Most Visible Mafia Boss example essay topic

The Mafia way of life may seem like a romantic updated version of the western movie played out on the streets of the big cities where the good guys and the wise guys who share the same instincts and values do battle before an enthralled public but it is actually very different. The Mafia is really just a group of uneducated thugs making money by victimizing the public. Initially, the Mafia was setup as a prominent supplier of bootlegged liquor, but it has spread into many different areas of crime. During this research paper I will discuss three aspects of the Mafia which are crime, structure and decline in leadership. The Mob siphons off public funds, rigs contracts, corrupts unions which many hard working people with legitimate jobs are a part of, smuggles drugs, and runs illegal gambling rings. These are some of the ways the Mob negatively affects our community and harms innocent citizens.

Any illegal activity that brings in big money the Mafia is part of. Union corruption has been the primary focus of many federal investigations and by the end of the 1980's, four unions, the Teamsters, Longshoremen, Laborers, and Hotel and Restaurant Employees union, had all been identified as mob dominated. Not only does the mob find money makers in the United States, they finds ways to bring money to them from other countries. Alien smuggling generates more than $3 billion a year for the mob. Mobsters will kill without remorse and threaten anyone who won't go along with what they are doing. To keep free from the arm of the law 'corrupter's nullify the law-enforcement and political processes primarily by outright bribery and other rationally designed forms of 'influence's uch as contributions to political campaigns and promises to deliver votes in a particular area.

' One might think that corruption and bribery is not a problem, but one noted political analyst suggests that 'the underworld' contributes 15 percent of the 3 costs of local and state political campaigns which causes one to think that the mob may have a strong hold on many powerful politicians. Mafia involvement with legitimate business's affects the public in many ways. Respectable bankers have become unwitting allies to the Mafia and most of the securities stolen in the United States during the last two decades are lying safely in the vaults of respectable banks, hypothecated for legitimate loans. The Mafia code of honor is known as omer ta.

Under the code of omer ta, members must show extreme loyalty to the governing elite, divide proceeds of thievery, robbery, and extortion with their captain, and help another member to avenge every injury of a fellow member. The codes can be shown by how one can be as frail as old Carlo Gambino-the last real Godfather, Boss of Bosses-before he died in 1976, but if by a simple yes or no, a nod or shake of the head, or a waggle of a finger one has the power of death over anyone in his. The Mafia is made up of thieves, and murderers who are all greedy for money. On the flip side, the Mafia is based on respect. Each member must respect and follow all orders give by a higher ranking member.

Although the make up of the Mob is based on respect, members usually kill their way to the top. A Mafia family is headed by a boss who is in charge of everything, he is the one who controls all of the power because in the Mafia the rule of law is the rule of the despot. Each family has an under boss who mediates disputes and advises the boss, as well as a number of captains. Under each captain are soldiers, the lowest official Mafia member. The Italian Mafia is not the only organized crime group around, there are many other ethnic groups the Mafia has to coexist with.

Not only is the mob facing new competition from Chinese gangs and Russian immigrants, but it must also contend with the hungrier drug syndicates from Latin America and the Caribbean, whose staggering wealth and firepower make the mob look quaint. Although these, and other ethnic gangs have been 4 coming to the United States, none have so far managed to have the Mafia's success at infiltrating legitimate businesses, labor unions and government. The leadership in Mafia families is declining quickly and this may be the eventual cause of the Mafia's downfall. When the Gambino family was first founded it was founded by Carlo Gambino, a Sicilian immigrant who was, of course, fluent in Italian, but also kept in touch with the Mafia back in Sicily. When Gambino passed away, his brother-in-law Paul Castellano took over as the boss of the Gambino family.

Castellano was not well liked among Mafia bosses but still followed the code of omer ta when it says 'no killing of women or children. ' Since Castellano was not well liked, there is a strong possibility his death was sanctioned by bosses of New York's four other Mafia families. After Castellano's death John Gotti took over as boss of the Gambino family. Gotti did not follow any of the rules, he would order hits on people for no reason other than he did not like them. He would kill women and children and had very little knowledge of the Italian language. In fact Gotti's knowledge of Italian was so poor that when he was made a captain in the mob he had to ask his boss what 'La Cosa Nostra' meant, exactly ('This Thing of Ours').

Gotti was probably the most visible Mafia boss ever, although he listed his occupation as a plumbing salesmen, he strutted through the New York tabloids in $2000 suits. Gotti was the most powerful mob boss of the five New York crime families until the FBI took him to court and used hours of tape they had collected on him from a bug that they had planted inside his home. Gotti was found guilty on 43 federal charges including racketeering, loan sharking, gambling and even jury tampering. It was not the tapes alone that convicted Gotti. In another show of how the Mafia is not following omer ta, Salvatore Gravano, Gotti's under boss, testified against him for a reduced sentence.

Gravano confessed to 23 murders and served only 5 years before being released into the witness protection program. The Italian Mafia may be in its decline, but just as the New York based Italian mobsters replaced Al Capone's Chicago mob as America's most visible crime syndicate more than 50 years ago, powerful 5 Latin American drug lords have eclipsed the Mafia. The Mafia was never a good thing for America, but since new bosses are not following the code of omer ta the public is put in danger more than ever before. Some feel that if the Mafia and this 'thing of theirs' was truly out of business it would be the end of a criminal conspiracy without historical peer. But with all the new ethnic gangs entering the America, it appears that organized crime may be with America until the end of time.

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