The Mafia

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Recommended: To what extent did the mafia influence society

When someone thinks of the Mafia, they think of Prohibition, drugs, money and Al Capone. What people do not immediately think of is the affect the mafia had on society. The most recognized affect to society came with the repeal of the 18th amendment. The appeal was heavily related to the Mafia because of their contribution to the rise in organized crime. The Mafia was more than just an influential group of the 1920’s and 1930’s because it contributed to society in the past and continues to affect the present.
The Prohibition period, a time when the sale of alcohol was illegal, was the Mafia’s first opportunity to rise above the average person. The Prohibition era allowed the Mafia to grow by giving them the chance to plan and distribute illegal substances (Mooney 14). Here, the Mafia could hire “bootleggers” and send them to do their illegal bidding while using any idea imaginable to disguise their trucks of alcohol (Lunde 131). The Mafia also used biker gangs to disguise themselves in order to transport their illegal liquor (Black 38). Many bootleggers were killed in the transporting process by police officers and rival Mafioso who sought their illegal substances (Lunde 131). During this period, government law officials were offered bribes in trade for their silence (Mooney 14). If an officer or official did not cooperate, they were threatened or killed (Whiting 18). According to Paul Lunde, Lansky and Luciano, two Mafia bosses in Chicago, paid over $100,000 a week in bribes to officers and officials (130). Jim Whiting, author of Organized Crime, said prohibition was a law that only local law enforcement could enforce because higher law officials were corrupt (9). The Mafia did not just settle in Chicago but also Detroit and Ne...

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...Without this people today would not have the opportunity to drink as they please. Without the Mafia’s contribution to crime, RICO and the Untouchables would never have existed therefore leaving drug cartels to be apprehended by unspecialized police officers. The Mafia is one of the most influential groups to affect American society because it affected the past and continues to affect the present.

Works Cited

Lunde, Paul. Organized Crime: An Inside Guide to the World’s Most Successful Industry. 2004. Print.
Grabianowski, Ed. “How the Mafia Works”. How Stuff Works. 12 April 2010. .
Black, Andy. Organized Crime. Broomall: Mason Crest Publishers Inc., 2003. Print.
Mooney, Carla. Investigating the Mafia. Detroit: Gale, Cengage Learning, 2010. Print.
Whiting, Jim. Organized Crime. Stockton: OTTN Publishing, 2013. Print.

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