ABSTRACT
The foregoing analysis of ethnic organized crime in America has maintained that such crime provided a vehicle of upward mobility for lower-income ethnic minorities in their odyssey towards the fulfillment of the American Dream. The ethnic and class conflict between newcomers and the established order became most evident in these cities. Few seem willing to recognize that the lack of productive employment is the fundamental problem confronting contemporary lower-income ethnic minorities. A more fruitful avenue of inquiry entails viewing the plight of lower-income blacks in ethnic and social class terms rather than in racial and anomie terms. The very fact that many continue to pursue lives of crime suggests that they are relatively content in it. The prognosis for the elimination of ethnic organized crime is indeed grim. What concerns the public are crimes in the streets, and organized crime as the average American understands it—vice, thievery, gambling, narcotics, loan sharking, extortion, labor racketeering, contract killing, and so on.
