The Business of Crime
THE BUSINESS OF CRIME /TsHAT popular nickname for a present condition, -*¦ "the crime wave," is misleading. Popular nicknames frequently are; and when they are, it is harmful to clear...
...The third decade of the twentieth century, however, has brought us something new...
...In previous post-war sprees, the manifestations have ultimately been curbed and finally stopped by the arousal of public opinion...
...in fact, it is like a bedfellow now...
...The "barons"—a newspaper word which is coming to replace "gang leaders" as a description of Big Business in the crime industry—are coming, for instance, to extend the field of "protection...
...and when they are, it is harmful to clear thinking, for every such nickname brings with it a mental picture, and the mental picture is out of drawing...
...in a new sense, a problem...
...More and more it is coming to be accepted, in the newspaper mind (which reflects the general mind), that the criminal's occupation is a business, in some such sense as selling groceries or running a bank is a business...
...they include the interference of policemen and judges in their calculations, but regard them only as an annoyance, not as a real danger...
...Wave" implies a certain and natural subsidence...
...That done, the ways and means for its effective suppression arose almost spontaneously...
...This it is which is responsible for their most spectacular deeds, such, for example, as the "Valentine Day Massacre" which too place in Chicago in 1929...
...No longer is the word "business" put in quotation marks when it is used to describe the criminal's occupation...
...There is, however, a settled condition that first became noticeable in the moral disturbances which followed on the world war...
...It is a new problem...
...The real danger, the danger which arouses them to anxiety and nervous activity and calls out all their powers of defense, is from rivals in their business...
...There is nothing about it, in 1930, that is sporadic, accidental or freakish...
...Those of them who become rich in their business—they are called "gang leaders," but some new word will have to be found for an occupation with such large ramifications and conducted on such a scale—have no fear of the law, except as a nuisance which they must plan to avoid where possible...
...They include that possibility in their estimates, as a legitimate business man includes weather conditions, for instance, in his...
...This is only a single instance...
...the crime industry grows daily more settled, moves daily more into a regular orbit...
...it could be multiplied...
...which in analysis means the revived supremacy of the general conscience...
...It is now becoming a general problem of society, in a sense in which it never before was...
...In the old sense, the problem was met by the establishment of courts and legal procedures to deal with it...
...Little things are significant...
...There is no wave...
...It has grown, year by year, out of its early uncertainties until it has become a feature of American life which is as much a fact, and almost as much accepted, as any other feature...
...Sending the criminals to jail, where that is done, has been shown to be no deterrent...
...for the organizations that exist to promote the serious business of crime are ceasing to be local (by a natural enough process of development) and are becoming, by leaps and bounds, interstate organizations...
...The issue is whether crime, which is on its way to becoming an admitted business, shall become one or not...
...The "Secret Committee," Chicago's attempt to grapple with the crime lords through a pacific sort of vigilance committee, has been just as ineffective...
...It is apparent thai the processes of the law are no detriment to the crime merchants...
...so far as it was a problem, it was a problem of the individual...
...straws show the wind...
...In it crime has become, or is becoming, an issue...
...It was proved, in every case, that it was vain to devise ways and means of curing the debauch until conscience had resumed supremacy in the nation...
...As crime has become more highly organized, and also as it has become more and more an accepted feature of life, it has reached out into newer and larger fields...
...It is not merely that crime is highly organized, but that it is a walk of life in which brains and special aptitude bring some men—Al Capone is an example—to the top, while less able men, or men less naturally fitted for success in their chosen calling, struggle ambitiously for further advancement...
...for although in this country wars have been succeeded by a decade or so of moral confusion, this is the first time that the manifestation has been that of combining intelligent desperadoes into business organizations...
...Crime we have always had with us, from the beginnings...
...It is a condition, not a theory, that confronts us...
...In its new meaning, it is organized blackmail paid by merchants and corporations to criminal associations for immunity from violence in conducting their own commercial transactions...
...One has only to look at the way in which the criminals regard themselves to see that this acceptance of a word is in accord with the general situation...
...All the efforts to meet the issue, or to solve the problem, have been of no effect...
...Protection" used to mean blackmail paid by lawbreakers to policemen...
...We are speaking, of course, of crime for gain crime as a commercial enterprise...
...It is not a case for vigilance committees...
...Not only is it not a theory, but it is not a "sport," in the scientific sense of that word...
Vol. 12 • October 1930 • No. 25
