Americans, how much of your police (counties, cities) have been co-opted by organized crime?

23 comments

1. Not much.

   There was major issues with it 100 years ago surrounding the prohibition of alcohol, but not really today.

2. [deleted]

3. Very little. That organized crime act kinda killed it.

4. You’ve been watching too much TV. Organized crime in the US was basically eliminated by the RICO Act: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racketeer_Influenced_and_Corrupt_Organizations_Act

   Anything that currently exists is very much underground, not out in the open, and would be prosecuted with extreme prejudice.

5. The cops ARE the organized crime.

6. None.

   Organized crime is not a thing where I live. Yes, gangs exist, but they tend to be hostile to the police.

7. Grew up in Memphis and it’s been a thing for many many years.

8. How the hell would we know?

9. Questions like this tend to tell you a lot about the country someone is asking from. Not that I had a high opinion of European cops to begin with.

10. How do you co-opt yourself?

11. American local government is often corrupt in a myriad of ways, police involvement with organized crime is not one of them.

    Corruption more often looks like the zoning board being filled with people connected to a handful of land developers that green light all of their projects and bog other ones down in unnecessary red tape. Or someone getting elected to a position like PVA and then hiring their friends and family to work in the office

    But even then, that type of corruption is pretty much confined to small towns and rural areas, which is what I know more about

12. If everyone knows you’re involved in organized crime, you’re doing a really bad job of it. Kind of like the college campus drug dealer. If everyone knows who you are your days are numbered.

    Taking that into consideration, there is little evidence that this is a widespread problem. You can interpret that to mean that it doesn’t happen, or you can interpret that to mean they cover their tracks really well. Personally, I sincerely doubt the rural sheriff’s departments in Virginia are involved in organized crime.

13. Not much any longer. The era of that has passed

14. I heard Providence, RI is bad.

15. LAPD had a gang of cops. Probably still do. I doubt they’ve done much cause it’s the LAPD.

16. Not really any, though it’s not uncommon for them to get busted for running an illegal drug or arms selling ring. Couple years ago we had an entire small town police in NC get busted (Cherryville, NC)

17. A shitload until the 70s, then we passed RICO

18. There are corrupt cops. There are even occasional gangs of cops doing illegal things. But cops working for organized crime, like in the Godfather movies, is a thing from prohibition times, almost entirely eliminated in the 1950s.

19. There’s plenty of systemic corruption within law enforcement.

    The more low level and “obvious” corruption depicted in Noir films is pretty rare.

20. Ummm what an odd question. Did this happen recently on a hot streaming show? As regular people, how do we know?

21. Police in America aren’t really that corrupt. (For example: if you try to bribe a cop when pulled over, you will be very quickly arrested). Organized crime definitely exists in some parts of the country but is always very opposed to the police.

    The main problem people have with police in America is police brutality, which disproportionately affects black people.

22. While the mafia still exists, their influence over local officials is not very strong anymore. But at least where I live, all the local politicians are just as corrupt minus the violent crime that comes with the mafia. You may of seen the story of Bob Menendez, all the locally politicians here are equally corrupt. Luckily they don’t deal with international powers like a US Senator does. Instead they just give themselves and their family members 6 figure paying jobs that have little to no actual work involved.

    Honestly, our local politics has drastically made me much more apathetic towards all politics.

23. I’m sure some exists in this town, but I’m not aware of any. Like, we might have the odd cop or two who turns a blind eye to some petty crime because the crook is his cousin’s BFF, but corruption on the level seen in movies? I’ve no reason to suspect or believe such exists in my neck of the woods.