Prohibition's Failure Essay

The Eighteenth Amendment which instituted prohibition in America and its territories was an interesting attempt at using the constitutional amendment process to shape social and moral behavior in America. Until the Twenty-First Amendment which repealed prohibition, the road to prohibition in America dates back to colonial days. Although the amendment did not last as it was reversed by the Twenty-First Amendment less than 15 years later, along the way, the battleground for prohibition grew from local organizations to a national political party and set new interpretations for the Constitutional amendment process and played an important role in in American history. The Eighteenth Amendment was the high-water mark for what is often referred to

December 17, 1917, the United States House of Representatives approve the 18th Amendment (which prohibit the manufacture, transportation and sale of alcoholic beverages of any sort in the United States) with a vote of 382 to 128.A day later, the US Senate agreed on the Amendment with a vote of 47 to 8. A year after, over three-quarters of the fifty states ratified the Amendment. The 18th Amendment officially went into effect somewhere in the early 1920s. America became known as the dry country. The 18th Amendment lasted for 13 years until both the Senate and the House voted to remove the Amendment.

There are many reasons why prohibition failed in the 1920s. One of the major ones is that the demand for alcohol did not decrease. This is a major problem because this means that the public did not support it. A second reason is that even though prohibition was meant to reduce corruption. This was not the case.

Prohibition: Failures and Success By Jayden A. Mendoza "Prohibition only drives drunkenness behind doors and into dark places, and does not cure it or even diminish it." (Mark Twain). This quote perfectly encapsulates the impact and outcome of prohibition, and why it was bound to fail. Prohibition was not only a period of crime and homicide, but an experiment to see how Americans would respond to drastic change. Prohibition was a failure due to how difficult it was to enforce, illegal activity was on the rise, and that it was untaxable.

Temporary fun with lifelong consequences; alcohol. In 1919 the 18th amendment was ratified, this amendment declared it illegal to manufacture, transport and sell alcoholic beverages. America repealed Prohibition due to the crime rate increasing, failure of enforcement and no money being made off of alcohol. Due to the crime rate increasing majorly during Prohibition America had second thoughts on it. The US Census and FBI Uniform Crime Reports in Drug War Facts shows us a graph representing the homicide rate before, during and after the years of Prohibition.

Why did America repeal something they were originally so for? America decided to repeal the 18th Amendment of Prohibition because of the increase in crime, the inability to enforce the law, and basic economics. After the 18th Amendment was approved, crime increased dramatically. According to Document B, before Prohibition, homicides were at an average of 6 deaths per 100,000 people in America. Once Prohibition was put into place, there was an immediate increase in murders.

The overly restrictive prohibition act was designed to put a stop to the rising crime rates, presumably caused by extreme levels of alcohol consumption among U.S. citizens. Ironically, this illegalization of alcohol actually gave birth to the rise of organized crime throughout America. The 1920s are largely remembered as the golden age of America, a time in which no one was poor and everything was peaceful. However, this was not necessarily the case. Crime had always been a basic back and forth between the police and criminals.

Prohibition was the nation's ban on alcohol, in hopes of improving the health of the country as well as reducing crime. With the passing of these new laws, criminals like Al Capone, rose and began growing their empires. Capone began by smuggling alcohol and selling it behind closed doors illegally. Many began doing this and the new laws against alcohol were being broken by almost every United States citizen within the first five years of the laws being passed. With Al Capone quickly becoming one of the most powerful men in Chicago at the time, his following grew and his gang was spreading across the state, as well as

However, in the 1920s, because alcohol was a part of people’s daily lives, people didn’t stop consuming it. Alcohol consumers with no respect for the law simply decided to buy, sell, and drink alcohol illegally. People who sold alcohol made a lucrative business out of it. Al Capone, for example, who was a famous American gangster, earned $60,000,000 annually by selling illegal liquor (Al Capone). Prohibition did not stop people from drinking, and criminals were making the money the sale.

Subsequently, the nation realized prohibition was not working and things began downfall. America began to change its mind, repealing the amendment because prohibition was unenforceable, nobody wants it, and legalizing alcohol would benefit our economy. Prohibition was nearly impossible to enforce, and people usually got away with breaking the law. “Smuggling from Mexico and Canada has been successful on a large scale because it is utterly impossible to patrol the thousands of miles of border..”(Haskin 1923)

Al Capone was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1899. Al Capone was an american mobster, crime boss, and business man during the Prohibition Era. He is known as the most famous criminal from his time. (1899-1947) Al Capone’s mom and dad met in Italy before Capone was born.

In 1919, Congress passed the 18th Amendment which banned the sale and consumption of alcohol in America (Doc B). Prohibitionists overlooked the tenacious American tradition of strong drink and of weak control by the central government. Thus, there was tension between the modernists and the traditionalists. Although the amendment was passed, alcohol was still distributed illegally. Actually, prohibition spawned many crimes, such as illegal sale of alcohol and gang wars.

Guns, gangs, women, alcohol, gambling, are just some things that come to mind when I hear prohibition. According to the online source American History, The Prohibition is the act of prohibiting the manufacturing, storage, transportation, and sale of alcohol, including any alcoholic beverage. This led to the biggest crime rates of all time. At the head of all the crime was one man. His name, Alphonse Capone aka (Scarface) .

Prohibition was an amendment that caused the ban of alcohol and anything related to it. America was suffering because of alcohol, so prohibition was enforced. Little did the country know, prohibition would cause America to suffer far more. America was facing various problems due to alcohol such as death, crime, and loss of money. America expected to solve these problems by banning alcohol; never did the country expect the problems to worsen.

Prohibition was a period of 13 years in U.S. history in which the manufacture, sale, and transportation of liquor was made illegal from 1920 to 1933. It was known as the “Noble Experiment” and led to the first and only time an Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was repealed. There were many reasons for why prohibition was introduced, one was that a ban on alcohol would practically boost supplies of important grains such as barley. Another was, when America entered the war in 1917, the national mood turned against drinking alcohol.