Having paid for the education and legal training of his younger brother, Bruce, with the idea that he would become a lawyer and join his business, Frederick Garth, a racketeer posing as an honest businessman, is dismayed when he learns that Bruce has become a G-Man instead.
An unpolished racketeer, whose racket is finding heirs for unclaimed fortunes, affects ethics and tea-drinking manners to win back the sweetheart who now works for his seemingly upright competitor.
After Police Captain Dan McLaren becomes police commissioner, former detective Johnny Blake publicly punches him, convincing rackets boss Al Kruger that Blake is sincere in his effort to join the mob.
Members of a teenage gang are sent to the State Reformatory, presided over by the callous Thompson. Soon Patsy Gargan, a former gangster appointed Deputy Commissioner, arrives and takes over the administration to run the place on radical principles.
All 12 jury members who sent an innocent man to the gallows are gathered together for a demonstration of how convictions can be made on circumstantial evidence.