Liceul Technologic “Domokos Kázmér”Sovata

Filiera: TeoreticăProfil: Real

Specializare: Matematică-Informatică Intensiv Engleză

Atestat la limba Engleză

Profesor îndrumător: Autor: Sikó Emőke

XII.B.

2013

Liceul Technologic “Domokos Kázmér”Sovata

Filiera: TeoreticăProfil: Real

Specializare: Matematică-Informatică Intensiv Engleză

Table of contents:

2013

Introduction……………………………………………………………4

Chapter I. Origins of the Mafia……………………………………….5

1.1 The Mafia's Sicilian Roots…………………………………………5

1.2. The Mafia in the 20th Century and Beyond……………….……6

Chapter II. Mafia in the United ………………………………………7

2.1. Immigration and Prohibition…………………………………………7

2.2. The American Mafia Gets Organized………………………………8

2.3. The U.S. Mafia: Hierarchy and Rituals……………………………9

Chapter III. The Mafia's 20th-Century Dominance………………9

Chapter IV. Alphonse Capone (Al Capone) ………………………10

4.1.Capone's Early Years in New York…………………………………11

4.2.Capone Meets Johnny Torrio………………………………………12

4.3.Capone in Chicago……………………………………………………12

4.4. Capone's Reputation…………………………………………………12

4.5. St. Valentine's Day Massacre………………………………………13

4.6.Prison Time……………………………………………………………13

4.6. Final Days……………………………………………………………14

Introduction

In my childhood I watched a lot of films based on the life of the mafia families in

the U.S. Than I did little knew that those films were based on true stories, although I

realized when I raised up, I started to find it interesting this is the reason why I choose

this as topic for my thesis

From all the films, and stories I have heard one person and his personality, tactics

caught my attention and I started to dig deeper in his life. He is Al Capone, the most

famous gangster in Americas history.

It is very interesting that during his life, during the height of Prohibition, Capone's multi-

million dollar Chicago operation in bootlegging, prostitution and gambling dominated the

organized crime scene, and furthermore Capone was responsible for many brutal acts of

violence, mainly against other gangsters, and still he was caught and sentenced for tax

evasion.

Although that the history of mafia contains more black spots than white ones, I

find it very interesting the fact how they realized to control everything next to them.

From my thesis the reader can find out the origins of mafia and their life, state, facts in

the U.S.A.

Chapter I. Origins of the Mafia

The Mafia, a network of organized-crime groups based in Italy and America, evolved

over centuries in Sicily, an island ruled until the mid-19th century by a long line of

foreign invaders. Sicilians banded together in groups to protect themselves and carry out

their own justice. In Sicily, the term “mafioso,” or Mafia member, initially had no

criminal connotations and was used to refer to a person who was suspicious of central

authority. By the 19th century, some of these groups emerged as private armies, or

“mafie,” who extorted protection money from landowners and eventually became the

violent criminal organization known today as the Sicilian Mafia. The American Mafia,

which rose to power in the 1920s, is a separate entity from the Mafia in Italy, although

they share such traditions as omerta, a code of conduct and loyalty.

1.1. The Mafia's Sicilian Roots

For centuries, Sicily, an island in the Mediterranean Sea between North Africa and

the Italian mainland, was ruled by a long line of foreign invaders, including the

Phoenicians, Romans, Arabs, French and Spanish. The residents of this island, which

measures almost 10,000 square feet, formed groups to protect themselves from the often-

hostile occupying forces, as well as from other regional groups of Sicilians. These

groups, which later became known as clans or families, developed their own system for

justice and retribution, carrying out their actions in secret. By the 19th century, small

private armies known as “mafie” took advantage of the frequently violent, chaotic

conditions in Sicily and extorted protection money from landowners. From this history,

the Sicilian Mafia emerged as a collection of criminal clans or families.

Although its precise origins are unknown, the term Mafia came from a Sicilian-

Arabic slang expression that means “acting as a protector against the arrogance of the

powerful,” according to Selwyn Raab, author of “Five Families: The Rise, Decline, and

Resurgence of America’s Most Powerful Mafia Empires. Raab notes that until the 19th

century, the word “mafioso” did not refer to someone who was a criminal, but rather a

person who was suspicious of central authority. In the 1860s, a play called “I Mafiusi

della Vicaria” (“Heroes of the Penitentiary”), about a group of inmates at a Sicilian

prison who maintained their own hierarchy and rituals, toured Italy and helped popularize

the term Mafia in the Italian language.

1.2. The Mafia in the 20th Century and Beyond

The Mafia’s influence in Sicily grew until the 1920s, when Prime Minister Benito

Mussolini came to power and launched a brutal crackdown on mobsters, who he viewed

as a threat to his Fascist regime. However, in the 1950s, the Mafia rose again when mob-

backed construction companies dominated the post-World War II building boom in

Sicily. Over the next few decades, the Sicilian Mafia flourished, expanding its criminal

empire and becoming, by the 1970s, a major player in international narcotics trafficking.

The American Mafia, a separate entity from the Mafia in Sicily, came to power in the

1920s Prohibition era after the success of Italian-American neighborhood gangs in the

booming bootleg liquor business. By the 1950s, the Mafia (also known as Cosa Nostra,

Italian for “Our Thing”) had become the preeminent organized-crime network in the

United States and was involved in a range of underworld activities, from loan-sharking to

prostitution, while also infiltrating labor unions and legitimate industries such as

construction and New York’s garment industry. Like the Sicilian Mafia, American Mafia

families were able to maintain their secrecy and success because of their code of omerta,

as well as their ability to bribe and intimidate public officials, business leaders, witnesses

and juries. For these reasons, law-enforcement agencies were largely ineffective at

stopping the Mafia during the first part of the 20th century. However, during the 1980s

and 1990s, prosecutors in America and Italy began successfully employing tough anti-

racketeering laws to convict top-ranking mobsters. Additionally, some Mafiosi, in order

to avoid long prison terms, began breaking the once-sacred code of omerta and testified

against fellow mob members. By the start of the 21st century, after hundreds of high-

profile arrests over the course of several decades, the Mafia appeared to be weakened in

both countries; however, it was not eliminated completely and remains in business today.

Chapter II. Mafia in the United

The American Mafia, an Italian-American organized-crime network with

operations in cities across the United States, particularly New York and Chicago, rose to

power through its success in the illicit liquor trade during the 1920s Prohibition era. After

Prohibition, the Mafia moved into other criminal ventures, from drug trafficking to illegal

gambling, while also infiltrating labor unions and legitimate businesses such as

construction and New York’s garment industry. The Mafia’s violent crimes, secret rituals

and notorious characters such as Al Capone and John Gotti have fascinated the public and

become a part of popular culture. During the latter part of the 20th century, the

government used anti-racketeering laws to convict high-ranking mobsters and weaken the

Mafia. However, it remains in business today.

Mafia boss John Gotti (1940-2002) was dubbed the “Teflon Don” for his ability

to evade prosecution. However, after mobster Sammy Gravano turned government

informant and testified against Gotti, Gotti was convicted on murder and racketeering

charges in 1992 and sent to prison, where he died of cancer.

2.1. Immigration and Prohibition

During the late 19th century and early 20th century, waves of Italians, mostly

farmers, craftsmen and unskilled laborers, flocked to America in search of better

economic opportunities. In New York City alone, the number of Italians soared from

20,000 to 250,000 between 1880 and 1890, and by 1910, that number had jumped to

500,000 immigrants and first-generation Italian Americans, or one-tenth of the city’s

population, according to historian Thomas Repetto. The majority of these immigrants

were law-abiding, but, as with most large groups of people, some were criminals who

formed neighborhood gangs, often preying on those in their own communities.

During the 1920s Prohibition era, when the 18th Amendment to the U.S.

Constitution banned the sale, manufacture and transportation of alcoholic beverages,

Italian-American gangs (along with other ethnic gangs) entered the booming bootleg

liquor business and transformed themselves into sophisticated criminal enterprises,

skilled at smuggling, money laundering and bribing police and other public officials.

During this time, the Sicilian Mafia in Italy, which had flourished since at least the mid-

19th century, was under attack from the Fascist regime of Benito Mussolini (1883-1945).

Some Sicilian Mafiosi escaped to the United States, where they got involved in

bootlegging and became part of the burgeoning American Mafia. The Mafia in the U.S.

and Sicily were separate entities, although the Americans adopted some Italian traditions,

including omerta, an all-important code of conduct and secrecy that forbid any

cooperation with government authorities.

2.2. The American Mafia Gets Organized

In the late 1920s, a bloody power struggle known as the Castellammarese War

broke out between New York City’s two biggest Italian-American criminal gangs. In

1931, after the faction led by Sicilian-born crime boss Salvatore Maranzano (1886-1931)

came out on top, he crowned himself the “capo di tutti capi,” or boss of all bosses, in

New York. Unhappy with Maranzano’s power grab, a rising mobster named Lucky

Luciano (1897-1962) had him murdered that same year. Luciano then masterminded the

formation of a central organization called the Commission to serve as a sort of national

board of directors for the American Mafia, which by then consisted of at least 20 crime

families across the country. New York, which had become America’s organized-crime

capital, had been divided into five main Mafia families; everywhere else the Mafia

operated, there was just one crime family per city. The Commission’s role was to set

policies and mediate disagreements among the families. Each of the five New York

families received a vote on the Commission when it was established, while the heads of

the families in Chicago and Buffalo also got one vote each.

2.3. The U.S. Mafia: Hierarchy and Rituals

Typically, each American Mafia crime family was organized around a hierarchy

headed by a boss, who ruled with unquestioned authority and received a cut of every

money-making operation taken on by any member of his family. Second-in-command

was the underboss and below him were the capos, or captains, who each controlled a

crew of 10 or so soldiers (men who had been “made,” or inducted into the family). Each

family also had a consigliere, who acted as an advisor and ombudsman. At the bottom of

the chain were associates, people who worked for or did business with the family but

weren’t full-fledged members.

Becoming an official member of a Mafia family traditionally involved an

initiation ceremony in which a person performed such rituals as pricking his finger to

draw blood and holding a burning picture of a patron saint while taking an oath of

loyalty. Italian heritage was a prerequisite for every inductee (although some crime

families required such lineage only from the father’s side) and men often, though not

always, had to commit a murder before they could be made. Becoming a member of the

Mafia was meant to be a lifetime commitment and each Mafiosi swore to obey omerta,

the all-important code of loyalty and silence. Mafiosi were also expected to follow other

rules, including never assaulting one another and never cheating with another member’s

girlfriend or wife.

Chapter III. The Mafia's 20th-Century Dominance

With the repeal of Prohibition in 1933, the Mafia moved beyond bootlegging and

into a range of underworld activities, from illegal gambling to loan-sharking to

prostitution rings. The Mafia also sunk its tentacles into labor unions and legitimate

businesses, including construction, garbage collection, trucking, restaurants and

nightclubs and the New York garment industry, and raked in enormous profits through

kickbacks and protection shakedowns. Instrumental to the Mafia’s success was its ability

to bribe corrupt public officials and business leaders, along with witnesses and juries in

court cases. By the mid-20th century, there were 24 known crime families in America,

comprised of an estimated 5,000 full-fledged members and thousands of associates across

the country. Prior to the 1960s, some government leaders, including FBI Director J.

Edgar Hoover, voiced skepticism about the existence of a national Italian-American

organized crime network and suggested instead that crime gangs operated strictly on a

local level. As a result, law enforcement agencies made few inroads in stopping the

Mafia’s rise during this period.

Chapter IV. Alphonse Capone (Al Capone)

Born in 1899 in Brooklyn, New York, to poor immigrant parents, Al Capone went

on to become the most infamous gangster in American history. In 1920 during the height

of Prohibition, Capone's multi-million dollar Chicago operation in bootlegging,

prostitution and gambling dominated the organized crime scene. Capone was responsible

for many brutal acts of violence, mainly against other gangsters. The most famous of

these was the St. Valentine's Day Massacre in 1929, in which he ordered the assassination

of seven rivals. Capone was never indicted for his racketeering but was finally brought to

justice for income-tax evasion in 1931.

4.1.Capone's Early Years in New York

Alphonse Capone (1899–1947) was born in Brooklyn, New York, the son of

recent Italian immigrants Gabriele and Teresina Capone. A poor family that came to

America seeking a better life, the Capones and their eight children lived a typical

immigrant lifestyle in a New York tenement. Capone's father was as a barber, and his

mother was a seamstress. There was nothing in Capone's childhood or family life that

could have predicted his rise to infamy as America’s most notorious gangster.

Capone was a good student in his Brooklyn elementary school, but began falling

behind and had to repeat the sixth grade. It was around that time that he started playing

hooky and hanging out at the Brooklyn docks. One day, Capone's teacher hit him for

insolence and he struck back. The principal gave him a beating, and Capone never again

returned to school. By this time, the Capones had moved out of the tenement to a better

home in the outskirts of the Park Slope neighborhood of Brooklyn. It was here that

Capone would meet both his future wife, Mary (Mae) Coughlin, and his mob mentor,

numbers racketeer Johnny Torrio.

4.2.Capone Meets Johnny Torrio

Torrio was running a numbers and gambling operation near Capone's home when

Capone began running small errands for him. Although Torrio left Brooklyn for Chicago

in 1909, the two remained close. Early on, Capone stuck to legitimate employment,

working in a munitions factory and as a paper cutter. He did spend some time among the

street gangs in Brooklyn, but aside from occasional scrapes, his gang activities were

mostly uneventful.

In 1917, Torrio introduced Capone to the gangster Frankie Yale, who employed

Capone as bartender and bouncer at the Harvard Inn in Coney Island. It was there that

Capone earned his nickname "Scarface." One night, he made an indecent remark to a

woman at the bar. Her brother punched Capone, then slashed him across the face, leaving

three indelible scars that inspired his enduring nickname.

4.3.Capone in Chicago

When Capone was 19, he married Mae Coughlin just weeks after the birth of their

child, Albert Francis. His former boss and friend Johnny Torrio was the boy's godfather.

Now a husband and a father, Capone wanted to do right by his family, so he moved to

Baltimore where he took an honest job as a bookkeeper for a construction company. But

when Capone's father died of a heart attack in 1920, Torrio invited him to come to

Chicago. Capone jumped at the opportunity.

In Chicago, Torrio was presiding over a booming business in gambling and

prostitution, but with the enactment in 1920 of the 18th Amendment prohibiting the sale

and consumption of alcohol, Torrio focused on a new, more lucrative field: bootlegging.

As a former petty thug and bookkeeper, Capone brought both his street smarts and his

expertise with numbers to Torrio’s Chicago operations. Torrio recognized Capone's skills

and quickly promoted him to partner. But unlike the low-profile Torrio, Capone began to

develop a reputation as a drinker and rabble-rouser. After hitting a parked taxicab while

driving drunk, he was arrested for the first time. Torrio quickly used his city government

connections to get him off.

Capone cleaned up his act when his family arrived from Brooklyn. His wife and

son, along with his mother, younger brothers and sister all moved to Chicago, and

Capone bought a modest house in the middle-class South Side.

In 1923, when Chicago elected a reformist mayor who announced that he planned

to rid the city of corruption, Torrio and Capone moved their base beyond the city limits to

suburban Cicero. But a 1924 mayoral election in Cicero threatened their operations. To

ensure they could continue doing business, Torrio and Capone initiated an intimidation

effort on the day of the election, March 31, 1924, to guarantee their candidate would get

elected. Some voters were even shot and killed. Chicago sent in police to respond, and

they brutally gunned down Capone's brother Frank in the street.

4.4. Capone's Reputation

After an attempt on his life in 1925 by rival mobsters, Torrio decided to leave the

business and return to Italy, turning over the entire operation to Capone. Scarface again

ignored his mentor's advice to maintain a low profile and instead, moved his headquarters

to a plush suite in the Metropole Hotel in downtown Chicago. From there, he began

living a luxurious and public lifestyle, spending money lavishly, although always in cash

to avoid a trail. Newspapers of the time estimated Capone's operations generated $100

million in revenue annually.

The press followed Capone's every move avidly, and he was able to gain public

sympathy with his gregarious and generous personality. Some even considered him a

kind of Robin Hood figure, or as anti-Prohibition resentment grew, a dissident who

worked on the side of the people. However, in later years, as Capone's name increasingly

became connected with brutal violence, his popularity waned.

4.5. St. Valentine's Day Massacre

By early 1929 Capone dominated the illegal liquor trade in Chicago. But other

racketeers vied for a piece of the profitable bootlegging business, and among them was

Capone's long-time rival "Bugs" Moran. Moran had previously tried to assassinate both

Torrio and Capone, and now he was after Capone's top hit man, "Machine Gun" Jack

McGurn. Capone and McGurn decided to kill Moran. On February 14, 1929, posing as

police, McGurn's gunmen assassinated seven of Moran's men in cold blood in a North

Side garage. Alerted to the danger as he approached the garage, Bugs Moran escaped the

slaughter. Although Capone was staying at his Miami home at the time, the public and

the media immediately blamed him for the massacre. He was dubbed "Public Enemy

Number One."

4.6.Prison Time

In response to the public outcry over the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre, President

Herbert Hoover ordered the federal government to step up its efforts to get Capone on

income-tax evasion. The Supreme Court had ruled in 1927 that income gained on illegal

activities was taxable, which gave the government a strong case for prosecuting Capone.

On June 5, 1931 the U.S. government finally indicted Capone on 22 counts of income-tax

evasion.

Although the government had solid evidence against him, Capone remained

confident that he would get off with a minimal sentence and struck a plea bargain in

return for a two-and-a-half year sentence. When the judge in the case declared that he

would not honor the agreement, Capone quickly withdrew his guilty plea, and the case

went to trial. During the trial Capone used the best weapon in his arsenal: bribery and

intimidation. But at the last moment, the judge switched to an entirely new jury. Capone

was found guilty and sent to prison for 11 years.

Conclusion

The evolution, or perhaps we should say, this regression, calls into question not

only the explanation based on the notion of socioeconomic archaism, but also its

sociocultural counterpart, which makes Mafia behavior a direct consequence of the

anthropology of the Sicilians or, in general, of southern Italians. This culture is said to be

characterized by a mistrust of the state and therefore by a habit of taking justice into

one’s own hands, by a sense of honor, by clientelism, by a familism that exempts the

individual from a perception of his own responsibilities in the face of a larger collective

than his immediate surroundings. These characteristics ought to be relatively

homogeneous throughout all of southern Italy. It is therefore impossible to explain the

uneven distribution of the phenomenon in the past. Nor is it clear how this phenomenon,

ostensibly a product of a traditional culture, has been able to extend and become diffused

well outside its original territory, in parallel with the modernization of the country, even

though a sociocultural hybridization was in fact a crucial and constituent element of the

historical transformation.

Today, in the wake of the investigations of the last thirty years in Italy and

America, nearly everyone is willing to recognize that Mafia organizations are

characterized by a level of continuity extending beyond the life spans of the individual

members, by a hierarchical structure, and by a membership that is carefully filtered, in

accordance with the definition offered by official American institutions.

Bibliography