Typologies of Organized Crime
The organization that Hill joined was known as The Lucchese Family. The organization was one of the five crime families that emerged in the 1920s and led by Gaetano Reina. It operated in New York under the organization known as Italian-American Mafia (Mannion, 2003). The ethnic makeup of the group was the Italian-American since it comprised American Mafia and Italian Organized crime groups. The Lucchese Family was known for drug trafficking, kidnappings, bribery, fraud, bookmaking, smuggling, extortion, labor rackets and more. The Lucchese family had a hierarchical structure that comprised the boss-the leader who made a decision and distributed duties to the family members. Street boss-he passed orders from the boss and run the group in case of arrest or death of the boss. Underboss- he had the authority to report matters to the boss (Mannion, 2003). Consigliere- he reported issues, made decision and carried out important duties. Soldieries- they were involved in criminal tasks such as robbery, kidnapping and more.
From the class material, types of the organized crime include activities that are related with the provision of illicit services such as sex, provision of illicit goods such as illegal drugs and infiltration of legitimate business where the criminals use illegitimate sources of income to run a business (Mannion, 2003). The activities of The Lucchese Family fit into the described types of crime in that they are involved in labor racketeering such as bribery and money laundering. The criminals are also involved in the provision of illicit services and illicit goods such as gambling, prostitution, loan shaking, sales of illicit drugs and sales of stolen properties. The criminals cause economic harm and threats by using legal businesses for exploitation.
Hill's ethnicity affected his career with this group in that he was born in New York by an Italian-American mother and Irish-American father. He was a half-Italian or in other words, he had an Italian American ethnicity, and the Italian-American Mafia was the well-known organized crime that comprised Italian-American gangsters (Mannion, 2003).. Thus, his ethnicity, that is; Italian American ethnicity motivated him in becoming a close associate of Jimmy the Gent and Paul Vario and becoming a member of the Lucchese crime family.
There are various reasons that made Henry idolize and join the lobster. First, Hill grew in a poorer areas known as Brownville and at the age of 11, he could look for afterschool jobs, and this affected his studies since rather than participating in productive work, he engaged himself in substance abuse and other poorer choices. Since Hill desired to become a gangster, he ended up quitting his studies and started working for Paul Sorvino and Paul Vario. As he began to work for these leaders, he joined the New York Mafia group and engaged in a serious crime such as truck hijacking and drug dealing (Albanese, 2014). In the 1970s, Hill was incarcerated due to extortion offense, but after being incarcerated, he continued with his criminal lifestyles such as theft and drug-trafficking. He relied on drug smuggling operations to support his family and more importantly, he wanted to continue with the criminal activities to meet the needs of his drug customers. Henry Hill could not get out of the organized crime business earlier because he was a hustler or in other words, he viewed the organized crime as a job. Hill benefited from the organized crime as he could earn $5.8 million from theft (Albanese, 2014). He had different jobs and an active youngster in the criminal activities. He was running various business including guns, book-making, drug sales, hijackings and money laundering. Since some of his criminal associates were killed and imprisoned, he continued to keep up his celebrity.
References
Mannion, J. (2003). The everything mafia book. Avon, MA: Adams Media Corp.
Albanese S. Jay. (2014). Organized Crime in Our Times. Routledge
