Prohibition and Organized Crime

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Prohibition and Organized Crime
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Prohibition

• Progressives had called on a ban on alcohol
• To combat crime, family violence, and poverty
• 18th Amendment prohibited the manufacture,
  sale, and transportation of alcoholic beverages
• Ratified in 1919

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Speakeasies

• Speakeasies Bars that illegally sold alcohol
• Many made their own liquor or purchased
  bootlegged alcohol from Mexico and Canada
• New York City est. 30,000 to 100,000 speakeasies

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Bootlegging

• Making, transporting, or selling illegal
  alcoholic beverages
• Became one of the decades most profitable
  businesses
• Led to the development of organized crime in
  cities like Chicago
• Rumrunner cross state lines
• Moon-shiner work at night

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The Development of Organized Crime

• Due to profit potential many wanted to bootleg
• Al Capone
• Ruled Chicagos bootlegging scene with his mob
• Made over 120 million per year

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St. Valentines Day Massacre

• The peak of Chicagos prohibition gang wars
• Capones gang publicly killed seven members of a
  rival Moran gang

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Elliot Ness The Untouchables

• Hired by the Federal Prohibition Bureau
• Refused to ignore bootlegging like many corrupt
  local police
• Ended Capones reign in 1931 on income tax
  evasion

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• Doubts raced through my mind as I considered
  the feasibility of enforcing a law, which the
  majority of honest citizens didnt seem to want.
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• -Elliot Ness

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Prohibition

• Positives
• Alcoholism declined
• Alcohol related deaths declined
• Negatives
• Led to widespread breakdown of the law
• Turned millions of otherwise law abiding citizens
  into criminals

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21st Amendment

• 1933 Franklin Roosevelt
• Repealed the 18th amendment and ended prohibition