Organized Crime in the 20th Century

Organized crime or criminal organizations are transnational, national, or local groupings of high enterprises run by criminals for the purpose of engaging in illegal activity, most commonly for their own profit. Seemingly, the highest rate of criminal violence was partaken in the 1920’s. With the prohibition laws in America and the world in an economic depression. People turned more and more too criminal activity, organized criminals such as the American mobsters and other crime organizations grew vigorously. Most common people would look at these organization leaders as heroes. Criminals like Al Capone, Bonnie and Clyde, and John Dillinger were most prominently looked at by the people in this era. Criminal organizations kept their illegal operations secret, and member’s conferred by word of mouth. Any gangs that became sufficiently systematic were called organized. The act of engaging in criminal activity as a structured group is referred to in the United States as racketeering. Labor racketeering is the domination, manipulation, and control of a labor movement in order to affect related businesses and industries. It can lead to the denial of workers’ rights and inflicts an economic loss on the workers, business, industry, insurer, or consumer. For example of protection racketeering, the racketeer informs the store-owner that a substantial monthly fee will be required in exchange for protection. The concurrent protection provided takes the form of the absence of damage inflicted upon the store or its employees by the racket itself. Other types of rackets include bribery and illegal gambling. (www.u-s-history.com 2/22/13) Jobs were very hard to find and people needed to provide for their families, gangsterism was dangerous but provided an easy way to make money. When the American government passed the Eighteenth amendments outlawing alcohol, people who enjoyed a drink became a criminal for doing so. Although prohibitions goal was to