Review: The Neighborhood Outfit: Organized Crime in Chicago Heights

The Neighborhood Outfit: Organized Crime in Chicago Heights by Louis Corsino
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I confess: I am jealous of this book. I had it recommended to me by an anonymous referee for the press where I’ve submitted my own gangster book. That referee suggested this is a model for the way a scholar can blend personal, family history with academic rigor. I say admiringly, it is. It most certainly is.

Corsino uses his preface and introduction to explain that he is the son and grandson of Italian-Americans from Chicago Heights, Illinois, a Chicago suburb notorious for its connections to the larger Chicago Syndicate. His father and grandfather were both “connected” to the mob, but not as big-time, “made” figures. Instead, they did some of the day-to-day work, collecting money from jukeboxes or delivering sugar for Prohibition-era bootleg brewing. They weren’t part of “the Outfit.” Instead, they were part of the deeper kinship connections of the Italian-American community.

Corsino is a sociologist both by training and, here, by analytical inclination. In some respects, this is a classic study of organized crime, one that echoes the template set by University of Chicago figures like Frederick Thrasher and John Landesco, but he updates it thoughtfully by positioning himself in the study. He doesn’t pretend to a neutrality on the subject – and he makes clear he has access that an outsider would not – but he also declines to be an apologist. He is both subject and observer, and he walks that line with real elegance.

This is a short work, which is impressive as well since it focuses on a single thesis for its subject of interest. As Corsino sees it, the Italians of Chicago Heights were among the most isolated ethnic communities in the country. (He makes deft use of census data to underscore the point.) As a result, they were less able to turn to legal alternatives for income and, perhaps perversely, more inclined to trust each other in a secret organization than to trust the institutions they felt were excluding them.

Only some of this is brand new, but Corsino has the rare ability to make it feel as if such broad-based theories grow out of the work he’s doing. He doesn’t pretend to be the first to make such theoretical claims – again, he has a light touch in acknowledging the theorists who’ve paved his way – but he doesn’t overdo the theoretical quotes either. He does what a good sociological study does: he makes his corner of the world seem to speak to us of larger implications.

One particular piece is new, though, to me at least, and I find it admirable. As Corsino sees the Chicago Heights experience, three factors brought about the 50-year success of the local branch of the larger mob. Closure, violence, and brokerage. “Closure” is his term for the perverse fact of communal isolation. Violence is self-explanatory, but he is careful to remind us that it was limited; he calls his final chapter “You Can’t Shoot Everyone” to underscore the degree to which these men perpetuated a business rather than a sustained conflict. And “brokerage” is the idea that it takes trust for someone to broker a service on behalf of others. Closure and brokerage were both products of the tight-knit community, features that helped in the creation of an organized crime operation but that also held back most in the community. It’s helpful and intriguing to have these concepts in the structure Corsino provides.

There’s a slice of history here as well. I was familiar with most of the big names in Chicago Heights history – Jimmy Emery, Frankie LaPorte, and Albert Tocco – but I don’t I’ve ever come across a synthetic account of them. Corsino leaves that in the background for most of this – this doesn’t lend itself well to adaptation by Martin Scorsese – but it’s one more useful contribution he makes.

I have a final confession as well: I knew of this when it first came out, but I decided against reading it out of loyalty to friends in the Chicago gangster research world. John Binder and Matt Luzi have seemed to me to be the people to see of Chicago Heights for the last couple decades, and I was too quick to dismiss someone who seemed to be a late-comer to their work. I’m happy to say that Corsino cites John and Matt, not only giving them substantial credit but also putting their research into historical context. He’s nobody’s latecomer, and this work clearly grows out of a lifetime of reflection and research.

I have a lot of work to do on my own book, but I think Corsino models some ways through my own difficulties. Keep in mind that this is an academic work – there are stories here, but they’re subordinated to an academic argument – but otherwise know that this is a terrific example of what a thoughtful scholar can accomplish when he brings together his personal and academic background.


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