Organized crime is bad. That statement is just about all I knew about organized crime before this assignment. I never saw any of the 'classic' movies about the Mafia, or even bothered to read anything about them. The only kind of crime that I knew about was the kind that I could hear about on the radio, or see in my city; that's why I chose to compare earlier forms of organized crime, specifically the Mafia, to present day street gangs.
             Searching for the information was one of the easiest topics that I have done, but only for the Mafia half. When I had to find more current articles about gangs in America I ran into a little bit of a problem with published sources. I couldn't find books any later than the mid 1980s. I found a lot of sources on the internet, but since they were probably just a bunch of pre-teens who were just mesmerized by the gangsta rap I decided not to use those. I instead persuaded an acquaintance to let me interview him. This took care of the rest of the information that was needed to finish the paper, except he didn't want me to use his name. I had to talk with him a few times and promise that I wasn't going to turn this paper into the police, but I wasn't going to use any incriminating information anyway.
             We like to believe that we have matured as a society as the years pass. But, the chain that is society is only as strong as its weakest link. That link would be the crime organizations of America. I wanted to know if the gangland ways have changed.
             The Mafia of the first half of the last century obtained money through many different means. Some of these were extortion, prostitution, gambling, drugs & alcohol, and racketeering. There are even more specific means that were used, but I am only going to focus on drugs and racketeering.
             The drug of choice in the Mafia's earlier days was alcohol. Prohibition was in effect, but the public
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