Theft of the Nation

The Structure and Operations of Organized Crime in America

Donald Cressey

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9781412807647
• eBook ISBN: 9781351472418
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Criminology
• Index: Social Sciences

Organized crime in America today is not the tough hoodlums familiar to moviegoers and TV watchers. It is more sophisticated, with many college graduates, gifted with organizational genius, all belonging to twenty-four tightly knit "families," who have corrupted legitimate business and infiltrated some of the highest levels of local, state, and federal government. Their power reaches into Congress, into the executive and judicial branches, police agencies, and labor unions, and into such business enterprises as real estate, retail stores, restaurants, hotels, linen-supply houses, and garbage-collection routes.How does organized crime operate? How dangerous is it? What are the implications for American society? How may we cope with it? In answering these questions, Cressey asserts that because organized crime provides illicit goods and services demanded by legitimate society, it has become part of legitimate society. This fascinating account reveals the parallels: the growth of specialization, "big-business practices" (pooling of capital and reinvestment of profits; fringe benefits like bail money), and government practices (negotiated settlements and peace treaties, defined territories, fair-trade agreements).For too long we have, as a society, concerned ourselves only with superficial questions about organized crime. "Theft of the Nation" focuses on to a more profound and searching level. Of course, organized crime exists. Cressey not only establishes this fact, but proceeds to explore it rigorously and with penetration. One need not agree with everything Cressey writes to conclude that no one, after the publication of "Theft of the Nation", can be knowledgeable about organized crime without having read this book.

Index

Abbatemarco, Frank, 201

Adonis, Joe, 39, 56

Aiello, Joseph, 37, 40-41

Airtels, FBI, 120-123, 126

Aiuppa, Joseph, 254-257

Alaimo, Dominic, 100

Alcohol and Tobacco Tax Division, Treasury Department, 63-64

Alderisio, Felix, 265, 266

American Bar Association:

report on organized crime, 249

Standards Relating to Electronic Surveillance, 120

American Civil Liberties Union, 272-273

American-Italian Anti-Defamation League, 10-11, 274

Americans of Italian Descent, 11, 274

Amico, use of word, 17, 19

Ammeratto, George, 268

Anastasia, Albert, 39, 60, 118, 158, 226-227

Anastasia, Tony, 226-227

Anderson, Robert T., quoted, 141, 143

Andreoli, Peter, 100, 102, 273

Angiulo, Genaro, 269

Anslinger, Harry, 22

Apalachin, New York, meeting, 22, 38, 57-58, 70, 99, 111

investigation of, 58, 59, 274

Arbitration in Cosa Nostra, 51-52

Arms in Cosa Nostra, 46

Attorney General's Special Group on Organized Crime, 59

Aurelio, Thomas, 268

Authority, 221-223

autonomy within limits, 224-225

change in system, 223, 232-236, 242-247

democratic process introduced, 235-236

of expert, 223, 242-244, 246

power, types of, 229-230

for punishments, 228

rank as basis of, 222, 224, 235, 243

for rewards, 230-232

B and B Finance Company, 265

Bah, Tan Jee, 171

Bahamas, 150, 294

Baiena, Lawrence, 269

Bankers as allies of corrupters, 272

Bankruptcy fraud, 105-107

Barbara, Joseph, 57, 58, 99, 100, 216

see also Apalachin, New York, meeting

Barknam, John, quoted, 54

Barzini, Luigi, quote...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Introduction to the Transaction Edition
• Preface
• I Trouble
• II From Mafia to Cosa Nostra
• III War, Peace, and Peaceful Coexistence
• IV Educating the Public
• V Demand, Supply, and Profit
• VI The Structural Skeleton
• VII Origins of the Authority Structure
• VIII The Code
• IX Some Functions of the Code
• X Shifting Patterns of Authority and Recruitment
• XI Corruption of the Law-Enforcement and Political Systems
• Notes
• Glossary
• Index