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Mafia's in The United States (Website Review 1)

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Mafia's in The United States (Website Review 1)

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This article gave a great overview of what the American Mafia was and how it arose, what it is and how it effected people. The American Mafia was an Italian- American group of people who committed organized crimes throughout cities, most commonly Chicago and New York City. After the Prohibition law was passed, Mafia's ventured into other crimes such as drugs and illegal gambling. This website talked about immigration, prohibition, how it was organized, the Mafia's dominance, rules of the Mafia, and how it was ended. What I found most interesting was the rules of the Mafia. Each Mafia family was ran by a "boss" with an underboss, few captains who controlled a crew of soldiers and associates. In order to be accepted, they had to perform an initiation ceremony of pricking your blood and hold a burning picture of a patron saint, swear to obey omerta, and occasionally commit a murder.

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Mafia in the United States - Facts & Summary - HISTORY.com

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Find out more about the history of Mafia in the United States, including videos, interesting articles, pictures, historical features and more. Get all the facts on HISTORY.com

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This website gave a good amount of information on how business worked in Mafia's in the early 1920s.  The most important part of business was the protection.  Mafia's would be paid to protect storeowners or others from other mobsters and other crimes.  The Mafia would be paid from a share of the storeowners business.  Therefore, if a Mafia was protecting an underground gambler, they would receive a share made from that business.  Mafia's would often work with alcohol, labor unions, robbery, gambling, etc.  The website did a really good job of explaining certain aspects of the Mafia.  It was organized so it is easy to find a certain topic while looking for it.  It gave few visuals, but that is the only problem I found when researching.

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Dan Bryan, March 8 2012

There were rumors of something new and sinister in New Orleans. The Sicilians were behind it all, they said. The Sicilians who had crowded into the French Quarter and made their own, personal territory. There was a "war" between two rivals and then one day in 1890, it blew out in the open.

The police chief of New Orleans was shot dead -- "A dago..." were his dying words. The fury of the white New Orleans crowd was touched off by this revelation. 300 Italians were rounded up and arrested and sensational headlines emerged. America at large began to learn about the "mafia".

After nine acquittals blamed on jury tampering, a mob stormed the jail and attacked, killing eleven Italian prisoners. Two of them were hung from lampposts in the street, and the cheers of the crowd were said to be deafening.

Into the Great American Melting Pot

Four million Italian immigrants arrived in the United States between 1880 and 1920. With a lukewarm reception awaiting, most found themselves crammed into the urban ghettos of the big American cities. The most populous and famous of these was "Little Italy" on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. It was here that the most infamous mafias would be formed.

Life was rough for the new arrivals. They crowded into apartments that were usually decrepit. Men worked in construction and in the factories. Many women worked as seamstresses. Seventy hours a week was commonplace. Sunday was the only respite.

The first illegal activities were fairly simple, and they were usually directed at the Italian immigrants themselves. A letter would arrive, specifying an amount of money to be delivered to a given place. If the money was not delivered, the recipient of the letter would be assaulted or killed. Most commonly targeted were the owners of successful businesses.

Business of the Mafia

What did the mafia actually do?

Even before Prohibition, the organizations were becoming increasingly sophisticated. The first responsibility was always protection. When a storeowner or an individual paid money to a certain branch of the mafia for "protection", a bond was created between the two parties that entailed responsibilities. The mafia was to protect the storeowner from extortion by other mobsters, petty crimes, and problems with police or other citizens. In practice, the quality of the protection received could vary quite a bit.

Protection or tribute was the basis for all other mafia activities. If someone ran a prostitution ring in a certain area, they paid the mafia a share. If they ran an underground gambling establishment, they paid the mafia a share. The person doing this was often in the lower level of the mafia themselves, but sometimes they were independent entrepreneurs who paid their share to operate free of harassment.

With that explained, here are some of the things that the mafia was associated with, beyond everyday extortion of local businesses:

Alcohol - sales of alcohol during Prohibition are widely credited with giving mobsters power and wealth beyond their dreams. Al Capone may be the most famous of the 1920s gangsters, but many others were not far behind him, and it was in this era that the mobster first entered into widespread American consciousness.

Labor union organizing - many Italians worked in the shipping, construction, and trucking industries, and it was only natural that they should wish to organize. Independent attempts to do so were often crushed by management. Mafia intimidation helped to rectify this problem. As de facto leaders of many unions, the mobsters could profit in a number of different ways. For a time, no construction in New York City could proceed without their approval.

Robbery - Not so much petty street robbery. Through connections (in the unions and elsewhere), the mafia was often aware of when a valuable shipment would arrive through the ports, or via rail and truck. When this happened, the businesses doing the shipment could sometimes pay the mafia "protection" money not to harass their shipments, or they could be robbed. This was a win-win proposition from the mafia's point of view.

Gambling or "the numbers" - No state had a lottery in the first part of the 20th century. The mob filled this vacuum by operating "numbers" and taking bets. Numerous bookies handled these bets and provided a cut to the mob. An individual could also bet on baseball, boxing, horse racing, or other popular pastimes with the bookies. Though the numbers were much reviled at the time as a game that leeched money from the poor, the payout % on most state lotteries is lower than on the mafia's numbers game.

Prostitution - Self-explanatory. This was usually managed on the street level, with the mafia receiving a cut from the local pimps.

Loan sharking - The "six-for-five" loans became standard. Repayment was expected promptly, but could be delayed indefinitely if exorbitant interest charges were paid instead. The origin of the famous, "breaking of the knees" idiom.

Drug trafficking - In the early 20th century, the drug trade was usually confined a very small era of the city. Often this was by design of the mafia, who preferred to see it concentrated in the ethnic ghettos, in cooperation with the police departments.

Vice Districts and the Police

These endeavors made the mafia an organization that featured prominently in the lives of America's poor and of its lowlifes. Many of the businesses went hand-in-hand and supported each other. For instance, people might borrow money to purchase drugs or to gamble with. Those who owed money might tip the mafia off to a valuable shipment, if they had that knowledge, in return for leniency. Those who visited prostitutes could be extorted, if their position was of enough importance.

There was a massive amount of cooperation with the urban police departments, to the point that the line between cop and mobster could be fuzzy. The police did not have any hopes of eradicating alcohol consumption, gambling, or the associated vices so they endeavored to contain them in the "vice districts" of a city. These would always be in the poorer neighborhoods, and the very ones where the mafia was so firmly entrenched.

In return for a cut of the profits, the police became the protectors of the mob. It was easier to accept a hundred dollars to ignore a robbery, than it was to risk one's life in an attempt to arrest the perpetrators. The former course of action enhanced the prosperity and livelihood of the officer. In a way, it acted as a supplement to his salary that the taxpayers of the time were unable to provide.

The Mafia as an Inhibitor to Economic Activity

Who lost the most from these practices? Businesses of course. Businesses who had to pay more due to union violence. Businesses who saw their profits cut into from theft and extortion. Businesses who had to pay more for insurance due to insurance fraud on the part of mob.

In many cases, these were the same businesses who busted strikes when they could, who worked Italian immigrants to the bone, six days a week. Who looked the other way when safety violations occurred, even as men died on the job.

To the mob and their Sicilian brethren, this was hardly a concern. Life was seen as a brutal, violent competition where the strongest and craftiest survive at the expense of others. And they lived and died by that philosophy.

About the Author

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The American Mafia in the Early 20th Century

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Dan Bryan, March 8 2012 There were rumors of something new and sinister in New Orleans. The Sicilians were behind it all, they said. The Sicilians who had crowded into the French Quarter and made their own, personal territory. There was a "war" between two rivals and then one day in 1890, it blew out in the open.

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Al Capone is arguably the most famous American mobster.  Also known as "Scarface", Al Capone was an immigrant from Italy who grew up in Brooklyn, New York.  Greatly known for his brutal killings, Capone led a massacre and was never charged for it.  The St. Valentine Massacre stunned the nation, although Capone wasn't at the scene, he was the obvious leader of these murders and was never charged for his crimes.  Although he wasn't charged for the many murders, he was charged and arrested for tax evasion.  This website gives a great amount of information regarding Al Capone's early life, many crimes, and death.

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Who Was Al Capone?

Al Capone was one of the most famous American gangsters who rose to infamy as the leader of the Chicago Outfit during the Prohibition era. Before being sent to Alcatraz Prison in 1934 for a tax evasion conviction, he had amassed a personal fortune estimated at $100 million as the head of the infamous crime syndicate.

Early Life and Education

Capone was born in Brooklyn, New York, on January 17, 1899.

Many New York gangsters in the early 20th Century came from impoverished backgrounds, but this was not the case for the Capone. Far from being a poor immigrant from Italy who turned to crime to make a living, Capone was from a respectable, professional family. His father, Gabriele, was one of the thousands of Italians who arrived in New York in 1894. He was 30 years old, educated and from Naples, where he had earned a living as a barber. His wife Teresa was pregnant and already bringing up two sons: two-year-old son Vincenzo and infant son Raffaele.

The Capone family lived near the Brooklyn Navy Yard. It was a tough place given over to the vices sought by sailor characters that frequented the surrounding bars. The family was a regular, law-abiding, albeit noisy Italian-American clan, and there were few indications that the young Capone would venture into a world of crime and become public enemy number one. Certainly the family's move to a more ethnically mixed area of the city exposed the young Capone to wider cultural influences, no doubt equipping him with the means to run a notorious criminal empire.

But it was Capone's schooling, both inadequate and brutal at a Catholic institution beset with violence that marred the impressionable young man. Despite having been a promising student, he was expelled at the age of 14 for hitting a female teacher, and he never went back.

The Scar on Capone's Face

In a youthful scrape in a brothel-saloon, a young hoodlum slashed Capone with a knife or razor across his left cheek, prompting the later nickname "Scarface."

Capone and Johnny Torrio

At age 14, Capone met the gangster Johnny Torrio, which would prove the greatest influence on the would-be gangland boss. Torrio taught Capone the importance of maintaining a respectable front while running a racketeering business. The slightly-built Torrio represented a new dawn in criminal enterprise, transforming a violently crude culture into a corporate empire. Capone joined Torrio's James Street Boys gang, rising eventually to the Five Points Gang.

Torrio moved from New York to Chicago in 1909 to help run the giant brothel business there and, in 1920, sent for Capone. It was rumored that Capone or Frankie Yale killed Big Jim Colosimo, Torrio's boss, that year, making way for Torrio's rule.

Wife

In 1918, Capone married middle-class Irish girl Mae Coughlin and settled down as a bookkeeper, taking a brief hiatus from his gangster role. However, Capone soon returned to working for his old boss, Johnny Torrio, following the unexpected death of his father. Al and Mae had one child together, Sonny, and remained married until Capone's death.

Prohibition and Chicago Gangster

As Prohibition began in 1919 after the 18th amendment went into effect, new bootlegging operations opened up and drew in immense wealth. In 1925 Torrio retired, and Capone became crime czar of Chicago, running gambling, prostitution and bootlegging rackets and expanding his territories by the gunning down of rivals and rival gangs.

As Capone's reputation grew, he still insisted on being unarmed as a mark of his status. But he never went anywhere without at least two bodyguards and was even sandwiched between bodyguards when traveling by car. He preferred to travel under the cover of night, risking travel by day only when absolutely necessary. With his business acumen, Al became Torrio's partner and took over as manager of the Four Deuces - Torrio's headquarters in Chicago's Levee area. The Four Deuces served as a speakeasy, gambling joint and whorehouse under one roof.

Elected Office in Cicero

A crackdown on racketeering in Chicago meant that Capone's first mobster job was to move operations to Cicero, Illinois. With the assistance of his brothers Frank (Salvatore) and Ralph, Capone infiltrated the government and police departments. Between them, they took leading positions within Cicero city government in addition to running brothels, gambling clubs and racetracks.

Capone kidnapped opponents' election workers and threatened voters with violence. He eventually won office in Cicero, but not before his brother Frank had been killed in a shootout with Chicago's police force.

Capone prided himself on keeping his temper under wraps, but when friend and fellow hood Jack Guzik was assaulted by a small-time thug, Capone tracked the assailant down and shot him dead in a bar. Due to a lack of witnesses, Capone got away with the murder, but the publicity surrounding the case gave him a notoriety that he never had before.

Takeover for Torrio

After an attempted assassination of Capone's friend and mentor Torrio, the frail man left his legacy of nightclubs, whorehouses, gambling dens, breweries and speakeasies to Capone.

Capone's newfound status saw him moving his headquarters to Chicago's luxurious Metropole Hotel as part of his personal crusade to become more visible and court celebrity. This included fraternizing with the press and being seen at places like the opera. Capone was different from many gangsters who avoided publicity: Always smartly dressed, he set out to be viewed as a respectable businessman and pillar of the community.

Bootlegging New York Whiskey

Capone's next mission involved bootleg whiskey. With the help of his old friend Frankie Yale in New York, Al set out to smuggle huge quantities into Chicago. The events would lead to what became known as The Adonis Club Massacre, where Capone had Yale's enemies brutally attacked during a Christmas party.

Capone's bootlegging whiskey trail from Chicago to New York was making him rich, but an incident involving Billy McSwiggin, known as the "hanging prosecutor," was to prove a major setback for the unassailable gangster. McSwiggin was mistakenly shot and killed by Capone's henchmen during a shoot out between rivals outside a bar. Capone was blamed, but once again due to lack of evidence, he escaped arrest. However the murder was followed by a big outcry against gangster violence, and public sentiment went against Capone.

High-profile investigations against Capone failed. The police, therefore, took their frustrations out by constantly raiding his whorehouses and gambling dens. Capone went into hiding for three months during the summer. But eventually, he took a huge risk and gave himself up to the Chicago police. It proved to be the right decision as the authorities did not have enough evidence to charge him. Capone was once again a free man, having made a mockery of the police and justice system.

Peace and Murder

Ironically, Capone took on the role of peacemaker, appealing to the other gangsters to tone down their violence. He even managed to broker an amnesty between rival gangsters, and for two months the killing and violence ceased. But Chicago was firmly in the grip of gangsters and Capone appeared beyond the reach of the law. Soon infighting between rival gangsters escalated into street violence and frequent hijackings of Capone's whiskey transports became a big problem.

One major thorn in the side for Capone was Yale. Once a powerful associate, he was now seen as the main instigator of disruptions to Capone's whiskey business. One Sunday afternoon, Yale met his end with the first use of a "Tommy gun" against him.

St. Valentine's Day Massacre

Capone also had to deal with rival gangster Bugs Moran and his North Siders gang, who had been a threat for years. Moran had even once tried to kill Capone's colleague and friend Jack McGurn. The decision by Capone and McGurn to avail themselves of Moran was to lead to one of the most infamous gangland massacres in history - the St. Valentine's Day Massacre.

On Thursday, February 14, 1929, at 10:30 in the morning, Moran and his gang were lured by a bootlegger into a garage to buy whiskey. McGurn's men would be waiting for them, dressed in stolen police uniforms; the idea being that they would stage a fake raid. McGurn, like Capone, made sure he was far away and checked into a hotel with his girlfriend.

When McGurn's men thought they saw Moran, they got into their police uniforms and drove over to the garage in a stolen police car. The bootleggers, caught in the act, lined up against the wall. McGurn's men took the bootleggers' guns and opened fire with two machine guns. All the men except Frank Gusenberg were killed outright in cold blood.

The plan appeared to go brilliantly except for one major detail: Moran was not among the dead. Moran had seen the police car and took off, not wanting to be caught up in the raid. Even though Capone was conveniently in Florida, the police and the newspapers knew who had staged the massacre.

The St. Valentine's Day Massacre became a national media event immortalizing Capone as the most ruthless, feared, smartest and elegant of gangland bosses.

Murder with a Baseball Bat

Even while powerful forces were amassing against him, Capone indulged in one last bloody act of revenge - the killing of two Sicilian colleagues whom he believed had betrayed him. Capone invited his victims to a sumptuous banquet where he brutally pulverized them with a baseball bat. Capone had observed the old tradition of wining and dining traitors before executing them.

Capture

Somewhat ironically, it was the pen pushers from the tax office who were to pose the greatest threat to the gangsters' bootlegging empires. In May 1927, the Supreme Court ruled that a bootlegger had to pay income tax on his illegal bootlegging business. With such a ruling, it wasn't long before the small Special Intelligence Unit of the IRS under Elmer Irey was able to go after Capone.

Capone left for Miami with his wife and son and bought Palm Island estate, a property that he immediately started to renovate expensively. This gave Elmer Irey his chance to document Capone's income and spending. But Capone was clever. Every transaction he made was on a cash basis. The only exception was the tangible assets of the Palm Island estate, which was evidence of a major source of income.

Eventually, Capone's activities, including the Valentine's Day Massacre, attracted the attention of President Herbert Hoover. In March 1929, Hoover asked Andrew Mellon, his secretary of the Treasury, "Have you got this fellow Capone yet? I want that man in jail."

Mellon set out to get the necessary evidence both to prove income tax evasion and to amass enough evidence to prosecute Capone successfully for Prohibition violations.

Eliot Ness

Eliot Ness, a dynamic young agent with the U.S. Prohibition Bureau, was charged with gathering the evidence of Prohibition violations. He assembled a team of daring young men and made extensive use of wiretapping technology. While there was doubt that Capone could be successfully prosecuted for Prohibition violations in Chicago, the government was certain it could get Capone on tax evasion.

In May 1929, Capone went to a "gangster" conference in Atlantic City. Afterwards he saw a movie in Philadelphia. When leaving the cinema, he was arrested and imprisoned for carrying a concealed weapon. Capone was soon incarcerated in the Eastern Penitentiary, where he stayed until March 16, 1930. He was later released from jail for good behavior but was put on America's "Most Wanted" list, which publicly humiliated a mobster who so desperately wanted to be regarded as a worthy man of the people.

Elmer Irey undertook a cunning plan to use undercover agents posing as hoods to infiltrate Capone's organization. The operation took nerves of steel. Despite an informer ending up with a bullet in his head before he could testify, Elmer managed to amass enough evidence through his detectives, posing as gangsters, to try Capone in front of a jury. With two vital bookkeepers, Leslie Shumway and Fred Reis, who had once been in Capone's employment, now safely under police protection, it was only a matter of time before Capone's days as Public Enemy No. 1 were over.

Agent Ness, angered by Capone for the murder of a friend, managed to enrage Capone by exposing Prohibition violations to ruin his bootlegging industry. Millions of dollars of brewing equipment was seized or destroyed, thousands of gallons of beer and alcohol had been dumped and the largest breweries were closed.

Trial & Conviction

On March 13, 1931, a federal grand jury met secretly on the government's claim that in 1924 Al Capone had a tax liability of $32,488.81. The jury returned an indictment against Capone that was kept secret until the investigation was complete for the years 1925 to 1929.

The grand jury later returned an indictment against Capone with 22 counts of tax evasion totaling over $200,000. Capone and 68 members of his gang were charged with 5,000 separate violations of the Volstead Act. These income tax cases took precedence over the Prohibition violations.

Fearing that witnesses would be tampered with, and having doubts that the six-year statute of limitations would be upheld by the Supreme Court, a deal was secretly struck between Capone's lawyers and government prosecutors. Capone was to plead guilty to a lighter charge and would receive a sentence of between two and five years.

When word got out, the press was outraged and campaigned against what they saw as a blatant whitewash. The overconfident Capone, who believed he would receive less than five years in prison, became less cocky when he realized that his plea bargain was now null and void.

On October 6, 1931, 14 detectives escorted Capone to the Federal Court Building. He was dressed in a conservative blue serge suit and was without his usual pinkie ring and gaudy jewelry.

It was inevitable that Capone's henchmen procured a list of jury members to bribe, but unbeknownst to Capone, the authorities had been aware of the plot. When Judge Wilkinson entered the courtroom, he suddenly demanded that the jury be exchanged with another in the same building. Capone and his lawyer were shocked. The fresh jury was even sequestered at night so that the Capone mob couldn't get to them.

During the trial, Attorney George E. Q. Johnson made a mockery of Capone's claim to be a "Robin Hood" figure and man of the people. He stressed the hypocrisy of a man who would spend thousands of dollars on meals and luxuries but gives little to the poor and unemployed. How, he asked, could Capone possess so much property, vehicles and even diamond belt buckles when his defense lawyers profess that their client had no income?

After nine hours of discussion, on October 17, 1931, the jury found Capone guilty of several counts of tax evasion. Judge Wilkerson sentenced him to 11 years in prison, $50,000 in fines, and court costs of another $30,000. Bail was denied.

Imprisonment at Alcatraz

In August 1934, Capone was moved from a prison in Atlanta to the infamous Alcatraz prison in San Francisco. His days of privileges in jail were gone, and contact with the outside world, even through letters and newspapers, was minimal. However, Capone's sentence was eventually reduced to six and a half years for good behavior.

Death

Al Capone died on January 25, 1947, of cardiac arrest at the age of 48. During his last years in prison, Capone's declining health was exacerbated by tertiary syphilis, and he became confused and disorientated. After release, Capone slowly deteriorated at his Palm Island palace. His wife Mae stuck by him until the end.

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Al Capone was one of the most famous American gangsters who rose to infamy as the leader of the Chicago Outfit during the Prohibition era. Before being sent to Alcatraz Prison in 1934 for a tax evasion conviction, he had amassed a personal fortune estimated at $100 million as the head of the infamous crime syndicate.

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 Mafia Family Leaderships (Website Connection to Today)

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 Mafia Family Leaderships (Website Connection to Today)

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In todays time, Mafia's are still around and thriving in America and other countries . Although, they may not be as large or severe, organized crime and large families of criminals exist today like they did in the 1920's.

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Mafia Family Leadership Charts | About The Mafia

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Here are Mafia Family Leadership charts for most of the Mafia families that are still active across the United States. Listed along with the chart are the known hierarchy of each family including the current mafia bosses.

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Al Capone Criminal Record (Primary Source 1)

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Al Capone Criminal Record (Primary Source 1)

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Shown below is Al Capone's criminal record.  If you look at what he has been charged for, he is only charged once for murder, which was discharged.  Al Capone wasn't a major murderer, he planned the murders and other crimes.  As we know, Al Capone obviously committed more crimes than are listed below.  I chose this source because it makes it obvious that he was a criminal.  It also shows how little he was charged for the major crimes he planned.  Therefore, it is easy to view the charges against Al Capone and how minor they were.

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Charles 'Lucky' Luciano Criminal Record (Primary Source 2)

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Charles 'Lucky' Luciano Criminal Record (Primary Source 2)

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Charles 'Lucky' Luciano was an Italian- American mobster. He was a crime boss and was considered the father of modern day organized crime in the United States. This inmate record was created when Lucky was charged with running a prostitution ring. The record tells the story of Lucky and where he comes from and why he was arrested. Lucky was an 8 year old immigrant from Sicily and was a shipping clerk for Goodman Hat Company. It shows his crimes of being a mobster and running a prostitution ring, and his background family information. I believe this record is a good representation of the crimes Lucky committed and an overview of who he was.

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This image is a good first look of what a Mafia appeared to be. They were serious, well dressed and intimidating. They carried guns around and looked very intense. The Mafia is a business, which explains why they are dressed in suits. They may look clean but they were full of dirty work. You couldn't separate the modern day working man from a man in the Mafia unless you saw their guns. The members are always trying to blend in due to the constant crimes they committed.

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The Mafia is an organized criminal society, originating in Italy. The American Mafia started in the 1920's during the prohibition era. The American Mafia, when starting out, consisted of Italian immigrants living in New York. They originally formed with the intent to protect the bootlegging business. Later on, their intent had changed. The Mafia's were now paid by owners and individuals for protection. This led to them committing violent crimes. A lot of these crimes consisted of threats and murders which are usually connected with money. It is known that to even become a member of the Mafia, you had to conduct a murder. Mafia's usually consisted of family members and occasionally some outsiders. The members were very close and protected each other on any account. Other Mafia's throughout the community sometimes did not get along. For example, Al Capone was a very well known mobster. His Mafia had some rivals and ended up murdering many of them which is now known as the St. Valentine Massacre.

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Mafias had a huge effect on society during the 1920s. Before the repeal of prohibition, bootlegging was their most common illegal activity. Mafias began prostitution rings, loan-sharking, and illegal gambling. These underworld activities began to effect all kinds of business, such as construction, garbage collection, night clubs, restaurants and trucking companies. Mafia's participated in many kickbacks and shakedowns of companies to rake in enormous profits. Mafia's ability to threaten and bribe public officials, witnesses and juries in court was a huge part of their success. All of these actions effected society because there were all kinds of crimes and bribing going around. Mafia's would influence people to keep quiet or participate in crimes, and they used fear in order to get what they want. When initiated, you must swear to a code of silence and a life long commitment to the Mafia family. If a member of the Mafia snitches, attempts to expose them, or turns them in, the person would be hunted down and murdered. Joining a Mafia was extremely dangerous and risky. Mafias are still around today, but are much smaller and not as dangerous as they were in the 1920s. Mafias overall effected the people negatively and took control of society.

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1. Mobster- a member of a group of criminals.  Also known as a gangster
2. Racket- planned or organized criminal act, usually in which the criminal act is a form of business or a way to regularly, or briefly but repeatedly, earn illegal or extorted money.
3. Omerta- a code of silence about criminal activity and a refusal to give evidence to authorities.
4. Bootleg- the making or transporting of illegal alcohol.
5. Hierarchy-a system or organization in which people or groups are ranked one above the other according to status or authority.
6. St. Valentine Massacre- the 1929 murder in Chicago of seven men of the North Side gang during the Prohibition Era.
7. Castellammarese War- a bloody power struggle for control of the Italian-American Mafia, from February, 1930 to April 15, 1931, between partisans of Joe "The Boss" Masseria and those of Salvatore Maranzano.
8. Criminal Record- a list of a person's previous criminal convictions.
9. Tax Evasion- the illegal nonpayment or underpayment of tax
10. Don- head of the Mafia family; boss.