Americans in the early 1900’s drank three times as much alcohol as people do today. The commonness of alcohol in the daily life was clearly visible. Americans love for alcohol caused clear problems: crime, domestic violence, neglected families, economic ruin, disease, and death. All these effects of alcohol abuse led reformers to go against alcohol. In 1920 the 18th Amendment was put into the Constitution to ban the production, transportation, importation, and sale of alcohol. The 18th Amendment went into effect on January 16, 1920 at midnight. Prohibition began as a way to improve the lives of the American public, it failed because the public used Bootleggers to get alcohol, and prohibition was terminated because of public disillusionment. …show more content…
The movement was fueled by the formation of the Anti-Saloon League in 1893. This league and other anti-alcohol organizations, began to succeed in establishing local prohibition laws, then the laws became national. The 18th Amendment was put into place to helped reduce crime and corruption, solve social problems, reduce tax created by prisons, and improve health and hygiene. After Prohibition started crime rates dropped, about 38%, the number of inmates in jails and prisons decreased 75%, and drunkenness decreased about 55%. None of this lasted, they were only temporary. Every loophole in the law was abused. Crime increased and the court and prison systems were stretched to the breaking point. They thought that changing the law would automatically change the behavior (Karen Blumenthal 62). The 18th Amendment was fragrantly broken from the moment it became a law, and continued to be broken for the next 13