How Did Prohibition Aid the Growth of Organised Crime, and How, in Turn, Did This Undermine the Strongly Entrenched Public Morality Informing the Prohibition Debate?

How did Prohibition aid the growth of organised crime, and how, in turn, did this undermine the strongly entrenched public morality informing the prohibition debate?

To try and understand ‘prohibition’ and its impact upon the country and its people we need to first have a look at some background information of events that led up to   Prohibition becoming law in 1920, and how organised crime played its part in undermining these laws.
Between 1901-1913 1.1 million Sicilians emigrated abroad, 800,000 of these end up on American shores. Inevitably with such large numbers arriving, it was only a matter of time before communities started to appear. Within these communities still lay the ideologies of their previous existences, with Sicilains the main ones being organised crime and protection rackets. This was something they were used too and to a degree probably expected, even with their new start. With the majority of Italian Immigrants landing at Ellis Island, New York it was only a matter of time before they made their presence felt. With language and cultural barriers to overcome they tended to stick together in their newly formed communities. One of the main communities they formed, which was to be known as ‘Little Italy’ was situated in the Mulberry bend area off Mulberry Street in New York. This was a run down area which had been an Irish slum   since the 1830’s. The Irish start to vacate this area once the Sicilians move in. When they do the standard of living increases substantially, house and rental prices start to rise, sanitation is introduced as well as education.   This area is made more famous by the 2002 film ‘Gangs of New York’ directed by Martin Scorcese, in which it shows the battle for the streets around the infamous ‘Five points’. This is a very good film that shows the hardships, crime, racial segregation and violence and hatred that was going on in the U.S at this time, especially towards immigrants.
Now this area is becoming more prosperous the... [continues]

Read full essay