American organized crime of the 1920s

Saint Valentine’s Day Massacre

When seven members of George “Bugs” Moran’s gang were executed by a group of men dressed as police officers on Valentine’s Day, 1929, Al Capone was believed to be behind the hit, and the event marked the beginning of the end of Capone’s reign as Chicago’s crime czar. The massacre sparked a wave of reforms that helped to dismantle Capone’s empire. Although no one was ever tried for the killings, the incident brought Capone’s illegal activities under the scrutiny of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, eventually leading to his 1931 conviction for tax evasion.

In the United States, criminal organizations had been in existence for many years prior to the 1920s, although the term “organized crime” was not in use before this decade. The passing of the Eighteenth Amendment in 1919 and the institution of Prohibition in the United States completely changed the shape of organized crime, turning fragmented and poorly managed criminal gangs into highly structured and well-organized criminal enterprises.

Until 1919, organized crime in the United States had primarily consisted of loosely coordinated groups of men whose criminal activities were mostly restricted to gambling and theft. The ratification of the Eighteenth Amendment in this year set the stage for major changes in the structure of organized crime in America. In concert with the National Prohibition Act, also known as the Volstead Act, the amendment prohibited virtually all things associated with the creation and consumption of alcohol, setting in motion what is now known as the Prohibition era. It was not until 1933 that Congress passed the Twenty-First Amendment, which repealed the Eighteenth Amendment and left control of alcoholic beverages to the authority of individual states.

The driving force behind the Prohibition era was the temperance movement, a social movement that was closely associated with religious conservatism. Beginning in the late eighteenth to early nineteenth centuries, the temperance movement argued that alcohol consumption was a major cause of immoral and criminal behaviors, such as prostitution and domestic abuse. One of the most influential organizations behind the movement was the Women’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), members of which believed that behaviors caused by alcohol consumption were destroying the American family and thus advocated for legislation that would make the sale and use of alcohol illegal in the United States. If alcohol were made illegal, they believed, women and children would be better protected from the negative effects associated with alcohol use, and crimes associated with alcohol abuse would decrease. Instead, Prohibition actually led to the increase of criminal behavior in the United States, as organized crime started to become a significant problem.

Organizing Crime

At the beginning of the 1920s, the U.S. economy was showing signs of distress, with increasing unemployment rates causing many citizens to struggle financially. Immigration rates were also on the rise, and new immigrants were finding it difficult to earn a living in their new country of residence. With jobs being scarce and people looking for new ways to provide for their families, many turned to illegal activity as a way of producing income.

Prior to the 1920s, organized crime generally consisted of undersized and disorganized gangs that fought over small, poorly valued territories. These gangs earned their money through the control of crime markets such as drugs, prostitution, gambling, and theft, none of which were very profitable. All this would soon change, however.

While the federal government could make most things associated with the production and consumption of alcohol illegal, it was unable to control and eliminate consumer demand for the product, and prior to Prohibition, consumer demand had been high. The popularity of alcohol was not diminished by the passing of the Eighteenth Amendment; if anything, making alcohol illegal made it even more popular, especially among young people. Prohibition created a natural market for organized crime, as groups of men who had long fought one another over territory suddenly became united in their efforts to supply Americans with alcohol. The success and growth of organized crime were aided by the fact that the federal government did very little to actually enforce the newly created laws against alcohol.

The Effects of Organized Crime in the 1920s

The lack of enforcement of these new laws, the tremendous demand for alcohol, and the growth of organized criminal enterprises all led to severe increases in crime throughout the country. During the 1920s, across all fifty states, alcohol-related crimes dramatically increased over the course of the decade: Arrests for law violations associated with Prohibition increased by 102 percent; the arrest rate of individuals for public drunkenness and disorderly conduct increased by 41 percent; arrests for driving while under the influence of alcohol increased by 81 percent; the crimes of residential burglary and theft of personal property increased by 9 percent; and personal violence and violent crimes, such as homicide, assault, and battery, increased by a total of 13 percent. The total number of federal convictions increased by 561 percent, and the federal prison population increased by 366 percent, which entailed an increase in the operating costs of federal prisons of over 1,000 percent. All of this led to an increase of $11.4 million in funding for police agencies, which placed a tremendous burden on American citizens, especially during the economic recession of 1920 and 1921.

During the 1920s, violent acts became part of the normal operating procedure for members of criminal organizations, most often directly related to disputes over distribution areas. Countless organized crime gangs would fight to establish dominance over a particular geographical area and control the illegal markets there; Chicago alone saw over four hundred gang-related murders per year. The decade’s most widely publicized act of violence that can be directly linked with organized crime is Chicago’s Saint Valentine’s Day Massacre in 1929, which was partially in retaliation for previous crimes and partially the result of a struggle for control of illegal enterprises such as gambling and alcohol distribution. On February 14, Al Capone’s South Side Italian gang lured members of the North Side Irish gang, controlled by George “Bugs” Moran, into an ambush that resulted in the deaths of seven people.

Another by-product of the growth of organized crime was that members of criminal organizations became power brokers in the affairs of mainstream society and legitimate businesses. While members of organized crime supplied the demand for alcohol, they also established strong and powerful ties to the community. These ties were enhanced by the development and control of speakeasies, underground establishments that dealt in illegal activity and were owned and operated by members of organized crime. Speakeasies primarily flourished as a place to buy alcohol, but they often provided patrons with easy access to gambling and prostitution as well and became centers of social gatherings for many of the wealthy and powerful individuals of a particular community. Having social access to these individuals allowed criminal organizations to develop political connections in their communities, which eventually led to widespread political corruption throughout many of the urban communities in the United States.

The Location of Organized Crime

In the 1920s, most of the activity associated with criminal organizations was located in large urban communities throughout the United States. Cities such as Chicago, New York, and Boston became centralized hubs for the illegal markets affiliated with organized crime. Urban areas were ideal environments in which criminal enterprises could flourish, providing access to a large pool of potential members as well as a sizeable consumer base for illegal goods and services.

Within these urban communities, organized crime gangs were highly segregated from mainstream society. Members of these gangs usually resided in ethnically homogeneous neighborhoods and remained virtually unidentifiable to community members who were not part of the local culture. Living within an insulated structure provided safety to gang members and allowed them to develop strong social ties within their neighborhood.

The Demographics of Organized Crime

During the 1920s, members of organized crime were primarily young males who had recently immigrated to the United States. Most organized crime gangs were Italian, Irish, Jewish, or African American; in the late 1920s in Chicago, for example, 31 percent of all leaders of organized crime gangs were Italian, 29 percent were Irish, 20 percent were Jewish, and 12 percent were African American.

Typically, when coming to the United States, these immigrants relocated to one of the large, urban communities located either in the Midwest or on the East Coast, where they lived in ethnically segregated neighborhoods and usually struggled to find employment. The inability of new immigrants to find lawful work was an important component in the longevity and growth of organized crime. Most of these men arrived in the United States with little education and few marketable skills, which made it difficult to secure a legitimate occupation and forced many of them to turn to organized crime simply in order to earn a decent living.

Impact

The 1920s was a unique time in the history of organized crime, marking the beginning of many aspects now associated with organized criminal enterprises. Much of the success that criminal organizations experienced during this decade came as a direct result of the passing of the Eighteenth Amendment. The Prohibition era was the catalyst for the growth and prosperity of these enterprises, the activities of which both encompassed and evolved beyond criminal behavior during this decade. Criminal organizations were influential in corporate and political affairs as well, with many high-ranking leaders of organized crime crossing over into legitimate business. This blurred the lines between criminal and noncriminal behavior and provided social acceptance to many organized crime leaders, who then had the political power necessary to influence both local and national elections.

The public prominence of organized crime began to fade in 1933 with the passing of the Twenty-First Amendment, which repealed the ban on alcohol, thereby rendering unnecessary the primary service that gangs had been providing throughout the United States. When citizens no longer had to turn to bootleggers for their supply of alcohol, the criminal gangs were forced to seek other opportunities to generate income. Not surprisingly, in the decades to come, these gangs would turn to the illegal drug market as their primary source of revenue.

Bibliography

Finckenauer, James O. Mafia and Organized Crime: A Beginner’s Guide. Oxford, England: Oneworld, 2007. An introduction to the phenomenon of organized crime and its economical and societal effects.

Haller, Mark H. “Organized Crime in Urban Society: Chicago in the Twentieth Century.” Journal of Social History 5, no. 2 (Winter, 1971–1972): 210–234. Discusses the role played by organized crime in Chicago.

‗‗‗‗‗‗‗. History of Organized Crime, 1920–1945. Washington, D.C.: United States National Institute of Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice, 1976. Studies how gambling operations combined with bootlegging operations to create new criminal organizations.

Lyman, Michael D., and Gary W. Potter. Organized Crime. 5th ed. Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 2010. An extensive overview of the history of organized crime, as well as its social, political, and economic aspects and what can be done to control it.

Woodiwiss, Michael. Organized Crime and American Power: A History. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2003. Examines the nature of organized crime and its interplay with the major power structures of American society.