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Howard Abadinsky
ORGANIZED
CRIME
Eighth Edition
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CHAPTER
THREE
HISTORY OF ORGANIZED CRIME
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THE ROBBER BARONS

• An early generation of unscrupulous American
• business entrepreneurs, including
• John Jacob Astor
• Cornelius Vanderbilt
• Daniel Drew
• James Fisk
• Jay Gould
• Russell Sage
• Leland Stanford
• John D. Rockefeller

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IMMIGRATION andURBAN MACHINE POLITICS

• OCs roots pre-Prohibition patron-client
• networks known as the political machines
• of urban America.
• 18201850 Immigration into the U.S. rose
• dramatically, mainly in urban areas.
• Faced with hostility and discrimination,
• immigrants found they possessed at least
• one highly-valued commodity their votes.

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• 18401900 About 4.75 million Irish immigrants
  entered the U.S. and
• settled mostly in urban areas
• joined the Democratic Party and
• swarmed into local politics.
• Irish political success
• coincided with lower crime rates among
• Irish immigrants (until
  Prohibition)
• was advanced by their ability to speak
• English, their knowledge of
  government,
• and the timing of their arrival in
  the U.S.
• The Irish connected in the saloon, a welcome
  refuge from slum dwellings.

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• THE SALOON and the MACHINE
• Saloons became neighborhood centers
• and bases for political activity.
• Cities were divided into wards or districts,
• further divided into electoral precincts.
• Saloon keepers influenced customers and
• votesthey delivered precincts, and thus
• controlled wards or districts.
• By 1890, most big-city Democratic political
• machinesincluding New Yorks Tammany
• Hallwere controlled by Irish bosses.

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• UNDERWORLD and UPPERWORLD
• Business interests promoted corruption and
• government inefficiency to plunder the
  treasury.
• Business and political figures took money and
• personal services from underworld figures.
• In return, political figures offered only token
• interference to underworld criminal activity.
• Bribery of police officials was common.
• Patterns of corruption-reform-corruption-reform
• mixed sham investigations with public hearings.

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• Business leaders called for reform to
• stop paying graft while keeping the
• favors graft bought.
• Nativism motivated reformers and tied
• urban immigrants to political machines.
• The most successful nativist campaign
• prohibited alcoholic beverages favored
• by immigrants.

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Scott (1981) calls the American Mafia Family
Network a natural system that includes

• the boss (paterfamilias) who is the patron
• an underboss (sottocapo)
• a counselor/advisor (consigliere)
• captains (capiregime) who are clients of the
• boss and patrons to their own underlings
• members or soldiers (soldati) who are
• clients of the captains and
• other non-OC affiliated clients of the boss.

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PROHIBITION

• Temperance movements date from the
• early days of the republic.
• Organizations included
• Prohibition Party
• Womens Christian Temperance Union
• Anti-Saloon League
• National prohibition was measure passed
• by rural America against urban America.
• 1919 Eighteenth Amendment ratified and
• Volstead Act passed.

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ORGANIZED CRIME

• Prohibition changed relationships among vice
• entrepreneurs, gang leaders, and politicians.
• Pre-1920 political boss was patron because he
• provided protection from law enforcement.
• The violence of Prohibition made physical
• protection more important.
• Gang bosses controlled the violence.
• Prohibition turned gangs into empires through
• syndicationunprecedented cooperation
• between regional gang leaders.

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ORGANIZED CRIME in NEW YORK

• Tammany Hall, synonymous with the New York
• Democratic Party
• Created district leaders and precinct
• captains in each assembly district.
• Extorted funds from vice entrepreneurs.
• Took 6 kickback from all city employees.
• Used funds to dispense favors and social
• services.
• This established a firm tie-in between criminals
• and politicians.

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The Irish dominated the citys police force,
a corrupt and brutal agency that was,
effectively, an adjunct of Tammany
Hall. 19021924 Charles Murphy ruled Tammany.
He ended open gambling and prostitution.
He withdrew total immunity for gangsters.
He cut down the power of the
police. Murphy created a modern organization to
be a conduit between politicians and
organized gamblers and brothel owners. Arnold
Rothstein became that conduit.
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JEWISH OC in NEW YORK

• Arnold Rothstein was single most important
• organizer and innovator in Jewish OC.
• Notorious for alleged involvement in the
• infamous Black Sox baseball scandal,
• the fixing of the 1919 World Series.
• Other key Jewish OC figures include
• Dutch Schultz
• Louis Lepke Buchalter
• Meyer Lansky
• Benjamin Bugsy Siegel

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