Real history question - how did organized crime adapt to the end of prohibition?

raharris1973

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How did American organized crime which flourished during prohibition by serving the thirst of Americans adapt to the end of prohibition and the reemergence of completely legal competition?

How did the rates of violent crime, property crime and white collar crime compare in the ten 15 years after the lifting of prohibition in 1933 compared with the 15 years before repeal?

Similarly, what country has had the most dramatic drug legalization ever and when. And what happened to crime in that country?

Not asking for theory. Really not. Asking for data. For history.
 
Based on data reported by the Census Bureau, it looks like the overall crime rate dropped relatively sharply in the immediate aftermath of Prohibition and stayed low through the 1950s before increasing sharply in the 1960s-1970s. The caveat to this is that it tracks crimes commonly reported to police (murder, rape, vehicle theft, etc.), and not organized crime. For obvious reasons, statistics on things like racketeering and human trafficking are hard to come by, and if you go by popular perception the mob remained a powerful force until the 1970s.
 
How did American organized crime which flourished during prohibition by serving the thirst of Americans adapt to the end of prohibition and the reemergence of completely legal competition? ...

The 'mobs' had not abandoned their earlier rackets. Prostitution, gambling, loansharking, large scale theft, other smuggling, ect... Continuing those kept the mobs going. A few adapted by turning their illegal distilleries into legit business at repeal.
 
A post of mine from last year:

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There was an alternative to liquor for gangs like Capone's--milk!

"After a few weeks, Capone turned the operation [the soup kitchen for the unemployed he established on South State Street in 1930] over to United Charities. But the experience of (briefly) running the soup kitchen convinced him real money was to be made ... selling milk.

"'You gotta have a product that everybody needs every day,' he would say. 'We don't have it in booze.... But with milk! Every family every day wants it on the table.'

"By the following spring, the Outfit had begun establishing its own business, which in later years would come to control a large portion of the Chicago milk market. While forcing its competitors out of business, it got the city to adopt higher quality standards and labels for dairy products-—though Capone, and his supposed concern for Chicago's milk-drinking children, would retroactively get credit.

"As Al would often remark to his close associates, 'Do you guys know there's a bigger markup in fresh milk than there is in alcohol? Honest to God, we've been in the wrong racket right along.'"

Max Allen Collins and A. Brad Schwartz, Scarface and the Untouchable: Al Capone, Eliot Ness, and the Battle for Chicago, p. 305

(The Outfit's involvement in the Chicago-area dairy industry didn't really flourish though until Al was on his way to prison, and had at least as much to do with Ralph Capone as with his more famous brother: "In the early 1930s, he [Al Capone] extended his Midwestern empire by making moves to acquire a milk processor, Meadowmoor Dairies, Inc., along with his brother and other gangsters. According to the Douglas County Museum of Illinois, the hustle was that Ralph Capone would ship in milk from neighboring Wisconsin, which was cheaper. They then bottled it in Meadowmoor’s facilities. That way, the Capones could bypass local fixed dairy pricing and also halt the milkmen’s union from distributing only local milk. Former Chicago police officer and mafia associate Fred Pascente corroborates this in his memoir, detailing how Meadowmoor “was actually a Capone front organization designed to undercut the city’s reigning milk cartel.” https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/al-ralph-capone-dairy-industry-milk-cheese)

So here's my what-if: A no-Prohibition 1920's where the Capone brothers make their big money in milk from the very beginning--and Eliot Ness becomes famous for chasing down illegal milk trucks from Wisconsin and busting up dairy plants as fantastic amounts of milk flow into the sewers...
 
The 'mobs' had not abandoned their earlier rackets. Prostitution, gambling, loansharking, large scale theft, other smuggling, ect... Continuing those kept the mobs going. A few adapted by turning their illegal distilleries into legit business at repeal.
We often forget the lucrative nature of bookmaking (gambling). Bookies fed no horses, maintained no racetracks and paid no taxes. They could pay track odds (or better!) and still profit. As long as there was a market interested in horse racing, the mobs could thrive even if they weren't the only suppliers of alcohol. World War II brought rationing and a growing black market. Consumer shortages in the late forties and early fifties did the same. The key to the success of the mobs was local control of commodities that had a demand among customers who protected their sources by staying quiet.

By the late fifties, emerging consumer prosperity, suburbanization and the decline in popularity of bookmaking would erode the ability of the mobs to sustain themselves. As black markets moved to illegal drugs, the clientele became too unreliable for the traditional mobs. So they declined. Today's drug cartels are a totally different breed.
 
Milk, casinos, labor racketeering, drug trafficking...wherever the mob can make money, they will be involved. So to answer the question, they adapted just fine after the prohibition on alcohol ended. Sure, it may have dented their profits, but the wisest amongst them saw it coming and invested in other ventures legal or not. In general I'd suggest that their power was greatest when it came to labor racketeering, as that played a huge role in the rest of what they got up to.
 

raharris1973

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How did the rate of inter mob murders and collateral killings of bystanders change after the end of prohibition?

Here I am trying to see if there is any valid demonstrated analogy for a major violence reducing effect for legalizing or decriminalizing a market in marijuana or harder drugs.
 

raharris1973

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Portugal’s decriminalisation is normally pointed to as data.

How did the rates of violent crime, property crime and white collar crime in Portugal compare in the 15 years after the drug decriminalization compared with the 15 years before decriminalization?
 
How did the rate of inter mob murders and collateral killings of bystanders change after the end of prohibition?

Here I am trying to see if there is any valid demonstrated analogy for a major violence reducing effect for legalizing or decriminalizing a market in marijuana or harder drugs.

Prohibition happened in the middle of the Great Depression, which makes it difficult to isolate any effect on crime rates. You already had waves of bank robberies ongoing.
 

raharris1973

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Prohibition happened in the middle of the Great Depression, which makes it difficult to isolate any effect on crime rates. You already had waves of bank robberies ongoing.

That's true. I'm familiar with the bank robberies. I saw Big Bad Mama and Big Bad Mama II


 

raharris1973

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Clearly not a fan of Angie Dickinson B movies here. In any case, I repeat my question.

How did the rates of violent crime, property crime and white collar crime in Portugal compare in the 15 years after the drug decriminalization compared with the 15 years before decriminalization?
 
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