Organized Crime

Organized crime refers to highly organized businesses devoted to illegal activities. Gangs, known as cartels or families, maintain secrecy, loyalty, and special favors through the threat and use of violence. With bribery, or buying favors, gangs manage to protect their activities from law enforcement. Illegal businesses operated by organized crime gangs involve drugs, gambling, prostitution, and, during Prohibition (1920–33), alcohol.

While alcohol was illegal during Prohibition as a result of the Eighteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution , there was little popular support for the law. Demand for alcohol actually increased, and supplying liquor became a lucrative business. Making, transporting, and delivering alcohol required manpower. Because each step needed to be carefully coordinated with the next, gangs of criminals formed in highly organized businesses. Their success encouraged competition, and organized crime flourished.

As organized crime gangs competed for more business, violent encounters became common. In cities like Chicago, Illinois , gangs became powerful influences in many other businesses and in politics. Leaders of gangs became famous and popularly recognized. Al Capone (1899–1947) and Bugs Moran (1891–1957) are still well-known nearly a century after their criminal activity. Although Prohibition ceased to exist following passage of the Twenty-first Amendment , which repealed the Eighteenth Amendment, organized crime became well-established and continues to this day.

Organized crime existed in small pockets of the United States before Prohibition, but that era allowed organized crime to spread across the nation. By 1934, powerful independent organizations from across the nation's cities were uniting into a national syndicate. Bootlegging was replaced by other illegal endeavors. Selling narcotics or stolen goods and managing gambling, prostitution, and other activities provide organized crime units with business today.