Introduction to Organized Crime
Organized Crime, illegal activities conducted as a business by permanently organized groups. Organized-crime groups supply goods and services that are in most places illegal but for which there is a large demand, such as gambling, illicit drugs, pornography, and prostitution. Armed robbery, burglary, automobile theft, and other common street crimes may also involve organized-crime groups, but these activities do not usually fall under the definition of organized crime. Most countries of the world have organized crime; the scope of this article is limited to the United States.
Organized-crime Groups
Four kinds of groups in the United States are involved in organized crime—the syndicate, local “mobs,” motorcycle gangs, and international drug rings. The syndicate controls to some degree the other three groups and usually demands a percentage of the profits from their illicit activities.
The SyndicateThe largest and best-known group is the nationwide organization variously known as the syndicate, the “outfit,” the “mob,” the “Mafia,” and the “Cosa Nostra.” Most of its members are of Italian— especially Sicilian—ancestry. The name Mafia refers to the syndicate's descent from the Mafia groups of Sicily, many of whose members first immigrated to the United States in the late 19th century. Cosa Nostra (Italian for “our thing”) is a term originally used by syndicate members. The syndicate is especially involved in the following activities:
- Gambling. This is the greatest source of revenue for the syndicate, which is especially active in bookmaking for sports events and in running dice games and numbers and policy lotteries. The syndicate also operates legal gambling casinos.
- Loan sharking, the lending of money, at exorbitant rates of interest, to persons who cannot qualify for a loan from a legitimate source. Collection of overdue payments is enforced by ruthless methods, including beatings and torture.
- Pornography
- Illicit drugs
- Racketeering, the dishonest operation of a legal business or a labor union. Syndicate-operated businesses gain customers and drive legitimate competitors out of business through threats or the use of force. By controlling a union, the syndicate can extort funds from businesses by threatening labor stoppages; in addition, the syndicate may loot the pension and strike funds of unions it controls.
Almost all syndicate leaders own legitimate businesses. Such ownership does not always involve racketeering, because heading a business run honestly enables mobsters to acquire at least a facade of respectability and allows them to invest profits from their illegal activities.
Law enforcement authorities agree that the syndicate consists of about 25 groups operating in large cities across the nation. These groups are called “families,” because many members of each are related.
Each “family” is headed by a capo (boss) whose authority is absolute. Some capos may also be called “godfathers,” because the capo customarily serves as godfather for children of “family” members. “Don” is another common term for a syndicate head. Beneath each boss is a sottocapo (underboss) and a consigliere (counselor). The consigliere is usually an elder member of the “family” who has partially retired from crime.
Taking orders from the sottocapo are the caporegimes (lieutenants), who serve as buffers between the top members of the “family” and the lower-echelon personnel. The members on the lowest level of the “family” are the soldati (soldiers), mobsters who head a particular enterprise, such as a loan-sharking operation or a bookmaking operation. Below the soldati are large numbers of employees who are not members of the “family” and often not of Italian descent. They do such chores as taking bets, driving trucks, answering telephones, and selling drugs.
The highest ruling body of the syndicate is a board of directors called the “commission,” which is composed of capos of the most powerful “families.” The commission settles conflicts and adjudicates territorial and jurisdictional disputes among the “families.”
Local MobsBelow the syndicate in size and scope of activities are local criminal groups in various cities. Members of each local mob usually belong to the same ethnic group. Some of these groups include the “Irish Mob” in Boston, the “Greek Mob” in Philadelphia, the “Chinese Tongs” in San Francisco, and the “Mexican Mafia” in Los Angeles.
Some local mobs have arisen out of teenage street gangs—organized by such ethnic groups as blacks, Puerto Ricans, and Mexicans. Notable local mobs of gang origin are the Gangster Disciples in Chicago and the Crips in Los Angeles.
Motorcycle GangsIn the United States there are about a half-dozen large motorcycle gangs, the most notorious being the Hell's Angels, who are active in the West, and the Outlaws, who are active in the Midwest. These gangs are heavily involved in prostitution and control much of the illicit drug trade involving distribution to users and small-time dealers (pushers).
International Drug RingsThe drug trade involving the importation and sale, from overseas, of such drugs as heroin, cocaine, and marijuana is controlled by rings operating in several countries. They sell to syndicate “families” and other large-scale drug dealers. Members of the drug rings are the middlemen between the sources of supply (Turkey and Southeast Asia for heroin, Mexico for marijuana, and South America for cocaine) and the markets in the United States. Although some members of the syndicate belong to such rings, the international drug rings operate separately from the syndicate.
History
Most historians trace the origin of organized crime in the United States back to the 1880's, when many members of the Mafia in Sicily emigrated to this country and formed gangs. The United States Mafia groups first attracted national attention in 1890, when David C. Hennessey, chief of police in New Orleans, was murdered while trying to curb Mafia activities in the city.
From 1900 to the end of World War I, the Mafia was prominently associated with extortion rings, collectively called the Black Hand by the newspapers, that operated in Italian immigrant communities. Black Hand extortion involved demands, backed by threats, of “protection money” from owners of businesses.
The present-day syndicate was created during the Prohibition era, 1920–33. The bootlegging of alcoholic beverages opened up a lucrative new area of crime for mobsters, and during the early and middle 1920's, many gang wars were fought over the control of bootlegging. Criminals who rose to power through bootlegging included Charles “Lucky” Luciano, Dutch Schultz, Meyer Lansky, and Frank Costello in New York; Frank Milano in Cleveland; Hyman Abrams in Boston; and Johnny Torrio and Al Capone in Chicago.
By the end of the 1920's, most of the gangs had been consolidated into large Italian-dominated “families.” The present structure of organized crime was created by Luciano in 1931, when under his leadership a “commission” of the country's most powerful crime bosses was formed. By this time five “families” had emerged in New York, and they tended to have the strongest influence on the commission.
With the end of Prohibition, organized crime during the 1930's became heavily involved in gambling, illicit drugs, racketeering, and prostitution. Lansky and Costello prospered with illegal gambling in the eastern states, and Luciano made a fortune from houses of prostitution. Chicago mobsters gained control of the film projectionists' union and through repeated threats of labor stoppages extorted millions of dollars from Hollywood film companies.
During the 1940's, the syndicate took over the numbers and policy lotteries in the black communities. Under the leadership of Lansky and Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel, the syndicate also established itself in Las Vegas and built a number of multimillion-dollar casinos.
The national scope of syndicate crime was first publicized in 1950–51 during televised hearings held by a Senate committee headed by Estes Kefauver. A police raid in 1957 on a mobster estate in Apalachin, New York, which broke up a meeting of some 75 leaders of the syndicate from across the nation, provided dramatic evidence of the existence of a nationally organized syndicate. Leading syndicate bosses in the 1950's included Tony Accardo in Chicago and Vito Genovese and Albert Anastasia in New York.
In, 1963 a Senate investigating committee headed by John L. McClellan heard testimony from Joseph Valachi, who had decided to reveal mob secrets after having been given a life sentence for murder. Valachi's testimony provided much information on the history and internal workings of the syndicate. Bosses who came to prominence in the 1960's included Salvatore Giancana in Chicago and Joseph Colombo and Carlo Gambino in New York.
During the late 1960's, street gangs and motorcycle gangs, which had long existed, developed into sophisticated organizations, growing wealthy on the illicit drug trade.
In 1970, Congress passed the Organized Crime Control Act to strengthen law enforcement efforts against organized crime. The act authorized a security program to protect federal witnesses from mob revenge and, under what are known as the RICO (Racketeer Influenced Corrupt Organization) provisions, gives special powers to prosecutors. These powers allow prosecutors to confiscate assets of a person convicted under a RICO provision and to bring charges against a mob boss for criminal acts committed by a subordinate. Many syndicate figures were successfully prosecuted with the help of the witness protection program and RICO provisions, but organized crime syndicates continued to flourish.
For many years, the syndicate recruited many of its members from among the existing members' sons. This began to change in the 1970's, however, as the children began to attend college and pursue careers in legitimate fields. As a result, the syndicate has resorted to recruiting new members from Sicily and from non-Italian groups.