The Prohibition: The Rise Of Organized Crime In The 1920's

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Have you ever wondered what exactly brought the Prohibition to its own demise? Organized crime and the rise of gangsters, were prevalent during this time. The Prohibition had started as the solution to immoral behavior in the U.S., but later became the aid to criminal injustice during this time period. While some people believed that the Prohibition was an answer to America’s problems, evidence clearly points how it was definitely a hinderance.
Throughout the era of the 1920’s, organized crime and the rise of gangsters was a result of the Prohibition in America.
On January 17, 1920, one of the most extraordinary experiments occured in history, called the Prohibition. Manchester Guardian’s story reported, “America will become an entirely arid …show more content…
As bootlegging became popular and enriched criminals throughout America, New York became America’s center for organized crime.While outlaws operated independantly of gangsters in the 1920’s, they relied on them for tool of the trade. These tools included firearms, bulletproof vests, and armored cars. Organized crime members became national celebrities, who symolized the publics lack of faith in society’s crumblimg institutions. Many people know that the Prohibition not only made things worse, but it gave everyone a reason to fall into these groups for survival. For example, in 1910, an outpour of Italians had come to America to flee from Benito Mussolini. These immigrants had come to America with good intentions to make honest money, and grow their families. However, with the Prohibtion in the 1920’s, this law and the crash of the stock market, brought confusion to the people. This caused a rare chance for them to start businesses to earn honest money. Sadly, they turned to organized crime to provide for their needs as a struggling community. There were other ethnic groups as well, who had organized crime rings. These were most notably the Jews and the Irish. With criminal organizarions making a rise, many immigrant groups were able to come out as illegal organizations as well. The Prohibition gave a huge boost to these oragnizations, becaause of the fact that they could gamble, …show more content…
With mob violence and organized crime escalating in Chicago, the Valentine’s Day Massacre occured on February 14, 1929. In this Massacre, seven members of an an opposing gang against Al Capone, were lined up on a wall garage and machine-gunned to death. They were killed by men posing as police officers, who most likely were ordered by Al Capone. Capone was never arrested for this massacre, but was highly suspected for the operation of this fateful act. This massacre sparked exactly what was needed to put Al Capone in jail once and for all. He not only went to jail for tax evation in 1931, but was arested and jailed in the early 1930’s for carrying concealed weapons. Capone eventually retired from the Chicago Outfit before his 50’s, resulting
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