Mafia/Gangsters

 'Gangsters'

The American Dream: The Rise of The Criminal Businessman

With the passage of prohibition in 1919, the twenties marked a huge shift in the way gangsters went about their everyday business.

No longer was it good business sense to beat someone over the head with a pipe to rob them of their pocket watch and loose change.

Instead, the mob organized and integrated itself throughout the neighborhoods of Chicago, Detroit, and the boroughs of New York City. 

http://www.1920s-fashion-and-music.com/1920s-gangsters.html

It was more common for gangsters to carry guns in newspapers. Due to the large size of certain US newspapers in the 1920's and the early part of the 1930's (papers were almost twice the size they are today - this applied to Britain too) even a machine gun could be concealed relatively easily. Bullets could be fired from rolled up newspapers much more efficiently than from a violin case.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/notesandqueries/query/0,5753,-23460,00.html

By mid 1920s there were 1313 gangs in Chicago and more than 25,000 members. Gang warfare in Chicago was
widespread and fighting took place along ethnic, cultural and racial lines. Some gangs had no noticeable cultural,
ethnic or national ties and consisted mostly of whites.

http://ghettogangster0.tripod.com/michelle/id2.html

'Mafia'

http://ghettogangster0.tripod.com/michelle/id2.html

The origins of the mafia phenomenon dating back to the Middle Ages, when Sicily was under foreign domination and obedience wealthy families obtained through formal social control of land. The Mafia, organizationally, did not have a hierarchy, but was composed of autonomous groups who called themselves "men of honor." In those years, the landed aristocracy allied with social leaders and created a conservative power structure and stable, a strategy that allowed it to retain its dominance in Sicily thereafter.

Guided by a code of conduct called Omerta, the Mafia has quickly become an organization completely outside the law. The mob forced the code to be against justice, and also avoid any contact with her.In the early twentieth century, some members of this organization migrated to North America, specifically to the United States, thus spreading internationally clandestine criminal organizations.

Over time, the U.S. became the center of all crimes of the Mafia, since this country was restricting gambling and alcohol, which led to a large smuggling.The history of the Mafia has served to understand the source, structure, functioning and control mechanisms of criminal organizations, which has been a useful tool to study how they operate smugglers, murderers and drug cartels in the world more dangerous.
http://ezinearticles.com/?Mafia-in-the-1920s&id=3615522