Prohibition: The Role Of Organized Crime In The United States

During the era of the “Lost Generation,” Prohibition caused nationwide loss of regard for the law. Outlawing alcohol inspired the spirit of criminality throughout the nation as the law made millions of drinkers outlaws, and everyday professionals such as doctors, farmers, chemists, and even priests were lured by huge profits to become full-fledged bootleggers. Additionally, the U.S. lost the market for alcohol while nations exporting liquor and smugglers reaped more than substantial yields. Crime experienced leaps in its popularity through so much illegal drinking as well as romanticized gangsters; however, due to gangsters’ publicized violence leading to their downfall, the emergence of the highly organized mobster soon followed. The 18th
The growing market for illegal alcohol so greatly affected syndicates' and the underworlds' structures that the controllers of alcohol gained power over all types of crime in cities.1 With such power came change in the structure of organized crime. The corruption of government workers and politicians during Prohibition led to an entirely new type of criminal: politically-connected mob bosses who directly yet quietly influenced government to operate criminal organizations with few consequences.2 However, these tactics were not used immediately. The negative impact of conspicuousness was revealed to mobsters with the highly publicized murder of reporter Alfred Lingle, who had been killed for shifting alliances from Al Capone, brought Capone into the public eye. This attention led to investigations and Capone’s eventual imprisonment. Displaying that conspicuous violent crime led to bad ends, Lingle's murder shaped the emerging mobster into a discreet criminal.3 When mobsters saw the draws of working together to remain largely unseen, mob leaders from all over the country met in Atlantic City in 1929 to form a national syndicate. This organization included compromises over territory and a national commission's formation to counsel.4 Even with such administration, Mobsters were equally violent if not more so than gangsters; their only difference was media exposure. For instance, those who refused to operate under syndicate's rules were removed from the mob through purging.5 A (neighborhood) of Chicago, Cicero was a microcosm of how crime syndicates gained control of both territory and public opinion through patronage, organization, and a common