This work is protected by copyright and other intellectual property rights and duplication or sale of all or part is not permitted, except that material may be duplicated by you for research, private study, criticism/review or educational purposes. Electronic or print copies are for your own personal, non- commercial use and shall not be passed to any other individual. No quotation may be published without proper acknowledgement. For any other use, or to quote extensively from the work, permission must be obtained from the copyright holder/s. Constructing criminals: the creation of identity within criminal mafias Kelly Barksby PhD June 2013 Keele University This electronic version of the thesis has been edited solely to ensure compliance with copyright legislation and excluded material is referenced in the text. The full, final, examined and awarded version of the thesis is available for consultation in hard copy via the University Library. 1 Abstract Constructing criminals: the creation of identity within criminal mafias This thesis seeks to demonstrate that there has been a change in the social and cultural aspects of established organised criminal sub-cultures by observing the changes that have taken place in how identity is constructed. The literature is comparatively lacking in emphasis when compared to information about specific criminal activities and the threat of the organisations. This study finds that the social and cultural dimensions of established organised criminal sub-cultures can be equally important and indicative of changes in those organisations. This thesis analyses the change in how established organised criminal sub- cultures, or mafias, have perceived and used identity over the last twenty years and asks whether this can be indicative of a change in the social and cultural model of these organisations. The study is comparative and will focus on how identity in four distinct mafias from across the world - the Russian mafiya, Sicilian mafia, the Japanese yakuza and the Chinese triads - is constructed and how this has changed. The Russian mafiya was the first of the established organised criminal sub-cultures to demonstrate this change whereby identity was used in a different way from its criminal underworld roots. The study also analyses the literature available from gang studies to ask whether the recognised focus upon identity can be interpreted with reference to the established organised criminal sub-cultures. 2 This thesis considers that a criminal identity is constructed through a variety of customs and behaviours including mythology and legend, language and oral traditions and the visual image that a group portrays. A contextual approach is proposed, whereby organisations create and negotiate criminal identities at different scales, by which a street level identity might be more distinctive. 3 Table of Contents Abstract ............................................................................................................ 2 Acknowledgements .......................................................................................... 5 List of Illustrations ............................................................................................ 6 Glossary ........................................................................................................... 9 Chapter One – Introduction ............................................................................ 14 Chapter Two - Mafia versus Organised Crime ............................................... 27 Chapter Three – Historiography and Methodology ........................................ 55 Chapter Four - Myths and Legends ............................................................... 93 Chapter Five - Talk the Talk ......................................................................... 149 Chapter Six - Walk the Walk ........................................................................ 203 Chapter Seven - Conclusion ........................................................................ 250 Bibliography ................................................................................................. 254 4 Acknowledgements I would like to take this opportunity to express my gratitude to all those who gave me the possibility to complete this thesis. I want to thank Dr Mark Galeotti for starting me along this path and for his inspiration, enthusiasm and knowledge along the way and Dr Kathleen Cushing and Professor Joe Andrew for their guidance, support and patience. I would like to especially thank my husband and parents whose encouragement and belief in me have never faltered. 5 List of Illustrations Figure 1: Photographer Anton Kusters, BBC News Today In Pictures: The Yakuza http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_9572000/9572646.stm Figure 2: Crip graffiti, Bloods Street Gang Intelligence Report, Commonwealth of Virginia, Department of State Police, Virginia Fusion Center, November 2008, 11. http://info.publicintelligence.net/BloodsStreetGangIntelligenceReport.pdf Figure 3: Picture from Jon Wade Into The Abyss: A Personal Journey into the World of Street Gangs by M.K. Carlie, http://faculty.missouristate.edu/M/MichaelCarlie/what_I_learned_about/GANG S/graffiti_and_other_identifiers.htm Figure 4: Blood hand sign, Bloods Street Gang Intelligence Report, Commonwealth of Virginia, Department of State Police, Virginia Fusion Center, November 2008, 10. http://info.publicintelligence.net/BloodsStreetGangIntelligenceReport.pdf Figure 5: MS 13 tattoos Mara Salvatruch http://www.tattooidea.org/2008/05/ms-13-tattoos-mara-salvatrucha- tattoos.html 6 Figure 6: Bloods Street Gang Intelligence Report, Commonwealth of Virginia, Department of State Police, Virginia Fusion Center, November 2008, 9. http://info.publicintelligence.net/BloodsStreetGangIntelligenceReport.pdf Figure 7: Photographer Anton Kusters, BBC News Today In Pictures: The Yakuza http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_9572000/9572646.stm Figure 8: Photographer Anton Kusters, BBC News Today In Pictures: The Yakuza http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_9572000/9572646.stm Figure 9: J McGuirk ‘A graphical lexicon of the skin art of Russia’s convict classes impresses.’ www.icon-magazine.co.uk/issues/012/tattoo.htm Figure 10: Will Hodgkinson, Russian criminal tattoos: breaking the code http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2010/oct/26/russian-criminal-tattoos Figure 11: Lenin tattoo, D Baldayev, D Murrey, S Sorrell, S Vasiliev, Russian Criminal Tattoo Encyclopaedia Volume I (London, 2009), 146. Figure 12: Traditional vory v zakone tattoos, Thieves in law, Mafiacilia http://www.wix.com/drink4side/rustyfactor/page-2 Figure 13: Russian vory v zakone tattoo http://www.fourum.sonsofanarchyfrance.net 7 Figure 14: Dorsal tattoo, D Baldayev, D Murrey, S Sorrell, S Vasiliev, Russian Criminal Tattoo Encyclopaedia Volume III (London, 2008) Figure 15: Russian gravestones, ‘Tasteless extravagance of Russian gangsters' tombstones revealed’ The Telegraph, 08 November 2009 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/russia/6530027/Tasteless -extravagance-of-Russian-gangsters-tombstones-revealed.html 8 Glossary Artel: a Russian institution similar to a European guild. Avtoritety: criminal leaders, powerful, wealthy and influential members of the criminal network. Avvertimento: a symbolic warning used by the Sicilian mafia for example, a cross of pebbles in a field or a small heap of salt. Azukarinin: guarantors in a yakuza ceremony who oversaw the ceremony and mixed the sake with salt and fish scales which was poured into cups. Bakuto: traditional Japanese gamblers. Besprizornye: a Russian term for the homeless, rootless, orphaned children whose numbers rose after the First World War, the Revolution and the Civil War and who turned to crime to survive. Blatnye: the ordinary rank and file members of the Russian vorovskoi mir. Bushido: the samurai spirit. Chiao: meaning a sect, a term used for a Chinese secret society. 9 Consigli: a term that refers to advice from well-meaning friends and is used as a threat by the Sicilian mafia. GULAG: an acronym, meaning Glavnoe upravlenie lagerei, or Main Camp Administration. The word Gulag came to refer to the administration and the whole of the Soviet labour camp system itself. Giri: a moral obligation, a strong sense of duty felt between members and is described as the ‘social cloth’ that binds much of Japan together. Girikake: the collective term for yakuza ceremonies. Hatamoto yakko: 'servants of the shogun' a gang of ronin who lived separately, known as hatamoto yakko or kabuki mono 'the crazy ones'. Hui: an association, a term used for a Chinese secret society. Ikka: a yakuza gang. Jiageya: land turners or ‘land raising specialists’ who were used by companies to attain desirable properties, the yakuza carried out this work. Jingi: honour and humanity, though it came to mean the correct yakuza behaviour specifically with regard to formal greetings. 10 Machi yakko: servants of the town. These were gangs of clerks, shopkeepers, innkeepers, artisans and labourers who were organised by local construction bosses and arose to enforce order and defend the people. They also operated as mutual aid societies for victims of the Tokugawa era. These included farmers who had found themselves without land due to land taxes, debtors and warriors who were without masters. Ninjo: is emotion, human compassion and the ability to empathise with people, for example, generosity or sympathy toward the weak and disadvantaged. Oicho-kabu: traditional Japanese