Organized Crime In Chicago

Prior to Prohibition, the majority of organized crime in Chicago was centered on the markets of prostitution and gambling because these were both illegal practices with high demand that could easily be exploited for large profits (Sullivan). Gambling appealed to impoverished men who dreamed of changing their lives by winning big bets against all odds and therefore were willing to spend their paychecks on a game of chance. Prostitution, on the other hand, was lucrative due to the amount of adolescents who thought it was cool and the market of married men who were experiencing marital troubles. Both of these illegal practices provided gangsters with a living but had notable limitations and did not allow for them to rise from utter poverty to

complete wealth. Prohibition was in many ways an opportunity for gangsters to cash in on an illegal activity that all ages, genders, and ethnicities were interested in doing pretty frequently. Alcohol was a commodity that appealed to virtually everyone and was an activity that most enjoyed in some fashion on a nightly basis. Organized crime in Chicago would quickly transform itself from an underground system to a well-known, elaborate network that earned many of the gang leaders immense fame and fortune (Sullivan). Al Capone, perhaps the most notorious mobster of all time, moved to Chicago in 1920 to get his fair share of the profits to be made in the bootlegging business under boss Johnny Torrio (Biography.com Editors). Capone was naturally gifted at committing crimes without getting caught and promptly earned enough trust and respect from Torrio that he was promoted to the status of second in charge. Capone orchestrated the importation of alcohol from Canada and established an intricate system of distributing the alcohol to Chicago speakeasies in the middle of the night to best avoid detection (Biography.com Editors). He was also an expert at bribing essentially all levels of law enforcement agents in the areas where he conducted business while still making millions of dollars as profit.

The customers of the many previous saloons in Chicago were essentially transferred to the organized crime ring, which boasted an absolute monopoly over all the liquor being sold in that district. All enemies were promptly eliminated through assassination or detained by police who were afraid of losing their bribes from Capone if competition were to expand past his liking. Overall, “Prohibition allowed for the innovation of organized crime syndicates in regards to the number of people involved, the sophistication of government alliances, and the blending of illegal activities with daily life” (U.S. Department of Justice). The great profits earned from bootlegging provoked gangsters to heighten their political power by fixing elections, and develop their street presences through the reinvestment of revenue into prostitution and gambling schemes. In Chicago, specifically, a majority of criminal activity was closely linked to many of the ethnic neighborhoods, according to Mark H. Haler's journal on “Urban Crime and Criminal Injustice the Chicago

Case”. He reports that roughly 30 percent of the criminals in Chicago were of Italian background, 29 percent of Irish background, 20 percent of Jewish background, and 12 percent were African American. The evidence directly relating Prohibition and crime deals mainly with the murder rate, because the statistics are reported most reliably prior to, throughout, and following Prohibition. There have been two time periods in United States history with noticeably heightened homicide cases, the era between 1920 and 1934 and the twenty years between 1970 and 1990 (Friedman 1991). This trend supports the hypothesis that Prohibition elevated organized crime since murder estimates rise between 1920 and 1933 (during the ban on alcohol) and then fall quickly after 1933 (once the 18th Amendment was repealed). However, as implied in Miron (1999, 2001), the impact of any federal prohibitions on crime is also heavily dependent upon the severity to which violations of the law are investigated and prosecuted against.

Eventual Decline of Bootlegging Activity
The presence of dominant crime networks was confirmed to many Americans in late 1957 when over sixty mafia leaders attended a meeting in Appalachian, New York and could not provide a legal motive to the gathering (Sacco).

Yet still, even in early 1961, the Crime and Rackets Section of the Justice Department contained only seventeen employees who appeared to show no interest in the matter (U.S. Department of Justice). President John F. Kennedy insisted that organized crime was a severe problem in the country through the publication of books and many public speeches. He urged all federal law enforcement agencies to begin investigating mobster activity more closely and soon had a team of 60 employees working for the Crime and Rackets Section (U.S. Department of Justice). The Kennedy Administration first set its sights upon the illegal activities of gambling and prostitution because they were easier to bust and would eventually starve the gangsters into desperation. In merely the first half of 1963 there is recorded to have been 147 more indicted racketeers than there were in all of 1960 (U.S. Department of Justice). The Attorney General reassured the public by announcing that he knew the names of all the organized crime syndicate leaders and in October 1963 they found a gangster willing to testify in exchange for government protection. Joseph Valachi was charged with second-degree murder and facing prison for life when he agreed to reveal the illegal activities of the Cosa

Nostra for both the federal government and American public to hear for the first time (History.com Staff). These confessions were broadcasted on live television and finally made the nation realize how much of a threat organized crime was and how powerful they were becoming off people’s unquenchable desire for liquor. President Kennedy recruited the help of the General Services Administration to cut off any business the federal government had with companies that made their profits off organized crime (Sacco). The GSA is mostly known for its regulation of the sale of supplies to federal agencies but overall it is the division assigned to managing the affairs of the federal government to ensure that everything runs smoothly. President Kennedy was so adamant about the explosion of organized crime from the country that he visited multiple local GSA headquarters in neighboring regions to inform them that the federal government expected their full cooperation.