Traditional Organized Crime in Chicago

For 78 years the Chicago Outfit or Mob has been the focus of the Chicago Crime Commission's1 efforts to combat organized crime. Indeed, the perception of organized crime in Chicago, as well as much of the city's reputation, stems from the notorious, and often inappropriately glamorized, activities of the Outfit from Al Capone in the 1930s through John DiFronzo in the 1990s. While the Outfit is most certainly still alive, much of the organized criminal activity presently targeting Chicago and its suburbs is perpetrated by new and emerging criminal enterprises. These groups range from local burglary rings to highly sophisticated international criminal organizations headquartered in Asia, Eastern Europe, Africa and South America, involved in corporate kidnapping and extortion, murder-for-hire, high-tech crime and drug trafficking. All require public attention and relentless law enforcement scrutiny. This paper deals with traditional organized crime in Chicago. Emerging Organized Crime will be dealt with in a forthcoming paper.     

Review essay / mental illness and criminal justice

Norval Morris, Madness and the Criminal Law Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1982, 235 pp.     

Good faith mistakes and the exclusionary rule

Frank Anechiarico and James B. Jacobs, The Pursuit of Absolute Integrity: How Corruption Control Makes Government Ineffective Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996, 274 pp.     

Mental Disorder, Work Disability and the Law

R.J. Bonnie and J. Monahan, eds., Mental Disorder, Work Disability, and the Law (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997): 321 pp.     

Review essay / The precinct confessional

Peter Brooks, Troubling Confessions: Speaking Guilt in Law and Literature Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2000, x + 207 pp.     

Book review/reform and punishment

Michael Tonry and Franklin E. Zimring, eds., Reform and Punishment: Essays on Criminal Sentencing Chicago, Ill.: The University of Chicago Press, 1983, viii + 210 pp.     

Pursuing justice in a free society: Part one—power vs. liberty

John Kaplan, The Hardest Drug: Heroin and Public Policy Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1983, xi + 247 pp.     

>The role of subjectivity in criminal justice classification and prediction methods

Leo Katz, Bad Acts and Guilty Minds: Conundrums of the Criminal Law Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 1987, vii + 343 pp.     

Overstepping police authority

Bernard Harcourt, Language of the Gun: Youth, Crime, and Public Policy Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006, xiii + 278 pp.     

BOOK REVIEW

Abstract

MY BLOODY LIFE: THE MAKING OF A LATIN KING. Sanchez, Reymundo. Chicago, IL: Chicago Review Press, 2000. Reviewed by Zelma Henriques     

Criminology, the Chicago School, and sociological theory

Although the Department of Sociology at the University of Chicago wasnever known as a center for sociological theory, major contributions were made in suchareas as social disorganization, human ecology and demography, urbanism,professions, institutional development, community organization anddevelopment, as well as criminology and deviance. These theoreticalcontributions did not qualify as grand theory, but all were in the Chicago tradition of theoretically interpretive empirical work. The Project onHuman Development in Chicago Neighborhoods – Chicago-style researchat its best – continues that tradition, wherever it is practiced and whateverits specific aims.     

The Black Mafia: African-American organized crime in Chicago 1890–1960

The historical role of African-Americans in organized crime in the UnitedStates has been greatly ignored by the academic community. What researchthat does exist argues that black Americans played a minor role in theethnic gambling and vice industries that existed in many American citiesat the beginning of the Twentieth Century. This view is supported by the alien conspiracy theory, which argues that the participation of African-Americansand other minorities in syndicated vice and crime followed the decline oftraditional Italian American organized crime groups. This research arguesthat sophisticated African-American organized crime groups in Chicago existedindependently of Italian American organized crime and that African-Americans eventually played an important role in the activities of the Chicago Outfit,the traditional Italian American organized group in Chicago.     

DESTINATION EFFECTS: RESIDENTIAL MOBILITY AND TRAJECTORIES OF ADOLESCENT VIOLENCE IN A STRATIFIED METROPOLIS*

Two landmark policy interventions to improve the lives of youth through neighborhood mobility—the Gautreaux program in Chicago and the Moving to Opportunity (MTO) experiments in five cities—have produced conflicting results and have created a puzzle with broad implications: Do residential moves between neighborhoods increase or decrease violence, or both? To address this question, we analyze data from a subsample of adolescents ages 9–12 years from the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods, a longitudinal study of children and their families that began in Chicago—the site of the original Gautreaux program and one of the MTO experiments. We propose a dynamic modeling strategy to separate the effects of residential moving across three waves of the study from dimensions of neighborhood change and metropolitan location. The results reveal countervailing effects of mobility on trajectories of violence; whereas neighborhood moves within Chicago lead to an increased risk of violence, moves outside the city reduce violent offending and exposure to violence. The gap in violence between movers within and outside Chicago is explained not only by the racial and economic composition of the destination neighborhoods but also by the quality of school contexts, adolescents' perceived control over their new environment, and fear. These findings highlight the need to simultaneously consider residential mobility, mechanisms of neighborhood change, and the wider geography of structural opportunity.     

Can community policing increase residents’ informal social control? Testing the impact of the Chicago Alternative Policing Strategy

This study examines whether community policing can build informal social control. Specifically, this paper assesses the impact of the Chicago Alternative Policing Strategy (CAPS) in Chicago neighborhoods. The data for this research are drawn from both the Community Survey of the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods (PHDCN) and the CAPS Prototype Panel Survey. Bivariate and multivariate methods are used to analyze data gathered from 8782 residents nested within 343 neighborhood clusters. Initially, community policing was found to increase informal social control, but this effect was rendered non-significant after controlling for theoretically and empirically relevant variables. Several social (dis)organization variables, as well as satisfaction with policing services, yielded significant effects in a multilevel regression model. Further analysis found that the community policing effect on informal social control was mediated through satisfaction with the police. These findings indicate indirect support for the ability of community policing to build informal social control and suggest that general satisfaction with the police is important to neighborhood crime control strategies.     

Book Reviews

Book Reviews in this articles INEQUALITY, CRIME, AND PUBLIC POLICY. ByJohn Braithwaite. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1979. Pp. 332. HARLOTS, WHORES, & HOOKERS. by Hilary Evans. New York: Taplinger, 1979, Pp. 225. $12.95. PRISONS IN TURMOIL. BY John Irwin. Boston: Little, Brown, 1980, Pp. 277. $6.95. BEATING A RAP? DEFENIDANTS FOUND INCOMPETENT TO STAND TRIAL. By Henry J. Steadman. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979. Pp. 144. $13.00     

Rethinking the war against hate crimes: A New York city perspective

Francis Allen, The Borderland of Criminal Justice: Essays in Law and Criminology Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1964

Francis Allen, The Crimes of Politics: Political Dimensions of Criminal Justice Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1974

Francis Allen, Law, Intellect, and Education Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1979

Francis Allen, The Decline of the Rehabilitative Ideal: Penal Policy and Social Purpose New Haven: Yale University Press, 1981     

Anatomy of a Counter-Bar Association: The Chicago Council of Lawyers

There have been few successful attempts in the history of the organized bar since 1870 to establish alternative bar groups that challenge the dominance of the large comprehensive local and state bar associations over the representation of lawyers' interests. Founded in 1969, a product of the social ferment of the 1960s, the Chicago Council of Lawyers provides an example of one such attempt. This paper examines the conditions under which a reform-oriented counter-bar association is likely to arise, the factors that permitted its successful establishment in Chicago, and the functions it serves within the legal profession as an alternative to the Chicago Bar Association.
While the violence surrounding the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago may have sparked the formation of an alternative bar association, it was intraprofessional matters that deeply concerned the founders of the Council particularly the performance of the organized bar in providing legal services to the poor and in improving the quality of the judiciary. Within the legal profession itself there was also a striking disjunction between the age of the leadership of the bar and of the numerous young lawyers who flooded in-to the bar in the 1960s. Preexisting networks of young activist lawyers greatly facilitated organizational formation.
As a reformist group with a small and relatively homogeneous membership, and lacking strong ties to powerful institutions, the Council can afford to take strong stances on controversial issues. By aggressively supporting positions at odds with those of the more established bar associations, and thus providing the media, the public, and legislators with an alternative viewpoint, the Council contributes to shattering the myth of a unified profession and to the demystification of professional authority.     

Ben L. Reitman,MD: colorful critical criminologist

Ben Reitman, a medical doctor, fought throughout his life for greater sympathetic understanding of and assistance to American’s underdogs. He spent his early years living among social outcasts and riding the rails with hobos. He then teamed up with Emma Goldman to advance her political agenda of anarchist ideas and in support of free speech. After an amiable split with Goldman, he worked in Chicago, treating prostitutes, performing illegal abortions, combating venereal disease, and battling to make birth control information freely available. Reitman also associated with several of the prominent members of the University of Chicago’s stellar sociology faculty and contributed importantly to their studies of urban life.     

BOOK REVIEWS

CONTROLLING UNLA WFUL ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR: SOCIAL STRUCTURE AND CORPORATE MISCONDUCT. By Diane Vaughan. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1983. PP. 174. Cloth.
THE MAKING OF AN INMATE: PRISON AS A WAY OF LIFE. By Ann Cordilia. Cambridge, MA: Schenkman Publishing, 1983. PP. 133. Cloth.
CRIMINAL VIOLENCE. Edited by Marvin E. Wolfgang and Neil A. Weiner. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage Publication, 1982. Pp. 350. Paper.
SOCIAL CONTROL: VIEWS FROM THE SOCIAL SCIENCES. Edited by Jack P. Gibbs. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage Publications, 1982. Pp. 288. Paper.     

Neighborhood climates of legal cynicism and complaints about abuse of police power†

Research findings show that legal cynicism—a cultural frame in which skepticism about laws, the legal system, and police is expressed—is important in understanding neighborhood variation in engagement with the police, particularly in racially isolated African American communities. We argue that legal cynicism is also useful for understanding neighborhood variation in complaints about police misconduct. Using data on complaints filed in Chicago between 2012 and 2014, we show that grievances disproportionately came from racially segregated neighborhoods and that a measure of legal cynicism from the mid-1990s predicts complaints about abuse of police power two decades later. The association between legal cynicism and complaints is net of prior complaints, reported crime, imprisonment, and other structural factors that contribute to the frequency and nature of interactions involving police and residents. Legal cynicism also mediates the influence of racially isolated neighborhoods on complaints. The mid-1990s is the approximate midpoint of a half-century of police scandals in Chicago. Our research findings suggest that contemporary complaints about police misconduct in highly segregated Chicago neighborhoods are grounded in collectively shared historical memories of police malfeasance. They also suggest that persistent complaints about police misconduct may represent officially memorialized expressions of enduring racial protest against police abuse of power.