Crime Questions

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Based on a twenty year investigation, Sally Denton’s The Bluegrass Conspiracy illustrates the links formed among Lexington Kentucky police, politicians, the wealthy and major drug traffickers. Organized crime and law enforcement are intimately associated in Kentucky’s blueblood network of criminal activity. When evidence of the criminal network came to light, involving the highest officials in Kentucky, the U.S. Department of Justice covered up the investigation. This is because governments are in place to maintain law to provide social order. Social order would be greatly disrupted by such high-level corruption gaining the light of day (i.e. public awareness). This is similar to Block’s depiction of why governments often commit state-organized crime, “Despite the laws, officials of the government or the state will often find themselves caught in a contradiction between complying with the law and meeting other obligations, demands, or institutionalized ends” (328).

In Denton’s Bluegrass Conspiracy, we see that corruption in this case involved the Governor, top political aides, former law enforcement officers and a wealthy man named Andrew Thorton, the chief of a group of wealthy bluebloods known as the “Company”. We see how coercion is often used to get those in a position of law enforcement to comply with the state and/or wealthy who are intimately involved in criminal activity and organized crime. Such an example is Ralph Ross, a Kentucky sta

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e of discovering corruption and cover-ups among the most wealthy and powerful individuals in U.S. society and government. In their book the author details how the unprecedented political and economic power had by Las Vegas titans is based on corruption and the worship of profits that has been a part of American history connected to illicit activities since Prohibition. The authors demonstrate in the film and book how gambling profits and illicit skimmed monies from Las Vegas entitled a handful of ethnic criminals in organized crime to control American politics and society-at-large. Such a “style of business” the authors claim is representative of the same style of business perpetuated by today’s politicians and corporate owners. Everyone from bankers and wealthy financiers have profited from the illegal profits of Las Vegas, while the film and book show how Las Vegas stands as a symbol of the intersection of government, organized crime and corporate America: “The city has been the quintessential crossroads and end result of the now furtive, now open collusion of government, business, and criminal commerce that has become—on so much unpalatable but undeniable evidence—a governing force in the American System” (Denton and Morris
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Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 2423
Approximate Pages = 10 (250 words per page)

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