The Neighborhood Outfit: Organized Crime in Chicago Heights - Hardcover

Corsino, Louis

9780252038716: The Neighborhood Outfit: Organized Crime in Chicago Heights

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0252038711 ISBN 13: 9780252038716

Publisher: University of Illinois Press, 2014

From the slot machine trust of the early 1900s to the prolific Prohibition era bootleggers allied with Al Capone, and for decades beyond, organized crime in Chicago Heights, Illinois, represented a vital component of the Chicago Outfit. Louis Corsino taps interviews, archives, government documents, and his own family's history to tell the story of the Chicago Heights "boys" and their place in the city's Italian American community in the twentieth century. Debunking the popular idea of organized crime as a uniquely Italian enterprise, Corsino delves into the social and cultural forces that contributed to illicit activities. As he shows, discrimination blocked opportunities for Italians' social mobility and the close-knit Italian communities that arose in response to such limits produced a rich supply of social capital Italians used to pursue alternative routes to success that ranged from Italian grocery stores to union organizing to, on occasion, crime.

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Review:

"An in-depth historical review and analysis of an important part of organized crime, the "Outfit," in the Cook County, Illinois, suburb of Chicago Heights. This outstanding work of scholarship makes use of popular and scholarly sources, including the author's own family whose roots in the community go back generations. His book is a must for anyone interested in organized crime in Chicago and its environs."
--Howard Abadinsky, author of Organized Crime
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-An in-depth historical review and analysis of an important part of organized crime, the -Outfit, - in the Cook County, Illinois, suburb of Chicago Heights. This outstanding work of scholarship makes use of popular and scholarly sources, including the author's own family whose roots in the community go back generations. His book is a must for anyone interested in organized crime in Chicago and its environs.-
--Howard Abadinsky, author of Organized Crime
-Corsino succeeds in The Neighborhood Outfit, demolishing the essentialist perspective on Italian American participation in organized crime.---Italian American Review

About the Author:

Louis Corsino is a professor of sociology at North Central College.

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