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Organized crime is spreading like a global virus as mobs take advantage of open borders to establish local franchises at will. That at least is the fear, inspired by stories of Russian mobsters in New York, Chinese triads in London, and Italian mafias throughout the West.

Murder, Inc. and the Moral Life: Gangsters and Gangbusters in La Guardia's New York focuses on the dramatic trials of a group of Brooklyn gangsters in 1940 and 1941. The media nicknamed the gangsters \"Murder, Inc.,\" and that nickname quickly became a kind of free-floating \"meme,\" linked at various times to criminals in general; to a record label; and even to a Bruce Springsteen song. The 1940-1941 trials inspired a wave of media coverage, several books and memoirs, and a sub-genre of the gangster film. The trials concluded with a notorious and unsolved murder mystery. Murder, Inc. narrates the life and times of the Brooklyn gang, and also relates their lives both to New York's Roaring Twenties and Depression era gangs and to the wider \"gangster\" culture expressed especially in the film. At the same time, Murder, Inc., is a moral reflection on the gangsters; the gangbusters, like Fiorello La Guardia and Thomas Dewey, who opposed them; and popular culture's fascination with \"gangsterism.\" It is especially this combination of crime story and moral reflection that makes Murder, Inc. unique.

No detailed description available for \"Maras\".

This book provides a comprehensive sociological explanation for the emergence and continuation of organized crime in Chicago. Tracing the roots of political corruption that afforded protection to gambling, prostitution, and other vice activity in Chicago and other large American cities, Robert M. Lombardo challenges the dominant belief that organized crime in America descended directly from the Sicilian Mafia. According to this widespread \"alien conspiracy\" theory, organized crime evolved in a linear fashion beginning with the Mafia in Sicily, emerging in the form of the Black Hand in America's immigrant colonies, and culminating in the development of the Cosa Nostra in America's urban centers._x000B__x000B_Looking beyond this Mafia paradigm, this volume argues that the development of organized crime in Chicago and other large American cities was rooted in the social structure of American society. Specifically, Lombardo ties organized crime to the emergence of machine politics in America's urban centers. From nineteenth-century vice syndicates to the modern-day Outfit, Chicago's criminal underworld could not have existed without the blessing of those who controlled municipal, county, and state government. These practices were not imported from Sicily, Lombardo contends, but were bred in the socially disorganized slums of America where elected officials routinely franchised vice and crime in exchange for money and votes. This book also traces the history of the African-American community's participation in traditional organized crime in Chicago and offers new perspectives on the organizational structure of the Chicago Outfit, the traditional organized crime group in Chicago._x000B_

A study of how the state at the central and local levels has responded to the changing patterns and activities of cross-border crime in Greater China. It discusses the theoretical concept of organized crime; the transnational nature of organized crime; and, the significance of studying organized crime in Greater China.

Master story teller Marc Mappen applies a generational perspective to the gangsters of the Prohibition era-men born in the quarter century span from 1880 to 1905-who came to power with the Eighteenth Amendment.On January 16, 1920, the Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution went into effect in the United States, \"outlawing the manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors.\" A group of young criminals from immigrant backgrounds in cities around the nation stepped forward to disobey the law of the land in order to provide alcohol to thirsty Americans.Today the names of these young men-Al Capone, Lucky Luciano, Dutch Schultz, Legs Diamond, Nucky Johnson-are more familiar than ever, thanks in part to such cable programs asBoardwalk Empire. Here, Mappen strips way the many myths and legends from television and movies to describe the lives these gangsters lived and the battles they fought. Placing their criminal activities within the context of the issues facing the nation, from the Great Depression, government crackdowns, and politics to sexual morality, immigration, and ethnicity, he also recounts what befell this villainous group as the decades unwound.Making use of FBI and other government files, trial transcripts, and the latest scholarship, the book provides a lively narrative of shootouts, car chases, courtroom clashes, wire tapping, and rub-outs in the roaring 1920s, the Depression of the 1930s, and beyond. Mappen asserts that Prohibition changed organized crime in America. Although their activities were mercenary and violent, and they often sought to kill one another, the Prohibition generation built partnerships, assigned territories, and negotiated treaties, however short lived. They were able to transform the loosely associated gangs of the pre-Prohibition era into sophisticated, complex syndicates. In doing so, they inspired an enduring icon-the gangster-in American popular culture and demonstrated the nation's ideals of innovation and initiative.View a three minute video of Marc Mappen speaking aboutProhibition Gangsters.

In the Godfather Gardenis the true story of the life of Richie \"the Boot\" Boiardo, one of the most powerful and feared men in the New Jersey underworld. The Boot cut his teeth battling the Jewish gang lord Abner Longy Zwillman on the streets of Newark during Prohibition and endured to become one of the East Coast's top mobsters, his reign lasting six decades.To the press and the police, this secretive Don insisted he was nothing more than a simple man who enjoyed puttering about in his beloved vegetable garden on his Livingston, New Jersey, estate. In reality, the Boot was a confidante and kingmaker of politicians, a friend of such celebrities as Joe DiMaggio and George Raft, an acquaintance of Joseph Valachi-who informed on the Boot in 1963-and a sworn enemy of J. Edgar Hoover.The Boot prospered for more than half a century, remaining an active boss until the day he died at the age of ninety-three. Although he operated in the shadow of bigger Mafia names across the Hudson River (think Charles \"Lucky\" Luciano and Louis \"Lepke\" Buchalter, a cofounder of the Mafia killer squad Murder Inc. with Jacob \"Gurrah\" Shapiro), the Boot was equally as brutal and efficient. In fact, there was a mysterious place in the gloomy woods behind his lovely garden-a furnace where many thought the Boot took certain people who were never seen again.Richard Linnett provides an intimate look inside the Boot's once-powerful Mafia crew, based on the recollections of a grandson of the Boot himself and complemented by never-before-published family photos. Chronicled here are the Prohibition gang wars in New Jersey as well as the murder of Dutch Schultz, a Mafia conspiracy to assassinate Newark mayor Kenneth Gibson, and the mob connections to several prominent state politicians.Although the Boot never saw the 1972 release ofThe Godfather, he appreciated the similarities between the character of Vito Corleone and himself, so much so that he hung a sign in his beloved vegetable garden that read \"The Godfather Garden.\" There's no doubt he would have relished David Chase's admission that his muse in creating the HBO seriesThe Sopranoswas none other than \"Newark's erstwhile Boiardo crew.\"

This true crime history chronicles more than a century in the life of a small Midwestern city with an outsized reputation for violence and vice.   Gambling, prostitution and bootlegging have been going on in Steubenville for well over century. In its heyday, the city's Water Street red-light district drew men from hundreds of miles away, as well as underage runaways. The white slave trade was rampant, and along with all the vice crimes, murders became a weekly occurrence. This revealing history chronicles the rise of Steubenville's prodigious underworld from the 1890s to the modern day.   By the turn of the century, Steubenville's law enforcement seemed to turn a blind eye, and cries of political corruption were heard in the state capital. This scenario replayed itself over and over again during the past century as mobsters and madams ruled and murders plagued the city and surrounding county at an alarming rate. Newspapers nationwide would come to nickname this mecca of murder \"Little Chicago.\"

In the past two decades, many prevention and suppression programs have been initiated on a national and local level to combat street gangs—but what do we really know about them? Why do youths join them? Why do they proliferate? This book is a crucial update and critical examination of our understanding of gangs and major gang-control programs across the nation. Often perceived solely as an urban issue, street gangs are also a suburban and rural dilemma. The chapters focus on gang proliferation, migration, and crime patterns, and highlight known risk factors that lead youths to form and join gangs within communities. Dispelling the long-standing assumptions that the public, the media, and law enforcement have about street gangs, they present a comprehensive overview of how gangs are organized and structured. They assess the major gang programs across the nation and argue that existing prevention, intervention, and suppression methods targeting individuals, groups, and communities, have been largely ineffective. They then close by offering valuable policy guidelines for practitioners on how to intervene and control gangs more successfully. The book fills an important gap in the literature on street gangs and social control.