ABSTRACT
After reading this chapter students should understand and be able to discuss:
Why this era was branded the 1920s the “lawless decade” and the “Roaring Twenties”
The expansion of federal law enforcement, particularly the FBI, during the 1930s
The impact of the news media on perceptions of crime and violence
The roots of America’s “war on drugs”
The impact of alcohol prohibition on the development of modern organized crime
Why prison populations increased and how this stimulated the development of the federal prison system
The rash of “crimes of the century” cases during this period
The rise of police professionalism and new training programs for officers
The impact of prison anti-labor legislation and the rise of the state-use system
The passage of the Eighteenth Amendment and the onset of Prohibition in 1920 led to what many observers have referred to as the “lawless decade.” Others have described the 1920s and 1930s as “the crime control decades.” 1 Prohibition would cast a pall over the presidencies of Woodrow Wilson, Warren G. Harding, Calvin Coolidge, and Herbert Hoover before being brought to an end in 1933 under the Roosevelt administration.