Beginning Of Prohibition Alcohol Consumption example essay topic

How successful was Prohibition? By Nicola Stoke On the 18th of December 1917, congress sent to the states the Eighteenth Amendment, which one year after ratification on 16th of January 1919, banned the manufacture, sale or transport of intoxicating liquors. In 1919 the Volstead Act defined as "intoxicating" all beverages containing more than 0.5 percent alcohol, which then became illegal once the Eighteenth Amendment went into effect in 1920. Prohibition of Alcohol in America between 1920 and 1933 was undertaken to reduce crime and corruption, solve social problems, reduce the tax burden created by prisons and improve health in America. Prohibition was a failure and within this essay I will explain why I believe this to be the case. The benefits of Prohibition depended on the amount of alcohol consumed being reduced.

At the beginning of prohibition alcohol consumption fell but then it began to increase again. Many ordinary people who were not that interested in alcohol before Prohibition now saw alcohol as glamorous and dangerous. Crime increased and now became organised. The courts and prisons were stretched to the limit, and many public officials were corrupt. There were no marked improvements in productivity or absenteeism in the country and the absence of tax on alcohol due to Prohibition greatly increased government spending. Many drinkers turned to dangerous drugs, marijuana, cocaine, opium and other medicines in the absence of alcohol.

The average amount of annual income spent on alcohol before Prohibition had been steadily falling before Prohibition. During Prohibition the average annual amount spent actually began to rise. Alcohol was being illegally produced and distributed throughout Prohibition by the Bootleggers despite more resources to enforce the act. The fact that alcohol consumption did decrease for a while at the beginning of Prohibition did not make it a success. Illegal acts of producing, distributing and consuming alcohol were going on in a country where prohibition was supposed to reduce crime and corruption but this was obviously not the case. Before Prohibition Americans had purchased weaker alcohol such as beer and wine but during Prohibition most of the illegal production and consumption was of spirits and fortified wine.

Beer, a once inexpensive beverage became more expensive than spirits mainly because of it's bulk and it may have disappeared altogether had it not been for the home made beer being produced. Prohibition made it more difficult for the underground to supply weaker more bulky products such as beer and so they concentrated on the stronger compact products like whiskey. The largest cost of selling an illegal product is avoiding detection. Therefore the price of whiskey rose more slowly than that of beer. Production of the infamous moonshine during prohibition was rife. It seemed that everyone had their own recipe for moonshine and this sometimes resulted in drinkers being harmed or even killed by the drink.

According to Thomas Coffey, "the death rate from poisoned liquor was appallingly high throughout the country. In 1925 the national toll was 4,154 as compared to 1,064 in 1920. And the increasing number of deaths created a public relations problem for the drys because they weren't exactly accidental". Consumption patterns changed during Prohibition. It increased the demand for alcohol in three groups.

The young were more interested in alcohol than ever before because they saw it as a glamour product associated with excitement and intrigue. The high price of alcohol and vast profits to be made during Prohibition turned the heads of even the most hardened of non drinkers. Finally many of America's old world citizens and recent immigrants were not about to be told that they could no longer enjoy a drink. Prohibition may actually have increased drinking and intemperance by increasing the availability of alcohol. It was claimed at the time that there were ten times more places to get a drink during Prohibition than there had been before. Speakeasies out numbered saloons, hardly surprising considering their small size and secret locations.

It was said that there were twice as many speakeasies in New York, as saloons closed by Prohibition. This was more or less true throughout the country. Through Prohibition, prohibitionists lost their control over the location of drinking establishments. Until Prohibition they had discouraged and even prevented the sale of alcohol in the town centre, near churches and schools, on Sundays and election days, and in their neighbourhoods using local ordinances, taxes and licensing laws.

Without these political tools the prohibitionists were unable to stop the speakeasies opening in business districts and middle class neighbourhoods. Many people also started to drink more "legitimate" alcohol during Prohibition such as patent medicines, medicinal alcohol and sacramental alcohol. America had experienced a gradual decline in the rate of serious crimes over much of the 19th and early 20th centuries. This was reversed by Prohibition. The homicide rate in large cities increased from 5.6 per 100,000 population during the first decade of the century to 8.4 In the second decade.

The homicide rate increased to 10 per 100,000 population during the 1920's, a 78 percent increase over the pre-Prohibition period. The Volstead Act, passed to enforce the Eighteenth Amendment, had an immediate impact on crime. According to a study of 30 major U.S. cities, the number of crimes increased 24 percent between 1920 and 1921. The study Revealed that during that period more money was spent on police and more people were arrested for violating Prohibition laws.

Increased law enforcement efforts did not appear to reduce drinking. Arrests for drunkenness and disorderly conduct increased 41 percent, and arrests of drunken drivers increased 81 percent. Among crimes with victims, thefts and burglaries increased 9 percent, while homicides and incidents of assault and battery increased 13 percent. More crimes were committed because prohibition destroyed legal jobs, created black-market violence, diverted resources from enforcement of other laws, and greatly increased the prices people had to pay for alcohol. Instead of emptying the prisons as its supporters had hoped it would, Prohibition quickly filled the prisons to capacity. Those convicted of additional crimes with victims, burglaries, robberies, and murders, which were due to Prohibition and the black market, were incarcerated largely in city and county jails and state prisons.

The explosion in the prison population greatly increased spending on prisons and led to severe overcrowding. Total federal expenditures on penal institutions increased more than 1,000 percent between 1915 and 1932. Despite those expenditures and new prison space, prisons were severely overcrowded. In 1929 the normal capacity of Atlanta Penitentiary and Leavenworth Prison was approximately 1,500 each, but their actual population exceeded 3,700 each. The number of violations of Prohibition laws and violent crimes against persons and property continued to increase throughout prohibition. It was hoped that Prohibition would eliminate corrupting influences in society, instead, Prohibition itself became a major source of corruption.

Everyone from major politicians to the policeman on the beat took bribes from bootleggers, moonshiners, crime bosses, and owners of speakeasies. The Bureau of Prohibition was particularly susceptible and had to be reorganised to reduce corruption. Probably the most famous bootlegger in history was Al Capone. Capone moved from New York to Chicago in 1920 and within a few years became the city's leading bootlegger and gambling and vice lord. By 1927 Capone's empire brought him an income of $60 million.

He liked to show off his wealth and power and dressed in expensive suits and drove a custom upholstered, bullet proof Cadillac. Capone was always accompanied by his bodyguards and gave generously to city charities. He always insisted that he was providing the public with the goods and services that they demanded. "They say I violate the prohibition law.

Who doesn't?" Prohibition failed to improve health and virtue in America. Repeal of Prohibition dramatically reduced crime, including organised crime, and corruption. Jobs were created, and new voluntary efforts, such as Alcoholics Anonymous, which was begun in 1934, succeeded in helping alcoholics. Prohibition was supposed to be an economic and moral bonanza. Prisons and poorhouses were to be emptied, taxes cut, and social problems eliminated.

Productivity was to skyrocket and absenteeism disappear. The economy was to enter a never-ending boom. That utopian outlook was shattered by the stock market crash of 1929. Prohibition did not improve productivity or reduce absenteeism. In contrast, private regulation of employees' drinking improved productivity, reduced absenteeism, and reduced industrial accidents wherever it was tried before, during, and after Prohibition. Prohibition did not achieve its goals.

Instead, it added to the problems it was intended to solve and supplanted other ways of addressing problems. The only beneficiaries of Prohibition were bootleggers, crime bosses, and the forces of big government.