BOOTLEGGING In 1919 the Eighteenth Amendment was passed making the consumption and sale of alcohol illegal. A group of people called “moral reformers” believed that banning the sale and consumption of alcohol would better protect people's lives and improve them (Rose). Businesses, such as industrial ones, believed that productivity would be better if workers could remain sober. The Volsted Act was passed shortly after the Eighteenth Amendment to ensure it was enforced since local authorities did not; there were only fifteen hundred officers to enforce the law and the law was also underfunded. Therefore, Prohibition was not enforced well enough and the rate of organized crime increased as gangsters and mobsters began to enter the bootlegging business (Rose). Chicago was at the height of bootlegging and Al Capone took advantage of it. Capone had moved to Chicago in 1919 with Johnny Torrio (Rose). Once in Chicago, he made his way into life as a mobster; Capone went from gang member, to Johnny Torrio's right-hand man, to boss (Encyclopedia of World Biography). As the head of one of the largest organized crime mafias, he proved himself to be an entrepreneur. Capone soon became the boss of Chicago's largest speakeasies, bookies, brothels, gambling houses, and racetracks, where he smuggled alcohol. Capone was known as this big shot after he and Torrio arranged the assassination of former mob boss Colissimo and after Torrio left him in charge when he fled the country (Encyclopedia of World Biography); Capone had the honor of being the manager of the Chicago liquor business. (Rose) The people of Chicago have always been against the Prohibition Act; they… middle of paper… In 1938, Capone was transferred to Terminal Island Prison in Southern California to finish his sentence once it was discovered that he had been suffering from syphilis for many years (Al Capone at Alcatraz). In 1939, he was released into the care of his brother and his wife, his mental state was slowly worsening, and on January 25, 1947, Al Capone died in his Florida mansion (Phelps & Lehman). CONCLUSION Al Capone was a criminal who did what he had to do to get to the top and stay there. He didn't care who he killed because he caused hundreds of deaths and he didn't care who he had to make a deal with because he corrupted many, he didn't really care about the law because he broke it for a decade of smuggling. Between mafiosi, smuggling, murders and corruption, he was brought to justice for tax evasion. Capone was just a relentless criminal.