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Figure 1: The city of Chicago in the 1920s
Introduction
Introduction
In the United States, the 1920s was a period of social, economic, and cultural change; new laws that were introduced during this period created major opportunities for criminal enterprises to grow wealthy and powerful. Criminal groups would often profit off of illegal businesses and used violence and corruption of political officials to keep eyes turned. Understanding the importance of this era shaped the future of policing, law enforcement, and crime prevention in general.
Prohibition
Prohibition
The 18th Amendment established Prohibition, specifically, it stated that it banned the manufacture, sale, and transportation of “intoxicating liquors.” This amendment sparked outrage as many Americans, mostly men, consumed large amounts of alcohol. The average teen and adult in the United States consumed over twenty-two gallons of beer every year. This statistic is still not including other types of alcohol such as wine or spirits. But, men drinking too much caused problems. Men would often come home drunk from work or a bar and their wives were not pleased with their behavior. There was a strong coalition of religious groups, women’s rights advocates, and progressive industrialists, otherwise known as business leaders such as Henry Ford, that all viewed drinking alcohol as a problem. They believed that alcohol was one of the roots of societal issues, like poverty and political corruption. Furthermore, they correlated alcohol consumption with the origins of family problems, such as the claim that alcohol fueled domestic abuse of children and drained the wallets of families. Because of the lack of women’s rights, this behavior often resulted in them leaving their wives and kids impoverished. At the time, divorce had strict legal restrictions. The partner had to prove that the other committed a crime, such as abandonment or adultery. As a result, many of these women could not divorce their husbands because alcohol was not viewed as a crime worth getting divorced over. These women pushed for change, believing that a ban on alcohol would improve health, improve the productivity of workers, and fix all of the other familial problems believed to stem from alcohol abuse. This strong alliance convinced lawmakers to pass the 18th amendment, officially banning all alcohol.
Figure 2: A 1932 protest against the 18th amendment
Figure 3: A picture of Al Capone
The Rise of Al Capone
The Rise of Al Capone
Al Capone was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1899 to an immigrant family. He left his school after the sixth grade and joined street gangs. Al Capone worked for the gang leader, Johnny Torrio, and later moved to Chicago, Illinois around 1920. He became involved in many of the crimes during prohibition. Some of the major crimes that he was involved in included bootlegging, gambling, prostitution, bribery, drug trafficking, and extortion. Torrio took control of the Chicago mob; Capone became one of Torrio’s leaders and gained experience in organized crime. In 1925, Torrio retired, leaving the seat for Capone. Capone quickly expanded his control of the Chicago area through violence and intimidation. One of the major killings that was organized by Capone was the St. Valentine's Day Massacre. On February 14, 1929(Valentine’s day), seven associates of a rival gang, run by Bugs Moran, were murdered by gunmen pretending to be police officers. This is just one of the times Capone was involved in mass killings. Federal authorities, specifically the FBI, had a troublesome time when trying to prosecute Capone from his gang-related crimes. In the first case against Al Capone, Capone was caught trying to delay appearing under a grand jury by calling in sick. It was exposed that he was not bedridden like he said, leading to his first arrest. Furthermore, Capone was arrested for carrying concealed weapons in Philadelphia. The first major case that authorities were able to convict him on was for tax evasion on his illegal income. Capone was sentenced to 11 years in federal prison, some of which were in Alcatraz. In 1939, he was released early and died in Florida later due to a stroke and pneumonia.
Prior to the 18th Amendment, the FBI was not as prevalent as it is today. Previously, the agency was known as the Bureau of Investigation (BOI), a much smaller, and less powerful organization. The Bureau only had a few hundred investigators and were not allowed to carry firearms. Additionally, they did not have broad arrest powers, such as arresting without a warrant. However, this era changed after the effects of prohibition started to take its toll on organized crime. In Chicago alone, there were about 1,300 operational gangs and many of the biggest ones had enough money to buy advanced weapons, such as the iconic Tommy Gun. The FBI was reformed in 1924 because gangs would frequently bribe politicians, police officers, judges, and beyond, which would make law enforcement challenging. Competition of territory and alcohol was also taking its toll on the streets, often leading to violent gang wars. Due to the immense amount of crimes, J. Edgar Hoover stepped up to reform the BOI into the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) that exists in the present day. He established formal agent training and maintained strict hiring standards. He also made improvements to crime statistic collection and established a brand new national fingerprinting database for criminals and scientific forensic laboratories. Overall, these improvements to the Bureau indirectly led to the arrests of major crime lords such as Ma and Fred Barker and Alvin Karpis. The FBI is still used today for counterterrorism, counterintelligence, and other investigative crimes.
Figure 4: A 1927 Map that reveals the hide-outs of Chicago's most notourious gangsters
Figure 5.1: A timeline showing the effects of prohibition
Figure 5.2: A picture of the infamous "Tommy gun"
Figure 6: Estimated U.S. Homicide Rate 1900-40
Crime
Crime
The effects of gang warfare in Chicago, New York, and other major cities were detrimental to the well being of the people. But, there were many crimes that were being used to fund this gang violence, almost all of which stemmed directly from prohibition. One of the most common crimes in the 1920s was bootlegging. Bootlegging was the illegal production and distribution of alcohol, which became illegal because of the 18th Amendment. Criminals would often bootleg, becoming one of the most profitable criminal businesses. One of the most iconic ways to sell this bootlegged alcohol would be through speakeasies. Speakeasies were secret bars that you could buy alcohol at. These establishments were most often run by criminal enterprises and they would use the profits to pay off officials and other crime organizations while still bringing in loads of profits. After they had grown their wealth with bootlegging, it wouldn’t be long until many gangs would start using other crimes for even more wealth such as gambling, prostitution, and extortion. This time was an organized, profitable, and very violent era of crime.
Significance
Significance
The era of organized crime in the 1920s had a huge impact on the current U.S. government and law enforcement. Prohibition created major opportunities for the strengthening of criminal enterprises and gangs, leading to one of the most violent times of American history. Criminal leaders, such as Al Capone, gained power through the new crimes that became available, specifically bootlegging. The new found rise of crime greatly exposed the weakness in both local and federal law enforcement. The federal government responded to this by helping more with the prevention and mitigation of this sort of major organized crime. The FBI grew stronger and brand new strategies were founded in relation to crime that later paved the way to the way we do it in modern times. Due to the effects of the 18th Amendment, the government quickly repealed it with the 21st amendment, showing that the government realized the importance of making laws that are practical and are reasonably enforceable, setting a precedent for modern law making today.
Figure 7: A newspaper published after the 21st amendment
Annotated Bilbiography
Tools, H. (2024, May 25). Prohibition and the Rise of Organized Crime in America: A Historian‘s Perspective - History Tools. Www.historytools.org. https://www.historytools.org/stories/prohibition-and-the-rise-of-organized-crime-in-america-a-historians-perspective
The FBI and the American Gangster, 1924-1938 — FBI. (2016). Fbi.gov. https://www.fbi.gov/history/history-of-the-fbi/the-fbi-and-the-american-gangster
Al Capone | Federal Bureau of Investigation. (2016). Federal Bureau of Investigation. https://www.fbi.gov/history/cases-and-criminals/al-capone
Prohibition and Its Effects | Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History. (2025). Gilderlehrman.org. https://www.gilderlehrman.org/history-resources/essays/prohibition-and-its-effects
Roos, D. (2019, January 14). How Prohibition Put the “Organized” in Organized Crime | HISTORY. HISTORY. https://www.history.com/articles/prohibition-organized-crime-al-capone
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