Mafia Brotherhoods: Organized Crime, Italian Style

Mafia Brotherhoods: Organized Crime, Italian Style Letizia Paoli OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS MAFIA BROTHERHOODS STUDIES IN CRIME AND PUBLIC POLICY Michael Tonry and Norval Morris, General Editors Making Crime Pay: Law and Order in Contemporary American Politics Katherine Beckett Community Policing, Chicago Style Wesley G. Skogan and Susan M. Hartnett Crime Is Not the Problem: Lethal Violence in America Franklin E. Zimring and Gordon Hawkins Hate Crimes: Criminal Law and Identity Politics James B. Jacobs and Kimberly Potter Politics, Punishment, and Populism Lord Windlesham American Youth Violence Franklin E. Zimring Bad Kids: Race and the Transformation of the Juvenile Court Barry C. Feld Gun Violence: The Real Costs Philip J. Cook and Jens Ludwig Punishment, Communication, and Community R. A. Duff Punishment and Democracy: Three Strikes and You’re Out in California Franklin E. Zimring, Gordon Hawkins, and Sam Kamin Restorative Justice and Responsive Regulation John Braithwaite Maconochie’s Gentlemen: The Story of Norfolk Island and the Roots of Modern Prison Reform Norval Morris Can Gun Control Work? James B. Jacobs Penal Populism and Public Opinion: Lessons from Five Countries Julian V. Roberts, Loretta J. Stalans, David Indermaur, and Mike Hough Mafia Brotherhoods: Organized Crime, Italian Style Letizia Paoli MAFIA BROTHERHOODS ORGANIZED CRIME, ITALIAN STYLE Letizia Paoli 1 2003 1 Oxford New York Auckland Bangkok Buenos Aires Cape Town Chennai Dar es Salaam Delhi Hong Kong Istanbul Karachi Kolkata Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Mumbai Nairobi São Paulo Shanghai Taipei Tokyo Toronto Copyright © 2003 by Oxford University Press, Inc. Published by Oxford University Press, Inc. 198 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016 www.oup.com Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of Oxford University Press. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Paoli, Letizia. [Fratelli di mafia. English] Mafia brotherhoods : organized crime, Italian style / by Letizia Paoli. p. cm. — (Studies in crime and public policy) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-19-515724-9 1. Mafia—Italy—Sicily—History. 2. Mafia—United States—History. 3. ’Ndrangheta—Italy—History. 4. ’Ndrangheta—History. I. Title. II. Series. HV6453.I82 S654613 2003 364.1'06'09458—dc21 2002009518 135798642 Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper for Michel and Maddalena This page intentionally left blank Preface to the American Edition he main aim of this book is to reconstruct the culture, structure, and action Tof the Sicilian Cosa Nostra and the Calabrian ’Ndrangheta. Not only are these Italy’s most dangerous criminal organizations, but they have also profoundly influenced the mafia phenomenon in North America. It was from the Sicilian Cosa Nostra’s nineteenth-century forerunners that the Italian American mafia developed, as millions of Italian immigrants settled in the United States, most of them com- ing from southern Italy. Significantly, the largest and most influential Italian Amer- ican mafia confederation is called Cosa Nostra as well. The Calabrian ’Ndrangheta also has offshoots in the Anglo-Saxon world. In the early twentieth century, ’Ndrangheta groups were established in both Canada and Australia, and these are still active now, maintaining close contacts with their Calabrian counterparts. In order to depict the culture, structure, and action of these organized crime groups, I consulted numerous sources, ranging from criminal cases to parliamen- tary hearings, from archival and other standard secondary sources to interviews with law enforcement officials, local politicians, and anti-mafia activists. The por- trait given in this book, however, relies most heavily on the confessions and testi- monies of former mafia members now cooperating with judicial authorities. As my introduction explains, these statements have not been accepted uncritically but have been taken seriously even when they seem to contradict the evil activities in which most mafiosi engage. Cooperating mafia witnesses are, in fact, the most direct source of information about the mafia, describing the mafia world not only from the outside but also—as one defector put it—from within. The picture emerging from the analysis of mafia witnesses’ statements supple- ments and amends previous interpretations of the mafia in both Italy and the United States. This will be presented in its entirety in the following pages. Here it suffices to say that Italy’s mafia associations cannot be reduced to any of the most common forms of sociability in the contemporary world: they are not mere blood families, nor are they bureaucracies or enterprises. Cosa Nostra and the ’Ndrangheta are confed- erations of mafia groups, which are called families by their members but are distinct from the mafiosi’s blood families. Though consanguineous ties are sometimes very important, especially in the Calabrian ’Ndrangheta, the bond uniting a mafia family has a fictive, ritual nature and is reestablished with the ceremony of initiation of each new member. Since mafiosi are required to regard their associates as brothers, mafia families are—at least prescriptively, if not always effectively—brotherhoods. They are, in particular, male fraternities, as women are excluded from participation. As a nineteenth-century observer noted of Cosa Nostra’s forerunners, “Mu- tual assistance was the basis of these associations, which were usually known as so- cieties of mutual aid” (Cutrera [1900] 1988: 125). Unlike legitimate fraternal in- surance companies, the members of a mafia family promise to help each other even in crimes and must be ready to use violence if the group requests it. No means are excluded, nor are the concrete goals and functions of mafia action pre- determined or fixed over time. Since the consolidation of mafia groups in the late nineteenth century, brotherhood ties have been exploited by mafia members— and particularly by their chiefs—for the achievement of a wide variety of collec- tive and personal goals. Though economic enrichment has become more and more important in recent decades, it has never been—nor is it now—the exclusive or even the main goal of southern Italian mafia families. Founded on a premodern bond, these organizations are functionally diffuse and have remained so up to the present. Because of their use of violence, they have had to protect themselves from state repression with increasing degrees of secrecy and have thus never partici- pated in the process of functional differentiation that has invested Western soci- eties from the nineteenth century onward. Although mafia families have often been considered business enterprises, one of their key and long-underassessed functions has always been the exercise of a political dominion over the communities in which they are settled. By providing security and protection, they have often substituted themselves for the Italian state, at the same time preventing the government’s effective consolidation in large portions of the Italian South. Brotherhood ties and multifunctionality—including the claim to exert a political dominion—are the main typifying characteristics of the Sicilian Cosa Nos- tra and the Calabrian ’Ndrangheta, the two most powerful Italian mafia associations. As we will see in the following pages, these traits are at the same time the source of their lasting success and of their most recent difficulties. preface to the american edition viii Acknowledgments his book is a further working of the Ph.D. thesis I defended in June 1997 at Tthe Department of Social and Political Sciences of the European University Institute (EUI) in Florence (“The Pledge to Secrecy: Culture, Structure and Action of Mafia Associations”). A first revised and updated version of my dissertation was published in Italian in 2000 by Il Mulino under the title Fratelli di Mafia: Cosa Nostra and ’Ndrangheta. In the following years, I wrote the current English manuscript, further updating and refining my analysis of the Italian mafia phenomenon. During the long gestation of this volume, I benefited from the help and sup- port of a large number of people. In a sort of chronological order, I would like first of all to thank Prof. Pino Arlacchi (Università di Sassari). His influence on my work has been profound since the end of the 1980s, when I first attended his seminars in the Department of Political Sciences at the University of Florence. Since then he has consistently communicated his deep passion for and interest in the study of the mafia and illicit economies, inspiring my own fascination with these areas, culminating in this book. Together with Arlacchi I served for about three years (1992–1995) as a con- sultant to the Direzione Investigativa Antimafia (DIA), a police agency of the Ital- ian Ministry of the Interior that specializes in the fight against organized crime. Among other duties, I was in charge of writing the annual reports on organized crime in Italy, which were presented to the Italian parliament by the Ministry of the Interior. This was an invaluable experience, since it gave me the chance to lis- ten to and closely analyze the “voices” inside the mafia world. There are too many people to whom I am grateful at the Direzione Investigativa Antimafia to be men- tioned by name. Extending my thanks to all those who helped me, I would particularly like to mention Prefect Gianni De Gennaro, the current chief of the Ital- ian police; General of the Carabinieri Luigi Magliuolo, who, as head of the DIA Preventive Investigations Department, was my direct contact person and was always very cooperative and affable; and Colonel of the Carabinieri Angiolo Pelle- grini. Being at the time head of the DIA Reggio Calabria Operative Center, Pel- legrini was a most generous host and an authoritative guide in the meanders of the Calabrian ’Ndrangheta and helped me contact prosecutors and judges and collect criminal cases.

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