The Eighteenth Amendment was put into effect to prohibit the manufacture, sale and transportation of all intoxicating liquors. Shortly afterward, the Volstead Act, named for author Andrew J. Volstead, was put into effect. This complimentary law determined intoxicating liquor as anything having an alcohol content of more than 0.5 percent, omitting alcohol used for medicinal and sacramental purposes; this act set up guidelines for enforcement as well (Altman 15). After the Volstead Act was put into place to determine precise laws and methods of enforcement, the Federal Prohibition Bureau was developed in order to see that the Volstead Act was enforced.

Nevertheless, bootleggers and commoners alike frequently violated these laws. Bootleggers smuggled liquor from overseas and Canada, stole it from government warehouses, or simpl

Although it may have worked in theory, prohibition was far easier to proclaim than to enforce. With only 1,550 federal agents and over 18,700 miles of extensive coastline, it was quite impossible to prevent large quantities of liquor from entering the country. Bowen estimated that barely five percent of smuggled liquor was hindered from coming into the country through the 1920s.

The natural result of this is that the number of federal convicts over the course of the prohibition period rose 561 percent. James Barry sums up the cause for this well in his book The Noble Experiment, Barry states "As a result of one bad law, public regard for all laws diminished" (Barry 77.) Because liquor was no longer legally available, the public turned to criminals who readily took on the bootlegging industry and supplied them with liquor. Criminal groups readily organized around the steady source of income provided by bootlegging. As criminal groups scrambled to harvest the rich cash flow of the literally cutthroat bootlegging industry major rivalries were created, and played out. Bowen claims that this profit motive caused an estimated average of over four hundred gang-related murders a year in Chicago alone.

Perhaps the most important cause of its success was that the illegal liquor industry was under the control of organized gangs, which "subdued" most authorities. Many bootleggers shielded their business by bribing the authorities, namely federal agents and persons of high political status. As a result of the lack of enforcement of the Prohibition Act and the creation of a booming illegal industry, an increase in crime transpired. The Prohibitionists hoped that the Volstead Act would, by decreasing drunkenness in America, thereby decrease the crime rate. Although towards the start of prohibition the crime rate did, to some extent, drop; it soon skyrocketed to nearly twice what it had been previously. Violent crimes, such as homicide, assault, and battery, increased nearly 13 percent. Felonies, such as homicide and burglaries, increased an astounding 24 percent just between 1920 and 1921.Ma

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Approximate Word count = 1418
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page double spaced)