3 ms·

I always wondering how the US managed to tame the Mafia in the early 20s to late 70s. Is there something the Mexican government can mimic or is there something

I always wondering how the US managed to tame the Mafia in the early 20s to late 70s. Is there something the Mexican government can mimic or is there something either political or cultural that prevents this?

brandonmenc 8y ago
afaik, the Italian mafia in the US restrained themselves from killing cops or federal agents. Mexican gangs have no such policy.
abledon 8y ago
I heard it was due to the corporations moving in and getting stronger. Their lawyers were far more ruthless.
- savanaly 8y ago
  Certainly, that was depicted in the movie Casino for example. Not that I would take a Hollywood movie as any sort of history lesson, but it is demonstrative of that point of view. Taking it as the true explanation for the sake of argument, why does the same thing not happen in Mexico?
liftbigweights 8y ago
It was multifacted involving culture, demographic, immigration, law enforcement and external competition. 1. Banning of italian immigration in 1924 ( Immigration Act of 1924 ). 2. The integration of italians into american life. 3. Poor immigrant italian families transitioning to wealthier italian-american families generation after generation. 4. Decades long government crackdown on organized crime. 5. Competition from non-italian mafia ( russian, ukrainian, asian, cuban and of course the mexicans ). As immigration stop and as italian american moved out of cities to suburbs and got professional jobs, the mob lost its prestige and demographic base. And as the government cracked down, the structure of the mafia was slowly dismantled along with its reputation. Finally, just like the italian mafia usurped the irish mafia, the italian mafia was being squeezed by other younger and stronger ethnic mafia groups.
kromem 8y ago
Whenever you see a government that doesn't have a significant organized crime problem, it's because either (a) the government is the organized crime (Russia), or (b) the government has resources at its disposal that are an existential threat to the organized crime while overlooking moderate operations (the US). The US government has significantly overlooked organized crime operations in general (and while some members of government may have pursued them, it was largely a sideshow by the "legal" arm and not by the "operational" arm - and had organized crime retaliated against those senators, you can bet that there would have been an "operational" response). At times, we've worked with organized crime (running cocaine with the CIA, etc, or the CIA working with Lucky Luciano in WW2). That's the thing with organized crime - it's not all that secret. So there's typically an informal balance stuck between the government and the criminals - don't be too much of a problem to civilians, and especially not members of government, and we'll leave enforcement to local law and not bring in the big guns, and we won't work with your competition against you. I think the big difference, as others have noted, is that in Mexico there isn't significant corporate corruption in politics. So the money lining politicians' pockets was more likely to be drug related, and cartel specific. So the cartel wars extended into government and there isn't a sufficient corporate interest in stability to have pushed back against it. And well, now it's far past the point of a balance being stuck. It's worth noting that we've had instances of significant local corruption and infiltration of organized crime into local police/AG/government in the US (including killing of local civilians by the police - you can search for "The Boys on the Tracks" - the argument against Dan Harmon is compelling) - it's just not as widespread and it's not at a national level.

brandonmenc 8y ago

afaik, the Italian mafia in the US restrained themselves from killing cops or federal agents. Mexican gangs have no such policy.

abledon 8y ago

I heard it was due to the corporations moving in and getting stronger. Their lawyers were far more ruthless.

savanaly 8y ago
Certainly, that was depicted in the movie Casino for example. Not that I would take a Hollywood movie as any sort of history lesson, but it is demonstrative of that point of view. Taking it as the true explanation for the sake of argument, why does the same thing not happen in Mexico?

liftbigweights 8y ago

It was multifacted involving culture, demographic, immigration, law enforcement and external competition. 1. Banning of italian immigration in 1924 ( Immigration Act of 1924 ). 2. The integration of italians into american life. 3. Poor immigrant italian families transitioning to wealthier italian-american families generation after generation. 4. Decades long government crackdown on organized crime. 5. Competition from non-italian mafia ( russian, ukrainian, asian, cuban and of course the mexicans ). As immigration stop and as italian american moved out of cities to suburbs and got professional jobs, the mob lost its prestige and demographic base. And as the government cracked down, the structure of the mafia was slowly dismantled along with its reputation. Finally, just like the italian mafia usurped the irish mafia, the italian mafia was being squeezed by other younger and stronger ethnic mafia groups.

kromem 8y ago

Whenever you see a government that doesn't have a significant organized crime problem, it's because either (a) the government is the organized crime (Russia), or (b) the government has resources at its disposal that are an existential threat to the organized crime while overlooking moderate operations (the US). The US government has significantly overlooked organized crime operations in general (and while some members of government may have pursued them, it was largely a sideshow by the "legal" arm and not by the "operational" arm - and had organized crime retaliated against those senators, you can bet that there would have been an "operational" response). At times, we've worked with organized crime (running cocaine with the CIA, etc, or the CIA working with Lucky Luciano in WW2). That's the thing with organized crime - it's not all that secret. So there's typically an informal balance stuck between the government and the criminals - don't be too much of a problem to civilians, and especially not members of government, and we'll leave enforcement to local law and not bring in the big guns, and we won't work with your competition against you. I think the big difference, as others have noted, is that in Mexico there isn't significant corporate corruption in politics. So the money lining politicians' pockets was more likely to be drug related, and cartel specific. So the cartel wars extended into government and there isn't a sufficient corporate interest in stability to have pushed back against it. And well, now it's far past the point of a balance being stuck. It's worth noting that we've had instances of significant local corruption and infiltration of organized crime into local police/AG/government in the US (including killing of local civilians by the police - you can search for "The Boys on the Tracks" - the argument against Dan Harmon is compelling) - it's just not as widespread and it's not at a national level.