Double Crossed

Michael Woodiwiss

Description

In the United States, the popular symbols of organised crime are still Depression-era figures such as Al Capone, Lucky Luciano, and Meyer Lansky - thought to be heads of giant, hierarchically organised mafias. In Double Crossed, Michael Woodiwiss challenges perpetuated myths to reveal a more disturbing reality of organised crime - one in which government officials and the wider establishment are deeply complicit.



Delving into attempts to implement policies to control organised crime in the US, Italy and the UK, Woodiwiss reveals little-known manifestations of organised crime among the political and corporate establishment. A follow up to his 2005 Gangster Capitalism, Woodiwiss broadens and brings his argument up to the present by examining those who constructed and then benefited from myth making. These include the Italian dictator Benito Mussolini, opportunistic American politicians and officials and, more recently, law enforcement bureaucracies, led by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.



Organised crime control policies now tend to legitimise repression and cover-up failure. They do little to control organised crime. While the US continues to export its organised crime control template to the rest of the world, opportunities for successful criminal activity proliferate at local, national and global levels, making successful prosecutions irrelevant.
Acknowledgements

Preface

Part I: Dumbing Down: The Construction of an Acceptable Understanding of 'Organized Crime'

Introduction

1. The Rise and Fall of Muckraking Business Criminality

2. America’s Moral Crusade and the Making of Illegal Markets

Inset 1: The Origins of Mafia Mythology in America

3. Charles G. Dawes and the Molding of Public Opinion on Organized Crime

4. Al Capone as Public Enemy Number 1

5. Al Capone and the Business of Crime

Inset 2: The Legends and Lives of Al Capone and Eliot Ness

6. Americanizing Mussolini’s Phony War against the Mafia

7. 'Organized Crime' in a Fascist State

8. Gangbusting and Propaganda

9. Thomas E. Dewey and 'the Greatest Gangster in America'

10. From Gangbusters to Murder Inc.

Part II: Lies about Criminals: Constructing an Acceptable 'History' of Organized Crime

Introduction

1. The Genesis of the Atlantic City 'Conference' Legend

2. Consolidating the 'Conference' Legend

3. The Purge that Wasn’t

4. The US Government’s History of Organized Crime

Inset 3: Lucky Luciano and a Life in Exile

Part III: Covering up Failure: Constructing an Acceptable Response to 'Organized Crime'

Introduction

1. Mafia Mythology and the Federal Response

2. President Richard Nixon and Organized Crime Control

3. Challenging the Orthodoxy

4. Sustaining and Updating Mafia Mythology

5. From Super-Government to Super-Governments: The Pluralist Revision of Organized Crime

6. The Origins of the Anti-Money Laundering Regime

Inset 4: Meyer Lansky and the Origins of Money Laundering History

7. Informants, Liars and Paranoiacs

8. Seizing Assets to Fund the Crime War

9. Drug Prohibition and the Prison Gang Phenomenon

10. Organized Business Crime: The Elephant in the Room

11. Deregulation and the Rise of Corporate Fraud

12. Fraud and the Financial Meltdown

13. Hiding the Failure of Organized Crime Control

14. Repression as Organized Crime Control

Part IV: Selling Failure: Setting the Global Agenda on Drugs, Organized Crime and Money Laundering

Introduction

1. Losing Corporate Criminality from Transnational Crime

2. Building Capacity

3. Americanizing the British Drug Control System

4. Dumbing Down the International Response to Drugs and 'Organized Crime'

5. Repression, Profits and Slaughter: The United States in Colombia and Mexico

6. The Atlantic Alliance as a Money Laundry

Epilogue

Notes

Index

Sujets

• Political Process
• Political Science
• USA
• United States of America
• FBI
• 21st century
• Central government
• True crime
• General officer
• Political corruption
• Organized crime
• Italy
• My Last Duchess
• Criminology
• Central
• General
• États-Unis
• Finance
• Al Capone
• Benito Mussolini
• Federal Bureau of Investigation

Informations

• Publié par: Pluto Press
• Date de parution: 20 juin 2017
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781786800947
• Langue: English

Extrait

Double Crossed
Double Crossed
The Failure of Organized Crime Control
Michael Woodiwiss
First published 2017 by Pluto Press
345 Archway Road, London N6 5AA
www.plutobooks.com
Copyright Michael Woodiwiss 2017
The right of Michael Woodiwiss to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 978 0 7453 3202 4 Hardback
ISBN 978 0 7453 3201 7 Paperback
ISBN 978 1 7868 0093 0 PDF eBook
ISBN 978 1 7868 0095 4 Kindle eBook
ISBN 978 1 7868 0094 7 EPUB eBook





This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the environmental standards of the country of origin.
Typeset by Stanford DTP Services, Northampton, England
Simultaneously printed in the United Kingdom and United States of America
To Laurie and Sophia - always
Contents
Acknowledgements
Preface
PART I DUMBING DOWN: CONSTRUCTING AN ACCEPTABLE UNDERSTANDING OF ORGANIZED CRIME
Introduction
1. The Rise and Fall of Muckraking Business Criminality
2. America s Moral Crusade and the Making of Illegal Markets
Inset 1: The Origins of Mafia Mythology in America
3. Charles G. Dawes and the Molding of Public Opinion on Organized Crime
4. Al Capone as Public Enemy Number One
5. Al Capone and the Business of Crime
Inset 2: The Legends and Lives of Al Capone and Eliot Ness
6. Americanizing Mussolini s Phony War against the Mafia
7. Organized Crime in a Fascist State
8. Gangbusting and Propaganda
9. Thomas E. Dewey and the Greatest Gangster in America
10. From Gangbusters to Murder Inc.
PART II LIES ABOUT CRIMINALS: CONSTRUCTING AN ACCEPTABLE HISTORY OF ORGANIZED CRIME
Introduction
1. The Genesis of the Atlantic City Conference Legend
2. Consolidating the Conference Legend
3. The Purge that Wasn t
4. The US Government s History of Organized Crime
Inset 3: Lucky Luciano and a Life in Exile
PART III COVERING UP FAILURE: CONSTRUCTING AN ACCEPTABLE RESPONSE TO ORGANIZED CRIME
Introduction
1. Mafia Mythology and the Federal Response
2. President Richard Nixon and Organized Crime Control
3. Challenging the Orthodoxy
4. Sustaining and Updating Mafia Mythology
5. From Super-Government to Super-Governments: The Pluralist Revision of Organized Crime
6. The Origins of the Anti-Money Laundering Regime
Inset 4: Meyer Lansky and the Origins of Money Laundering History
7. Informants, Liars and Paranoiacs
8. Seizing Assets to Fund the Crime War
9. Drug Prohibition and the Prison Gang Phenomenon
10. Organized Business Crime: The Elephant in the Room
11. Deregulation and the Rise of Corporate Fraud
12. Fraud and the Financial Meltdown
13. Hiding the Failure of Organized Crime Control
14. Repression as Organized Crime Control
PART IV SELLING FAILURE: SETTING THE GLOBAL AGENDA ON DRUGS, ORGANIZED CRIME AND MONEY LAUNDERING
Introduction
1. Losing Corporate Criminality from Transnational Crime
2. Building Capacity
3. Americanizing the British Drug Control System
4. Dumbing Down the International Response to Drugs and Organized Crime
5. Repression, Profits and Slaughter: The United States in Colombia and Mexico
6. The Atlantic Alliance as a Money Laundry
Epilogue
Notes
Index
Acknowledgements
Researching and writing this book builds on the work I have already done for three earlier books and many people have helped me bring them all to completion. As a historian, my main debts are to Patrick Renshaw of Sheffield University and Hugh Brogan of Essex University. I must also thank my brother, Anthony Woodiwiss, Distinguished Visiting Professor of Seoul National University, not least for the original idea that led to all these books.
A few years ago Klaus von Lampe, editor of Trends in Organized Crime , encouraged me to conduct email interviews for a special issue of the journal with seven people whose careers gave them unique insights into the workings of organized criminality in America, Europe and at international levels, as well as the implementation of these efforts. I owe a debt to those I interviewed - Dwight C. Smith, Frederick Martens, Selwyn Raab, James Jacobs, Cyrille Fijnaut, Petrus van Duyne, Alan Wright and the other contributors including Francesco Calderoni, Ernesto Savona, Matthew Yaeger and Cameron Telford. Jeff McIllwain of San Diego State University also contributed a fine historiographical tribute to criminology s revisionist Godfather Joe Albini. Albini was one of the first to reveal the absence of evidence and logic behind mainstream thinking on organized crime.
In 2000 I was fortunate enough to be invited to a seminar series on transnational organized crime organized by Adam Edwards of Cardiff University and Peter Gill of Leicester University. Adam and Peter put together several of the best researchers from Europe and North America in the area of organized crime, with a roughly equal number of practitioners representing various British and international policing and revenue agencies. My interest in transnational organized crime and, in particular, British perspectives on the problem stem from this series. I would like to mention the work of the following as particularly inspirational: Dick Hobbs, Nicholas Dorn, Nigel South, Michael Levi, Sean Patrick Griffin, Gary Potter, Nikos Passas, William Howard Moore, Steve Tombs, Laureen Snider, R.T. Naylor, Margaret Beare, David Bewley-Taylor, Letizia Paoli, Alan Block, James Shepticki, Paddy Rawlinson, Martin Elvins, David Critchley, Kris Allerfeldt, Bill Tupman and the late William Chambliss. Frank Pearce, author of Crimes of the Powerful (Pluto, 1976), has been a friend and guide from the outset of my interest in the subject and I am contributing to a conference and edited collection, Revisiting the Crimes of the Powerful , which will pay tribute to Frank s pioneering work. There are of course many others including my research partner Mary Alice Young and her work on financial crime and its control which makes her the real deal.
As the book will show I am ambivalent about the work of mainstream journalists who write about organized crime, but I have nothing but admiration for those who follow the tradition of Murray Kempton of the New York Review of Books and question the conventional wisdom. I hope most of my other debts are acknowledged in the notes and, needless to say, any mistakes and misinterpretations in Double Crossed are my own responsibility.
Thanks also to Anne Beech, Robert Webb, Dan Harding, Neda Tehrani and others at Pluto Press for editing and publishing support.
Finally, I would like to thank the following for their help and support: Bob and Sue Morgan, Anna Brewer, Graham Barbrooke, Dan Hind, Paul Hoyles, Gerry and Alyson Dermody, Solomon Hughes, Kathy Jones, Phil Vinall, Mary Bennett, the Brownie Dad Support Group, my colleagues in History at UWE, Roger Woodiwiss, Laura, Althea and Edmund Woodiwiss, Dee Dee Woodiwiss, Margaret Farrow, Simon, Shona, Hettie and Jake Kitson, Danny Kushlick of Transform, Rachel Cooper, Helen Cooper, Franco Farrell, Hugo Harding, Ellie Formby and, as always, my mother Audrey Lady Lawrence, my brothers and sisters - Anthony, Simon, Min, Mary and Jo - my children, Laurie and Sophia, and someone new in my life, Barbara Kenton.
Preface
Organized crime and its more recent extension, transnational organized crime, are social and political constructs that were made in the United States of America. These constructs have aided a large number of individuals in terms of career advancement in media, politics, business and bureaucracies, but have not aided the understanding or control of systematic criminal activity. Many fundamental and virtually unchallenged assumptions about the past of organized crime derive from these individuals and continue to underlie a global consensus about transnational organized crime that helps to perpetuate almost unlimited levels of criminal opportunity. Double Crossed will challenge these assumptions about the past.
Most writers begin their histories of organized crime in America at the end of the nineteenth century when hundreds of thousands of Italians immigrated, bringing with them secret societies, notably the Mafia. During the Prohibition era, so the story goes, the Mafia - and therefore, it was thought, organized crime - became more centralized, and took over those activities that from the Cold War era onwards were most associated with the construct: illegal gambling, drug trafficking and labor racketeering. The storytellers began to convey the idea that organized crime was a national security threat that required a national security response, involving draconian laws and decisive law enforcement and criminal justice action. From the 1970s, so the accounts continue, the government, mainly in the shape of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Drug Enforcement Administration used new organized crime control powers effectively and broke the alleged hold of the Mafia. But they added caveats to this success. Success was offset by the emergence of what the government referred to as emerging crime groups, mainly of foreign origin but including home-grown, white outlaw bikers gangs, such as the Hells Angels. From the end of the Cold War, true crime writers echoed a new narrative, derived primarily from sources inside the American government. Globalization, it was now thought, had been a game-changer that let a number of super-criminal, centralized hierarchical organizations join the Mafia and assume control of drug trafficking and other transnational illegal activities. This perspective remained dominant until supplanted by one that emphasized the multitude of criminal networks. Misha Glenny s 2007