NCJ Number
86030
Journal
Contemporary Crises Volume: 6 Issue: 4 Dated: (October 1982) Pages: 373-396
Date Published
1982
Length
24 pages
Annotation
This historical essay focuses on relationships between organized crime, the International Longshoremen's Association (ILA), private enterprises, and regulatory agencies that have developed on the New York waterfront over the last 50 years.
Abstract
The paper first reviews patterns of criminal behavior and organization prior to the 1953 creation of the Waterfront Commission of new York Harbor. The kinship patterns of the five families -- Camarda, Mangano, Anastasia, Mangiameli, and Romeo -- were mixed into the ILA locals are outlined. These personnel patterns had been disrupted by the time the Waterfront Commission began its work in 1953, and the waterfront was in turmoil, partly from investigations by the New York State Crime Commission. Struggles over union representation followed, and Albert Anastasia's enterprises were taken over by Carlo Gambino. The issue of organized crime on the waterfront receded from about 1960 until 1978 when reports surfaced that the Miami ports were infiltrated by organized crime. This investigation revealed that the leaders of several conspiracies were in New York, and an expanded investigation code-named UNIRAC culminated in two major New York cases against waterfront racketeers in the ILA locals. Criminologists who explain waterfront racketeering in terms of hiring and loading practices and outdated, crumbling facilities have ignored the business and political side of industrial racketeering. Facts uncovered in the UNIRAC probe show that patterns of organized waterfront crime are more dependent on the structure of private enterprise within a regulated and organized market than on the structure of the ILA, port facilities, and the labor market. The article contains 72 footnotes.