Mark H. Haller
U.S. Social and Urban
In the mid-1960s I received, unsolicited, a grant to write a report on an aspect of crime and criminal justice in 1920s Chicago. I found the topic challenging, particularly since I seemed to be the only professional historian studying the history of American urban crime. At first I concentrated on Chicago, but I soon branched out in order to develop a comparative focus. In the years since, I have published on the history of city police, gambling, bootlegging, vice, loansharking, and drug trafficking. In the 1990s I was given complete access to the intelligence files of the Pennsylvania Crime Commission in order to undertake a study of the Bruno family centered in south Philadelphia. In my work, I have tried not only to understand how criminal entrepreneurs organize their businesses but also place them within the broader context of urban history -- linking crime to such topics as city politics, race and ethnicity, urban geography, professional sports, and entertainment. Crime is an interesting prism through which to understand the society within which the crime occurs.