doors to a creative and powerful transnational organized crime. How this all started anyways?

The 1920s was a decade of crime. Nobody was safe from gangsters like Al “Scarface” Capone and Charles “Lucky” Luciano. Bootlegging, murder, and stealing names just of the few activities that gangsters took part in. Prohibition only made crime worse. Making alcohol illegal didn't make people stop drinking, it only made people sell it illegally.

However, Prohibition actually led to a rise of organized crime in the United States (Sullivan). The 18th Amendment was disregarded by many Americans, who opened secret drinking clubs called speakeasies (Danzer 642). The public needed a provider of this illegal alcohol, leading to the rise of crime organizations (Sullivan). Many of these organizations specialized in bootlegging alcohol, usually from Canada or the Caribbean (Sullivan). The Chicago Outfit, a criminal network led by Al Capone, often literally killed off their competition, massacring members of rival gangs and crime organizations (Sullivan).

In order to fill the hole, organized crime families moved into the liquor industry. These families would make their fortune off the illegal sale of liquor, but it could cost them their lives. Therefore, organized crime is a damaging and widespread institution; in the 1920’s there was a boom due to prohibition,

Adrian Cobb Cobb 1 Coach Croley AP Language/Composition 6 March 2015 Period: 5 Organized Crime and its Influences Organized crime became extremely popular in the 1920s with the prohibition of alcohol; it prompted would-be gangsters to begin illegally making it and smuggling it. The Volstead Act enforced the ban on importing, sale, and production of alcohol which opened up money possibilities for gangsters. It became not only a source of money for the mob bosses, etc. but for politicians and other authority figures through bribes, blackmails, and so on. Society changed for the better and worse – better after years that this occurred and it was combat, but worse for the people of the society that had nothing to do with the mob’s dealings, etc.

“Mafia” was originally the name of an association of Sicilians who collaborated for protection and vigilante law enforcement during the Spanish occupation of the island.” (Nash Para 12). The prohibition of alcohol caused the fear of crime within the nation. Especially the large cities, such as New York, Chicago, and Philadelphia. The eighteenth amendment was written prohibiting all uses of alcohol.

During the early 1900s, specifically the 1920s, organizations involved in sophisticated crime arose and lived on for decades, influencing American progress and culture. These organizations came to be known as the American Mafia, the Italian Mafia, or the Italian Mob. These “families”, as they were called, sprung up in large cities all across the United States. The mob progressed quickly in America, developing from the simplest of crimes to methodical, organized illegal activity. The method of structure and the emphasis of loyalty and secrecy made insiders of the mob very susceptible to exploitation by the local police and federal government agencies, many instances of which were eventually revealed to the public. The mafia, while still around today, fell in prominence and importance in the eyes of the American government and its people. The major time frame of relevance for the American Mafia is about 1920-2001.

The 1920’s is a period known for being filled with all types of big changes in American culture and economy. A huge change was prohibition and organized crime. Prohibition is what started out as a law to end transportation and sales of alcohol, but then led to some of the largest crimes in America that took place nation-wide. The main factors of these crimes were the American Mafia and prohibition, the Volstead Act and the Amendment, as well as the effect this had on Americans.

The immigrants were not well received. They were viewed as scum filling the ghettos, affecting the job market, and threatening the American way of life. Their poor reputations were also fueled by the crime that had traveled with them. Aside from the rich culture and tradition, that had developed within the streets of Manhattan’s Little Italy, the Italian American Mafia was formed.

One of the main groups well known and still alive today, the Mafia, was very successful during the time of the prohibition. The Mafia was an Italian-American organized crime network that was spread all over the United States and they were most known in New York and Chicago. Before the prohibition the mafia made money by means of gambling, prostitution, and theft. Once the prohibition started they made their way up to the top by entering the bootleg liquor business, they were skilled in smuggling, money laundering, and bribing public officials.

During the late 19th century and early 20th century, America was having a lot of immigrants coming from Europe and Asia, waves of Italians were going to America for a chance to live a better life. Most of the immigrants were law-abiding, but, some criminals were a part of the immigrant's migration to America. These criminals formed neighborhood gangs, often living off from their own communities. This lead to one of most well-known groups of Organized Crime “The Italian-American Mafia”. The word Mafia tends to mean “manly.”

During the 19th century there were various issues that were occurring that launched an epidemic of organized crime, in the United States problems with organized crime were mainly seen in a social, political and cultural spectrum.

When people think of organized crime they think of the Italian mob and the Russian mafia. They are the ones that they see in movies and on television, and the ones that they hear about the most. However, they were created a couple centuries after their Asian counterparts, the Yakuza in Japan, and the Triads in China. These Asian syndicates were founded in the sixteenth and seventeenth century and consisted of merchants and other people in what was basically the middle class. They were just groups of poorer people who were just looking for protection or were trying to help other people. The first organized crime syndicates were a kind of Robin Hood, they helped the poor. They weren’t big or powerful, and they didn’t have large numbers. The