Preview

Al Capone and Organized Crime in the 1920's Essay Example

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
1094 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Al Capone and Organized Crime in the 1920's Essay Example
Al Capone ran many illegal businesses including bootlegging, gambling, prostitution, and murders. There were many gangs in the world of organized crime and Al Capone's was at the top. Al Capone was the most infamous gangster in the 1920's.

Being a highly know and revered gangster was a big business. Money was made fast and very easily. Bootlegging alcohol was by far the most profitable in the 1920's; this was because of the prohibition of alcohol. Gambling was another business that paid off; stations sanctioned for gambling were set up all over cities. Prostitution and murders were also crimes that made gangsters quick and easy money.

Alphonse Capone was the biggest force in organized crime. He started his career of crime in Boston as an apprentice to Johnny Torrio. There he earned the unforgettable nickname "Scarface." It was in a bar when Capone made some rude comments about a woman. Minutes later, the woman's brother sliced Capone in the face.

This man was a friend of Charles "Lucky" Luciano. Al Capone was punished and forced to apologize. Al Capone did not become a leader until he went to Chicago. At the time he was still an apprentice to Johnny Torrio.

In the middle of the gang violence and bootlegging was Chicago, the government was very weak which made it easier to do crime. Capone entered the city of Chicago in 1920. At the time, "Big Jim" Colosimo ran things. He made about $50,000 a month. Torrio and Capone started their business with four gambling joints/whore houses in Chicago. These underground places were known as deuces. In Chicago Capone met a man who would be his friend for life, Jack Guzik. Guzik and his family lived off prostitution. After Guzik was roughed up by gangster Joe Howard Capone let his temper flare. It did not his cause when Howard called Capone some foul names. Soon after the verbal altercation Capone shot him in cold blood. There was no conviction and it was becoming more and more clear that Capone was

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Better Essays

    SOC Untouchables

    • 2016 Words
    • 6 Pages

    The year is 1930 in the beautiful yet corrupt city of Chicago, Illinois. The entire United States is right in the thick of prohibition and the face of the corruption leads directly to Al Capone. Capone has the entire city of Chicago in the palm of his hand. Including the mayor himself, William Hale Thompson. The United States government finally decides to intervene and take down Capone with the hiring of a member of the US Treasury department to lead up a new division. The member of the Treasury department who will be leading the new division is Eliot Ness, who was actually born in Chicago.…

    • 2016 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Al Capone was a complicated man; even though he scammed many people, Capone gave back to his community by creating soup kitchens and other forms of charity. Despite all this he appeared on up and coming gang leader, Johnny Torrio’s, radar. Capone went to Chicago to work for Mr. Torrio. “Capone was twenty-one years old and new in town. He worked in Chicago’s Levee District, south of downtown, a neighborhood of sleazy bars and bordellos, where a man, if he cared about his health, tried not to stay long and tried not to touch anything.” (Eig 3) Capone was a great asset to the gang; after all he had grown up in the business. He was involved with street gangs when he dropped out of school in sixth grade, and worked as a bouncer when he got older. He tended to the bar called The Four Deuces; other times he resorted to his old job and worked the front door, acting as a bouncer. Soon, the Prohibition law came around and Torrio and Capone found themselves in a new…

    • 1705 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Public enemy number one, Alphonse “Al” Capone ruled Chicago’s organized crime in the 1920’s and 30’s. For seven years, he lead a multi-million dollar operation in bootlegging, gambling, blackmailing and other illegal activities. He began his involvement in crime in his teenage years and despite being very infamous he would never be charged for any of his illegal operations.…

    • 623 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    “Al Capone" was one of the most famous gangsters in the united states. He created a criminal organization in the 1920s, during the US Prohibition making almost $100,000,000 of illegally gained money annually. he did set up a laundry through which he converted the profits of criminal activities with the purpose of covering their origins.…

    • 55 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Alphonse Capone was the most infamous mobster in the 1920s. He was “like any other man. ‘All I do is supply a demand’” (brainyquote.com ). During the prohibition era, Capone was the boss and co-founder of the Chicago Outfit. Although he is known for the horrific things he was involved in, his childhood was not all that amazing either.…

    • 1243 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    During the collapse of the law and order during the 1920s Prohibition Era, Al Capone was America’s greatest known gangster in the United States. Capone was born in Brooklyn, New York, on January 17, 1899. Growing up in rough neighborhood, Capone took part in being in two children’s gangs known as the Brooklyn Rippers and Forty Thieves. At the age of fourteen, Capone quit the sixth grade. In between his scams he worked as a clerk in a candy store, a pinboy in a bowling alley, and a cutter in a book bindery. He also took part in the notorious five point gang in Manhattan, working in Frankie Yale’s Brooklyn Dive, the Harvard Inn, and as a bartender and bouncer. ("Al Capone." Chicago High School.Web. 28 Sept. 2015.”)…

    • 429 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Al Capone was an iconic figure of an American gangster. Capone, otherwise known as “Scarface” or “Snorky”, killed around 300 people. They called him “Scarface” because of the scars he acquired during a fight, but he usually lied and said that they were from the war. He was called “Snorky” on account of the way he dressed. Al Capone was a notorious gangster, but like everyone else, fell from power.…

    • 881 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Capone will target Voting booths where Thompson’s opponents were thought to have supported, on the polling day of April 10, 1928, in the so-called Pineapple Primary, causing the death of 15 people or less. Belcastro was accused of a murder for a lawyer Octavius Granady, an African American who didn’t like Thompson candidate for the African American vote, so he was killed.…

    • 824 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    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…

    • 953 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Jack Engel Gilmore/Lombardo American Litt pd.6 1/28/15 Great Gatsby panel The Great Gatsby written by F. Scott Fitzgerald is praised for accurately portraying the lavish lives of the rich and powerful in the the 1920s. One topic that the Great Gatsby portrays accurately is corruption, which was very common with the wealthy and powerful such as Jay Gatsby. Throughout the novel we learn of how some people became wealthy or successful through the participation of of illegal or corrupt activities such as bootlegging, rigging sports events, and other illegal activities. Al Capone is a name that is still talked about even in modern times he is the best known gangster and the greatest figure of the collapse of law and order in the United States…

    • 626 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Al Capon Research Paper

    • 1192 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Arguably the most notorious mobster in Chicago, Al Capone, AKA “Scarface”, was an Italian immigrant who arrived in Chicago during the start of prohibition in 1920. When he arrived, he was mentored by Johnny…

    • 1192 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Al Capone Paper

    • 1089 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Torrio soon succeeded to full leadership of the gang with the violent demise of Big Jim Colosimo, and Capone gained experience and expertise as his strong right hand man. In 1925, Capone became boss when Torrio, was seriously wounded in an assassination attempt. Capone had built a fearsome reputation in the ruthless gang rivalries of the period, struggling to acquire and retain “racketeering rights” to several areas of Chicago. That reputation grew as rival gangs were eliminated and the suburb of Cicero became the empire of the Capone mob.…

    • 1089 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    during the 1920’s Capone was involved in many brutal acts of violence , he mainly did this towards other gangsters. In 1929 the St. Valentine’s Day massacre took place. On June 5,1931 the federal government had indicted Capone on 22 counts of income tax evasion. When Capone plead guilty and tried to use bribery and intimidation to get less time, but the judge denied, and Capone then he withdrew his plea and took the case to trial. When the judge switched the jury, the jury found him guilty the judge sentenced him to 11 years in…

    • 858 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Even after the prohibition gang activities continued forever. The distribution of liquor was necessarily more complex than other types of criminal activity, and organized gangs eventually arose that could control an entire local chain of bootlegging operations, from concealed distilleries and breweries through storage and transport channels to speakeasies, restaurants, nightclubs, and other retail outlets. Those gangs tried to secure and enlarge territories in which they had a monopoly of distribution. Gradually, the gangs in different cities began to cooperate with each other, and they extended their methods of organizing beyond bootlegging to the narcotics traffic, gambling rackets, prostitution, labour racketeering, loan-sharking, and extortion. Gatsby was a bootlegger, however, not many people…

    • 523 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    The Crips History

    • 1708 Words
    • 7 Pages

    Gangsters could possibly make anywhere from five hundred to five thousand dollars each day dealing crack cocaine. Therefore, the cash reward was a primary part which attracted gangsters to this specific profession. Bloods and Crips manage crack cocaine distribution in several cities around the…

    • 1708 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays