Organized Crime Essay, Research Paper Organized Crime in AmericaJoanne KleinMarch 8, 1996Period 4 One forenoon, as Mario Luigi opens his family-owned shoe shop, a little envelope on the land catches his oculus. He instantly knows what it is-another black manus missive from the Mafia. “ If this goes on much longer, I will certainly travel out of concern, ” he thinks angrily.
“ Immigrating to America did me no good. The Mafia is everywhere. ” One of the grounds immigrants came to America was to get away condemnable organisations like the Mafia. The Mafia is a secret, terrorist organisation that began in Naples, in southern Italy. From Naples, the Mafia spread foremost to the island of Sicily, off the toe of the Italian boot.
After governing at that place for many centuries, the Mafia spread to America in the 1870s and 1880s, when it was brought over from Italy and southeasterly Europe by immigrants. The immigrants brought with them their traditions of force, offense and secret condemnable organisations. Although most immigrants were honorable and hard-working, looking for a new start and a better life, some immigrants from Italy belonged to the Mafia and other condemnable organisations. Like Mario Luigi, many Italian immigrants received a “ Black Hand ” missive. Black Handletters were a type of blackmail used by the Mafia to demand money.
The letters were markedwith drawings of a sticker, handgun or other deadly arm. If the missive was paid off, therewould be no problem until the following missive. However, if the missive was non paid off, theimmigrant ’ s shop or concern could be wrecked, a member of their household could be assaulted, or the immigrant himself could be killed. In an existent instance, a affluent Brooklyn butchernamed Goetano Costa received a Black Hand missive in 1905 stating, “ You have more money thanwe have. We know of your wealth and that you are entirely in this state. We want $ 1,000which you are to set in a loaf of staff of life and manus to a adult male who comes in to purchase meat and pullsout a ruddy handkerchief.
” Costa refused, and as a consequence one forenoon some Mafia members cameinto his shop and shot him to decease. Witnesses to the offense couldn ’ t put on the line their lives tosay anything about it. They were bound by the Omerta codification of silence, which literally meansthe “ ability to move like a man. ” You might be inquiring where the term “ Mafia ” comes from. Historians say the Mafia began in the thirteenth century when Italy was contending the Gallic Angevins.
Their motto was “ Morte alla Francia, Italia Anela! ” This means “ Death to the Gallic is Italy ’ s Cry! ” The word Mafia comes from the first missive of each word in the motto. However, the American Mafiiosi do non hold. They say the term Mafia came from when a Gallic soldier raped a Palermo maiden on her nuptials twenty-four hours, Easter Monday, 1282. Consequently, angry Sicilians struck back by killing an full Gallic troop. More Sicilians joined in, traveling from town to town killing the Gallic and ravishing their girls.
“ Mafia ” became their name when hysterical female parents ran out in the streets shouting, “ Ma fia, mom fia! ” ( ” My girl, my girl! ” ) . Another organisation connected to organized offense is the Camorra. Like the Mafia, the Camorra originally spread from Naples to Sicily. They excessively ruled parts of the island for many centuries. The Camorra besides enforced the Omerta codification so good that no informant to a offense dared say a word for fright of being killed.
In America, the constabulary knew really small about organized offense because of the Omerta codification. Police even thought the Black Hand letters came from a Black Hand Society, alternatively of the Mafia or the Camorra. Lieutenant Joseph Petrosino was the first American to recognize that offense was organized and really unsafe. Lieutenant Petrosino was a compact, 5 ′ 8 ? adult male with a unit of ammunition caput, somewhat pock marked face, and black eyes. He was born in the coastal town of Salerno, near Naples, and subsequently moved to America. Petrosino was besides the first to go positive that Black Hand letters were non from free-lance blackmailers, but from a extremely organized and powerful rabble.
He persuaded his higher-ups to name a particular Italian squad. Petrosino headed the squad, which met in the old Metropolitan Police central offices on Mulberry Street in New York. This squad was the first to do complete records on the Mafia and its members. Petrosino risked his life every twenty-four hours to garner information that identified the chief Mafiosi. One of his greatest achievements was in 1900, when he uncovered a secret plan to slay Italian King Humbert. He sent the information abroad and foiled the program.
Petrosino received really small support from the constabulary and the populace. Despite all hisefforts and information, Petrosino could non do the authorities functionaries or the averageAmerican believe in the Mafia. Knowing it was up to him, in one twelvemonth Petrosino personallymade 700 apprehensions. Among these was the apprehension of Enrico Alfano ( Erricone ) , the main ofCamorra. Petrosino deported him back to Italy and turned him over to the Italian police.He besides knew that Ignazio Lupo ( Lupo Wolf ) was the head of the Mafia but Petrosino couldnot gimmick or apprehension him. A new moving ridge of Black Hand force swept over New York in 1907, and once more Petrosino was forced to contend it on his ain.
Joseph Trano, an Italian merchandiser, came to Petrosino with a black manus missive desiring $ 500 on hurting of decease. Petrosino gave him pronounced measures and put a trap. He so followed and arrested Vincenzio Abadezza ( one of Lupo Wolf ’ s chief lieutenants ) and eight others. Two notebooks were found on one of the suspects. One notebook contained the names of 20 Mafia members. The other listed the names of 60 labourers who were paying $ 1 to $ 3 a hebdomad to blackmailers.
Even so, when Petrosino brought this instance to tribunal, the Judgess did non believe the whole thought of organized offense. Therefore, Abadezza received merely 2 1/2 old ages in prison, and the others received merely a few yearss in gaol. After the test, in January, 1909, Petrosino went to Italy utilizing a different name. Althoughhe told about no 1, Lupo Wolf learned about the trip and Petrosino ’ s forge name. InItaly, Petrosino obtained the records of more than 600 felons who had immigrated toAmerica. In Palermo, on March 13, 1909, he ate in a eating house on Marino Square, thenwalked toward the Hotel di Palma.
Unfortunately, he ne’er made it. On his manner, two mencame up behind him and hit four slugs into his dorsum and caput. Although there were manywitnesses, their lips were sealed by Omerta. Petrosino ’ s decease stirred New York for a short, intense run against Mafia head. This resulted in Lupo Wolf ’ s arrest and jai ling on a forging charge.
At this point, the Mafia became more careful and the metropolis changed back to its old attitude of indifference. The Mafia no longer direct Black Hand letters, but switched over to power and persuasion. The Mafia so sank virtually out of sight, doing it much more effectual. The Prohibition epoch began in 1920, following the confirmation of the 18th Amendment to theConstitution of the United States in 1919. It has been saidthat Prohibition was the engine that drove the mobster epoch.
Many Americans ignoredProhibition, therefore giving organized offense a new manner to do money-bootlegging whiskey.Bootlegging was indispensable to organized offense and saved the great condemnable packs fromcollapsing after World War I. Bootlegging continued to be a major condemnable interest thatdeeply involved the Mafia. Bloody wars were fought for control, and in Chicago entirely morethan 1,000 work forces died in moonshine wars. Liquor was smuggled across the boundary line from Mexico orCanada, but many packs had to do their ain spirits to warrant supplies.
They couldeither sell it through the nines and bars they owned, or through the distributorships theycontrolled. At the terminal of Prohibition, bootlegging declined but did non vanish because ofhigh spirits revenue enhancements. Prohibition made the mobsters bold plenty to perpetrate hideous Acts of the Apostless in public. A celebrated illustration is the St. Valentines Day massacre..
Al Capone wanted to kill Bugs Moran, leader of the Irish Northside Gang. On February 14, 1929, Capone had his work forces dress as constabulary officers and feign to collar members of the pack, trusting Moran would be at that place. Although Moran was non at that place, Capone’s work forces made six gang members stand against the wall and blasted them with machine-guns. When Moran heard about the offense, he remarked “only Capone putting to deaths like that.” Capone heard this and answered, “Only Moran putting to deaths like that.” Some people even thought the constabularies really were the perpetrators, and Capone denied holding anything to make with the offense. Alphonse Capone ( ”Scarface Al” or the “Chicago Gangster” ) was born in 1899 in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. He grew to be a Chicago offense leader and Public Enemy # 1, although others did more to develop organized offense.
He claimed he “owned Chicago” and “owned the police” which in a sense, he did. Capone besides “owned” alderman, provinces lawyers legislators, governors and congresswomans. To command election returns he had his mobsters intimidate and terrorize electors. Scarface one time beat up the city manager of Cicero on the front stairss of a courthouse while a police officer guiltily tried non to look. He received the name Scarface Al after his left cheek was cut in a battle over a miss by Frank Galluccio, whom he subsequently hired as his personal escort.
Despite the St. Valentines Day slaughter, Capone could non be convicted of slaying but he was convicted of income revenue enhancement equivocation. He was sentenced to 11 old ages at a federal prison in Atlanta, but was subsequently transferred to Alcatraz ( the “Rock” ) in 1934. During his imprisonment, Capone’s wellness deteriorated. He was released in 1939 a hopeless paretic from untreated pox.
He had gone “stir brainsick ” in Alcatraz ( non uncommon ) . After this, Capone lived in his Florida household sign of the zodiac for eight old ages until his decease on January 25, 1947. Organized offense has been linked to what may be the greatest offense of the century. The Mafia may hold been responsible for the blackwash of John F. Kennedy.
Frank Ragano, a rabble attorney, says he delivered the message from Teamsters head Jimmy Hoffa to Mafia foremans Sam Traficante and Carlos Marcello, to “kill the president.” Although Ragano thought it was a gag, he subsequently realized that the remainder of them were serious. The Mob had the “motive, agencies and opportunity” to kill the President. A well-known mobster in modern times was Joseph ( ”Joe Bananas” ) Bonanno. Bonanno was bornin Sicily in 1905, moved to America, moved back to Italy, and returned to America in 1925.Although he was the smallest of New York’s Big Five mobsters, he wanted to be the largestpower in syndicated offense in America. As his power grew, he saw to it that Brooklynspeakeasies bought whisky from his beginnings.
Making this without utilizing menaces and pressuremade Bonanno a most singular liquor marketer for that clip. After a large foreman moved up, Bonanno was named to head a big portion of the boss’s offense household. As the caput of thisfamily, he shortly became a millionaire. As a consequence, he started some new concerns andcovered up the income so good that the IRS ne’er caught him. Bonanno operated clothingfactories, cheese houses and funeral parlours, where he started the usage of dual deckercoffins.
These had room for an excess cadaver under the false underside to conceal Mafia victims.In October, 1964, Bonanno was kidnapped at gunpoint. He was to vanish for 19 monthswhile the Banana War took topographic point between Bonanno’s boy and Gaspa Digregoria, who was toreplace Bonanno. Still under changeless menace of decease, Bonanno made a via media to quitand allow Digregorio take over. Alternatively of maintaining up to the via media, Bonanno fought inthe Banana War and would hold won but for a bosom onslaught in 1968 that forced him to retire.Another via media was made, so Bonanno went to Arizona and gave up retentions he had in NewYork. As the last of the five original foremans, Bonanno’s going marked the terminal of anera.
We have seen how organized offense came to America in the nineteenth Century, grew through theProhibition epoch, and is now melting in importance. Although organized offense was a majorthreat to some people much earlier on, modern society does non hold to worry about organizedcrime any more. Today we worry about random force and other disorganized offense. Theonly semi-known Mafia figure left is John Gotti, and he is functioning a long sentence infederal prison. The Omerta Code and Mafia criterions of trueness and proper behaviour are nolonger being honored. As for Mario Luigi, if he were opening a shop today, he probablywould non hold to worry about the Mafia.
Since there are no Black Hand letters any more, all Mario Luigi would hold to worry approximately would be paying his legitimate measures. Hisgreatest fright might be that Walmart was coming to town. BibliographyCook, Fred J. Mob, Inc..
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