The Degeneration of USA Villains: A Historical Account

In September 2020, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) issued a warning to the Chicago Police Department, claiming that 36 gangs in Chicago had reached an agreement to shoot any police officer who dared to draw their gun in public. The gangs involved in the agreement included Chicago's largest gangs, such as the "Lord of Evil" and the "Latin Kings". As the vast majority of members of these gangs are black and ethnic minorities, they are very dissatisfied with the violent law enforcement actions of the American police and have formed an alliance to fight against the police. Although this may sound sensational, the Chicago police say that the situation is stable.

Looking back at over 100 years of crime history in the United States, this generation of gangsters can be considered the most disgraceful and lacking in class of all the gangs in American history, truly bringing shame to the old-school American gangsters.

First generation villain: Cowboys and Gangs

In 1783, the United States won the war for independence, and Britain was forced to recognize the USA's independence. However, at that time, the United States only had 13 states on the East Coast, which was known as the Thirteen Colonies. After that, the United States acquired the French colonies in the Mississippi River Basin through various means. At the same time, due to the modernization of the eastern states, the eastern United States gradually began to appear crowded. Moving westward became a natural choice for American citizens. Therefore, starting from the end of the 18th century, the United States began a nationwide westward expansion movement.

How United States got its territory and expands itself. Image from Wikipedia. for more, see
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._territorial_sovereignty

However, the "Westward Movement" at that time was not the contemporary China’s "Western Development", and there was no government to ensure order in the American West. Nowadays, people need government approval to develop land anywhere, but back then, the only way for the American Westward Movement to obtain land was to go and seize it themselves. The American West during the Westward Movement was considered an area outside of civilization, populated by Native Americans who were ready to scalp white people (and were about to be scalped by white people). Even without Native Americans, there were various life-threatening wild beasts ready to defend their territory at any time.

In this situation, those who dared to go to the West were not good citizens. In fact, most of those who set out on the journey to the West were outlaws and adventurers. They did not go to the West to build houses and plant trees, but to pull out knives and fight. These people were the first generation of gunslingers in America, and a standardized label was later used to collectively refer to them - cowboys.

Cowboys were at their work site. Image from Wikipedia. for more, see
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cowboy

The Western Movement promoted urbanization in the United States, which in turn created a huge demand for meat. The vast plains of the West were natural breeding grounds, giving rise to the first major profession in the West - cowboys. Cattle farming itself was a very hard job, requiring good physical strength, and more importantly, the United States in the 19th century did not have refrigerated trucks. Therefore, the only way to transport cattle to the railway line for sale was to let the cattle walk there themselves. This required a large number of cowboys to escort the cattle, who not only had to drive them, but also had to prevent attacks from bandits, Native Americans, and wild animals. They looked like ranch workers, but in reality they were doing the job of escorts.

Therefore, in the general impression of contemporary people, American cowboys are always portrayed as tough guys wearing big hats, carrying revolvers, and ready to pull out their guns at any time. This was indeed the situation in the West, where almost everyone, men and women of all ages, carried guns. The Western spirit represents the American national spirit: hardworking, adventurous, and ruggedly free. In a society where everyone has a gun, the distance between people in the American West is leveled, so cowboys have a saying: "Thank Colt (a type of handgun) for making everyone in the world equal." Are there people even tougher than cowboys in the gun-filled West? Yes - in a group of tough guys, there is often someone even tougher.

From the mid-19th century to the end of the Westward Expansion in the early 20th century, the group that provided the most news for the USA West was not cowboys, but rather gangs. The Van der Linde gang in the game "Red Dead Redemption" is a typical Western gang. They were nomadic, robbing and pillaging everywhere they went, engaging in activities such as robbing trains and banks for entertainment. While train robberies and bank heists sound unbelievable today, they were traditional skills for gangs in the American West at the time, and some gangs even raided entire towns, earning enough to live off of for three years.

It is worth mentioning that the gangs in the western United States are not just villains who kill and loot. Some of these gangs have a strong sense of justice and often do things like robbing the rich to help the poor. Moreover, gangs have a banner that best embodies American values: the pursuit of freedom. For example, the leader of the Van der Linde gang, Dutch, often says, "We are not evil, but outlaws."

The reason why bandits were rampant in the USA West was because the government's management during the early westward expansion was almost non-existent. Due to the vast territory and sparse population, the US government was unable to set up police forces in the West. Instead, they would appoint a few sheriffs in each small town to maintain local law and order. Although sheriffs did the work of police officers, they were different in that they were only responsible for the security of their own town and would not pursue criminals. As sheriffs were understaffed, it was difficult for them to deal with the desperados in the wilderness, so they would only issue wanted notices and bounties, and let capable people catch the fugitives. This gave rise to another profession: bounty hunters.

Bounty hunters are a profession unique to the USA, aimed at filling the gap in law enforcement. This profession still exists today, with hunters chasing criminals across the country. Ironically, due to the lack of an ID system, many gangs pretend to be bounty hunters, moving from town to town and engaging in shady activities under the guise of bounty hunting. In the late 19th century, bounty hunting gradually became standardized, and large-scale bounty hunter organizations emerged in the United States. For example, the "Pinkerton Detective Agency" featured in the Western movie "The Wild Bunch" was the largest bounty hunter organization in the United States, with a membership of up to 200,000 people, and it hunted down most of the gangs in the West. The detective agency still exists today, but it has become a real private detective and consulting company. Back then, the Pinkerton Detective Agency was an armed detective agency that dared to fight bandits with knives. The war between gangs, bandits, and hunters accompanied the entire Western expansion movement. Most of the Western movies we see today come from their stories. For example, Quentin's movie "The Hateful Eight" tells the story of gangsters and bounty hunters, which is very Western in setting.

The Western Expansion movement came to an end in the early 20th century, and the stories of outlaws and cowboys also came to a close. The main reason for the disappearance of outlaws was the infiltration of civilization throughout the American West - the construction of railways such as the Pacific Railroad allowed the government's power to penetrate the West, and cities and steamships squeezed the living space of lawless individuals.

Second generation villain: Mafia

The story of the game Red Dead Redemption 2 takes place in 1899, and the main characters lament that the era of outlaw gangs is gone forever, and that society is becoming more and more civilized. In reality, though society may not welcome criminals, it is unable to eradicate them. When the bandits in the western wilderness lament that things aren't as good as they used to be, another golden age for bad guys has arrived, thanks to America's dumbest policy in history: Prohibition.

On January 17, 1920, the US federal government declared prohibition, making all production and transportation of alcohol illegal. There were many reasons for the enactment of prohibition: the US was a Puritan country that opposed drinking, and alcohol production was seen as a waste of food. In addition, it led to more domestic violence and was harmful to health. Therefore, the government decided to ban alcohol. The original intention of prohibition was to reduce alcohol consumption, protect health, and improve social morality. However, the US government did not expect that the law would have the opposite effect.

In 1920, just after the end of World War I, large numbers of European immigrants, including many Italian immigrants, flooded into the United States. Many of these immigrants were poor and struggled to make a living in America, leading many to turn to a life of crime. Along with the immigrants came the Italian mafia, known as the Black Hand, which established a presence in the United States.

As a local gang in Sicily, Italy, the Mafia originally had only a shallow foundation in the United States and could only engage in small businesses such as collecting protection fees and extortion. However, the implementation of Prohibition suddenly made once unpopular alcohol a prohibited item, which meant huge profits. Italian gangs thus entered the field of bootlegging, purchasing brewing materials from Canada or even producing their own and selling low-quality moonshine to American alcoholics. How profitable was this business? A barrel of beer cost only $5, but could be sold for over $40 in Chicago bars. In 1927, the largest Mafia leader in Chicago, Al Capone, led the Italian gang to earn over $100 million, which was almost equivalent to the GDP of a small country at that time.

With the huge profits brought by my private liquor trade, major American gangs began recruiting and buying horses. Within 20 years of the end of the Wild West era, the old gunslingers who had lost their jobs and were re-employed as workers came to big cities like New York and Chicago, joining the booming mafia. The highly profitable industry naturally had fierce competition. In the gang wars, gang members favored the Thompson submachine gun, which had a powerful firepower and small size. Because the gun's firing sound was a crisp "da-da-da," it was jokingly called the "Chicago typewriter."

The Italian mafia made a fortune through the private liquor trade, but they also had their own shortcomings: they wanted too much. The Italian mafia made a lot of money, but they did not know the principle of making a fortune quietly. After making money, they began to expand into the white world. For example, Al Capone, the Chicago godfather mentioned earlier, is the most famous mafia in American history. After making money through private liquor trade, he constantly bribed police, supported the Chicago mayor he favored, and even let his subordinates use violence to intervene in elections. Across the country, his mafia colleagues were not far behind. With the Great Depression from 1929 to 1933, the mafia's business took off.

Using New York as an example, among the five largest mafia families in New York, the Gambino family collects protection fees from garbage haulers and contractors on Long Island; the Lucchese family controls the loading and unloading business at the Brooklyn docks; the Profaci family is the largest importer of olive oil and tomato sauce in the United States, and can earn $5 million a week from lottery sales; the Genovese family monopolizes the hotel laundry business and cheese production. In 1933, President Roosevelt repealed Prohibition, and private liquor trade came to an end, but by then the mafia had already infiltrated every corner of American society. Unlike other gangs, the mafia never fights alone. They formed a national commission consisting of 24 families, with over 30,000 members at its peak, and became a criminal network covering the entire United States, bound by blood ties.

By the way, in 1947, the Mafia invested six million dollars to build a hotel and casino in the Nevada desert, which was then an unremarkable place called Las Vegas. The Mafia's heyday was associated with President Kennedy.

John Fitzgerald Kennedy (May 29, 1917 – November 22, 1963), often referred to by his initials JFK, was an American politician who served as the 35th president of the United States from 1961 until his assassination in 1963. He was the youngest person to assume the presidency by election and the youngest president at the end of his tenure. Kennedy was tragically assassinated on November 22, 1963, while riding in an open car during a parade in Dallas, Texas. The assassination remains a subject of controversy and speculation to this day.

Image from Wikipedia. for more, see
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_F._Kennedy

The Kennedy family has deep connections with the Mafia, and Kennedy's father was acquainted with many Mafia bosses. In 1959, Kennedy's father approached Chicago Mafia boss Giancana, hoping he could help his son ascend to the presidency. Giancana was a practical man and immediately gave Kennedy $2 million for campaign funds. However, the Mafia helped Kennedy the most in the 1960 presidential election. Illinois, where Chicago is located, was an important swing state, and as Nixon's lead grew, the Chicago Mafia mobilized to "direct" voters at polling stations. With the Mafia's help, Kennedy won by a narrow margin of 49.9% to 46.6%.

In fact, besides Kennedy himself, Marilyn Monroe, Kennedy's lover, had deeper dealings with the mafia because she was completely made famous by the mafia bosses.

However, President Kennedy did not return the favor, but instead launched a large-scale investigation and crackdown on the Mafia nationwide through his brother Robert Kennedy and FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover. The FBI captured a key witness, the head of the Mafia drug operation, Valachi. In October 1963, Valachi testified publicly, exposing the veil of a Mafia family alliance that was richer than any industrial giant. Americans learned for the first time about the existence of the five major Mafia families in New York, shocking the nation.

FBI chart of American Mafia bosses across the country in 1963.
Image from Wikipedia. for more, see
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Mafia

One month after Valachi's testimony, Kennedy was assassinated. The reasons for Kennedy's assassination are varied, but one thing is certain: the assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald, was arrested and less than 24 hours later, was killed in front of everyone by a bar owner named Jack Ruby, who was a member of the Mafia. However, Kennedy's death did not turn the tide for the Mafia, as the fundamental reason was that the American Mafia had reached a point of being too big to fail after many years of development.

In the 1960s, the US government estimated that the profits of the entire mafia in the country were about $7-10 billion per year, which was equivalent to the total of the top ten industrial giants in the United States at that time and posed a serious threat to social functioning. In 1970, the United States passed the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act, which was tailored for the mafia and made directing criminal activity a serious crime. In the 1980s, under the continuous crackdown by the Reagan administration, many mafia bosses were caught and brought to justice.

In 1985, nine core members of the five major New York mafia families were collectively sentenced to heavy prison terms, with many receiving the maximum sentence of 100 years. Throughout the 1980s, over 1,000 mafia members across the United States were sentenced to prison, leading to the overall decline of the mafia's power. While they still engaged in illegal activities, they no longer held the same level of influence and control as they did in the past.

Third generation villain: minority ethnic gangs

The Mafia may disappear, but someone needs to fill the ecological niche left behind by the Mafia. When Prohibition was repealed, the Mafia did not decline because they found a new jackpot - drugs. In "The Godfather" movie, the Mafia bosses seemed to have a good sense of propriety and refused to sell drugs that harm society, but in reality, this was just whitewashing by the Mafia. New York Mafia boss Bonanno once flew to Sicily, Italy, and introduced cocaine into the US market through local Mafia, making cocaine an affordable consumer product for American workers. After the Mafia's decline, the drug market still needed someone to fill the void.

In 1970, black people in the southern United States were suffering from oppression by the mafia and the Ku Klux Klan, so they formed their own gang called the "Crip Gang". The organization was originally established to protect black people from oppression. In the 1970s, the "Crip Gang" and other black gangs such as the "Blood Gang" gradually expanded and had similar organizations in every black area in the United States. However, these minority ethnic gangs were significantly different from the mafia, as they had no financial strength or unified organization. The so-called "Crip Gang" was just a combination of dozens of small gangs and lacked clear rules and regulations. But things began to change in the 1980s when the world's criminal history giant, Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar, emerged. Escobar, who is well-known from the American drama "Narcos", is a criminal who has created a pioneering position in the history of human crime. He created various means of transportation for drugs, such as airplanes and submarines, which completely changed the transportation and sales of drugs. Simply put, before this giant emerged, drugs were transported in small amounts, but after his rise, drugs were transported in tons. Drugs from Colombia flooded into the United States, but drugs needed a distribution network. After the decline of the mafia, drug lords could only use Latin Americans and black people. Since the 1980s, minority ethnic black gangs have begun to control the US drug sales market, and the United States has entered the era of modern black gangs. Compared with the mafia era, modern black gangs in the United States have several characteristics: more people, more violent, more disorderly, and farther away from mainstream society.

Gangs, like rebellions, need a social foundation to rise. The rise of the Mafia was due to the large number of unemployed immigrants in 1920s America, which provided fertile ground for the rise of the gang. After all, no one wants to lick blood with a knife when there is food to eat. Nowadays, the mainstream unemployed population in the United States has become people of color, especially black people. Compared with the principle of courtesy before force of the Italian Mafia, black gangs are much more violent. For example, the two gangs of the "Crip" and "Blood" in Los Angeles mentioned earlier have erupted in a bloody war that lasted for several years, and the total number of deaths reached as many as 5,000, which is astonishing in the history of American crime.

But compared to the birthplace of gang culture, Chicago, Los Angeles gangs are still far behind. How violent is the Chicago gang culture? From the start of the Afghanistan War in 2001 to 2016, the US lost 2,384 people in Afghanistan and 4,504 people in Iraq. In those 16 years, the Chicago gangs killed 7,916 people. That means more Americans were killed by Chicago gangs than in the two war zones of Afghanistan and Iraq combined. Therefore, Trump said, "Compared to Chicago, Afghanistan is still safer."

Most of the people killed are black, and most of the perpetrators are also black. However, despite the extreme violence of modern black gangs in the United States, there has not been a large-scale social upheaval, and even media coverage and tracking are not very extensive. Everyone seems to have become accustomed to it, because although there are many black gangs, they lack leaders like Al Capone and large-scale gangs like the Gambino family. They neither have the ability nor the willingness to influence politics and are generally on the fringes of society, not as prominent as the Mafia.

Back then, in order to crack down on the New York Mafia, the FBI established a special task force for each Mafia family. However, today's police only see small-time thugs all over the streets and cannot find a representative figure to take down. Ironically, the only well-known figures that black gangs have contributed to society are black rap artists, most of whom come from gangs and therefore have strong gang elements in their songs.

The US government also clearly lacks motivation to combat gangs. Taking Chicago as an example, although the murder rate in Chicago is high, it is mainly concentrated in the black residential areas in the south and west, where government public housing is located and where gangs have their influence. But there are not many gangs in the core area of the city, and for middle-class residents, gangs have no impact on them. They do not care, let alone want to spend their own taxes to improve the security of black neighborhoods.

Black gang members have a clear understanding of their attitude towards the government and the public. They mockingly refer to themselves as "nigga" while considering only those who wear ties and live in mansions as "African-American". The government has no interest in them, so there is an unspoken agreement between the police and the black gangs in certain areas where the police rarely come, and the gangs do not disturb the lives of the middle-class areas. Therefore, the declaration of Chicago's black gangs does not have much deterrent power over the police because they rarely confront each other. The poor quality of public education in the United States has made generation after generation of children in impoverished areas potential members of gangs, and the fate of wealthy and poor areas is passed down from generation to generation, making the modern black gang problem a difficult one to solve.

Americans themselves also lament that each generation of villains is worse than the last. The earliest villain - the cowboy - is already considered a part of American culture, integrated with the national spirit. From the cowboy that everyone admired, to the gangsters who pursued freedom, to the evil but dignified mafia, and now to the black gangs that roam the edges of society, American villains have gradually abandoned faith and rules and become pure social scum. Due to changes in the social environment, each generation of villains has become worse than the last.

Acknowledgements

The contents were originally delivered in a video by "Little John Khan"（小约翰可汗）on bilibili.com in 2020.

The original video was in Chinese. The original video has been deleted.

This version is translated by CathayViews Studio, partly assisted by ChatGPT. Some parts has been re-expressed to make it easier to read in English. Some sentences are deleted since we cannot find reliable source.

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