The topic of this paper is organized crime in the United Kingdom during the Interwar War Years between the end of World War I, World War II and until the 1970s. During this period, the Western World’s view on alcohol and other vices created a booming criminal enterprise in several countries such as England, Italy, Scotland, Ireland and the United States. Although the United States had one of the most successful criminal enterprises, the United Kingdom contained several of the most successful and ruthless organized criminal syndicates in the entire world. From the Peaky Blinders in Birmingham, England to the ruthless Beehive Boys in Glasgow, Scotland, the United Kingdom had its great share of organized criminal organizations. The research …show more content…
The preliminary historiography in relation to this topic is in the sphere of organized crime on a global level. Many historians write about organized crime on a global level. Additionally there is much more research conducted about the organized crime in the United States such as the Gambino crime family, Bugsy Siegel and Al Capone. The preliminary argument for this research paper is the different gangs in the United Kingdom worked through several different methods such as extortion, racketeering, illegal betting, and illegal vices. Due to the severe debt the United Kingdom had after the First World War, this criminal underground thrived in many cities small and large. The gangs not only were successful in their own cities, but they sometimes worked together or against one another in competition. Each of these gangs had their own specialty either with illegal alcohol production, illegal betting, and other criminal specialties. However, several of these criminal organizations competed for their various products or services creating a competitive black market which influenced and was instrumental in several global black
As more and more immigrants began to spread throughout the US, more and more gangs of people began to emerge. Gangs were usually made up of people of a common ethnicity, whether it be Irish, Italian, or Hispanic. These gangs were usually victims of anti-immigrant policies and looked for strength in numbers. As gangs became more and more sophisticated they realized they could make profits from the power they were accumulating. One of the most recognizable examples is the bootlegging of alcohol during the Prohibition. When federal officials attempted to enforce legislation such as the Volstead Act, there was a surge of illegal sales and profits. In 1927, Al Capone and his gang racked up over $60 million from bootlegged alcohol. With all of this money came tons of violence, people were getting murdered in broad daylight just so others could have a sum of all of this wealth. Soon Mob families would own clubs or casinos to increase their wealth. The attendees weren’t only made up of rich mob bosses, the alcohol, dancing, and gambling attracted many ordinary
Pace, Denny F. and Jimmie C. Styles. Organized Crime: Concepts and Controls. Englewood Cliffs, N.J., Prentice Hall: 1975.
South, David. The History of Organized Crime: Secrets of The World’s Most Notorious Gangs. New York: Metro Books, 2013. Print.
Gangsters and gangs were first organized during the prohibition of alcohol in 1919. Because of the high demands for alcohol, gangsters like the legendary Al Capone and the well know George Kelly Barnes, illegally smuggled the booze from other countries and/or made what most pe...
If there was more than one gang or family in a specific area, they would battle over territory to sell their product. This competition led to the more dominant gangs to run an illegal monopoly.... ... middle of paper ... ...
In the 1920s, Prohibition caused organized crime to be at an all time high, and so gangsters were at their prime, dealing in bootlegging and the illegal distillation and distribution of alcohol. The big gangsters and their crimes had a big impact on the society and the economy of the 1920s.
Muncie, J., Talbot, D. and Walters, R. Crime: Local and Global, William Publishing, (Devon). P. 3.
Throughout the centuries, gangs have been rapidly growing. As early as the 1730s different groups of people in Europe began forming gangs. At first they were composed of people upset with the government who started riots to rebel against the government. Decades later, gangs began to spread worldwide very quickly. Gangs made their way all the way to the United States, or the 13 colonies at the time. They were largely created by people upset with the government. There were gangs for federalists supporters, and gangs for people who supported the Anti-federalists (“Gangs” 2015). As centuries passed, people formed gangs for different reasons. Beginning in the 1940s in cities like New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago and Detroit, gangs of white
The media is a dominating aspect of American culture. The way the media depicts crime and criminal behavior has an effect on the way society views crime and criminals. Television series such as CSI, NCIS, Law and Order, Criminal Minds and countless others, have become very popular in our society today showing that our culture has an immense interest in crime. It is clear that there is a fascination with criminals and why they do the things they do. To analyze the way crime dramas represent crime and criminal behavior, I completed a content analysis of one episode of Criminal Minds. The episode I chose was season one; episode eight, which first aired in 2005, titled ‘Natural Born Killer’.
It is surprisingly difficult to pinpoint the origin of street gangs. This may be because of the inherent nature of gangs: a group of individuals who come together for the same purpose and in the case of str...
Did you know gang's first started off as a way to help stop police brutality? Some gang members are “jumped in” or have to prove their loyalty by committing criminal acts. In the 1960s many gang organizations joined the Black Panthers. The Black Panthers wanted blacks to control businesses, education, employment, and the media in their area instead of having these businesses controlled by white people. They wanted to act as a community army so they can stop police brutality and racism. The leader of this important organization was Bunchy Carter. Street gangs had completely stopped as more black empowered organizations began to form in Los Angeles. After the Black Panthers disbanded that is when street gangs began to become popular because
The decade of the 1920s was full of deception, corruption, and degeneration. The very embodiment of these qualities was the institution of the Italian-American Mafia. The syndicate began in Sicily and spread to encompass United States politics and the national economy. The post war era left the nation in a recession and vulnerable to organized crime. Changes in the country's attitudes and outlooks on the future paved the way for organized crime on a large scale. People were too preoccupied with bootleg booze, sexual promiscuity, and get-rich-quick schemes to notice the downward spiral of the government's respectability and integrity. The decadence of the decade and the feel good mentality of America's youth provided opportunities the industrious underworld leaders sought in order to gain control of the syndicate. The Mafia supplied America with the vices it longed for and in return America let the Mafia get away with murder. Not only did the syndicate accumulate power but also profited financially through prostitution, gambling, and bootlegging. These activities were the foundations of the Outfit's financial and political empires. Mafia power soon began to eclipse the authority of the law enforcement agencies, and the struggle between responsibility and autonomy began.
Lane, Roger. "Crime and Industrial Revolution: British and American Views." Journal of Social History 7.3 (1974): 287-303. JStor. Web. 4 Feb. 2010. .
The world will always be full of crime, thus it is necessary for scientist to grow along with the gruesome and increasing amount of violations. Due to this it sparked scientist to develop crime theories in which emerged to explain why crime is caused by individuals. Some of the few theories that have advanced over the past century and provided many answers to why crimes are committed are biological theories, psychological theories and learning theories. These theories provide an insight to its first use and change in order to provide answers.
Sociologists have been examining crime and its causes for over 150 years, and through several researches, various explanations have been used to describe crime and deviance. Crime is a behaviour that goes against all formal written laws of a given society (Haralambos, Smith, O 'Gorman, & Heald, 1996). Laws in different societies differ, so do crimes i.e. what may be considered as a crime in one society may not be in another different society. For instance, while same-sex relationship is accepted in some countries like the United States, United Kingdom etc. it is illegal in countries like Nigeria, and most Arabic countries. Other examples of general crimes are theft/robbery, murder, kidnapping and others. Once a crime is committed, sanctions