St Valentine Day Shooting Research Paper

In an era of drunkenness being chastised by religion, a new Amendment was born. This new amendment was known as the Eighteenth Amendment. The Eighteenth Amendment gave the government the right to limit personal liberties. This amendment took away the right for citizens of the United States to manufacture a beverage containing more than 0.5 percent alcohol. This amendment also prevented this type of beverage from being sold or transported. Many citizens disagreed with this amendment, and still wanted to have alcohol. This law created a need for mobs and gangs to produce alcohol and create a booming business. It also created a need for police men and women to prevent these mobs from selling alcohol, but could they do it? Could the government

Gangs began fighting for their territories which led to destruction and death. Violent crime became prominent in the era of prohibition. Capone was one of the major leaders in the violent crime. He organized one of the worst murders during this era, the St. Valentine 's Day Massacre. The St. Valentine Day Massacre is just one example of the numerous murders committed in the mobsters search for territory. "The pre-Prohibition murder rate of 5.6 per 100,000 nearly doubled to almost 10" (tdl.org). Crime, such as murder, was not the only violent crime that increased during this era. "Overall violent crime such as murders, batteries, and assaults increased by13 percent" (tdl.org). Organizations such as the Anti-Saloon League had argued that violent crime would go down with prohibition, but the effect was clearly the opposite. The prison system saw the same effect from prohibition that violent crime had seen. "The federal inmate population increased 561 percent from the pre-Prohibition period" (tdl.org). The prison systems increase in inmates required an even greater amount of funds from the government, which hurt Americans even more. It created a need for more tax revenue, which threatened the economy and hurt them even more when the economy began to decline in the 1920