ABSTRACT
Organized crime was a catch-all term for both the established criminal cultures of the new urban centres and the innovative groups exploiting opportunities offered by the prohibition of alcohol, which lasted from 1919 to 1933. Both Prohibition and the post-World War II Senate investigations stressed the role of ethnicity in organized crime, and this emphasis has been exploited by Hollywood from Little Caesar to the Godfather trilogy and to Goodfellas and beyond. It should be stressed that to highlight the role of globalization is not the same as making a claim for 'transnational organized crime'. The term 'transnational' is essentially misleading in referring to organized crime, for it is a term that is normally assigned to cross-border activity involving the explicit exclusion of the state - and the relationship between the state and organized crime is ambiguous. The state utilizes criminality for a variety of ends, but particularly as an alternative means of implementing foreign policy.
