ABSTRACT
Another factor contributing to national concern with organized crime during this era was the fact that Mafia activities were not activities with which average American citizens could empathize. The image that emerges from this era is of an organized group of "foreign" hoodlums who preyed upon good American citizens for purely commercial reasons. Unlike the perception of the bootleg gangs of the 1920s and the bank robbery gangs of the 1930s, these gangs were perceived as having no purpose except victimization for the purpose of making money. See, e.g., id. at 12-18. And their victims were good, decent Americans, not the Prohibition authorities of the 1920's or the exploitative banks of the 1930's.
