Prohibition took place in January 1920 with the 18th amendment and ended in December 1933 with the 21st amendment. Prohibition was the period of time in the USA where making, transporting, distributing or selling alcohol was illegal. Prohibition failed because the crime rates went up, the authorities were corrupted, there was a lack of public support, there was problems with enforcing it, big businesses started booming when bootleggers came in and the profits that the government would get for selling alcohol would help them.
It was difficult to maintain prohibition because too many people were willing to supply alcohol to Americans. The rich got their alcohol delivered to them whilst the poor had beer - close to water or spirits - close to poison. Bootleggers were the people who brought illegal liquor supplies into the cities; rum was smuggled from the West Indies and whisky crossed the river to Detroit from Canada. Bootleggers organised themselves into gangs to transport the …show more content…
The Association Against the Prohibition Amendment blamed it for the ills of society just as the old Anti-Saloon League had blamed alcohol. Smart women organised a campaign for an end to Prohibition. Prohibition, failing fully to enforce sobriety and costing billions, rapidly lost popular support in the early 1930s. In 1933, the 21st Amendment to the Constitution was passed and ratified, ending national Prohibition. After the repeal of the 18th Amendment, some states continued Prohibition by maintaining statewide temperance laws. Mississippi, the last dry state in the Union, ended Prohibition in 1966. The government thought that they could get taxes off selling beer - this was because their tax revenues plunged and they needed the money. Prohibition came to an end on 3rd December