The Role Of The Mafia In The 1920's

Did you know in the 1920’s two hundred and twenty seven gangsters were killed in the space of four years in Chicago(Chamernik, Mike). The period of Prohibition was very important part of America’s history . During Prohibition there was the mafia and their notorious characters such as Al Capone and the young Federal Bureau of Investigation. In the 1920’s during the period of prohibition a new kind of Gangsters came about which specialized in illegally transportation and selling of alcohol.
Prohibition in the 1920’s played a huge role by increasing criminal activity. In January of 1920 the American government banned sale and supply of alcohol, which was known as the Eighteenth amendment. The government thought this would reduce crime and violence
The Mafia is an Italian-American organized-crime network with operations in places all around the United States, especially in New York and Chicago. The reason why the Italians got involved with the Mafia in America is because in Italy, the Sicilian Mafia was under attack by Benito Mussolini. Some of them escaped to the United States, and joined the American Mafia in things such as bootlegging, smuggling, money laundering, and bribing police. In the 1920’s is when the Mafia really started to get organized. What happened was a struggle known as the Castellammarese War broke out between New York City’s two biggest Italian-American criminal gangs. In 1931, a Sicilian-born crime boss Salvatore Maranzano came out on top and he called himself boss of all bosses, in New York. Another mobster called Lucky Luciano was unhappy with this and he had him murdered that year. Luciano then formed a central organization called the Commission to be a board of directors for the American Mafia. By then the Mafia already had at least 20 crime families across the United States. In New York, which had the most crime, was separated into five main Mafia families. Other than that there was just one crime family per city. The Commission’s job was to set policies and take care of disagreements between the different mafia families. Some rituals that they had before you could join the mafia were to
The FBI had just been created and were young so they didn't really know what they were doing yet. J. Edgar Hoover moved up through the ranks pretty fast and became the Director of the FBI. When Hoover became Director he weeded out all the political hacks and laid down strict rules for agents. He made all agents have background checks, interviews, and physical tests. Hoover took over in 1924, the Bureau had about 650 employees, including 441 special agents. Within five years it had just 339 special agents and less than 600 total employees. Some things they came up with to find and catch criminals were Fingerprints. All prisoners were fingerprinted so they could be kept track of and they were all recorded. By the time they were done they had more than 800,000 individual records. Another thing they did was created a scientific crime lab. The lab provided scientific examinations and analysis for the Bureau and its partners around the country. In just a few years, thanks to the successful battle against gangsters, the Bureau became very popular. Congress then gave new powers which gave them the abilities to carry guns and make arrests. In July 1935 the organization was renamed to the Federal Bureau of