Prologue

Abstract

For more than six decades since the sensational prosecutions of Al Capone and Lucky Luciano, the dominant approach to organized crime has been through indictment and conviction, through the courts and the criminal justice system. The prevailing image of the gangster was of a rough-and-tumble, crude hoodlum quick to resort to the gun and violence. In the 1920s, the criminal records of well-known figures showed arrests for assault, murder, carrying a gun. Since then, fewer and fewer important criminals have been arrested for anything more serious than vagrancy, suspicion, or consorting with known criminals. Their public image changed, deluding many into believing that they were not as dangerous as law enforcement officials portrayed them. The elaborately fashioned and enthralling Godfather novel and films contributed to the sympathetic and benign image of organized criminals. Organized crime provided the fictional Corleone family with wealth and set their dubious social status. The novel and its cinematic spin-offs characterize organized crime as an organic and natural part of the scramble for wealth, power, and success in society. Even with their formidable gripping realism, the films and novel are distillations—simplifications that are far less complex than reality. And when presented primarily as a species of ethnic and minority illegal activity, organized crime becomes somewhat exonerated of any significant entanglements with the political hypocrisy that precipitates it.