after the tanks. i hope everybody century to 2013 festival. i'm jeff coen. this is trained to, our author today. for background purposes on the criminal just this writer can't have the stay mostly was over the past 10 years or so for the criminal courthouses in a few

years ago wrote a book about family secrets case, so i think that's what robert and i are paired. robert has a book i really enjoyed that looks like this, "organized crime in chicago." it is an overarching history in the title gives it away, but it is organized crime chicago, part narrative, part academic study. robert is a former chicago police officer and a new second life is now an associate professor of criminal justice at loyola here in town, said he's one of the key experts in terms of what organized crime is as was here in its past, present and where it may be going. the book really begins sort of been a bloody era in chicago, the crime-ridden city born out of the 1800 carries through

prohibition and some of the late stages of organized crime in chicago. i don't know if you want to take a minute to introduce the book yourself and explain how it came to be what your goals were in putting it together. >> good afternoon. i want to thank the tribune on the test for inviting me here. i grew up in a neighborhood or even as a grammar school child i was familiar with organized crime. we had a neighborhood hotdog stand where my mother worked. she had a job, came from a broken home, so i did a quarter every day to go out for lunch in the hot docs in a chicagoan hannemann whittled the neighborhood gangsters. even at that young age, seventh and eighth grade in my neighborhood we had an understanding of what organized crime was. as a teenager in high school i went to work at my uncle's grocery store and we had a

regular parade of gangsters that would come in there because we made italian sausage and they come for the sausage. there is one christmas i even delivered it to the many different homes. it's a funny story. add 100 pounds of italian sausage come in the christmas special with tomatoes and provolone cheese in the truck of the car and 10-pound packages. my uncle gave me his chrysler imperial in the head gangster for the northside gave us a list and i went from door to door and all these homes ringing a doorbell, saying grass fed meat. i handed them 10 pounds of synesthesia. when you grow up that way, something safe with you. so once i became a police officer --

[inaudible] >> it was quite a bit. it was only natural for me to gravitate towards that type of work and i work in the organized crime division for about 12 years, worked narcotics, gambling and the actual intelligence quiet. later on forfeiture investigations take the property of drug dealers and syndicated gamblers, things like that. it's always been a part of my life. i was in graduate school. i thought if i got a phd did make me superintendent of police, but it didn't work out that way. was only natural for me to write about organized crime and this was an outgrowth of my phd dissertation. i taught part time it i taught at depaul for seven, eight years and then the opportunity came to go to loyola full-time in criminal justice and in the police department i have to produce and loyola does publish

or perish. this is my second book and is only natural to pursue organized crime. as a sociologist, criminality is an area of interest, it's only natural for me -- i looked at all the literature and organized crime and i haven't found any book since 1927, there hasn't been a book that is explain organized crime sociologically. there has not been a book that's used the expected criminology theories to explain organized crime and that's what i tried to do at this book. the only book review instrument library and then he said great work, skip the first during the last chapter, it's all about erie, but everything in the middle is a fun read. so my idea was to actually use

real-life facts. that's why it delved into history to interpreter explained the different theories. so by applying what really happened to the various explanations for organized crime, i make an argument for what i feel is the appropriate explanation. >> is a right two favorite chapters i think. i've read a lot about organized crime obviously and i really thought that's what made this book unique within a 10 to really explain what was going on in terms of human behavior and the political system in the economic system in chicago, especially robert takes great pains him to chop away at the old theory that organized crime here was an imported the old country through new york in the black and in all that but it's not something that came over on the boat so to speak. it was something much more homegrown and came out of the

disorder that was very evident in early chicago, especially the 1900 really could have been any dominant at that group and obviously there were times in their irish mobsters and jewish mobsters and it's not necessarily an italian-american problem but it is an american problem. i was interested in the fact he made a good, solid attempt to cut down on that idea that this is an important problem i came over from sicily. the >> what brings us to two competing theories to explain traditional organized crime as they call this because there's all kinds of organized crime. pleated dixie mafia. the blackstone rangers cremate gangster disciples, very street gangs, but they are organized crime. none of them have reached the pinnacle of power of traditional organized crime in american

society. again, the two competing explanations by this idea that it came from sicily, which recall the alien conspiracy theory the southern italian and sicilian immigrants brought the mafia with them to america at the turn of the last century at what the sociologists call the succession. it's simply that various ethnic groups have used crime in order to advance in society. look around today and see who the poor people are, often immigrants succumbed to her country. people do come with no money or regulated to the worst neighborhoods, the poor sections of the city, lack of opportunity, no jobs available to them and this even applies to african-americans who emigrated to rural areas of the south. so they turn to crime at the people discriminated against, people excluded from social advancement historically have turned to crime in order to

better themselves. not as an excuse but a reality. this is what's known as the ethnic succession. the irish coming jewish people, italians, blacks, hispanics in that order heaviest organized criminal activity as a means of social advancement with american society. if we look at traditional organized crime, the chicago outfit in earlier known as the component syndicate, if we look at the criminal organization through those classes, we see a different interpretation than the one that argosy was imported from the south of italy. we can get into what the mafia was in the south of italy at the turn-of-the-century. it last century. it was vastly different than what the media tells us it was, was portrayed in the movies. people forget the godfather is fiction.

it was in a real story. it was in fact just a story. there is evidence that gangsters indicated the movie. it wasn't art imitating life, but it could've been life imitating art. i can go whine on. >> again, i thought the book was great because it really did build in the known facts and showed a sweeping arc of how things came together. so it goes through prohibition. it goes val capone. the price of history everybody knows in terms of chicago said past in this category, but then it rings in other parts of detail that you you might not expect and does a good job of showing how things like the 42 games, which you talk about a little bit, how that really broadens reach of organized

crime and produce what we think of as the modern or semi-modern outfit that led to the peak of the chicago outfit in the 50s to the 80s. >> people about capone's generation are long gone. as a matter of fact, they started to disappear in 1950. in that period of time, even if it was true gangsters came from another country, by the second generation of gangsters, that would no longer apply. however, i would like to mention that my research of looking at the chicago crime commission files in the "chicago tribune" from other publications in the 30s proved that most about capone's gangsters were not italian. this runs contrary to popular belief, but only 41% of the syndicate in fact had italian

surnames. barrister irish, jewish come eastern european people. and they weren't even from -- they weren't streaking people like today but it worked their way up into adult crime. they were robbers and burglars who got away to statesville prison committed their time, came out, was looking for a job and went to work in prohibition. back to the original thought, but 1950 we had to figure out where the second generation of gangsters come from. they came from the slums of chicago. they were born and raised bread in the worst neighborhoods in the city of chicago. 42 gangs russia promised to do with the most dangerous, reckless juvenile delinquents in chicago and they were from the near west side and most were

italian, not all. some irish, some jewish, but most of them were italian. not from italy, but the slums of the city of chicago or they were socialized, born and raised in may rose to prominence within the chicago outfit. the capone syndicate became the outfit in the 1950s. also there was this name change. the glory days so to speak. the glory days for the 40s, 50s. no question about the 40s be in the glory days of organized crime within the city of chicago when organized crime is tightly integrated into the political structure under mayor kelley. >> what you talk about how that happened. but you get into the differences between the chicago outfit and modern street gangs, which the city is now dealing with, but

one point you make repeatedly if they took protection, took position with legitimate government to offer the outfit the protection it needed to do the things it wanted to do and also allow it to blossom and get the reach that winds are producing through the gm, years. can you talk about that? this is robert lombardo was kind enough to be with us today. >> in order to do that, where to go back to the very beginning. there was a guy named michael cashes mcdonald who started make the donald's democrats in the city of chicago. what he did was organize the saloon and gambling interest in downtown chicago. the area around city hall today was gamblers roll, and just like television if we think of our show bellon and miss kitty on

gunsmoke. you know, she was a dance hall girl and they had gambling. i was downtown chicago after the civil war. mike mcdonald creates this group who put their own mayor and office and that was really essentially the start of organized crime in chicago. if we just for a moment put aside the idea of the mafia and organized crime is, it is kind of political protection. it's part and parcel so to speak with government. they really kind of two sides of the same name. the upper world and the underworld. throughout the united states, particularly machine towns like chicago, kansas city, philadelphia, certain period of time in new york, based money was used to fund political activity. if the q-quebec to make the donald, the money collected from

the saloon in downtown chicago went to fund the activities of the democratic party. that continued all the way into prohibition. when donald passed away, john coughlin became the prominent purveyors. there are others in other locations of the city, but different what was called the levee district. right where we said as part of the original customs house the very neighborhood that were physically sitting in today and was four, five, six blocks, solons, gambling, freak shows, all kinds of crazy things. >> and printers row when they were torn down.

that was the center of the money used to feel the democratic all the way through big jim thompson until -- they tell thompson became mayor. so we have to give them equal time as far as being corrupt, but typically democrats have controlled chicago. by the time i'll capone got here, the system is dirty and place of organized corruption, organized criminal activity, organize face activity, gambling, narcotics, prostitution. if you wanted to run come you had to pay the city and mayor harrison, carter harrison, senior and junior as the two generations above respect it and everybody let the levee district run. it was not a segregated place. they thought if they were able to keep device in my

neighborhood, the rest of the city would be pure. plus the boys need to have a place. chicago was a port at this period in history, the gateway to the west. st. louis played a role there, too, but from new york in the erie canal sailed through the great lakes down to chicago and people went out to conquer the west of chicago. city fathers thought it was only our duty to get the pioneers their last night in civilization in the levee district. so that's how it began. prohibition came along with the groups of criminals under the influence became so powerful the roles were reversed and they produce and started dictating. the story goes to compose syndicate although they did $260,000 to mayor thompson's reelection in the money was allegedly passed out and packets

from the palmer house hotel in one of the rooms where there's a whole bathtub full of cash. so it was a bigger part. corruption was a regular part of government all the way up until my police career we still found political protection from gambling at dignities. stop and think about the 90s and showed to unity was passed out by fred rudy, a gangster, in a criminal in chicago outfit for fear joe would do some things against organized crime. he's one of the few superintendents who had any efforts against organized crime. that was in the 90s. so it shows you the extent of political corruption that occurred in the city of chicago. >> can you talk about the

accardo era, which i think would've covered your time in the depart. and maybe since i think my own study of organized crime is a product of journalism in the newspaper in the family secrets case, i wonder if you can talk about where you see that key city name in terms of outfit history and maybe where we are now. >> it was an unusual person. he rose to prominence. he became the boss in the 50s, semiretired by 60 and was more or less a senior state men, the man behind the scenes all the way up until the day he died in the 90s. for ricardo, jim connor was in the background always had the final say even though he wasn't the operating director, he was still viewed as a senior statesman in the first and end

dispute service date. just a very interesting person. catharsis secrets trial, let me back up for one minute. law-enforcement efforts have been spotted. if we look at history the city of chicago, they were valiant efforts from time to time by various components of the police department ultimately politically repressed appeared in the 50s, mcinally during his four years was 100% honest person. he created what was called the scotland yard detail and they were turned loose on the mob in chicago that lasted for years. anybody seen gangster squad, what they did out there? pretty much the same thing occurred here in chicago and we don't hear lot about that.

they use a lot of force, brutality. they fight fire with fire for four years were very good. a newspaper article said he was hiding in california for fear of joe morrison's detail. the first thing richard jay daley did when he was elected mayor was him in the very next day. but often as far as organized crime when phil wilson came here after the somerville scandal. he resurrected joe morris in his right hand and they had a very effective intelligence division and a very effective effort against organized crime that lasted through the tenure, seven or eight years and then fizzled out again. we heard little from the federal government. 60s, bill roper and

intelligence caught from the fbi began a dvd is the result of the mcclellan and committee hearings here in chicago. dea predecessor, fpn involved because the outfit was involved in heroin distribution. slowly but surely the federal government started to get an, but not the fbi. i believe it's because jay edgar hoover was afraid to attack in the cities because they were integrated into political structure. so if u.s. to attack the office chicago, he would've been attacking the daley machine and work for a democratic president. so eventually federal government under ronald reagan passes rico laws. we hear so much about racketeering laws. racketeering laws are passed in 1970. it wasn't until 1990 that the fbi in chicago had their first

rico investigation. why, i don't know. when william webster became director of the fbi, every time you realign them from another mission was organized crime and the leaders who see the mission changed to fight terrorism. once the fbi got involved with both hands in the u.s. attorney's office got involved, in no time they dismantle organized crime in chicago. in 10, 15 year. they totally destroyed because of the rico laws, wiretapping of electronic surveillance and a will to do it. of course played some part with part of what's called the organized crime task force in chicago. so once the federal government made up its mind to use these tools and go after organized

crime, it's been destroyed. >> it was the first time the government had really charged the outfit as an identity itself, an entity itself. by doing it that way in and identifying as a criminal enterprise, you could plug in acts, even murderers as furtherance of the despair and see and lived in people who each other. i think he did a nice job at that. i want to read one graph if i can from one of the chapters your viewers said to skip, which eric and my favorites, but i get to do what i want. the decline of traditional crime can be booted to change the structure of american society. the demise of big-city political machines, decreasing character of american life and the state-sponsored gambling, sophistication among forcing,

suburbanization ecological patterns have all contributed to the end of traditional organized crime as we've come to know it today. i read that section because i think in all my studies this book provides one of the very best summaries of the decline of organized crime in chicago. people typically ask what's going on with the mob and why does it seem like it's run aground. all the reasons robert did a good job putting together explained that from start to finish with the factors are, including a lot of people don't normally think about when they think why organized crime is in decline. i don't know if you want to elaborate on that at all. >> they've had as much to do is increase law enforcement. inner city, we don't have machine words that we once had.

interestingly with the gangs today, the phenomenon of some of the other, but the official corruption. today a young black boy growing up in englewood as examples of successes in his neighborhood. same thing and italians saw in the night teen 20s on taylor street, young kids growing up so the gangster, bootlicker at, more or less champions of their neighborhood. they saw them having power even over the politicians in the neighborhood and saw how the politicians, i did as a young person, i repeated this on neighborhood gangsters hanging out with the alderman of our word. how do you teach young people to be good, to obey the law in an environment that? how do we keep these kids today

from shooting each other and not selling drugs and the only example of success they have in their environment are criminals and minute pick up the newspaper, today they seek half of our politicians are criminals also were being investigated for some pain. so if that example that has provided the young people. the fact that it would on a politicians integrated with criminals, visibly that we see at the community level was one of the major reasons organized crime doesn't exist anymore. there's a term in sociology literature were some community has historically were ties between organized chemicals and the elected officials were present. young people saw that as part of a reality of everyday life.

how are you going to tell somebody i was talking to mr. mono, head of the taylor street association organization down there today and i said how come people in the neighborhood kept voting and you're finally free of the group that ran the website 10 years ago. he said people were afraid not to vote for them. they thought when you into a polling place that machines new who is voting at if he would've voted republican, the city inspectors would be at your house the next day in your property taxes would go up. people were not that sophisticated yet the poor people, immigrant people were afraid not to reelect these people. so that's part of it. i grew up with all kinds of guys that when all kind of different ways. there's no way to grow gangsters

anymore. that's why we don't have organized crime. >> you make a good point to say especially some of the near north areas and places that were former hotbeds for organized crime still physically don't exist. we live in a different city than we did then. >> no question about it. the old northside was torn. little sicily in 1950s to make way for cabrini green. was my grandfather's neighborhood was a young boy, we would go back to visit people and church relatives and what have you and it was totally destroyed. if you look at my site taylor street, part that was destroyed for public housing. there is an effort to build public housing and other italian neighborhood and italian scholars will tell you it was done purposefully to break the italian boat at the reigning democratic party was afraid at

least early on they would organize and start electing their own people into city office. part of the reason -- one of the chapters in the book is called the black mafia, a story of the southside of chicago. african american organized crime. we had all the way up until the 50s, very extensive gambling, particularly gambling, some prostitution, some drug dealing in the african-american community controlled by blacks, no italians involved all the way back to the 1910, 1920s. they had their own organized crime in the area known as the black metropolis. 1950 comes along. she had, and the outfit attack policy gambling and bring it under traditional organized crime and i could never understand that because the

money from the southside went to support by politicians and of course the southside was like they had their own congressman. they had their own people in washington d.c. in the statehouse here. dawson was a black mayor so to speak they delivered thousands and thousands of votes for the democratic party and after talking to people, the way it was explained to me was the city allowed was happy the outfit or encourage the outfit to attack black policy gambling in particular, the black form of the lottery and black gambling because they were afraid the money would be used to elect a black mayor, but they could've had had a harold washington 30 years before harold washington. so stop and think about how

having gangsters was purposefully useful to the reigning political machine, groups that could do their bidding if they couldn't solve a problem politically, they can solve it violently so to speak. >> will get to questions in a minute. inevitably asked about the state of things today. from reading your book come you and i agree interviewing various people the number of hard-core active members today is probably around maybe 100. >> if there are 100 i don't what they do. where is that? first few old-timers still around. there's still a few bookies around. macs are now at this poker machines, they'll been indicted a couple years ago. >> and i imagine i thought that was telling because they had to use a motorcycle gang for muscle, which i thought was sort

of pathetic. >> you know, sure there could be stuff going on, but it's not what it was. if it's out there, i'm sure the fbi knows. they know everything. >> are there any questions? stepped to the mic, please >> you personally haven't grown up in that environment, how are you able to choose organized crime is your life work? >> from the good guy side instead of the bad guys that? >> he's no relation to joey, should advance started with that. >> what influences did you have in your family? >> my grandfathers brother in

law was a gangster and we had this whole side of the family that we weren't allowed to see and i'd say how come you don't go see uncle frank and her cousins? never mind, never mind. what's wrong? uncle frank doesn't work it is not allowed in our house. that was the view of most italians. only the smallest percentage and even growing up in the neighborhood, my mother worked in a factory. my mother was a polish woman. she was just tough and of course i went to catholic schools. if your mother didn't straight you out, the priests and nuns did. my favorite stories high school father george weber high school. if you got turned in come you what to see father george. first words out of his mouth were signed camino is a priest my answer consecrated to god and

then you knew what was coming. that doesn't go on anymore today. it kept a lot of us on the straight and narrow. the nuns were todd, priests protest. a whole different thing than today. they come from good that our families, but you grow up in the inner city today it was the discipline? one of the biggest problems the inner city has today is the absence of the catholic church, all the schools that control in existing immigrant neighborhoods just doesn't exist today. >> one of the issues about whether to have a casino in chicago is lack of protection against mob influence. the governor has made a big point of that. sounds like you are saying that's not the concern.

>> the concern is the politicians. of the contracts to people that work for campaign contributions, all that insider monkey business going on and that's something the governor is trying to prevent. as far as gemini solo or pd different and so calling the shots, i doubt that. will they try to invest money? sure. will they try to gain influence through unions? sure. but again, the federal government is their chops, just wishing they had gangsters to investigate. drug dealers aren't the font gangsters were. [laughter] >> that people were afraid to vote, could it be they were more content to vote for them because

they like to? >> i don't know. i can answer that. i really don't know. >> anybody else? yes, sir. >> i graduated from loyola in play gangsters and movies. we'll be talking. my question to us what concerns me about the north shore area in buffalo grove area about the russian mafia and what is your take on that? >> my take is it's not much of a threat. there's been a couple arrests here in their historically, but the whole russian phenomenon never materialized as day. and >> he spent time talking about the succession in the in the street gangs who do the major

difference is the lack of government aleutian and more chaotic. we were talking in the back about your police experience, the factors changes in police strategy could be feeding the problem now, which i mention because it's noble or gangs will kill more people in two or three years than the history. whatever differences? >> street gangs try to model themselves after the mob. the vice lords on the westside, that's why they call themselves the vice lords. they want to control bias in the black community. it was their turn in succession. the italians they thought were gone from their neighborhoods and they wanted to control their own criminal activities. blackstone rangers on the south side were huge, morphed into the gangster disciples, vice lords state or on prager. latin kings began in the

humboldt park area and now we have three latin kings and the one puerto rican and two mexican groups. these were true organized crime except the political corruption. they were huge organizations that distributed all kinds of drugs. gd is try to extort, follow the same pattern traditional organized crime did. they wanted criminals on ssi to pay them protection. again, the government realize the mistakes they made with traditional organized crime. also they understood that her how to deal with traditional organized crime and they wiretapped them and essentially would have been, informants infiltrated in the leaders of every major gang with life in prison. once that happened, they broke the organizational command above

the major games. the games fractional eyes. there's probably a hundred different parts of the gangster disciples. every corner of the south side now operates independently and they fight with each other for drug distribution territories or overt things like you stole my bag of potato chips. same thing with the latin kings. they're little more strict, a little tighter and hispanic gangs in black jeans, but today there'll fractional eyes of the police department instead of investigating an organization has to investigate the crew so to speak of the vice lords and it's much more labor-intensive. that is directly contributed to the spike in violence. the other two things the end of public housing. public housing should've been