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| gang history in chicago: The Gang Book Franco Domma, Charito Romero, Elisabeth Saffell, 2018 A detailed overview of street gangs in the Chicago metropolitan area. |
| gang history in chicago: The Gangs Of Chicago Herbert Asbury, 2016-07-26 This classic history of crime tells how Chicago’s underworld earned-and kept-its reputation. Recounting the lives of such notorious denizens as the original Mickey Finn, the mass murderer H. H. Holmes, and the three Car Barn Bandits, Asbury reveals life as it was lived in the criminal districts of the Levee, Hell’s Half-Acre, the Bad Lands, Little Cheyenne, Custom House Place, and the Black Hole. His description of Chicago’s infamous red light district-where the brothels boasted opulence unheard of before or since-vividly captures the wicked splendor that was Chicago. The Gangs of Chicago spans from the time “Slab Town” was settled to Prohibition days. The story of Chicago’s golden age of crime climaxes with a dramatic account of the careers of the “biggest of the Big Shots”: Big Jim Colosimo, Terrible Johnny Torrio, and the elusive Al Capone. |
| gang history in chicago: The Insane Chicago Way John Hagedorn, 2015-08-19 Police, the press, and the public all see the kind of violence that besets the inner city today as irrational and basically about turf, revenge, or drugs. Renowned criminologist and expert on gangs, John Hagedorn here tells a very different and little-known story centered on the dramatic rise and fall of a Mafia-like Latino organization in Chicago called Spanish Growth & Development. Hagedorn's main informant is 'Sal Martino, ' an Italian Mafioso who became intimately involved with the In$ane Family, one of the factions of Spanish Growth & Development. Through Sal's first-hand account, Hagedorn shows that the violence was not a result of disorganized crime but rather the outcome of SGD's prolonged demise. He gives us for the first time a detailed the history of SGD-the reasons for its creation, the uneasy alliances between gang families, the organization's reliance on bottom-up police corruption, and its ultimate collapse in a pool of blood at a 1999 peace conference. Revealing the hidden and riveting stories of Chicago gangs' efforts to build structures ostensibly to reduce violence and to organize crime, of the integration of gang and mafia history, and of the central role of police corruption in Chicago's gangland, The In$ane Chicago Way makes a powerful argument for the need to regard corruption as the bedrock of gang power. It dispels the notion that gang violence can be explained solely by ecological, neighborhood-based processes and sheds light on the current gang situation in Chicago by laying bare its history while raising disturbing questions for researchers, policy-makers, and the public. |
| gang history in chicago: Views from the Streets Roberto Aspholm, 2019-11-26 Views from the Streets explains the dramatic transformation of black street gangs on Chicago's South Side during the early twenty-first century. Drawing on years of community work and in-depth interviews with gang members, Roberto R. Aspholm sheds new light on why gang violence persists and what might be done to address it. |
| gang history in chicago: Views from the Streets Roberto Aspholm, 2020-02-04 Chicago has long served as a symbol of urban pathology in the public imagination. The city’s staggering levels of violence and entrenched gang culture occupy a central place in the national discourse, yet remain poorly understood and are often stereotyped. Views from the Streets explains the dramatic transformation of black street gangs on Chicago’s South Side during the early twenty-first century, shedding new light on why gang violence persists and what might be done to address it. Drawing on years of community work and in-depth interviews with gang members, Roberto R. Aspholm describes in vivid detail the internal rebellions that shattered the city’s infamous corporate-style African American street gangs. He explores how, in the wake of these uprisings, young gang members have radically refashioned gang culture and organization on Chicago’s South Side, rejecting traditional hierarchies and ideologies and instead embracing a fierce ethos of personal autonomy that has made contemporary gang violence increasingly spontaneous and unregulated. In calling attention to the historical context of these issues and to the elements of resistance embedded in Chicago’s contemporary gang culture, Aspholm challenges conventional views of gang members as inherently pathological. He critically analyzes highly touted “universal” violence prevention strategies, depicting street-level realities to illuminate why they have ultimately failed to reduce levels of bloodshed. An unprecedented analysis of the nature and meaning of gang violence, Views from the Streets proposes an alternative framework for addressing the seemingly intractable issues of inequality, despair, and violence in Chicago. |
| gang history in chicago: Compliments of Chicagohoodz JAMES JINX. O'CONNOR, Damen Vincenzo Corrado, 2019-04-30 Based on original research, Compliments of Chicagohoodz analyzes the unique visual language and graphics of Chicago's gangs, drawing upon decades of inter- views, documentation, and collecting of memorabilia, and featuring commentary from gang members and Chicago artists.The practice of creating and distributing gang business (compliment) cards was popular in Chicago for over fifty years. These displayed the organization and branch, its active and fallen members, and rivalries. This book tells the stories behind the names, bringing the reader closer to the individuals who created, owned, and added their personal touches to the card as it passed from hand to hand.James Jinx O'Connor's photographic documentation of gang graffiti and members captures a lost era of large-scale color promotional murals and an extraordinary style distinct within street art. The book also explores other forms of representation including varsity-style sweaters, patches, and drawings.Through these images, Chicagohoodz traces the development and consolidation of the neighborhood street organization from doo-wop to hip-hop, from greasers to gangster rap, from dances, bands, and softball teams to racketeering, narcotics trafficking, and domestic terror. |
| gang history in chicago: The Gangs of New York Herbert Asbury, 1928 |
| gang history in chicago: Organized Crime in Chicago Robert M. Lombardo, 2012-12-30 This book provides a comprehensive sociological explanation for the emergence and continuation of organized crime in Chicago. Tracing the roots of political corruption that afforded protection to gambling, prostitution, and other vice activity in Chicago and other large American cities, Robert M. Lombardo challenges the dominant belief that organized crime in America descended directly from the Sicilian Mafia. According to this widespread alien conspiracy theory, organized crime evolved in a linear fashion beginning with the Mafia in Sicily, emerging in the form of the Black Hand in America's immigrant colonies, and culminating in the development of the Cosa Nostra in America's urban centers. Looking beyond this Mafia paradigm, this volume argues that the development of organized crime in Chicago and other large American cities was rooted in the social structure of American society. Specifically, Lombardo ties organized crime to the emergence of machine politics in America's urban centers. From nineteenth-century vice syndicates to the modern-day Outfit, Chicago's criminal underworld could not have existed without the blessing of those who controlled municipal, county, and state government. These practices were not imported from Sicily, Lombardo contends, but were bred in the socially disorganized slums of America where elected officials routinely franchised vice and crime in exchange for money and votes. This book also traces the history of the African-American community's participation in traditional organized crime in Chicago and offers new perspectives on the organizational structure of the Chicago Outfit, the traditional organized crime group in Chicago. |
| gang history in chicago: Ballad of the Bullet Forrest Stuart, 2021-05-04 Drawing on two years of ethnographic fieldwork and over 150 interviews with gang-affiliated youth in the Taylor Park neighborhood on Chicago's South Side, Ballad of the Bullet reveals that those coming of age in America's poorest neighborhoods are developing new, creative, and online strategies for making ends meet. Dislocated by the erosion of the crack economy and the splintering of corporatized gangs, these young people exploit the unique affordances of digital social media to capitalize on an emerging online market for urban violence (or, more accurately, a market for the representation of urban violence). In the past, violence functioned primarily as a means of social control, allowing urban youth to compete in illegal street markets and defend the social statuses otherwise denied to them by mainstream society. Today, with the rise of platforms like YouTube, Instagram, and Twitter, violence has become a premier cultural commodity in and of itself. By amassing millions of clicks, views, and followers, these young people convert their online displays of violence into vital offline resources, including cash, housing, drugs, sex, and, for a very select few, a ticket out of poverty -- |
| gang history in chicago: Gang Leader for a Day Sudhir Venkatesh, 2008-01-10 A New York Times Bestseller A rich portrait of the urban poor, drawn not from statistics but from vivid tales of their lives and his, and how they intertwined. —The Economist A sensitive, sympathetic, unpatronizing portrayal of lives that are ususally ignored or lumped into ill-defined stereotype. —Finanical Times Foreword by Stephen J. Dubner, coauthor of Freakonomics When first-year graduate student Sudhir Venkatesh walked into an abandoned building in one of Chicago’s most notorious housing projects, he hoped to find a few people willing to take a multiple-choice survey on urban poverty--and impress his professors with his boldness. He never imagined that as a result of this assignment he would befriend a gang leader named JT and spend the better part of a decade embedded inside the projects under JT’s protection. From a privileged position of unprecedented access, Venkatesh observed JT and the rest of his gang as they operated their crack-selling business, made peace with their neighbors, evaded the law, and rose up or fell within the ranks of the gang’s complex hierarchical structure. Examining the morally ambiguous, highly intricate, and often corrupt struggle to survive in an urban war zone, Gang Leader for a Day also tells the story of the complicated friendship that develops between Venkatesh and JT--two young and ambitious men a universe apart. Sudhir Venkatesh’s latest book Floating City: A Rogue Sociologist Lost and Found in New York’s Underground Economy—a memoir of sociological investigation revealing the true face of America’s most diverse city—is also published by Penguin Press. |
| gang history in chicago: The Gang Frederic Milton Thrasher, 2013-03-27 While gangs and gang culture have been around for countless centuries, The Gang is one of the first academic studies of the phenomenon. Originally published in 1927, Frederic Milton Thrasher’s magnum opus offers a profound and careful analysis of hundreds of gangs in Chicago in the early part of the twentieth century. With rich prose and an eye for detail, Thrasher looked specifically at the way in which urban geography shaped gangs, and posited the thesis that neighborhoods in flux were more likely to produce gangs. Moreover, he traced gang culture back to feudal and medieval power systems and linked tribal ethos in other societies to codes of honor and glory found in American gangs. Thrasher approaches his subject with empathy and insightfulness, and creates a multifaceted and textured portrait that still has much to offer to readers today. With handsome images that evoke the era, this unabridged edition of The Gang not only explores an important moment in the history of Chicago, but also is itself a landmark in the history of sociology and subcultural theory. |
| gang history in chicago: Renegade Dreams Laurence Ralph, 2014-09-15 Inner city communities in the US have become junkyards of dreams, to quote Mike Daviswastelands where gangs package narcotics to stimulate the local economy, gunshots occur multiple times on any given day, and dreams of a better life can fade into the realities of poverty and disability. Laurence Ralph lived in such a community in Chicago for three years, conducting interviews and participating in meetings with members of the local gang which has been central to the community since the 1950s. Ralph discovered that the experience of injury, whether physical or social, doesn t always crush dreams into oblivion; it can transform them into something productive: renegade dreams. The first part of this book moves from a critique of the way government officials, as opposed to grandmothers, have been handling the situation, to a study of the history of the historic Divine Knights gang, to a portrait of a duo of gang members who want to be recognized as authentic rappers (they call their musical style crack music ) and the difficulties they face in exiting the gang. The second part is on physical disability, including being wheelchair bound, the prevalence of HIV/AIDS among heroin users, and the experience of brutality at the hands of Chicago police officers. In a final chapter, The Frame, Or How to Get Out of an Isolated Space, Ralph offers a fresh perspective on how to understand urban violence. The upshot is a total portrait of the interlocking complexities, symbols, and vicissitudes of gang life in one of the most dangerous inner city neighborhoods in the US. We expect this study will enjoy considerable readership, among anthropologists, sociologists, and other scholars interested in disability, urban crime, and race. |
| gang history in chicago: Gem of the Prairie Herbert Asbury, 1940 This classic history of crime tells how Chicago's underworld earned and kept its reputation. |
| gang history in chicago: The Insane Chicago Way John M. Hagedorn, 2015-08-19 “His account of relationships between street gangs of this period and Chicago’s Outfit, the legacy of Al Capone and others, is especially important.” —James F. Short, author of Poverty, Ethnicity, and Violent Crime In The Insane Chicago Way, John M. Hagedorn’s lively stories of extensive cross-neighborhood gang organization, tales of police/gang corruption, and discovery of covert gang connections to Chicago’s Mafia challenge conventional wisdom and offer lessons for the control of violence today. The book centers on the secret history of Spanish Growth & Development (SGD)—an organization of Latino gangs founded in 1989 and modeled on the Mafia’s nationwide Commission. It also tells a story within a story of the criminal exploits of the C-Note$, the “minor league” team of the Chicago’s Mafia (called the “Outfit”), which influenced the direction of SGD. Hagedorn’s tale is based on three years of interviews with an Outfit soldier as well as access to SGD’s constitution and other secret documents, which he supplements with interviews of key SGD leaders, court records, and newspaper accounts. The result is a stunning, heretofore unknown history of the grand ambitions of Chicago gang leaders that ultimately led to SGD’s shocking collapse in a pool of blood on the steps of a gang-organized peace conference. The Insane Chicago Way is a compelling history of the lives and deaths of Chicago gang leaders. At the same time it is a sociological tour de force that warns of the dangers of organized crime while arguing that today’s relative disorganization of gangs presents opportunities for intervention and reductions in violence. “An intricate tale of violence, mafia influence, and police corruption.” —Chicago Reader |
| gang history in chicago: The Almighty Black P Stone Nation Natalie Y. Moore, Lance Williams, 2011 This expose investigates the evolution of the Almighty Black P Stone Nation, a motley group of poverty-stricken teens transformed into a dominant gang accused of terroristic intentions. Interwoven into the narrative is the dynamic influence of leader Jeff Fort, who--despite his flamboyance and high visibility--instilled a rigid structure and discipline that afforded the young men a refuge and a sense of purpose in an often hopeless community. Details of how the Nation procured government funding for gang-related projects during the War on Poverty era and fueled bonuses and job security for law enforcement, and how Fort, in particular, masterminded a deal for $2.5 million to commit acts of terrorism in the United States on behalf of Libya are also revealed. In examining whether the Black P Stone Nation was a group of criminals, brainwashed terrorists, victims of their circumstances, or champions of social change, this social history provides an exploration of how and why gangs flourish and insight into the way in which minority crime is targeted in the community, reported in the media, and prosecuted in the courts. |
| gang history in chicago: Wounded City Robert Vargas, 2016 Through an ethnographic case study of Chicago's Little Village, Wounded City demonstrates how competition for political power and state resources undermined efforts to reduce gang violence. Robert Vargas argues that the state, through different patterns of governance, can contribute to distrust and division among community members. |
| gang history in chicago: Reducing Youth Gang Violence Irving A. Spergel, 2007-03-01 In this book, Irving Spergel details the efforts of his Chicago youth gang project, a comprehensive, community-based model designed to reduce gang problems, including violence and illegal drug activity. He offers an in-depth description of the Little Village Gang Violence Reduction Project, revealing the successes and failures of intervention at each level: individual youths, the gang itself, and the community at large. Spergel relates how a coalition of criminal justice, neighborhood, and academic organizations_along with a team of tactical officers, probation officers, former gang leaders, and a neighborhood organization_developed strategies for dealing with hardcore violent male youths from two gangs: the Latin Kings and Two Six. This well-known project has become the model for a series of national initiatives. Policymakers, criminologists, and gang researchers will find this model valuable for assessing gang programs and reducing gang violence. |
| gang history in chicago: THEE ALMIGHTY & INSANE Brandon Johnson, 2019-04-23 Back due to popular demand, another volume-Thee Almighty & Insane: Chicago Gang Business Cards from the 1960s & 1970s. Same format, but with all new content including a selection of older and rarer Chicago gang compliment cards from the North and West Sides made during the 1960s & (mostly) 1970s. This book documents a collection of historical ephemera from a period of time in which city-orchestrated displacement, the loss of industry, and racial antagonism created socioeconomic conditions that led to the formation and expansion of gangs in the streets, parks, and schools of Chicago. Once again, 70+ enlarged reproductions of original compliment cards listing members, territories, slogans, and declarations of loyalty/animosity, are brought to the forefront for examination and interpretation. |
| gang history in chicago: Explosion of Chicago's Black Street Gangs Useni Eugene Perkins, 1987 This commentary is not intended to be a comprehensive analysis of Chicago's Black street gangs, nor does it purport to be based on scientific data. However, as one who has worked with and observed Black street gangs for over twenty-five years, I believe I do have some insight about them. Furthermore, I believe as a Black social practitioner my insight gives a perspective on Black street gangs that has not been provided by many white academicians and social scientists. What this commentary attempts to do is to trace the evolution of Chicago's Black street gangs and identify those factors that have made many of them the violent gangs they are today. In doing so, I have tried to separate myth from fact and list critical realities we must face if we are to have a significant impact on Black street gangs. Although I do not provide solutions to the Black street gang problem, I believe some strategies for remedying the problem can be extrapolated from my commentary.--Preface. |
| gang history in chicago: Chicago Based Gangs Joe Sparks, Gabe Morales, 2015-03-20 Covers the historical development of Chicago gangs, their roots, their politics, and their propaganda. Provides essential insight, often through personal experiences of the authors, into the pathways of these gangs and their violence, to help younger cops and communities learn more. |
| gang history in chicago: Black Gangsters of Chicago Ron Chepesiuk, 2014-04 Not as famous as Al Capone, but perhaps even more vicious, are John 'Mushmouth' Johnson, Jeff Fort and Larry Hoover from the Chicago underworld. Ron Chepesiuk reveals, for the first time, the stories of these African-American gangsters who were every bit as powerful, intriguing and colourful as the Windy City's more famous gangsters of the mid-to-late 20th Century. Each page is more exciting than the previous as Chepesiuk exposes never-before-known facts about the black gangsters who once ruled Chicago streets. |
| gang history in chicago: Vice in Chicago Walter C. Reckless, 1969 |
| gang history in chicago: Al Capone's Beer Wars John J. Binder, 2017 Based on 25 years of research using all available sources, this is the definitive history of organized crime in Chicago through the end of the Prohibition Era-- |
| gang history in chicago: Gangland Chicago Richard C. Lindberg, 2015-10-15 This engrossing tale of gangs and organized criminality begins in the frontier saloons situated in the marshy flats of Chicago, the future world class city of Mid-continent. Gangland Chicago recounts the era of parlor gambling, commercialized vice districts continuing through the bloody Prohibition bootlegging wars; failed reform movements; the rise of post-World War II juvenile criminal gangs and the saga of the Blackstone Rangers in a chaotic, racially divided city. , Gang violence and street crime is endemic in contemporary Chicago. There is much more to the saga of crime, politics, and armed violence than Al Capone and John Dillinger. Gangland Chicago explores the changing patterns of criminal behavior, politics, gangs, youth crime and the failures of reform in its historic totality. Richard Lindberg takes the reader on a journey through decades of a troubled past to delve deep into the evolution of street gangs and organized violence endemic in Chicago. Small ethnic gangs organized in ethnic slum districts of the city expanded into the well-known organized crime syndicates of Chicago’s history. Gangland Chicago is full of stories of unchecked violence, lawlessness, and mayhem. Unlike other standard true crime accounts focused exclusively on the Prohibition era, this historical look-back probes the obscure and forgotten dark corners of city crime history. Lindberg details how both “organized” and “dis-organized” street gangs have paralyzed city neighborhoods and transformed the crimes of the Windy City from street thuggery and common ruffians protected and nurtured by politicians into a protected class is gripping. Gangland Chicago is a revealing look at the Chicago underworld of yesterday and today. This comprehensive volume is sure to entertain and inform any reader interested in the evolution of organized crime and gangs in America’s most representative city of the American Heartland. |
| gang history in chicago: In Deep Angalia Bianca, Linda Beckstrom, Kevin Gates, 2018-10-02 Before Angalia Bianca became one of Chicago's foremost authorities on violence interruption and prevention, receiving international recognition and a Resolution for Bravery from the City of Chicago, she was a criminal, a master manipulator, and a brilliant con artist. Bianca spent twelve years in prison for forgery, embezzlement, drug dealing, and theft. But now she has gone far beyond the expectations for recovery to a life of service fueled by an unrelenting determination to make a difference. Bianca was once a gang member; now she puts her life on the line to interrupt gang violence. For thirty-six years she was a heroin addict; now she mentors people in recovery. She was homeless; now she appears as an invited guest to speak at events across the country and around the world. Bianca crawled out of the deepest hole imaginable; now through her work with the renowned violence prevention group Cure Violence, she climbs back down to change lives. In Deep is a blunt, honest look at Bianca's life. Her mind-blowing stories take readers deep into a world of grit and gang violence that seems inescapable. Her story is at once fascinating, terrifying, and ultimately full of hope. Readers will be inspired by Bianca's escape from the depths of depravity, and by her commitment to those facing the worst that the city of Chicago has to offer. |
| gang history in chicago: Lords of Lawndale Michael Scott, 2009-04-01 When we both made it to the other side of Fullerton, the swarm of Gangsters were off-running for their lives, far out of our reach. I was pissed. Fullerton traffic had delayed me and it gave these guys time to get away clean. Regardless of the distance, I pulled the trigger anyway, and opened up with the shotgun... Based on actual events, this soul-gripping tale is an account of survival in the urban jungle of Chicago, in the 1980s. While embarked on his own street-journey, Michael Scott enters a world in which a band of brothers are locked in a desperate engagement, an Alamo-like siege of their hood. Amidst turbulent conditions, the narrator gives us all a ticket to ride next to him on this roller coaster ride, with its twist and turns of horror and frustration, suspense and humor. Following in the tradition of profound gang tales such as The Outsiders and West Side Story, this must-read book goes beneath the hardcore surface to show the struggle of the human spirit. |
| gang history in chicago: Power on the Inside Mitchel P. Roth, 2020-11-05 Power on the Inside is the first book to examine the historical development of prison gangs worldwide, from those that emerged inside mid-nineteenth-century Neapolitan prisons to the new generation of younger inmates challenging the status quo within gang subcultures today. Historian-criminologist Mitchel P. Roth examines prison gangs throughout the world, from the Americas, Oceania, and South Africa to Southeast Asia, Europe, and beyond. The book examines the many variables that influence the evolution of prison subcultures, from colonialism and population demographics to prison architecture and staff-prisoner relations. Power on the Inside features eighty historical and contemporary images and will inform professionals in the field as well as general readers who want to know more about the realities of prison gangs today. |
| gang history in chicago: Lady Q Reymundo Sanchez, Sonia Rodriguez, 2010 Reymundo Sanchez, a former member of the Latin Kings street gang, recounts the experiences of Sonia Rodriguez, a young girl who became a powerful leader of the Latin Queens, and explores the devastating impact gangs can have on a young girl's life. |
| gang history in chicago: An American Summer Alex Kotlowitz, 2020-03-31 2020 J. ANTHONY LUKAS PRIZE WINNER From the bestselling author of There Are No Children Here, a richly textured, heartrending portrait of love and death in Chicago's most turbulent neighborhoods. The numbers are staggering: over the past twenty years in Chicago, 14,033 people have been killed and another roughly 60,000 wounded by gunfire. What does that do to the spirit of individuals and community? Drawing on his decades of experience, Alex Kotlowitz set out to chronicle one summer in the city, writing about individuals who have emerged from the violence and whose stories capture the capacity--and the breaking point--of the human heart and soul. The result is a spellbinding collection of deeply intimate profiles that upend what we think we know about gun violence in America. Among others, we meet a man who as a teenager killed a rival gang member and twenty years later is still trying to come to terms with what he's done; a devoted school social worker struggling with her favorite student, who refuses to give evidence in the shooting death of his best friend; the witness to a wrongful police shooting who can't shake what he has seen; and an aging former gang leader who builds a place of refuge for himself and his friends. Applying the close-up, empathic reporting that made There Are No Children Here a modern classic, Kotlowitz offers a piercingly honest portrait of a city in turmoil. These sketches of those left standing will get into your bones. This one summer will stay with you. |
| gang history in chicago: From Disgrace to Dignity Clemens Bartollas, 2019-01-14 From Disgrace to Dignity: Redemption in the Life of Willie Rico Johnson examines the life of Rico Johnson who became the head of the Conservative Vice Lords, one of the largest street gangs in the United States. In addition to highlighting his life, this work considers how redemption has affected his life. In addition, Minister Rico is identified as a Godfather. Much like the Godfathers found in organized crime families, Rico sees himself as providing a positive force to Vice Lords' gang members. On one hand, what this involves is taking care of their needs (he feeds 150 families a day) and, on the other hand, providing guidance and direction for members' lives. |
| gang history in chicago: Gem of the Prairie Herbert Asbury, 1940 |
| gang history in chicago: The Chicago Outfit John J. Binder, 2003 Presents a history of the Chicago Outfit, detailing its role in the development of the city's organized crime scene as well as the political and corporate protection it secured in order to become one of the most successful crime families. |
| gang history in chicago: The Kosher Capones Joe Kraus, 2019-10-15 The Kosher Capones tells the fascinating story of Chicago's Jewish gangsters from Prohibition into the 1980s. Author Joe Kraus traces these gangsters through the lives, criminal careers, and conflicts of Benjamin Zuckie the Bookie Zuckerman, last of the independent West Side Jewish bosses, and Lenny Patrick, eventual head of the Syndicate's Jewish wing. These two men linked the early Jewish gangsters of the neighborhoods of Maxwell Street and Lawndale to the notorious Chicago Outfit that emerged from Al Capone's criminal confederation. Focusing on the murder of Zuckerman by Patrick, Kraus introduces us to the different models of organized crime they represented, a raft of largely forgotten Jewish gangsters, and the changing nature of Chicago's political corruption. Hard-to-believe anecdotes of corrupt politicians, seasoned killers, and in-over-their-heads criminal operators spotlight the magnitude and importance of Jewish gangsters to the story of Windy City mob rule. With an eye for the dramatic, The Kosher Capones takes us deep inside a hidden society and offers glimpses of the men who ran the Jewish criminal community in Chicago for more than sixty years. |
| gang history in chicago: The Mafia Encyclopedia Carl Sifakis, 2006 More than 500 alphabetical entries provide information on the people, places and events associated with the Mafia. |
| gang history in chicago: The North Side Gang: The History and Legacy of the Organized Crime Mob That Fought Al Capone for Control of Chicago Charles River Editors, 2019-03-20 *Includes pictures *Includes online resources and a bibliography for further reading I hope, when my time comes, that I die decently in bed. I don't want to be murdered beside the garbage cans in some Chicago alley. - Bugs Moran 20th century Chicago was an ideal breeding ground for organized crime. A buzzing circuit board dotted with towering skyscrapers, brick buildings, worker's cottages, and an eclectic collection of greystone manors, the Windy City was further decked out with electric entertainment districts, the theaters, clubs, brothels, restaurants, and niteries that lined its streets. The city was illuminated by dazzling marquees and light-up signage, and enlivened by the muffled medley of midnight chatter and big band music seeping out of the nightspots. Those who ambled along the boardwalks flanking the Chicago River were greeted by moored commercial fishing boats bobbing in the water, as well as bustling stalls stocked with trout, salmon, and rainbow smelt. The rise of Chicago's gangland can be attributed to a number of factors. First, there was the sudden explosion in its population, which saw an influx of immigrants - mainly from eastern and southern Europe, as well as Americans from neighboring and faraway states - teem into the city in search of promising job opportunities and a better life. The abrupt inundation of permanent citizens rendered the already suffering policeman to civilian ratio out of kilter, and the authorities' control of the city became further unzipped. Moreover, children and impressionable youths were regularly exposed to the overwhelming and unblushing presence of organized crime, meaning that the transitions of petty thieves and minor-league thugs to career crooks and full-time gangsters were only natural segues. The privileged pursued politics, medicine, law, and other respectable professions, but the poor folks, set several steps back by their limited resources, turned to crime. Plenty were desperate to feed their families and cheat the unjust system. In the midst of it all, the Chicago Outfit, one of the longest-running criminal organizations in the land of the free, was perhaps the most notorious of them all. The baleful brotherhood bore a terrifying brand defined by cutthroat competitiveness, sadistic torture tactics, and excessive bloodshed, among scores of other despicable acts. On February 14, 1929, members of the North Side Gang arrived at a warehouse on North Clark Street in Chicago, only to be approached by several police officers. The officers then marched them outside up against a wall, pulled out submachine guns and shotguns, and gunned them all down on the spot. A famous legend is that one of the shot men, Frank Gusenberg, dying from 14 gunshot wounds, told police that nobody shot him. Though Gusenberg's statement is probably apocryphal, nobody opened their mouths. Nobody was ever convicted for the Saint Valentine's Day Massacre, the most infamous gangland hit in American history, but it's an open secret that it was the work of America's most famous gangster, Al Capone. While the North Side Gang is not as infamous as Capone's mob, the fact that the North Siders were the targets indicate just how powerful Capone's rivals were. Indeed, members like Bugs Moran would carry on a rivalry with Capone that lasted upwards of a decade. The North Side Gang: The History and Legacy of the Organized Crime Mob that Fought Al Capone for Control of Chicago profiles how the group rose in the criminal underworld, and all the controversies that ensued. Along with pictures of important people, places, and events, you will learn about the North Side Gang like never before. |
| gang history in chicago: Lords of the Levee Lloyd Wendt, Herman Kogan, 2005 Winner of 2006 Illinois State Historical Society Book Award-Certificate of Excellence In the early twentieth century, John Coughlin and Mike Kenna ruled Chicago's First Ward, the lucrative lakefront territory and nerve center of the city. It was one of the most infamous havens for vice in the entire country, home to gambling palaces with marble floors and mahogany bars, to a mini-city of thugs and prostitutes and down-and-outers, to dives and saloons of every description and a few beyond description. In short, the First was a gold mine. In a city where money talked, it made boisterous Bathhouse John and the laconic Hinky Dink Kenna the most powerful men in town. This classic of Chicago-style journalism traces the careers of these two operators as they rose to the top of the city's political world. |
| gang history in chicago: The Almighty Latin King and Queen Nation David Brotherton, Luis Barrios, 2004 How a notorious street gang became a social organization providing leadership to New York City's Latino/a youths. |
| gang history in chicago: My Bloody Life Reymundo Sanchez, 2007-04-01 Looking for an escape from childhood abuse, Reymundo Sanchez turned away from school and baseball to drugs, alcohol, and then sex, and was left to fend for himself before age 14. The Latin Kings, one of the largest and most notorious street gangs in America, became his refuge and his world, but its violence cost him friends, freedom, self-respect, and nearly his life. This is a raw and powerful odyssey through the ranks of the new mafia, where the only people more dangerous than rival gangs are members of your own gang, who in one breath will say they'll die for you and in the next will order your assassination. |
| gang history in chicago: The Barbary Coast Herbert Asbury, 2022-08-17 The history of the Barbary Coast properly begins with the gold rush to California in 1849. Owing almost entirely to the influx of gold-seekers and the horde of gamblers, thieves, harlots, politicians, and other felonious parasites who battened upon them, there arose a unique criminal district that for almost seventy years was the scene of more viciousness and depravity, but which at the same time possessed more glamour, than any other area of vice and iniquity on the American continent. The Barbary Coast is the chronicle of the birth of San Francisco. From all over the world practitioners of every vice stampeded for the blood and money of the gold fields. Gambling dens ran all day including Sundays. From noon to noon houses of prostitution offered girls of every age and race. This is the story of the banditry, opium bouts, tong wars, and corruption, from the eureka at Sutter’s Mill until the last bagnio closed its doors seventy years later. |
| gang history in chicago: Down, Out &Under Arrest Forrest Stuart, 2016-08-02 “A well-supported critique of therapeutic policing and, by extension, of similar paternalistic efforts to help the poor by hassling them into good behavior.” —Los Angeles Times In his first year working in Los Angeles’s Skid Row, Forrest Stuart was stopped on the street by police fourteen times. Usually for doing little more than standing there. Juliette, a woman he met during that time, has been stopped by police well over one hundred times, arrested upward of sixty times, and has given up more than a year of her life serving week-long jail sentences. Her most common crime? Simply sitting on the sidewalk—an arrestable offense in LA. Why? What purpose did those arrests serve, for society or for Juliette? How did we reach a point where we’ve cut support for our poorest citizens, yet are spending ever more on policing and prisons? That’s the complicated, maddening story that Stuart tells in Down, Out & Under Arrest, a close-up look at the hows and whys of policing poverty in the contemporary United States. What emerges from Stuart’s years of fieldwork—not only with Skid Row residents, but with the police charged with managing them—is a tragedy built on mistakes and misplaced priorities more than on heroes and villains. At a time when distrust between police and the residents of disadvantaged neighborhoods has never been higher, Stuart’s book helps us see where we’ve gone wrong, and what steps we could take to begin to change the lives of our poorest citizens—and ultimately our society itself—for the better. |
What Is a Gang? Definitions - National Institute of Justice
Oct 27, 2011 · There is no universally agreed-upon definition of "gang" in the United States. Gang, youth gang and street gang are terms widely and often interchangeably used in mainstream …
Gangs and Gang Crime - National Institute of Justice
A Randomized Controlled Trial of the Scenarios and Solutions Gang Prevention Program Philosophies in Community Supervision of Gang-Involved Youth and Adults Multidisciplinary …
Archived | Overview of Gangs and Gang Crime - National Institute …
Oct 27, 2011 · Gang members engage in a higher level of serious and violent crime than their non-gang-involved peers. Research about gangs is often intertwined with research about gun …
The Attraction of Gangs: How Can We Reduce It?
Sep 15, 2013 · This page gives an overview of one section of the book Changing Course: Preventing Gang Membership. Learn more about the book and how to get copies. Kids join …
Youth Gangs and Definitional Issues: When is a Gang a Gang, and …
Jan 1, 2001 · Data collection took place in the spring of 1995. Results revealed that 17 percent reported being a gang member at some point in time, 9 percent reported current gang …
Gangs vs. Extremists: Solutions for Gangs May Not Work Against ...
Oct 26, 2020 · Gang and nongang extremists were overwhelmingly third or more generation citizens, but nongang extremists were more likely to be first-generation residents than gang …
Archived | Why Is Gang-Membership Prevention Important?
Sep 15, 2013 · This page gives an overview of one section of the book Changing Course: Preventing Gang Membership. Learn more about the book and how to get copies. Gangs are a …
Functional Family Therapy–Gangs: Adapting an Evidence-Based …
Mar 5, 2020 · Gang-involved youth are responsible for a disproportionate share of crime in communities.[1] Successfully tackling gang involvement and associated criminal activities …
Gang Membership and Violent Victimization - National Institute of …
Dec 1, 2004 · Results of statistical analyses indicated significantly higher violent victimization rates among gang members before, during, and after gang membership than were found among non …
Changing Course: Preventing Youth From Joining Gangs
Sep 15, 2013 · NIJ and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) formed a partnership to publish a book, Changing Course: Preventing Gang Membership. Written by …
What Is a Gang? Definitions - National Institute of Justice
Oct 27, 2011 · There is no universally agreed-upon definition of "gang" in the United States. Gang, youth gang and street gang are terms widely and often interchangeably used in mainstream …
Gangs and Gang Crime - National Institute of Justice
A Randomized Controlled Trial of the Scenarios and Solutions Gang Prevention Program Philosophies in Community Supervision of Gang-Involved Youth and Adults Multidisciplinary …
Archived | Overview of Gangs and Gang Crime - National Institute …
Oct 27, 2011 · Gang members engage in a higher level of serious and violent crime than their non-gang-involved peers. Research about gangs is often intertwined with research about gun …
The Attraction of Gangs: How Can We Reduce It?
Sep 15, 2013 · This page gives an overview of one section of the book Changing Course: Preventing Gang Membership. Learn more about the book and how to get copies. Kids join …
Youth Gangs and Definitional Issues: When is a Gang a Gang, and …
Jan 1, 2001 · Data collection took place in the spring of 1995. Results revealed that 17 percent reported being a gang member at some point in time, 9 percent reported current gang …
Gangs vs. Extremists: Solutions for Gangs May Not Work Against ...
Oct 26, 2020 · Gang and nongang extremists were overwhelmingly third or more generation citizens, but nongang extremists were more likely to be first-generation residents than gang …
Archived | Why Is Gang-Membership Prevention Important?
Sep 15, 2013 · This page gives an overview of one section of the book Changing Course: Preventing Gang Membership. Learn more about the book and how to get copies. Gangs are a …
Functional Family Therapy–Gangs: Adapting an Evidence-Based …
Mar 5, 2020 · Gang-involved youth are responsible for a disproportionate share of crime in communities.[1] Successfully tackling gang involvement and associated criminal activities …
Gang Membership and Violent Victimization - National Institute of …
Dec 1, 2004 · Results of statistical analyses indicated significantly higher violent victimization rates among gang members before, during, and after gang membership than were found among non …
Changing Course: Preventing Youth From Joining Gangs
Sep 15, 2013 · NIJ and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) formed a partnership to publish a book, Changing Course: Preventing Gang Membership. Written by …
