Essay on Great Gatsby

Submitted By subilove
Words: 617
Pages: 3

3/3/12
The Days of Prohibition Imagine the next morning, waking up and finding something being taken away from you, finding out that it is now illegal to have or find in a store to buy. This is what happened on January 16, 1920, when the eighteenth amendment came into effect. During the Prohibition Era, the goals were simple, but yet failed in the end to succeed to meet the goals. During the 1920’s, prohibition heavily influenced the rise in crime rates and aided in the era of modernism. First off, Prohibition officially began on January 16, 1920. It was also known as the 18th amendment. In Prohibition, the manufacture, transportation, import, export, and sale of alcoholic beverages were restricted or illegal. Prohibition aimed to lessen crime rates, lower taxes, corruption and poverty. Instead the opposite happened and America got even more dangerous and crime rates steadily increased. Although the possession of alcohol was still legal many breweries still served there alcohol legally and made lots of money. Also as stated in Prohibition in the United States “Whiskey could be obtained by prescription from medical doctors.” .This showed the corruption in America begin to grow and later on million of gallons of ‘Prescribed Whiskey’ was consumed and no attempt was ever made to stop this.Also even politicians and even the President admitted in bootlegging alcohol and consumed it themselves. However by 1933 the twenty-first amendment was added which repealed the 18th amendment which ended Prohibition. During Prohibition, rising crime became a major problem for America. As quoted in Organized Crime and Prohibition, ‘Not only did the number of serious crimes increase, but crime became organized.’ and also “Police funding increased $11.4 million dollars, total federal expenditures increased 1000%!!”. This meaning that many mobs formed and mob bosses grew with millions of dollars in their pockets. One of the most famous gangsters of this time was Al Capone. Most of the gangs and mobs would smuggle or bootleg alcohol in the United States through Canada, overland and through the Great Lakes. Since crime was more organized there was also rival mobs fighting for control over who bootlegs, and distributes the most earning the most money. This meant that more murders were occurring. In 1926 the record kills in America was 12,000 deaths a year! That is a lot of murders that were crime related. Towards the end crime rates slowly decreases and in 1930 when Capone was released from prison in Philadelphia he started to lose power. Finally, Prohibition overall failed to meet any