The Mafia in the United States

The American Mafia, an Italian-American organized-crime network with operations in cities across the United States, particularly New York and Chicago, rose to power through its success in the illicit liquor trade during the 1920s Prohibition era. After Prohibition, the Mafia moved into other criminal ventures, from drug trafficking to illegal gambling, while also infiltrating labor unions and legitimate businesses such as construction and New York’s garment industry. The Mafia’s violent crimes, secret rituals and notorious characters such as Al Capone and John Gotti have fascinated the public and become a part of popular culture. During the latter part of the 20th century, the government used anti-racketeering laws to convict high-ranking mobsters and weaken the Mafia. However, it remains in business today.
Immigration and Prohibition
During the late 19th century and early 20th century, waves of Italians, mostly farmers, craftsmen and unskilled laborers, flocked to America in search of better economic opportunities. In New York City alone, the number of Italians soared from 20,000 to 250,000 between 1880 and 1890, and by 1910, that number had jumped to 500,000 immigrants and first-generation Italian Americans, or one-tenth of the city’s population, according to historian Thomas Repetto. The majority of these immigrants were law-abiding, but, as with most large groups of people, some were criminals who formed neighborhood gangs, often preying on those in their own communities.
During the 1920s Prohibition era, when the 18th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution banned the sale, manufacture and transportation of alcoholic beverages, Italian-American gangs (along with other ethnic gangs) entered the booming bootleg liquor business and transformed themselves into sophisticated criminal enterprises, skilled at smuggling, money laundering and bribing police and other public officials. During this time, the Sicilian Mafia in Italy, which had flourished since at least the mid-19th century, was under attack from the Fascist regime of Benito Mussolini (1883-1945). Some Sicilian Mafiosi escaped to the United States, where they got involved in bootlegging and became part of the burgeoning American Mafia. The Mafia in the U.S. and Sicily were separate entities, although the Americans adopted some Italian traditions, including omerta, an all-important code of conduct and secrecy that forbid any cooperation with government authorities.
The American Mafia Gets Organized
In the late 1920s, a bloody power struggle known as the Castellammarese War broke out between New York City’s two biggest Italian-American criminal gangs. In 1931, after the faction led by Sicilian-born crime boss Salvatore Maranzano (1886-1931) came out on top, he crowned himself the “capo di tutti capi,” or boss of all bosses, in New York. Unhappy with Maranzano’s power grab, a rising mobster named Lucky Luciano (1897-1962) had him murdered that same year. Luciano then masterminded the formation of a central organization called the Commission to serve as a sort of national board of directors for the American Mafia, which by then consisted of at least 20 crime families across the country. New York, which had become America’s organized-crime capital, had been divided into five main Mafia families; everywhere else the Mafia operated, there was just one crime family per city. The Commission’s role was to set policies and mediate disagreements among the families. Each of the five New York families received a vote on the Commission when it was established, while the heads of the families in Chicago and Buffalo also got one vote each.
The U.S. Mafia: Hierarchy and Rituals
Typically, each American Mafia crime family was organized around a hierarchy headed by a boss, who ruled with unquestioned authority and received a cut of every money-making operation taken on by any member of his family. Second-in-command was the underboss and below him were the capos, or captains, who each controlled a crew of 10 or so soldiers (men who had been “made,” or inducted into the family). Each family also had a consigliere, who acted as an advisor and ombudsman. At the bottom of the chain were associates, people who worked for or did business with the family but weren’t full-fledged members.
Becoming an official member of a Mafia family traditionally involved an initiation ceremony in which a person performed such rituals as pricking his finger to draw blood and holding a burning picture of a patron saint while taking an oath of loyalty. Italian heritage was a prerequisite for every inductee (although some crime families required such lineage only from the father’s side) and men often, though not always, had to commit a murder before they could be made. Becoming a member of the Mafia was meant to be a lifetime commitment and each Mafiosi swore to obey omerta, the all-important code of loyalty and silence. Mafiosi were also expected to follow other rules, including never assaulting one another and never cheating with another member’s girlfriend or wife.
The Mafia?s 20th Century Dominance
With the repeal of Prohibition in 1933, the Mafia moved beyond bootlegging and into a range of underworld activities, from illegal gambling to loan-sharking to prostitution rings. The Mafia also sunk its tentacles into labor unions and legitimate businesses, including construction, garbage collection, trucking, restaurants and nightclubs and the New York garment industry, and raked in enormous profits through kickbacks and protection shakedowns. Instrumental to the Mafia’s success was its ability to bribe corrupt public officials and business leaders, along with witnesses and juries in court cases. By the mid-20th century, there were 24 known crime families in America, comprised of an estimated 5,000 full-fledged members and thousands of associates across the country. Prior to the 1960s, some government leaders, including FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, voiced skepticism about the existence of a national Italian-American organized-crime network and suggested instead that crime gangs operated strictly on a local level. As a result, law-enforcement agencies made few inroads in stopping the Mafia’s rise during this period.
Taking Down the Mafia
In 1970, Congress passed the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act, which proved to be a powerful tool in the government’s war on the Mafia, as it allowed prosecutors to go after crime families and their sources of revenue, both legal and illegal. During the 1980s and 1990s, RICO laws were used to convict numerous high-level mobsters. Some Mafiosi, faced with long prison sentences, broke the once-sacred code of omerta and testified against their fellow mobsters in exchange for a place in the federal witness-protection program. At the same time, Mafia membership declined as insular Italian-American neighborhoods, once a traditional recruiting ground for mobsters, underwent demographic shifts and became more assimilated into society at large.
By the start of the 21st century, the American Mafia was a shadow of its former self. However, the Mafia remained active in some of its traditional ventures, including loan-sharking and illegal gambling, and its involvement in labor unions and legitimate industries such as construction hadn’t been completely eliminated. Contributing to the Mafia’s continued survival may be the fact that following the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on America, significant resources devoted to investigating organized crime (which had already seen cuts prior to 9/11) were shifted to counter-terrorism work
Prohibition


The Prohibition era usually refers to the period from January 1920 until April 1933 when the National Prohibition Enforcement Act forbade the manufacture and sale of beverages with an alcoholic content greater than 0.5 percent. What began as a movement for temperance, or reduced alcohol consumption, became full-blown prohibition in which all alcohol was banned. Women were heavily involved in the temperance movement, and many female activists who had been involved with the anti-slavery and temperance movements, later went on to become leaders of the women's rights movement. Supporters of this law (commonly called the Volstead Act) believed that it would quickly bring an end to the social problems associated with alcoholic intoxication. While alcohol consumption did decline during the Prohibition era, the period also saw a rise in bootlegging and disregard for the law. In 1933, the 21st Amendment repealed the 18th, ending prohibition.
Al Capone



Born in 1899 in Brooklyn, New York, to poor immigrant parents, Al Capone went on to become the most infamous gangster in American history. In 1920 during the height of Prohibition, Capone's multi-million dollar Chicago operation in bootlegging, prostitution and gambling dominated the organized crime scene. Capone was responsible for many brutal acts of violence, mainly against other gangsters. The most famous of these was the St. Valentine's Day Massacre in 1929, in which he ordered the assassination of seven rivals. Capone was never indicted for his racketeering but was finally brought to justice for income-tax evasion in 1931. After serving six-and-a-half years, Capone was released. He died in 1947 in Miami. Capone's life captured the public imagination, and his gangster persona has been immortalized in the many movies and books inspired by his exploits.


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