Synopses & Reviews
The Insane Chicago Wayand#160;is the untold story of a daring plan by Chicago gangs in the 1990s to create a Spanish Mafiaandmdash;and why it failed. John M. Hagedorn traces how Chicago Latino gang leaders, following in Al Caponeandrsquo;s footsteps, built a sophisticated organization dedicated to organizing crime and reducing violence. His lively stories of extensive cross-neighborhood gang organization, tales of police/gang corruption, and discovery of covert gang connections to Chicagoandrsquo;s Mafia challenge conventional wisdom and offer lessons for the control of violence today.
The book centers on the secret history of Spanish Growth and Development (SGD)andmdash;an organization of Latino gangs founded in 1989 and modeled on the Mafiaandrsquo;s nationwide Commission. It also tells a story within a story of the criminal exploits of the C-Note$, the andldquo;minor leagueandrdquo; team of the Chicagoandrsquo;s Mafia (called the andldquo;Outfitandrdquo;), which influenced the direction of SGD. Hagedornandrsquo;s tale is based on three years of interviews with an Outfit soldier as well as access to SGDandrsquo;s constitution and other secret documents, which he supplements with interviews of key SGD leaders, court records, and newspaper accounts. The result is a stunning, heretofore unknown history of the grand ambitions of Chicago gang leaders that ultimately led to SGDandrsquo;s shocking collapse in a pool of blood on the steps of a gang-organized peace conference.
The Insane Chicago Wayand#160;is a compelling history of the lives and deaths of Chicago gang leaders. At the same time it is a sociological tour de force that warns of the dangers of organized crime while arguing that todayandrsquo;s relative disorganization of gangs presents opportunities for intervention and reductions in violence.
Review
andldquo;Hagedorn has done it again: charted new ground. He presents clean, clear observations in a field dominated by camera obscura posited images of andlsquo;gangs.andrsquo; This book opens new questions about gangs, politics, and andlsquo;disorganization.andrsquo; Read it.andrdquo;
Review
andldquo;This is an important book, reminiscent of Sutherlandandrsquo;s Professional Thief, Ianniandrsquo;s Black Mafia, and other personal, insider studies of professional and organized crime and criminals. Hagedorn skillfully combines information and insights from multiple sources with scholarly analysis to reveal the nature of organized crime as it evolved during the late twentieth century and into the twenty-first century. His account of relationships between street gangs of this period and Chicagoandrsquo;s Outfit, the legacy of Al Capone and others, is especially important.andrdquo;
Review
andldquo;The Insane Chicago Way is quite original and advances our knowledge on gangs in a number of ways. Most criminologists draw a clear separation between organized crime and street gangs, but Hagedorn showsandmdash;in a highly compelling accountandmdash;how Chicago gangs in the 1990s attempted to emulate the mafia. In doing so he paints a new picture of street gangs as they exist in our neighborhoodsandmdash;not simply as reflections of other forces but as quasi-institutions, major historical agents in the development of violence and violent traditions.andrdquo;
Synopsis
Everyone knows stories about the American Mafia and its varied forms of crime, from racketeering to stock manipulation to murder. American Mafia: Chicago explores the story of those families and their ties to the Windy City, revealing the events behind the legends and the history of the families' beginnings and founding members. The history of the Windy City is revealed through the stories of the exploits of its most notorious bad guys and perpetrators of mischief from the deadly Black Hand to Al Capone. Black and white historical photos throughout.
Synopsis
Everyone knows stories about the American Mafia and its varied forms of crime, from racketeering to stock manipulation to murder. American Mafia: Chicago explores the Windy City, strolling through its neighborhoods and imagining scenes from the past-telling the stories of the men, women, and families and revealing the events behind the legends and the history of the families' beginnings and founding members. Featuring the most fascinating stories from the early days, when loosely-organized, incredibly secretive gangs terrorized neighborhoods with names like Little Hell, through the mob's headiest years, when Al Capone and his men pretty well controlled the city, American Mafia: Chicago offers tantalizing glimpses into the era when Chicago was ruled by gangs with their ever-twisting allegiances and tangled webs of relationships. Most of the buildings are gone now.But the stories are still there, if you know where to look.
Synopsis
Police, the press, and the public all see the kind of violence that besets the inner city today as irrational and basically about turf, revenge, or drugs. Renowned criminologist and expert on gangs, John Hagedorn here tells a very different and little-known story centered on the dramatic rise and fall of a Mafia-like Latino organization in Chicago called and#147;Spanish Growth and Development.and#8221;and#160; Hagedornand#8217;s main informant is and#145;Sal Martino,and#8217; an Italian Mafioso who became intimately involved with the and#147;In$ane Family,and#8221; one of the factions of Spanish Growth and Development. Through Saland#8217;s first-hand account, Hagedorn shows that the violence was not a result of and#147;disorganized crimeand#8221; but rather the outcome of SGDand#8217;s prolonged demise. He gives us for the first time a detailed the history of SGDand#150;the reasons for its creation, the uneasy alliances between gang families, the organizationand#8217;s reliance on bottom-up police corruption, and its ultimate collapse in a pool of blood at a 1999 and#147;peaceand#8221; conference. Revealing the hidden and riveting stories of Chicago gangsand#8217; efforts to build structures ostensibly to reduce violence and to organize crime, of the integration of gang and mafia history, and of the central role of police corruption in Chicagoand#8217;s gangland, The In$ane Chicago Way makes a powerful argument for the need to regard corruption as the bedrock of gang power. It dispels the notion that gang violence can be explained solely by ecological, neighborhood-based processes and sheds light on the current gang situation in Chicago by laying bare its history while raising disturbing questions for researchers, policy-makers, and the public.
About the Author
William Griffith is known to his friends as "Wild Bill," but actually lives a quiet life with his dogs in a small apartment beneath the El tracks on Lake Street - you get used to the noise after a while. His doorknob was salvaged from the rubble of the Lexington Hotel, and the apartment itself is reputed to have once been the home of a member of the Genna Brothers gang. His grandfather was a gangbuster in northern Missouri.
Table of Contents
List of Illustrations
Preface: This Is Not a Movie
Introduction: Lifting the Veil
Part One: Ambitions
1. The Hit
2. The Old Man and the C-Note$
3. The Transition from Turf to Profits
Part Two: Organization
4. Spanish Growth and Development
5. andldquo;Two Dagos, Two Spics, and a Hillbillyandrdquo;
6. Family Feuds
Part Three: Corruption
7. Envelopes and Ethnic Politics
8. Police Corruption from the Suites to the Streets
Part Four: Catastrophe
9. Ecstasy and Agony
10. The War of the Families
11. The Future of Gangs in Chicago
Notes
Appendix 1. Major Events in Chicago Gang History prior to SGD
Appendix 2. The Ten Years of SGD, Significant Events
Appendix 3. Factual Charges of Ambrose on La Raza to SGD Board
Appendix 4. SGD Grievance Format
Appendix 5. Independence of the SGD within the Organization
Appendix 6. Grievance of the Insane Spanish Cobras against the Latin Eagles
Appendix 7. By-laws of the Insane Family
Appendix 8. Application of the C-Note$ for SGD Membership
Appendix 9. Leyes of the SGD Union
Index