The Chicago Outfit

Abstract

This essay studies the Outfit, the traditional organized crime group in the city of Chicago. The alien conspiracy theory argues that organized crime in Chicago and other American cities descended from the Sicilian Mafia. This article challenges the alien conspiracy theory arguing that the Chicago Outfit is better understood by the ethnic succession argument, which holds that organized crime is explained by Merton’s strain theory. Additionally, it is argued that while Merton’s theory is sufficient to explain the emergence of traditional organized crime, its continuation can only be explained by the existence of racket subcultures in American society.