Organized crime in Chicago : beyond the Mafia

289 Pages·2013·3.23 MB·English

by  Lombardo

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CCRRIIMMEE IINN
BEYOND
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MAFIA
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ROBERT M. LOMBARDO
organized crime in chicago
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organized crime in chicago
Beyond the Mafia
roBerT m. LomBardo
UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS PRESS
Urbana, Chicago, and Springfield
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© 2013 by the Board of Trustees
of the University of Illinois
All rights reserved
Manufactured in the United States of America
1 2 3 4 5 c p 5 4 3 2 1
∞ This book is printed on acid-free paper.
Segments of this book originally appeared in the following edited volume and
journals and are used here with permission: “The Organized Crime Neighborhoods
of Chicago,” in Handbook of Organized Crime in the United States, Greenwood
Publishing Group, 1994, reprinted courtesy ABC-CLIO Inc.; “The Social Organization
of Organized Crime in Chicago,” in the Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice
10, 4 (Dec), reprinted courtesy of SAGE Publications Inc.; “The Black Mafia:
African-American Organized Crime in Chicago, 1890–1960,” in Crime, Law and
Social Change, volume 38 (2002), 1, 33–65, reprinted courtesy of Kluwer Academic
Publishers – Dordrecht; and “The Forty-Two Gang: The Unpublished Landesco
Manuscripts,” in the Journal of Gang Research, volume 18–1 Fall 2010, pages 19–38,
reprinted courtesy of the National Gang Crime Research Center.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Lombardo, Robert M.
Organized crime in Chicago : beyond the Mafia / Robert M. Lombardo.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
isbn 978-0-252-03730-6 (cloth) — isbn 978-0-252-07878-1 (pbk.)
1. Organized crime—Illinois—Chicago. 2. Criminals—Illinois—Chicago.
3. Gangs—Illinois—Chicago. I. Title.
hv6795.c4l58 2012
364.10609773'11—dc23 2012017778
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To Lynda, Tom, and Mike
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The view that a secret criminal brotherhood was transplanted
to urban America at the end of the nineteenth century produced
a formula that lazy, ill-informed journalists would regularly
turn to when writing about organized crime that effectively
absolved the United States from any responsibility for its drug
and crime problems.
—Michael Woodiwiss, Gangster Capitalism
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contents
Preface ix
Introduction 1
1. Explaining Organized Crime 15
2. The Gem of the Prairie 37
3. The Black Mafia 57
4. The Syndicate 79
5. The Forty-two Gang 101
6. The Outfit 119
7. The Outfit as a Complex Organization 149
8. Street Crew Neighborhoods 167
Conclusion 195
Notes 211
Index 247
Illustrations follow page 100
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Preface
The idea for a study of organized crime in Chicago began when I was in
grammar school. As a child, I had a great uncle who was not allowed to
visit our home. When I asked my grandfather why we did not associate with
Uncle Frank, he only replied that Uncle Frank did not work. I later found
out that he was a member of the North Side Crew of the Chicago Outfit,
the traditional organized crime group in Chicago. Growing up in the West
Side of Chicago, the Outfit was a part of everyday life. I witnessed my first
police raid when I was twelve years old as Chicago police rescued a “juice
loan” victim who was being held in the basement of a local restaurant by
neighborhood gangsters. I also remember being sent home late one evening
by Chicago mobster Joseph Lombardo after he “closed the corner” where
my friends and I hung out and drank beer long after curfew. As a teenager,
I worked in a local grocery store. One of our customers was Ross Prio,
head of the North Side Crew. His visits to our store were right out of the
movies—bodyguards, black Cadillacs, and five-hundred-dollar suits. Who
were these people? Why did the government allow them to exist? What
was their relationship to our neighborhood? When I became a university
professor and sought a research topic, the choice was easy. I chose to study
organized crime in American society.
Research into organized crime presents difficulties not typically encoun-
tered in the social sciences. All societies have topics that are considered
taboo. The study of organized crime is one of those taboo subjects. Facts
and relationships are often uncovered that may be better left hidden. Because
organized crime is sustained by collusion, corruption, and complacency,
academics have largely ignored this important social problem. In fact, the
academic community has been accused of damaging its own credibility by
ignoring its moral obligation to remind society of the dangers posed by
organized crime.1
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