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Impact of the mafia
History of the american mafia
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Organized crime affects more than just the people in America; it has now become a problem that can and does affect most nations. The organized crime groups that are transcontinental cause problems that go from one country to the next. By traveling with drugs, or even trafficking humans, criminals can end up going through numerous countries before they reach their destination. Transcontinental Organized crime, includes the illegal activities of the mafia and the cartel, has had a long history in the U.S, as well as other countries and poses a threat to national security in particular through the import and export of illegal substances and people; the U.S. must increase measures to prevent these crimes while working in conjunction with other …show more content…
Organized crime has now become a transnational issue it affects every country in the world. The United Nations has made it possible to work in cohesion with other nations, if they are willing, however, the importance of national security of the U.S. does not affect other countries. One of the only ways to combat organized crimes that are transnational is to make it a priority for every country affected. The way to improve the U.S. national security is to work with every country and agree to help strengthen their borders.
The impact on national security is physical as well as economic. The economic factor affects every person in the country. Transnational Organized Crimes (TOCs) occur even over the internet, including stealing a person’s identification; it cause more than, “1.5 million people a year suffer the theft of their identity for an economic loss estimated at US$1billion”. (Kemp, 2016) The amount of money lost due to some of TOCs, or are even just one case of organized crime in the United States, is
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In in the past crimes groups have moved to other countries for a better way of life, or even because of the chance for better opportunities to commit crimes. There could be other reasons as to why organized crime groups will move to other locations. Each crime group has a region from where they originated, as well where they have moved to. The Mafia has a long history here in the United States, as well as in Italy where they have originated from. The mafia may have originated from Italy; regardless they moved to the U.S. and eventually established themselves in most populated cities that had an Italian community. (Organized Crime, 1999 pg.
Organized crime is an international issue and it exists in several different countries, such as; Italy, China, Japan, Russia and the United States of America. Although all these groups of organized crime have many things in common they tend to have different ways of doing something, or they may not do them at all. Many also commit similar types of crimes, and others commit crimes other groups would not.
As we open our eyes to the world around us, we see that crime comes in many different shapes and sizes. Organized crime is really not much different, it is a larger scale of individuals with the same goals, to commit criminal acts, normal for money or profit. As early as the 1700’s immigrants have been submitted to organized crime. They migrate to the United States and other countries in search for a better life but sometimes get caught up in the American system of wanting money and power and feel as though the illegal way is the only way of achieving this.
Mara Salvatrucha, also known as MS-13, is a well-known transnational criminal organization (TCO) originating from El Salvador. They are specifically targeted for its involvement in transnational criminal activities including drug trafficking, kidnapping, human trafficking, sex trafficking, and many more. It is certain that there are more transnational gangs other than MS-13, but the reality of these gangs impact society, and their neighborhoods, more than one can imagine. There are underlying realities “that make it difficult to generalize [the gangs].” The one of many underlying realities is that each neighborhood level gang group of transnational gangs, particularly MS-13, has a “great deal of autonomy in the relationship it maintains with other organizations.” The second reality factor is that gangs, especially MS-13 in El Salvador are in a state of turmoil. The third reality factor is that the gangs in Central America differ from each other in significant ways. Although most gangs are involved in human smuggling and drug retail, MS-13 has a solidified relationship with “transportista networks and are reaching out to Mexican TCOs.” These realities can be analyzed with Taussig’s notions and theoretical framework of space of death.
The Influence of the Mexican Cartels in the United States Visiting a tourist attraction in Mexico, tourists do not realize the gruesome reality that Mexican civilians face on an everyday basis. Dead bodies cover the streets, the echo of gun shots ring through the streets daily, and seeing the cartels terrorize businesses. The rise of Mexico’s violence in the past decade has marked the country and made its way to the United States. The United States has ignored the problem for many years, since they always referenced Mexico’s drug crisis as a non-emergent issue. In the past decade the U.S. government has seen an increase in violence and consumption of illegal drugs due to the Mexican cartels.
Over the last several decades, violence has consumed and transformed Mexico. Since the rise of dozens of Mexican cartels, the Mexican government has constantly been fighting an ongoing war with these criminal organizations. The cartel organizations have a primary purpose of managing and controlling illegal drug trafficking operations in Central America and South America to the United States. Violence on a massive and brutal scale has emerged due to the nature of the illegal drug trade. Because the drug trade is vastly widespread, cartels are often fighting one another and competing in business. Mexican authorities count at least 12 major cartels, but also talk of an untold numbers of smaller splinter groups. (Taipei Times). Five cartels from Mexico have risen to become the extremely powerful amongst all the drug organizations operating in Mexico. The Guadalajara Cartel, the Sinaloa Cartel, the Tijuana Cartel, the Juarez Cartel, and the Gulf Cartel. These organizations, along with other distinguished Mexican cartels, have plagued Mexico with violence, terror, and fear due to the essence and nature of illegal drug trafficking.
People in Sicily believed that they could not trust the country’s police service, so they created their own organized protection that later evolved into the Mafia. Later on, the group engaged in organized crime and formed the Sicilian mafia. They came from Sicily to America during the mid 1800s due to bad conditions in Sicily where almost everyone was below the poverty line. Giuseppe Esposito and six other Sicilian members were the first to leave and fled to New York after they killed the chancellor and vice chancellor of Sicily. Then on the five main Sicilian mafia families were created and the majority of the mafia came to America in the early 20th century.
The Mafia is a secret criminal organization that has great economic and political control over large parts of Sicilian society and operates both criminal and legitimate enterprises in the United States. It is believed to have started during Sicily's late Middle Ages, beginning as separate bonds of strong-arm enforcers hired by local landowners. It eventually evolved into a network of independent groups governing in rural areas. With the Sicilian immigration of the late 19th century, the Mafia began to operate in several large United States cities. During the period of Prohibition it monopolized the trade in bootleg liquor and controlled loan sharking, gambling, and prostitution. Competing Mafia families established mutually recognized territories, reaching agreement by negotiation or by intimidation. By the mid-1930 the Mafia had taken on the institutionalized structure that is now typical of organized crime in the United States.
La Cosa Nostra Perhaps one of the most poignant moments in American cinema is the closing scene in the film “The Godfather” when Don Vito Corleone’s son Michael takes over his father’s position... and one of the most unforgettable moments, a severed horses’s head lies bloody in a man’s bed. It is this tradition and brutality that characterizes the Mafia, a secret Sicilian society that lives and functions just as much today on American soil as it did and does still in Italy. To understand this organized crime, one must begin to understand how it came to be organized in the first place. During the medieval times in Sicily, Arabs invaded the land and native Sicilians fled and took refuge in the hills. Some of these refugees formed a secret society that gave protection to the people in exchange for money. This group took their name, “Mafia” based on the Arabic word for refuge. In America today, one can hear it also be called “La Cosa Nostra”, or “This Thing of Ours.” In the 1700s,Wealthy people would receive a card with a black hand drawn on and if they did not pay the money, they could expect murder, theft, and violence. During the time Mussolini was ruling Italy, this secret society was under heavy persecution and many fled to the United States. “Don (term for the boss or head of a Mafia family) Vito Cascio Ferro fled to the United States in 1901 to escape arrest. He is known as the Father of American Mafia.” (La Cosa Nostra) Many Italian immigrants came to the United States through Ellis Island in New York, which is today the most important center of organized Mafia crime in the United States. The new American Mafia came to power during the Prohibition by organizing the sale of outlawed alcohol, but after Prohibition was revoked, the Mafia needed a new “racket.” During the war, the Mafia got government issued ration stamps and sold them on the black market. These days the Mafia is involved in running prostitution, unions, construction, and gambling. New York, also called the “City that never sleeps,” houses the Five Families of New York. These Families are highly influential and powerful crime families and each holds claim to certain “rackets.” The Five Families are: Gambino, Bonano, Lucchese, Colombo, and Genovese. While all people in the Mafia are required to maintain certain silence about the workings of the Family, a code of silence called “Omerta,” d...
Peter Maas declares organized crime the “biggest business in the country” (Maas). “The largest and best known organized crime group is the nationwide organization variously known as the ‘syndicate’, the ‘mob’, the ‘Mafia’, and the ‘Cosa Nostra’” (Nash, Jason O-155). Some activities of the Mafia include gambling, loan sharking, pornography, illicit drugs, and racketeering. The Mafia began in Sicily, but did not retain to just that one location. In fact, in the late nineteenth century many of the Sicilian members immigrated to the United States (Nash O-155). The Mafia in the United States contains members that are Americans with Sicilian ancestry (“Mafia” M-48). There are several Mafia groups in the United States. Law enforcement authorities agree that there are around twenty-five groups that operate in large cities across the nation (Nash O-155).
Organized crime is a collective result of the commitment, knowledge, and actions of three components: (1) Criminal groups, who are core persons tied by racial, linguistic, ethnic or other bonds; (2) Protectors, who are persons who protect the group’s interests; and (3) Specialist support, which are persons who knowingly render services on an side-job basis to enhance the group’s interests. In order to thrive, an organized crime group needs many different elements. First, it needs an ensured continuity of members, clients, supporters, funds, etc. Additionally, it needs structure, criminality, violence, memberships based on common grounds, and a willingness to corrupt a power and profit goal. Generally, mafia organized crime groups disguise themselves behind the ownership of a legitimate business to avoid questioning from the Internal Revenue Service (I.R.S.) regarding any financial sources. The ille...
Drug trafficking has been a massive concern between the borders of Mexico and the U.S. “since mid 1970s” (Wyler, 1). Drug trafficking is “knowingly being in possession, manufacturing, selling, purchasing, or delivering an illegal, controlled substance” (LaMance, 1). A dynamic relationship exists amongst Columbia, Mexico, and the U.S. the informal drug trafficking economy. This growing informal drug economy leads to many individuals creating a substantial living through this undercover market. These individual drug cartels monopolizing the trafficking market are a growing problem for the U.S economy and need to be located and controlled. If this trafficking continues, the U.S. informal economy will crush the growth of legal industries. The trafficking and abuse of drugs in the U.S. affects nearly all aspects of consumer life. Drug trafficking remains a growing issue and concern to the U.S. government. The U.S. border control must find a way to work with Mexico to overpower the individuals who contribute to the drug trafficking business. This market must be seized and these individuals must be stopped.
For the past two decades, both America and Italy have been cracking down on the organized crime group known as the Mafia. Criminal activities concerning those involved in the Mafia have declined dramatically.
According to the FBI, organized crime is consisting of Russian Mobs that fled to the U.S., groups that are engaging in drug trafficking and scams from African countries and Enterprises based in Eastern European nations like Romania. Many groups have started using the in...
Just as all other organized criminal networks, Asian organized crime networks have gained international power due to the globalization of economics and the advancement of communication technology (FBI, 2016). As the United States became generous with immigration policies, the gateway was provided for members of these organized crime enterprises to freely enter and remain present within the United States- virtually undetected as well. Asian organized crime is reported to have a strong presence in more than 50 metropolitan areas of the United States, with the majority of members placing a strong hold in big cities like Boston, Chicago, Honolulu, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, New Orleans, New York, Newark, Philadelphia, Portland, San Francisco, Seattle, and Washington, D.C. (FBI, 2016). Unlike the traditional Asian criminal enterprises of their homeland, American based Asian criminal groups conduct the crimes of racketeering, loansharking, extortion, illegal gambling, and prostitution; as well as violent crimes of murder and kidnapping. Asian-American organized crime, is known to be on the more sophisticated level; aiding in the illegal immigration process, committing financial fraud, grand theft auto, cybercrimes, counterfeiting, money laundering, and controlling a percentage of the heroin and methamphetamine traffic into the United States (FBI,
With the world changing and advancing with technology, criminal organizations are taking advantage of new opportunities. The advancement of travel, ease of communication, and an increase in demand, has all contributed to the globalization of crime. Every nation has been affected by the globalization of crime and the problem continues to grow.