Citation

Tyler G. Crime Delinq. 1962; 8(4): 325-338.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1962, SAGE Publishing)

DOI

10.1177/001112876200800402

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

The hierarchy of organized crime is a new economically powerful and politically influential class in American society. Once the servant of politics, business, and labor in social struggles, organized crime now reaches out to become the master: an economy behind the economy, a government behind govern ment. Its roots lie deep within the American culture, drawing nourishment from the traditional virtues as well as the popular ized vices of our civilization. Our revolutionary tradition is a proud expression of our desire to be a free people; yet this same readiness to challenge the established order when it denies what individuals and groups consider to be their rightful heritage has made America a lawless nation. Our material riches are our international boast; yet this pursuit of riches was institutional ized by generations of "robber barons" whose unethical patterns of behavior became sanctified when sufficiently aged in gilt. The challenge to accumulated wealth, coming from the "lower" orders, continued the pattern of subordinating means to ends. The frontier provided the social background for continuing the tradition of advancing "rights" and "riches" through a process of organized anarchy; when the open frontier ran out, the metropolises produced the "internal" frontier, the pockets of deprived, alienated, but aspiring subcultures that challenged the established order. Out of the clash issued new gangs, the nuclei of organized crime. Even our desire to be pure has added more than its share to the impurity known as organized crime. A puritan heritage, superimposed on a materialistic pragmatism, has created a widespread hypocrisy in which Amer icans collectively outlaw the practices in which they privately indulge. In this inner clash of values, the organized criminal provides the "outlawed" services that the "respectables" crave. While the top gangster tends to move from violence to di plomacy, from strong arm to investment, from hood to statesman, the institution of gangsterism is constantly renewed from the ranks of the juvenile delinquent gang, youth alienated from the dominant culture by age, by poverty, and by ethnic diversity.