American History

The federal government is charged with the responsibility of maintaining economic reforms and social welfare legislations to its citizens. Although these two are given the greatest consideration, crime deserves to be given the same consideration or even much more. This book on war on crime looks into ways in which the war on crime can be handled within the twentieth century. To begin with the study looked at the failures that were witnessed in the state in regard to cubing crime.  So many political scandals were witnessed in the bureau of investigation and the Department of Justice. These are actually the departments that are supposed to help the country stop crime and yet they are faced with so many scandals. The highlight of these scandals was the failure by the federal government to wipe out all the criminal groups and illegal markets that had been identified by the government. Cases of kidnapping and interstate crime were on rise and this led to so much conflict between the opponents and proponent of state intervention. It took in intervention of the anticrime movement to bridge between the two parties and offered a neutral ground that could help resolve the conflict (Potter 1998, 1).

The Kansas City massacre that led to the death of federal officers provided a good opportunity for using the national solutions to solve local problems. In the late twentieth century, crime anxieties were a familiar way of creating new government agencies which extended the state authority.  The bureau of Investigation was characterized as a disgrace of black mailers and red-baiters and it needed some structural reformation and some cultural intervention for it to be transformed to a professional force. The relationship between the reformers who aimed at helping individuals and the scientist who opted for incarceration of law breakers brought into light two different understanding of fight against war and crime. The way in which these two groups related with the public was also different. For instance the social workers supported the public with empathetic educational programs that could help them morally upright to enable them oppose unworthy state interventions in their communities. The state managers on the other hand saw the community as a moral public that was fighting against other people who were against the state solutions to social problems (Potter 1998, 4).

The department of Justice targeted kidnappers and bandits between 1933 and 1936 but they were all let lose after J. Edgar Hoovers intervention since they were considered to have been easy targets by the federal enforcement. Despite the wide spread war against crime, the bandits were considered heroes in the community and when they gained this celebrity status, the community ironically understood them better within their traditional categories as being ignoble robbers, expropriators, noble robbers and revolutionaries. This perversely indicates that the community supported crime in a way because everyone would strive to reach this status in order to be recognized by the society. It has been illustrated in the book that the war on crime was fought guns, radio, movies and legislations, pens and even government hearings. There were attacks and counter attacks from all sides and all institutions.
The reputation of the Department of Justice became worse in 1924. The Bureau of investigation also became so disgraced because of the daily allegations of corruption, fraud, and graft that were witnessed after the death of Warren Harding. Very senior people in government including the former president were implicated in the sell of the governments oil reserve at Teapot Dome. Graft and favors were exposed further when the department of Justice ordered prosecutors to carry out surveillance operations. This is a clear indication that crime of various forms was deeply rooted into the government system and therefore the possibility of defensive counter attack against the fight against crime was always there. It would be very difficult for any group to fight against crime since the victims are the law makers. This movement on anticrime narrowed the gap between the party and regional lines hence this formed neutral political level for both the opponents and proponents. In 1932, Roosevelts agreement of new deal in the monetary sphere integrated a commitment to social principle of all types the Massacre that occurred in Kansas City gave a welcoming avenue to disclose the supremacy of modern centralized policing. This attack happened just some months after the fall and rearrangement of the countrys depository system, this massacre on the officers became an added dramatic opening to verify that national solutions which could also be used to solve local setbacks. Even though the revitalization in economic was not very fast and controversial, activists of crime war realized the potential for direct political dividends. Regarding Roosevelts initial hundred days, Attorney General Homer Cumings and Hoover disclosed legislation that would change the Bureau of Investigation from one of the many centralized police agencies to the directing surveillance and crime battle force in the country. By around 1934, Hoover agreed to join India to assist in tracking John Dilliger, and the bill was supported fully with no opposing voter. When the time the war on crime finished in 1936, Hoover and his men who were under his authority and were well known as G-men, they had become as assign of national renewal and a strong state that was well managed, honorable, honest and ready to meet the citizens needs.(Potter  1998, 3).

Nervousness due to crime was a common course that was used to create new government organizations by the late twentieth century. Therefore the initial war on crime and the chances it established to new dealers  encouraged administrators like Hoover, it  was crucial as the researchers attempt to fight the ways the state tries to emphasize dominion over the population residential administration and political parties. While they aimed for material objectives for instance decreasing popular violence and offering security to private property. The development of Bureau of Investigation from humiliating elements of blackmailers to armed, centralized police army, all this needed structural transformation and cultural mediation that indicated and emphasized other kinds of political reinforcement at the period of the new deal (Potter 1998, 4).

By 1954, if the director could launch the best history of the FBI by declaring that his supporters together with him were not at all separated from crossroads of America we must therefore come to a consensus that crime and policing were also important to a renewed nationalism before the start of World War II. This time between Hoovers election as a director about 1924 and the closing stages of war on crime in 1936, it assisted in developing ideological and structural groundwork for the good documented effects of post war and civil freedom era. Critics have come up with an issue about these unknown cross roads that might have been there in absence of Hoover. All through his career, the director often, secretly and illegally encouraged national security, antidemocratic, and racist plan that reflected his own beliefs and his friends who were administrators. Nevertheless, a number of authors have discussed how this strong agency of police was started as a result of orders made on the state by the citizens during a period when there were social crisis. In addition, ideas within the Department of Justice on the kind of reforms that should be emphasized in a national police force were regarded as component of war on crime. Confidentiality and undercover operations were major features of Hoovers campaigns in opposition to public political events which were as well important to the development of federal police supremacy (Potter 1998, 5).

Similar with the New Deal, the war on crime was founded on the progressive politics of the twentieth century, the state increase of the years of war and the philosophies of Hoover and technical reforms of 1920s.The association between anticrime movement and strengthening of the emerging New Deal is enlightening because reformers who planned to help people and scientific directors who give priority to incarceration and punishment visualized in a political  way and fashioned different wars on crime. The bandits and hijackers who were aimed by the Department of Justice between 1933 and 1936 have been disregarded as easy goal for federal enforcement. Many of the scholars have associated the war on crime to the postwar and policy guidelines of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, a wide belief system in relation to crime and policing these are mostly regarded as cultural by most historians. The number of criminals and policemen were also very much influenced by politics, which were the major, sites for analyzing the relationship between citizen and state. Forming a state with moral standards was also a political process, a chain of policy choices that simultaneously passed in popular culture, secured inhabitants consent for a state in the process of development (Potter 1998, 4).

In the period of Roosevelts first term, the disagreements between the G-man and the bandit, that is the Bureau of Investigation and the mob, these became grounds for expressing nationalist narratives concerning the benefits of an intrusions state. Large number of print, film and other kinds of cultural texts progressively generated by FBI stressed the war on bandits as a founding period for modern criminal research. Many scholars have translated these reports of fights against Barker-Karpis gang and John Dilliger as deception that were forged to create heroism around Hoover and his supporters. Nevertheless, with the prominence of magazines books, films and television videos that have made the war on crime celebrity in history. This era represents a memorable time of public relations that intervened Hoovers long lasting campaign in opposition to political radicals. In deed, the war on crime brought about lasting transformation in the ways Americans would come to appreciate crime as a national crisis, police power as communally positive, and crime control as a centalized responsibility. These logical shifts were important ideological preconditions for upcoming public opposition to the civil rights activists, homosexuals and black power groups. The pressure of anticrime movement provides twentieth century bandits a concrete political importance that has only been alluded to in the records of FBI or the New Deal. As opposes of the public and producers of a group of cultural representation for crime, bandits also molded the drama of state development and police modernization. Even though differently referred to as mobsters or gangsters, bank robbers for instance John Dillinger and artists like Clyde Barrow were both well known auto bandits as a result of stealing cars, committing of crimes that were pursued by fast escapes on the new system of the nation. Newspapers in the mid and southwestern states they regularly appeared and they used the term bandit to differentiate them from the settled, more urban gangsters. They frequently referred themselves as bandits, sometimes expressing their crimes as part of traditional criminal brought about by legends such as Jesse James and Robin Hood.

In twenties and thirties, to be a bandit meant one is fully an armed robber, mostly a bank robber, and other times a hired killer or a kidnapper. For instance, Alvin Karpis says that his work was bank robbery, kidnapping rich men and knocking off payrolls. Mostly men, bandits were instructed and committed thieves who worked as a unit of one or many gangs. They were mostly recidivists who started with insignificant theft in their adolescent stage and proceeded to payroll knocking and kidnapping by joining more skilled criminals they met in jail. In contrast to urban gangsters, who around 1930 discussed freely with genuine businessmen and politicians. Bandits together with their mobile mob families acknowledged their careers as a chain of life or death conflict with authority.

Referring to banditry around twentieth century, United States needs a reorganization of what has been regarded as speculative discussion across fields and various disciplines. Literature holds that bandits attract the attention of the state Eric Hosbawn came up with a model for the social robber as violent, heroic and unique to agriculturalist communities. However, not all bandits are social robbers, some are intentionally political and many originate from societies that have for a period of time made an evolution to capitalism and industrial production. The bandits of 1930s were example of those obsessed with symbol and myth mostly as they referred to the individuals conflict with the economy and recent forms of power of the state. Bandits involved their viewers in a dialogue regarding tragedy, individuality and history that sandwiched the association between state and citizen. By the fact that cultural analysis is intertwined into structural review of state development, the war on crime colonize the New Deal with individuals who provoke questions regarding politics of symbol and myth. The appearance of heroic, intangible male bandits and their sexy, hostile molls look forward to the creation of a new type of cop, the hardworking, scientific, mannish G-man who became a part of newspaper and literature around 1930s.The modern qualified Government Man substituted these humiliating detectives, molding a new rule of law and protecting the well organized families and societies encouraged by the New Deal state. In terms of public relations, the G-man encountered with a more conditional victory during a war on crime beyond what historians think of. A study done by Lizabeth Cohen in relation to working class Chicago has argued that the effect of mass culture rely not only on how it is released and distributed but also on the criteria it is consumed. That means peoples social situations inspired them to regard mass culture in varying dimensions.

The case files originating from war on crime are unusual documents. They disclose intentional and unintentional association that happened between citizen and state as the federal administration expanded. A headstone to FBI information gathering, they symbolize a range of investigative machinery containing confessions, interviews, account from paid informants, intercepted mail, recordings from prison meeting rooms, memoranda and crime fighting guidance from reliable citizens and internal directives, progress reports and personal notes from manager.

These documents increase the understanding of how the bureau transformed between 1924 and 1936, other close references disclose the practices through which Hoovers well known files were generated, the style used in reporting, the ways of surveillance, and the build up and distilling of information. These files are rich and they explain relationships contained by the bureau and between bandits and also the associations between each of the group and the different publics they planned to reach. Confessions also disclosed gang discipline and what were the outlines of that discipline, the ethics of the team and the situation under which they were broken. Further more, the documents disclosed the issue of the value of the bureaus goal which revealed the important role of the campaigns in developing new ways of federal surveillance and manifestation. Federal police reform and criminality were both released through gender and racialised organization, systems that are not wholly recognized in the field of history. For instance, the exceptional ways that females were involved in bandit crimes differentiated these criminal associations from the urban commotions that dominate the past of American crime in the twentieth century, and mostly caused them to be symbolized as perverse gender. The war on crime and the oratory with which Hoover and other state directors regarded the war were also based on racism, expressing criminals as ethnic while whites were wickedly blackened by their pathological behaviors.

These definitions were altered, reproduced and changed outside the centre of the state as the bureaus strong message was consumed and duplicated by different people (Potter 1998, 7). In conclusion the bureau of Investigation was important and there was a real need for its foundation since it disclosed all this information regarding crime and war and those bandits who were involved in these scandals.