Book Review: Double Crossed: The Failure of Organized Crime Control. by Michael Woodiwiss (University of Chicago Press,). CHOICE. DOCX

Title	Book Review: Double Crossed: The Failure of Organized Crime Control. by Michael Woodiwiss (University of Chicago Press,). CHOICE.
Author	Jay Albanese
Pages	1
File Size	73.5 KB
File Type	DOCX
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CHOICE www.choice360.org Social & Behavioral Sciences 55-2130 HV6441 MARC Woodiwiss, Michael. Double crossed: the failure of organized crime control. Chicago, 2017. 286p index ISBN 9780745332024, $100.00; ISBN 9780745332017 pbk, $22.00; ISBN 9781786800930 ebook, contact publisher for price. Woodiwiss (Univ. of the West of England) ofers a historian's critical account of how governments and the business community (in the US, Italy, and the UK) have successfully depicted organized crime as a phenomenon separate from the "respectable classes." Describing events involving Mussolini, J. Edgar Hoover, and up to in the present day, the author shows how false narratives were created that characterized organized crime as an external threat, especially involving foreigners and immigrants. Building on his earlier work, especially Organized Crime and American Power (CH, Jun'02, 39-6031) and Gangster Capitalism (2005), Woodiwiss focuses on the systematic criminality of the powerful through their manipulation of the public narrative while deemphasizing pervasive corporate and political fraud and bribery. He describes how local gangsters, including Al Capone and Lucky Luciano, were used to create misleading portrayals, resulting in misdirected laws. The result was the demonizing of targeted individuals and groups (e.g., as part of the war on drugs) with new laws and policies that carefully excluded business and government communities. An interesting contribution, analogous to Gregg Barak's Unchecked Corporate Power (2017), which also uses a critical perspective to focus on the self-serving use of power in the economic and political sectors. Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates and above. -- J. Albanese, Virginia Commonwealth University Choice Vol. 55, Issue 6 Feb 2018...