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Double Crossed

Double Crossed

Michael Woodiwiss

(2017)

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Abstract

In the United States, the popular symbols of organised crime are still Depression-era figures such as Al Capone, Lucky Luciano, and Meyer Lansky - thought to be heads of giant, hierarchically organised mafias. In Double Crossed, Michael Woodiwiss challenges perpetuated myths to reveal a more disturbing reality of organised crime - one in which government officials and the wider establishment are deeply complicit.

Delving into attempts to implement policies to control organised crime in the US, Italy and the UK, Woodiwiss reveals little-known manifestations of organised crime among the political and corporate establishment. A follow up to his 2005 Gangster Capitalism, Woodiwiss broadens and brings his argument up to the present by examining those who constructed and then benefited from myth making. These include the Italian dictator Benito Mussolini, opportunistic American politicians and officials and, more recently, law enforcement bureaucracies, led by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Organised crime control policies now tend to legitimise repression and cover-up failure. They do little to control organised crime. While the US continues to export its organised crime control template to the rest of the world, opportunities for successful criminal activity proliferate at local, national and global levels, making successful prosecutions irrelevant.
'As one of the foremost thinkers on organized crime, Mike Woodiwiss rarely disappoints. In this book, he is on great form'
Kristofer Allerfeldt, University of Exeter, Author of Crime and the Rise of Modern America: A History 1865-1941
'Brings solid historical evidence and analysis to the task of refuting conventional wisdom that prefers to see organized crime as something external from our capitalistic political, economic and social systems'
Margaret Beare, author of Critical Reflections on Transnational Organized Crime, Money Laundering and Corruption (2003)
'Mike Woodiwiss has dedicated his career to unpacking the often toxic packaging surrounding the concept of organized crime. In Double Crossed, he focusses on the myths of organized crime, its social, economic and legal constructions and, most importantly, the architects and beneficiaries of this myth making'
Professor Dick Hobbs, Author of Lush Life: Constructing Organized Crime in the UK

Table of Contents

Section Title Page Action Price
Cover Cover
Contents vii
Acknowledgements xi
Preface xiii
Part I: Dumbing Down: Constructing an Acceptable Understanding of \"Organized Crime 1
Introduction 3
1. The Rise and Fall of Muckraking Business Criminality 5
2. America's Moral Crusade and the Making of Illegal Markets 13
Inset 1: The Origins of Mafia Mythology in America 21
3. Charles G. Dawes and the Molding of Public Opinion on Organized Crime 24
4. Al Capone as Public Enemy Number One 33
5. Al Capone and the Business of Crime 36
Inset 2: The Legends and Lives of Al Capone and Eliot Ness 38
6. Americanizing Mussolini's Phony War against the Mafia 43
7. \"Organized Crime\" in a Fascist State 52
8. Gangbusting and Propaganda 59
9. Thomas E. Dewey and the \"Greatest Gangster in America 64
10. From Gangbusters to Murder Inc. 67
Part II: Lies about Criminals: Constructing an Acceptable \"History\" of Organized Crime 71
Introduction 73
1. The Genesis of the Atlantic City \"Conference\" Legend 74
2. Consolidating the \"Conference\" Legend 80
3. The Purge that Wasn't 86
4. The US Government's History of Organized Crime 89
Inset 3: \"Lucky\" Luciano and a Life in Exile 93
Part III: Covering up Failure: Constructing an Acceptable Response to \"Organized Crime 99
Introduction 101
1. Mafia Mythology and the Federal Response 103
2. President Richard Nixon and Organized Crime Control 114
3. Challenging the Orthodoxy 118
4. Sustaining and Updating Mafia Mythology 124
5. From Super-Government to Super-Governments: The Pluralist Revision of Organized Crime 131
6. The Origins of the Anti-Money Laundering Regime 135
Inset 4: Meyer Lansky and the Origins of Money Laundering History 138
7. Informants, Liars and Paranoics 142
8. Seizing Assets to Fund the Crime War 146
9. Drug Prohibition and the Prison Gang Phenomenon 151
10. Organized Business Crime: The Elephant in the Room 160
11. Deregulation and the Rise of Corporate Fraud 171
12. Fraud and the Financial Meltdown 177
13. Hiding the Failure of Organized Crime Control 182
14. Repression as Organized Crime Control 187
Part IV: Selling Failure: Settling the Global Agenda on Drugs, Organized Crime and Money Laundering 193
Introduction 195
1. Losing Corporate Criminality from Transnational Crime 196
2. Building Capacity 200
3. Americanizing the British Drug Control System 212
4. Dumbing Down the International Response to Drugs and \"Organized Crime 218
5. Repression, Profits and Slaughter: The United States in Colombia and Mexico 230
6. The Atlantic Alliance as a Money Laundry 238
Epilogue 247
Notes 251
Index 276