The increase in crime and corruption led to people turning against prohibition and toward prohibition repeal as it had caused a huge increase in crime.

Corruption in the authorities was one of the key problems of enforcing the law. The gangsters bribed the authorities and so it was very difficult to convict any of them. It was estimated that 1 in 12 prohibition agents were taking bribes and some were being driven to work in chauffeur driven cars.

The Mayor of Chicago, Bill Thompson, was on Al Capone’s payroll, so how could the law be enforced in a city where the mayor is being paid by the top bootlegger? Also, initially there was only 1500 prohibition agents with funds of only $9 million per year, a fraction of what the gangsters were making.

In fact there was only one prohibition agent for every 200000 sq miles. This made bootlegging near impossible to police especially as the USA has 18000 miles of coastline and borders with Canada and Mexico. However alcohol was being produced with America as well.

This led to the repeal of prohibition as if alcohol was legal, you wouldn’t need to police it and you wouldn’t have these problems.

What do you think, was crime crucial to prohibition repeal?