Corruption
"Attacks New Bone-Dry Law," 1921 article discussing class issues related to the Volstead Act. Courtesy of the University of Kentucky Special Collections Library.
Instead of solving problems of criminality as originally intended, the prohibition of alcohol gave rise to widespread crime and corruption. Within the first hours of the Volstead Act taking effect there were already liquor robberies and hijackings and within the following month the first federal agents were arrested for liquor law corruption. Bootleggers routinely paid off police officers to allow their illegal activities to continue. America was facing a dark decade in which corruption became routine, and crime more profitable.
The Wickersham Commission, organized by President Hoover in 1929, studied the problems associated with Prohibition and found it had caused a number of social and political problems. The Commission recognized that Prohibition was unenforceable and provided great potential for police corruption. The commission released a second report in 1931 that supported prohibition but found that the average American held the law in contempt and that enforcement was impossible. The report documented corruption in police ranks, local politics and problems in every community that attempted to enforce prohibition laws.
