Double Crossed: The Failure of Organized Crime Control

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Woodiwiss, Michael, author.

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource (272 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Pluto Press 2017

Summary:

In the United States, the popular symbols of organized crime are still Depression-era figures such as Al Capone, Lucky Luciano, and Meyer Lansky--thought to be heads of giant, hierarchically organized mafias. In Double Crossed, Michael Woodiwiss challenges perpetuated myths to reveal a more disturbing reality of organized crime--one in which government officials and the wider establishment are deeply complicit.Delving into attempts to implement policies to control organized crime in the United States, Italy, and the United Kingdom, Woodiwiss reveals little known manifestations of organized 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 benefitted from myth making. These include Italian dictator Benito Mussolini, opportunistic American politicians and officials, and, more recently, law enforcement bureaucracies led by the FBI.Organized crime control policies now tend to legitimize repression and cover up failure. They do little to control organized crime. While the U.S. continues to export its organized 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.

Contents:

Cover

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

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

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 Paranoics

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: Settling the Global Agenda on Drugs, Organized Crime and Money Laundering

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.

ISBN:

9781786800930

OCLC:

993085396