Analytical Blog #4

Essential Question: How effective is our criminal justice system?

While reading Whitey Bulger by Kevin Cullen and Shelley Murphy, I learned that Whitey Bulger was a huge mobster with gang affiliation dating back to his early teenage years. He lead a life of crime until he was finally apprehended in 2011, when he was already an elderly man. He was charged with extensive counts of murder, money laundering, racketeering, extortion, distribution of narcotics and more. These crimes spanned throughout his whole life, so why was he just recently convicted? What took our criminal justice system so long?

Whitey was second on the FBI's most wanted list (below Osama Bin Laden) for twelve years while he was hiding out. Even before those twelve years, he lead a life of crime. While he was charged and incarcerated for small crimes before he proceeded to more serious crimes such as murder and extortion. Whitey basically disappeared into thin air after the authorities were finally able to build a case against him for his mob crimes and violence. He and his wife fled Boston in December of 1994 when they caught wind from an FBI agent that arrests were going to be made of him and his accomplices. While on the run, he travelled around the world despite a high risk of being caught. People claim to have spotted him in many different places but most were unconfirmed sightings. One confirmed sighting was in London in 2002 which resulted in an intense search party of the area, but they found nothing. While his friends and accomplices were being jailed, he was travelling the world as a "free" man. Bottom line, Bulger was an incredibly intelligent man who knew how to disappear without a trace. He had been cheating the system and dodging legal responsibility for his crimes for a long time so being a fugitive was easy for him. Bulger did everything he could to avoid prison and had the skills to do so. Our criminal justice system had their own task force devoted to locating him and punishing him to the fullest extent of the law. By the time he was captured, he was living with his girlfriend, Catherine Greig. The FBI started running 30 second ads on fourteen markets on channels that a lot of middle aged women may watch. This was because they wanted people to recognize Greig who spent a lot of time at beauty salons. Greig would lead the authorities to Bulger so that's why they launched those ads. Someone finally tipped off the FBI to an apartment in Santa Monica, California. There, they finally located Bulger and Greig. After reading my book and doing research into the manhunt, I realized that he was a mastermind who made it nearly impossible to find him. The FBI worked as hard as they could to locate him and hold him responsible for his crimes. They carefully investigated every lead and tip they got until they finally got him after his sixteen years a fugitive. Thank you to our authorities who are extremely hard working and dedicated to keeping us safe.