It would be virtually impossible to try to catalogue all of the cases of official corruption in U.S. history. In fact, it would be impossible to outline all of the corrupt relations between law enforcement officials, businessmen, politicians, and organized criminals in a single city. So we will content ourselves with a discussion of some important illustrations of alliances between white-collar, occupational, political, and organized criminals. Organized Crime and the Political System One of the themes our discussions of organized crime has stressed is that organized crime must be viewed as an integral part of society's political, economic, and social structure. In fact, a basic characteristic of all organized crime is that it must, of necessity, emphasize collusion between criminals, the police, and politicians.
Political corruption is critical to the survival of organized crime.
In addition investigations have consistently demonstrated the close relationship between the political organization and organized crime. It is important to remember that this is a symbiotic relationship. Allowing for inflation, that figure has probably quintupled by 1995. While Haller was writing about the great political machines of 1930s and 1940s, his words are also descriptive of the situation today. William Chambliss points to the role of organized crime as a very important source of political corruption at all levels of government.