How Did Al Capone Cause Organized Crime

Zea Konz
Research paper Al Capone is one of the most infamous gangsters in American history. Capone was born from an Italian immigrant family in Brooklyn, New York in 1899. He was associated with gangs since he quit school in the sixth grade, in the street gang he associated himself with he met Johnny Torrio, who was the gang leader at the time, and Charles “Lucky” Luciano. At this time many criminals had come from impoverish backgrounds, but this was not the case for Capone. Capone came from a professional and respectable family. It is believed the Capone’s inadequate schooling and violence that he saw at school is what caused Capone to become a criminal (Organized Crime, 1). At the age of 14, Capone was expelled for hitting a female teacher, and he never returned to finish schooling. After this
Capone grew Close to Torrio, and Torrio influenced Capone’s gang life more than anyone else. Capone joined Torrio’s James Street Boys gang, which later became the Five Points Gang. In a brothel-saloon fight, a young criminal slashed Capone in the face with a knife on the left cheek, later earning him the nickname “Scarface”. In 1909, Torrio moved to Chicago to become to help run the brothel business, and in 1919, he called for Capone. It is not known exactly who, but either Capone or Frankie Yale assassinated Torrio’s boss “Big” Jim Colosimo, leading to Torrio taking the leadership position. As Prohibition started, a new business called bootlegging had begun bringing immense wealth. When Torrio retired from the gang’s activity in 1925, Capone became the new “crime czar of Chicago” (Organized Crime, 2). Capone ruled the gambling, prostitution, and bootlegging rackets and he began to widen his territories by gunning down and taking out rival gangs. Not long after, Capone married a young Irish girl, Mae Coughlin, and took time off from the gang life and he became a bookkeeper while Torrio took back his spot in the gang life. During Capone’s hiatus from gang life, his father unexpectedly died. It is believed that the loss of a parental influence was the reason that Capone stopped living his law-abiding life. As Capone got back into the gang life, his reputation grew, but he continued to walk around unarmed, but he never went anywhere without at least two bodyguards, he would even sit in between two bodyguard while traveling in a car (Organized Crime, 4).
Capone’s first mobster job was to move operations to Cicero, and with the assistance of his brothers Frank and Ralph, they infiltrated the government and police departments, and took leading positions within the Cicero city government in addition to running brothels, gambling clubs, and racetracks.
To ensure Capone’s place on the city government, Capone kidnapped opponents election workers and threatened voters with violence. He then won the election in the Cicero office, but his brother was killed in a shoot out with Chicago’s police force. Capone had kept his temper under wraps the majority of the time, but when a friend, Jack Guzik, was assaulted by a small time thug, he found the shooter and killed him in a bar. There was not enough witnesses at the time of the shooting, so Capone had gotten away with that murder, but had gained new publicity and the case had made him more notorious than he previously had been. Capone had become a very unique gangster. Most criminals avoided the press or being seen, but Capone would be seen fraternizing with the press and at places like the opera. Capone was always dressed well to give the impression of a respectable business
man.
Capone’s next mission was bootleg whiskey. He had asked his friend Frankie Yale for help, and Capone had set out to smuggle huge quantities of whiskey into Chicago. This event led to what is known as the Adonis Club Massacre where Capone had Yale’s enemies brutally attacked during a Christmas party.
It was an incident including the accidental death of Bill McSwiggin that started Capone’s downfall. McSwiggin was accidentally shot by some of Capone’s henchmen during a gunfight between Capone’s men and members of a rival gang. Capone was blamed for the murder, but he got away with it because of a lack of evidence. The murder was followed by investigations against Capone, but they failed. The police then took their frustrations out by constantly raiding Capone’s gambling clubs and brothels. Capone had then gone into hiding for a few months, then gave himself over to the Chicago police, but they once again did not have enough evidence to charge him, so once again Capone became a free man. Capone then ironically took the role of a peacemaker and asked other gangsters to tone down the violence. For two months the killing and violence stopped.
In May 1927, the Supreme Court ruled that a bootlegger had to pay an income tax on their illegal bootlegging business. This made the IRS able to go after Capone. Capone then took his family and fled to Florida and bought a Palm Island estate and began to renovate, but Capone made every transaction on a cash basis.
Capone was later arrested for tax evasion totalling over $200,000. 68 members of Capone’s gang were also charged with 5,000 separate violations of the Volstead Act. On October 17, 1931 the jury of Capone’s trial, found Capone guilty of the tax evasion. Capone was sentenced to eleven years, $50,000 in fines and court costs and another $30,000, and bail was denied. After spending six and a half years in prison he was released early for good behavior. After his release Capone slowly started to deteriorate and on January 25, 1947 Capone died of cardiac arrest.