INVOLVEMENT AND SUSTAINABILITY WITHIN THE AMERICANIZED ITALIAN MAFIA: TOWARDS AN ASSOCIATIVE THEORY OF

Thomas John Speicher

A Thesis Submitted to the University of North Carolina Wilmington in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts

Department of Sociology and Criminology

University of North Carolina Wilmington

2013

Approved by

Advisory Committee

. Steve McNamee Jean-Anne Sutherland .

Cecil L Willis . Chair

Accepted by

. . Dean, Graduate School

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ABSTRACT……………………………………………………………………………………...iv

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS………………………………………………………………………...v

DEDICATION……………………………………………………………………………………vi

LIST OF FIGURES……………………………………………………………………………..viii

INTRODUCTION………………………………………………………………………………...1

DEFINING ORGANIZED CRIME…………………………………………………………….....5

HISTORICAL CONTEXT………………………………………………………………………..6

SOCIAL LEARNING THEORY……………………………………………………………...... 11

STRUCTURED CRIMINAL OPPORTUNITY…………………………………………………18

LITERATURE REVIEW………………………………………………………………………..22

METHODOLOGY………………………………………………………………………………29

INITIATION: EMERGING THEMES FROM THE LIFE HISTORY NARRATIVES………..35

FACTORS CONTRIBUTING TO INITIATION IN ORGANIZED CRIME…………………..48

STRUCTURE OF THE AMERICANIZED ITALIAN MAFIA………………………………...56

SUSTAINABILITY: EMERGING THEMES FROM THE LIFE HISTORY NARRATIVES...60

FACTORS CONTRIBUTING TO SUSTAINABILITY IN ORGANIZED CRIME………...…79

DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS …………………………………………………………87

APPENDICES………………………………………………………………………………….102

REFERENCES…………………………………………………………………………………109

iii

ABSTRACT

Many studies have looked at association formation and associative sustainability within a non-deviant group, but none have looked at association formation and sustainability within an organized criminal syndicate. Also, while increases in deviance resulting from association with deviant others has been studied on a number of occasions and in a number of contexts, most of these studies focus on adolescent deviance and/or life-course offending within unrestricted and fluid social networks or non-structured groups. A review of the literature indicate that none have looked at life-course offending and the variables that predict initiation into and sustainability within a semi structured or strictly hierarchal organized criminal network.

There are two research questions that guide this study; what interactive and normative definitions contribute to initiation and sustainability within the Americanized Italian Mafia, and what structured criminal opportunities contribute to initiation and sustainability within the

Americanized Italian Mafia? Using insights from social learning theory and structured criminal opportunity theory, this study looks at the subjective acceptability of definitions and the objective criminal opportunities that contribute to initiation and sustainability within the

Americanized Italian Mafia. Answers to the above research questions in tandem with insights from social learning and structured criminal opportunity theory are used to help develop a theoretical framework predictive of initiation and sustainability within any organized crime group. Such a theory can help in the development of a broader understanding of the field of organized crime and potentially allow for the development of more effective counter measures.

iv

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

My thanks go to Joseph Marinello, Judge Richard Boner and Dr. Paul Friday of the

University of North Carolina Charlotte for aiding in the cultivation of my interests in criminology, and for encouraging me to further my education at the graduate level. I am especially thankful to Dr. Benny Andres of the University of North Carolina Charlotte and his very detailed critiques of my writing; while they were harsh, they have certainly provided me with a skill that will serve me well in the future.

My research on organized crime and a number of components for this thesis would have been lackluster without the guidance and assistance received from committee members including

Dr. Stephen McNamee, Dr. Jean-Anne Sutherland and Dr. Cecil Willis. While I appreciate the help that I received from all committee members, this thesis would not have been possible without the insights and unparalleled mentoring I received from Dr. Willis. Throughout the writing process, Dr. Willis provided genuine and sincere personal support. The endless conversations about various criminological theories and their applications to this study at hand will never be forgotten. Thank you for your assistance and friendship.

Also, I would like to thank all of the professors from the Department of Sociology and

Criminology at the University of North Carolina Wilmington, for their support and dedication to ensuring my intellectual stimulation and growth. Finally, I would like to thank my wife, Annie

Speicher, for her support and patience with me and this project. I am sure that seeing her husband for an hour per day for two years was not what she expected when I initially registered for graduate school.

v

DEDICATION

I would like to dedicate this thesis to my mother, Veronica Doyle. As a single parent, she provided me with everything I ever needed and then some.

vi

LIST OF FIGURES Figures Page

1.) Initiation within the Americanized Italian Mafia Model of Structured Criminal Opportunities and Interactive and Normative Definitions…………………………………...55

2.) Sustainability within the Americanized Italian Mafia Model of Structured Criminal Opportunities and Interactive and Normative Definitions…………………………87

3.) Organized Crime Association Model of Structured Criminal Opportunities and Interactive and Normative Definitions……………………………………………….………96

vii

INTRODUCTION

Organized crime in the has plagued law enforcement officers, legislators and the like for more than a century. While there are a number of organized crime groups currently operating in the United Statesi, few, if any have posed the sort of lasting and dynamic threat to the stability of the economy in a manner comparable to the Americanized Italian Mafia

(AIM) or La Cosa Nostra (LCN). There are a number of organized crime groups operating in the

US with Italian originsii, although, the AIM is by far the most prominent (Finklea 2010).

While the AIM has historically been associated with deviant activities such as gambling, prostitution, bootlegging alcohol, labor racketeering, fraud, protection scams and political corruption scams (Abadinsky 1981), criminal activities in areas such as strategic commodities, insurance and money laundering, could be considered “bread and butter” activities of the modern-day AIM as well as most other organized crime groups (Finklea 2010). According to

Finklea, when organized crime groups participate in illicit activities in areas such as strategic commodities, insurance and money laundering, consequences “have the potential to further destabilize the at-present weak economy because they result in a loss of tax revenue for state and federal governments” (1).

Still, it is important to recognize the argument that organized crime groups such as the

AIM, have aided in the establishment of a number of legal, lucrative enterprises, from which modern-day state and federal taxes are levied. According to the primary source from which this life history/case study is based, the AIM has aided in the establishment of a number of revenue sources that state and federal governments currently draw from. In this regard, the subject stated;

“The mafia made Las Vegas a happening place. Before the mob took control of Vegas, there was nothing there. You couldn‟t even see it when you flew over it in an airplane. Now the state of Nevada and the federal government are receiving billions in tax

dollars through casinos in Vegas. It is all because of what did out there, years ago.”

There are dozens of crime families that fall under the auspices of the AIM or LCN umbrella. However, there are five historically prominent families within the AIM including the

Bonanno, Colombo, Genovese, Gambino and Luchese, all of which have been operating in the

US since at least 1930. All five of these families are believed to be operating in some capacity in the US today. Each family has its own unique history as well as a long line of leaders or dons extending back to the 1930‟s (see Appendix A). New York has in the past, and continues to serve as the primary area from which these operate. Other places, from which the AIM families currently operate, include , Boston, Philadelphia, Detroit and Miami, just to name a few (Finklea 2010).

This study explores the structured criminal opportunities and social learning experiences that contribute to becoming involved in organized crime and sustaining membership within the

Americanized Italian Mafia. This study examines the interactive and normative definitions, gained through differential association with intimate group members and organizational members, which contribute to initiation and sustainability within the AIM. With regard to structured criminal opportunity, this study gauges the prerequisite structural opportunities that are necessary for entrance and thus initiation into the AIM, as well as the structured criminal opportunities that foster sustainability and eventually disengagement from the organization.

There are two research questions that guide this study. The first question asks; what interactive and normative definitions contribute to initiation and sustained involvement within the AIM? In order to inform this question, I present an examination of the literature that looks at social learning of deviant behavior through intimate group associations. This body of literature has shown time and time again that, the onset of exposure to delinquent others precedes the onset

2 of delinquent behavior by a given subject (Elliot and Menard 2006) and that deviant behavior is learned through a number of associations with deviant others including peer groups

(Steffensmeier 1986; Akers, La Greca, Cochran and Sellers 1989; Warr 1993; Adler 1993;

Winfree, Jr, Vigil-Backstrom and Mays 1994; Akers and Lee 1996; Akers 2000; Laub and

Sampson 2003; Steffensmeier and Ulmer 2005), primary group and/or family members (Adler and Adler 1978; Farrington, Barnes and Lambert 1996; Hemovich and Crano 2011), crime groups that are at least semi-structured (Prus and Irini 1980) and loosely connected social networks (Albini 1971; Adler and Adler 1983).

The second question asks: what structured criminal opportunities contribute to initiation and sustained involvement in the AIM? In order to inform this question, I present an examination of the structured criminal opportunity literature that explains recruitment into organized crime syndicates, as well as the substantial roles that association with primary groups (Adler and Adler

1978; Warr 1993; Farrington et al 1996; Laub and Sampson 2003; Hemovich and Crano 2011), social networks (Calvo–Avrmengoi and Zenou 2004; Steffensmeier and Ulmer 2005; Kleemans and De Poot 2008) and specific crime groups (Albini 1971; Kleemans and Van de Bunt 1999;

Prus and Irini 1980), play in providing and facilitating opportunities for involvement in high volume and organized crime. The literature also explains how access to certain knowledge bases, technical savvy and tools, as well as association and identification with legitimate businesses, and legitimate occupations (Sutherland 1937; Sutherland 1949; Klerk 2001; Scheper-Hughes

2004) contribute to one‟s opportunities for initiation and sustained involvement in certain types of organized crime.

Ronald L. Akers‟ social learning theory (1998; 2000) and Darrell Steffensmeier and

Jeffery T. Ulmer‟s explanation of structured criminal opportunity (2005) are utilized for the

3 purposes of probing the links between organized criminal associates, structured criminal opportunity and the definitions that organized criminals internalize and rely upon, to effectively sustain their deviant associations. The concepts associated with social learning theory, including definition, differential reinforcement, differential association and imitation assist in uncovering the subjective, normative and interactive definitions, which contribute to initiation and sustainability within the AIM. Simultaneously, a breakdown of the subject‟s perceptions of the structured criminal opportunities helps shed light on the objective availability of opportunities that contribute to initiation and sustainability within the AIM.

For the purposes of this study, the social learning perspective aids in uncovering what and who the subject knew, what and how the subject came to acquire and stand by a specific set of normative rationalizations and interactive definitions, and how the subject‟s connections, knowledge bases, attitudes and justification for behavior, enabled him to become initiated and sustain membership within the AIM. Also, as I will elaborate on later, the social learning perspective is not just concerned with learning, but rather, it is one that also considers the process by which one maintains “status” or “their position in a social network” (Akers 2000: 72). For these reasons, the social learning perspective is the ideal theoretical perspective for answering the question; what interactive and normative definitions contribute to initiation and sustained involvement in the AIM?

While tapping into the social learning process promises to reveal a great deal about the subjective acceptability of a life of crime within the AIM, it cannot reveal much about the objective possibilities for involvement in organized crime. A number of forms of external discriminative stimuli contribute to criminal opportunity. For this reason, Steffensmeier and

Ulmer‟s (2005) specification on structured criminal opportunity is consulted to answer the

4 question; what structured criminal opportunities contribute to initiation and sustainability within the AIM? As I will exhibit later, answers to these questions may prove useful in the development of a theory, which could be used as a framework for predicting initiation and sustainability within any organized criminal network that is somewhat hierarchal based.

DEFINING ORGANIZED CRIME

Without the assistance of others, most criminals could and usually do participate in high volume, street level crime. However, participation in organized crime usually requires criminals acting in concert (Kleemans and Van de Bunt 1999; Steffensmeier and Ulmer 2005; Kleemans and De Poot 2008; Finklea 2010) and this is usually facilitated through some structured organization (Federal Bureau of Investigations [FBI] 2010). The crimes that fall under the auspices of organized crime also require greater technical know-how. High volume, street level crime and organized crime are distinguished by the typical payoff and punitive measures that come attached via the criminal code. In this, high volume crimes are usually less lucrative and carry much lighter determinant sentences, than do organized criminal offenses.

While the AIM may participate in high volume, street level crime, members therein are usually associated with complex organized criminal ventures (Finklea 2010). Therefore, a clear definition that references both structure as well as the typical activities practiced by organized crime groups is critical for the establishment of a framework, from which a discussion of learned behavior or operant conditioned, internal discriminative stimuli in conjunction with structured criminal opportunity or external discriminative stimuli could be applied.

While some authors have defined organized crime strictly in terms of group organization and centrality (i.e. on a group by group basis) (Albini 1971), some experts have defined organized crime, strictly in terms of the common activities and practices of criminal groups

(Fijnaut, Bovenkerk, Bruinsma and Van de Bunt 1998; Finkenhauer 2005). For example, Fijnaut

5 et al (1998) claim, organized crime occurs “if and when groups of individuals join for financial reasons to systematically commit crimes that can adversely affect society and are capable of – shielding these crimes from target intervention of the authorities in particular by way of their willingness to use physical violence or eliminate individuals by means of corruption” (32). Still, some federal agencies define organized crime in terms of structure as well as the common activities and practices of criminal groups (FBI 2010). For example, the FBI (2010) defines organized crime as “any group having some manner of a formalized structure and whose primary objective is to obtain money through illegal activities. Such groups maintain their position through the use of actual or threatened violence, corrupt public officials, graft, or extortion, and generally have a significant impact on the people in their locales, region, or the country as a whole” (FBI 2010: Glossary of Terms). Since the FBI‟s definition references both structure as well as the typical activities practiced by crime groups, it will be used to help guide this study.

HISTORICAL CONTEXT

There has been much debate regarding the origins of La Cosa Nostraiii, the mob and/or the mafia (Volkman 1998; Mafia Mob 2012). To start, I elaborate on the origins of the word mafia. Then, I survey the history of dating back to the seventh century, in order to explore how a number of foreign occupations contributed to a Sicilian xenophobia, a complete distrust in government authority, the development and reliance on an underground economy, the idealization and canonizing of thieves and murders, and how these factors have supposedly become fixed structural components and common practices within the modern-day AIM.

While it is unclear exactly where the word mafia comes from, there are two competing theories, both of which posit that the word originated in Sicily, and both of which imply that the mafia began as a way of protecting one‟s loved ones from government and foreign oppression

6

(Servadio 1976; University of Michigan [UMICH] 2012). Proponents of the first theory claim that MAFIA, originated in the 13th century as an acronym for the Italian saying, morte alla

Francia Italia anela, meaning, death to the French is Italy‟s cry (Albini 1971). When this claim is asserted it is usually followed by a lengthy description of Vespersiv. However, most scholars believe that the word mafia has even earlier roots in Sicily. Proponents of the second theory, with which most scholars agree, believe that the term is a derivative of the word mafusu, which in Sicilian dialect translates to “beautiful and/or excellent” (Volkman 1998: 4).

Many of these same proponents claim that, mafia, became a fixed and distinguished part of the

Sicilian dialect sometime between 826 AD and the end of the 10th century, when Arabic forces known as the Saracens ruled the island of Sicily. During their occupation of Sicily, many inhabitants fled the island, while others sought refuge in the many hills and caves on the island.

Consequently, Sicilians borrowed the word mafia from the Saracens, which in Arabic roughly translates to “place of refuge” (Servadio 1976: 35). According to Volkman (1998), this time period is when the legend of the mafia began.

Following the Saracens occupation, came the Norman occupation, the French occupation and then the Spanish occupation of Sicily. The Spanish occupation ran from the 14th through the mid-17th century. Their occupation of Sicily came to end, thanks to the likes of Giuseppe

Garibaldi, a mainland Italian commander and leading proponent of risorgimento (i.e. a plan to unite the various Italian tribes and principalities) (UMICH 2012). While the people of Sicily initially rejected the plan, the mafias and rich landowners advocated for unification since, unification with other Italian tribes was better than foreign occupation, and because it allowed members of the mafias as well as rich land owners to retain quite a bit of autonomy. As such, the rich landowners and a number of members of the mafias, who paradoxically represented the

7 majority of the literate residents, voted for integration (Servadio 1976). For the first time in modern history, Sicily became united with Italy.

By the beginning of the 20th century, economic hardship fell upon the people of Italy.

Unemployment and poverty ran rampant and an underground economy flourished as a result.

These aspects helped make the mafia powerful throughout Italy. Specifically, the mafia structure, common practices and their ideology had been adopted by a number of people on the mainland because of the legend and sense of heroism that came attached. However, in the early 1920‟s, aided by comprehensive anti-mafia legislation; Benito Mussolini began to push mafias and their dons out of Italy or into prisons. Mussolini‟s authoritarian surge coupled with an economic hardship became more and more pronounced. In turn, as inflation rose and poverty worsened, many Italians sought refuge and new opportunities in distant lands. Many speculate “that this is when the mafia formally entered America and began to setup shop” (UMICH 2012: Home Page).

There is no clear evidence indicating that the was directly transplanted into

America or if the AIM is merely a manifestation of the Sicilian mafia, although if there was a direct transplantation, this is when it may have occurred (Servadio 1976).

During the 1910‟s and 1920‟s industrialization had turned small urban centers in the US into booming economically diverse hubs, wherein one could buy and do just about anything. As a result, a criminally organized underground economy flourished. Criminal enterprising in these hubs were initially fed by profits made from gambling, prostitution and bootlegged liquor

(Abadinsky 1981). It was in this environment that the AIM flourished and garnered the tools and criminal capital needed to accelerate their businesses in the US for the next 80 years. Most sources agree; mafia members and the dons that headed the individual families originally settled in industrious areas such as Chicago, Philadelphia and New York, where there were

8 opportunities for criminal enterprising through activities such as fraud, gambling, prostitution and protection scams (UMICH 2012). At first, mafia dons and AIM crime families focused on illicit activities such as protection scams, gambling and prostitution but when the 18th

Amendment to the constitution passed, banning the manufacture, sale, and transportation of alcohol in the US, mafia activities expanded to include bootlegging liquor.

Alphonso Capone, also known as “Scarface” and/or “Snorkie”, was the first known and celebrated mafia don in the US (Volkman 1998). Operating as the leader of the AIM, based out of Chicago, Capone‟s illegal activities included everything from selling bootlegged alcohol to trafficking in human beings (UMICH 2012). After his arrest for a litany of criminal offenses and his conviction for tax evasion in 1936, New York became the epicenter and harbinger for the

AIM (Abadinsky 1981). Although, it should be noted, that there were a number of mafia families that were operating in New York prior to Capone‟s sentencing.

During the early 1930‟s a common feature of the mafia crime families, operating out of

New York was unending infighting and turf wars. Many sources claim that territorial wars persisted for years between and within the various families over specific territory and potential profits from prostitution and illegal gambling activities, including the numbers lotteryv

(Abadinsky 1981). By 1930, there were two rival organizations, which represented Italian organized crime in New York. The first group, headed by Joe Masseria, was comprised of mostly non-Sicilians. The second group, headed by Joe Maranzano, had been comprised of mainly

Sicilians, many of which had immigrated to the US from Italy during Mussolini‟s purging efforts in the 1920‟s. The between these two factions had proceeded uninterrupted for nearly a decade. At the end of the war, some crucial players and leading members of Masseria‟s organization turned their allegiances to Maranzano. Eventually Masseria was shot and killed.

9

Shortly after Masseria‟s death, Maranzano presented a plan to members of both organizations that would end the fighting and bring harmony. According to Gay Talese, author of Honor Thy

Father, part of Maranzano‟s plan was an elaboration on the new structure for the criminal organizationvi (see also Task Force on Organized Crime 1967). However, shortly after

Maranzano reestablished a degree of semblance, he was murdered. Practically over-night,

Maranzano and a number of his top ranking members were assassinated in what became known as the “war of the moustaches” (Gage 1970: 106). The type of warfare and quest for the right to be the boss of all bosses was a trend for the next 10 years.

A few years after Maranzano‟s death there was a splintering off of crime families. At this point, the five prominent crime families discussed earlier (see Appendix A) became the arbitrators and nuclei of the AIM. With that, the scope of illegal enterprising was widened.

Lucky Luciano, the capi or boss of all bosses at this time helped move organize crime out of the dark alleyways and gutters, where bootleggers made their day-to-day livings, to more lucrative and profitable areas of big business.

As described earlier, during the 1920‟s the AIM‟s common criminal ventures included gambling, prostitution, protection scams and bootlegging alcohol. Besides the bootlegging of alcohol, which was still practiced, but to a lesser extent, the AIM continued to engage in these activities and make enormous amounts of money during the process throughout the 1930‟s and

1940‟s (Abadinsky 1981). During the 1950‟s and 1960‟s the mafia‟s most profitable enterprises or criminal endeavors included gambling, followed by loan sharking, narcotics, trafficking, extortion, prostitution, bootlegging and then fraud (United States Congress, House Government

Operations Legal and Monetary Affairs 1968). While the AIM certainly had their hands in a

10 number of criminal endeavors including racketeering, theft and money laundering, they were not as profitable as the former activities listed above.

A number of sociological studies have found that individuals may import norms from previous organization(s) to their new group, which can become adopted over time (e.g.

Bettenhausen and Murnighan 1985; Akers and Lee 1996). Whether the norms that guided the conduct of the mafusuvii were directly or indirectly transported to the US, is unknown. However, what is clear is that many of the same norms that structured mafusu behavior in Sicily, currently guides the behavior of AIM members.

SOCIAL LEARNING THEORY

One‟s involvement and sustainability with an organized crime group hinges on whether they favorably or unfavorably define the criminal activities in which that organized crime group participate. Other important factors to consider include, with whom the potential offender associates, who they look up to, what messages they are receiving, and how their behavior is being reinforced and to what extent. For the most specific understanding of how an individual takes on attitudes and values favorable to participation in organized crime, one should consider how the subject became involved with the crime group in the first place. In doing so, one will have greater insights as to how the social learning process unfolds.

Gabriel Tarde‟s and Edwin Sutherland‟s Contributions to Social Learning Theory

For 100 years, social learning theories have provided criminologists with invaluable insights into the process by which one becomes acclimated into criminal behavior. The learning perspectives that fall under the auspices of differential association and social learning theory are rooted in, and thus owe a debt of gratitude to the work of Gabriel Tarde‟s, Penal Philosophy

(1912). In this work, Tarde emphasized three laws of imitation; imitation through close contacts,

11 imitation through superiors and imitation through initiation. Insights from this theory, specifically, the two laws concerned with imitation through close contacts and superiors were incorporated into Edwin Sutherland‟s theory of differential association (1939). Sutherland articulated his theory of differential association for the first time in Principle of Criminology,

Third edition. In this work, Sutherland posits that, differential association acts as the primary facilitator of the “causal process in the development of systematic criminal behavior” (4). Eight years later Sutherland fully stated his developed theory on differential association in Principles of Criminology Fourth Edition (1947). In this work, the theory on differential association is laid out in nine distinguished, yet overlapping statements (1947: 6-7).

1.) “Criminal behavior is learned”. 2.) “Criminal behavior is learned in interaction with other persons in a process of communication”. 3.) “The principle part of the learning of criminal behavior occurs within intimate personal groups”. 4.) “When criminal behavior is learned, the learning includes (a) techniques of committing the crime, which are sometimes very complicated and sometimes very simple and (b) the specific direction of motives, drives, rationalizations and attitudes”. 5.) “The specific direction of motives and drives is learned from definitions of the legal codes as favorable or unfavorable”. 6.) “A person becomes delinquent because of an excess of definitions favorable to violation of the law over definitions unfavorable to violation of the law”. 7.) “Differential association may vary in duration, priority, frequency and intensity”. 8.) “The process of learning criminal behavior by association with criminal and anti-criminal patterns involves all of the mechanisms that are involved in any other learning”. 9.) “Although criminal behavior is an expression of general needs and values it is not explained by those needs and values, because non-criminal behavior is an expression of the same needs and values”.

While all of the statements made by Sutherland are crucial to the theory of differential association, the second; “criminal behavior is learned in interaction with other persons in a process of communication” (1947: 5), in conjunction with the sixth statement; “a person becomes delinquent because of an excess of definitions favorable to violation of the law over definitions unfavorable to violation of the law” (1947: 6) are the most important. This is because

12 together they indicate that if learned definitions in favor of criminality, exceed those that are unfavorable to law breaking, the result is that the person will become delinquent in that behavioral context. Essentially, criminal behavior is learned through exposure to others‟ definitions of a given behavior. However, as the seventh statement made by Sutherland indicates, the learning process is mediated when the exposure to definitions occurred, the length of time one has been exposed to definitions and under what context exposure took place. Here, exposure is tempered by what Akers (2000) refers to as modalities of exposure. In this, if “persons are exposed first (priority), more frequently, for a longer time (duration), and with greater intensity

(importance) to law violating definitions than to law-abiding definitions, then they are more likely to deviate from the law” (76). A common criticism of Sutherland‟s ground breaking theory has to do with the eighth statement; “the process of learning criminal behavior by association with criminal and anti-criminal patterns involves all of the mechanisms that are involved in any other learning” (Sutherland 1947: 6). In this statement, Sutherland does not specify what mechanisms are involved in the learning process. This is where Akers and Burgess (1966) pick up, and in the process transformed the theory of differential association into social learning theory.

Ronald L. Akers and Social Learning Theory

In formulating social learning theory, Akers and Burgess (1966) combined the original principles articulated in Sutherland‟s Principles of Criminology Fourth Edition (1947) with insights from B. F. Skinner‟s Science and Human Behavior (1953), which specifically elaborated on the learning principles of operant conditioning and behavioral reinforcement. With regard to behavioral psychology, the primary concept of interest that Burgess and Akers (1966) elaborated on was differential reinforcement. In this, regular voluntary acts or behaviors are conditioned by

13 rewards and punishments that could be either positive or negative. The theory, with which these two hallmark authors created, is one that is not solely concerned with learning, but instead, it is one that also considers the process by which one sustains their position in a social network

(Akers 2000). Essentially, social learning theory explains criminal deviance through four concepts, which include (1) definitions, (2) differential reinforcement, (3) differential association and (4) imitation. In most instances, these concepts both motivate and control criminal behavior, while simultaneously promoting and undermining conformity.

Regarding Akers‟ conception of differential association, social learning theory explains both behavioral interactions and normative definitions (Akers 1998; Akers 2000). The normative aspect has to do with the attitudes, and rationalizations that a person is exposed to during the course of association. These are either favorable or unfavorable to the commission of crime(s).

On the other hand, the interactional aspect has to do with the “direct association and interaction

[that one has] with others, who engage in certain kinds of behavior as well as the indirect associations and identification with more distant reference groups” (Akers 2000: 76).

In sum, the groups with whom one associates provide definitions of a variety of stimuli, as well as models for imitation. For instance, differential association provides the learner with positive and negative reinforcements (i.e. differential reinforcement variables) as a means for both, defection from norms and/or adherence to the condoned behavior (i.e. definitions). Also, upon examination of the relationships and reinforcements for select behavior(s), one must also preview the strength of such relationships and reinforcement schedules. The strength of relationships and reinforcements are recognized by Akers as modalities of reinforcement and they could be categorized in terms of priority, duration, frequency and intensity. Akers (2000), claims that “associations that occur earlier (priority), last longer and occupy more of one‟s time

14

(duration), take place most often (frequency), and involve others with whom one has the more important and closer relationship with (intensity), will have the greatest effect on behavior” (76).

These modalities of association were originally established by Sutherland (1939) and were directly imported and incorporated into Akers‟ social learning theory. According to Akers and

Jenson (2006), the social learning theory “hypothesizes that the more one‟s patterns of differential association are balanced in the direction of greater exposure to deviant behavior and attitudes, the greater the probability of that person engaging in deviant or criminal behavior” (3).

Another crucial concept in social learning theory is that of definition. This refers to a subject‟s ideas, attitudes, rationalizations and philosophical sticking points about contextual behavior (Akers 2000). Definitions amount to orientations about both general and specific behaviors, as well as, how the subject views those orientations (e.g. good, bad or indifferent).

Being able to rationalize and justify a given behavior is a paramount part of subscribing to a particular definition. The more a person can justify a given act, such as the commission of a crime, the more likely they are to advocate for its execution and/or to participate in it. Here acts advocated for or defined as favorable are either neutralizing or positive. Positively defined behavior(s) are acts that people have no qualms about participating in. On the other hand, neutralizing definitions of a behavior exhibit a person‟s indifference in participating in a given behavior. As long as the behavior is justifiable, it is likely to be viewed as favorable. Negative definitions are definitions of a given behavior that are disapproved of by the subject.

The behavior or definition that one comes to advocate or disapprove of is mediated by opportunities and the learners‟ perception of alternative courses or series of behavioral acts and the alternative opportunities that come attached. These mediated definitions provide the learner with a frame of reference, which makes them more or less willing to follow through with the

15 behavior when the opportunity is presented. Akers and Jenson (2006) write, “behaviorally – definitions – affect the commission of deviance by acting as internal discriminative stimuli in conjunction with external discriminative stimuli (place, time, presence or absence of others and so on) that provide cues or signals to the individual as to what kind of behavior he or she has the opportunity or expectation of exhibiting in the situation” (4). The behavior or definition that one comes to advocate or disapprove is also mediated by rewards and punishments. These consequences for behavior are descriptive of another concept tied to social learning theory; differential reinforcement.

Differential reinforcement has to do with the anticipated perks, benefits or rewards, and the consequential punishments that are attached to the condoning or condemning of a given behavior (Akers 2000). When acts or behaviors consistently reap rewards they are likely to be repeated. Conversely, negative reinforcement has to do with punishments. As a result, a person‟s actions hinge on the balance of past, present and anticipated rewards and punishments for their behavior. Aside from those that invite harm or punitive measures, it is only rational that people will attempt to avoid punishment whenever possible. Here, punishments could be either positive or negative. While positive punishments are the direct consequence of a behavior, negative punishments refer to the taking away of rewards following a given behavior. Differential reinforcement and differential association are dependent upon the probability, amount and frequency of rewards and punishments, when balanced against alternatives. According to Akers

(2000), “the greater the amount of reinforcement, for a person‟s behavior, the more frequently it is reinforced, and the higher the probability that it is reinforced (as balanced against alternative behaviors), the greater the likelihood that it will be repeated” (77). It is important to note that reinforcements, in the form of rewards and punishments, could be social or materialistic,

16 symbolic or tangible. Still, most learning and reinforcers are the result of direct interactions with persons wherein the subtle body language of the learners‟ associate(s) cues the learner about how they feel about what definition is relevant at the time. In this regard, Akers and Jenson (2006) claim, “the theory proposes that most of the learning in criminal and deviant behavior is the result of direct and indirect social interaction in which the words, responses, presence and behavior of other persons directly reinforce behavior, provide the setting for reinforcement

(discriminative stimuli) or serve as the conduit through which other social rewards and punishers are delivered or made available” (5).

The last concept, which is central to Akers‟ theory of social learning concerns imitation

(Akers 1998). This has to do with the modeling of one‟s behavior after observed external stimuli.

Imitation depends on the subject‟s preconceived notions of the consequences that come attached to a given behavior and the behavior itself (whether or not one defines it as acceptable). Akers

(2000) notes that “it is more important in the initial acquisition and performance of novel behavior than in the maintenance or cessation of behavioral patterns once established, but it continues to have some effect in maintaining behavior” (79).

Criticisms of Ronald Akers‟ Learning Theory

A popular criticism of Akers‟ social learning theory is that it is self-reinforcing or tautological (Gottfredson and Herschi 1990). In this, behavioral psychologists often define behavioral reinforcement, as any behavior that has been reinforced, has been strengthened. In this sense it is tautological by definition and in turn, no behavioral occurrence that is not being strengthened could be used in the falsification of the prescribed hypothesis. However, as Akers

(1998) exhibits, the social learning variables that capture the occurrence of reinforced behavior are considered in isolation and are thus measured separately from those that are used to gauge

17 specific instances of deviant behavior. As such, any given hypothesis is falsifiable provided that the researcher illustrates how negative reinforcement (e.g. punishments) of a specified act, more often than not produces and/or is correlated to increases in the same behavior.

Another criticism of social learning theory is that it does not adequately address opportunity or the role that this concept plays in the decision making process to either partake in deviant behavior or not (Jefferey 1990). To this point, Akers does refer to opportunity as a mediator of the definitions that one comes to approve of. In other words, the opportunity (i.e. external discriminative stimuli) that one has to partake in criminal deviance is considered in tandem with the definitions (i.e. internal discriminative stimuli) when criminal opportunities present themselves. Still what those opportunities might be are never specified.

STRUCTURED CRIMINAL OPPORTUNITY AND ORGANIZED CRIME

To begin, one‟s involvement and sustainability in organized crime is dependent on their structured criminal opportunities. However, any discussion about one‟s structured criminal opportunities must recognize that both conventional and criminal opportunities are not distributed evenly throughout society (Steffensmeier and Ulmer 2005). In this regard,

Steffensmeier and Ulmer (2005) claim that, “opportunity structures for the learning and performance of crime are differentially available according to one‟s social status (race, gender, ethnicity, age)” (211-212). For example, females in general and males that are less than pure blooded Italian are prohibited from becoming a full-fledged or made member within the AIM

(Albini 1971). Structural opportunities for those that retain membership within organized crime groups are also dependent on the diversity of their social network(s), continuity and structured commitments within their field(s) of specialty and within their network(s), the knowledge bases

18 and tools that they and members of their network(s) possess and the stratification of both the underworld and legal/legitimate realms.

Continuity

With regard to criminal activity, opportunity is not something that criminals sporadically stumble upon, and criminologists should not take this as a given (Steffensmeier and Ulmer

2005). The scope of opportunity for those that are involved in organized crime is far from static.

Criminals‟ scope of opportunity is progressive and part of a dynamic process, wherein the individual criminal continuously constructs a plethora of contacts that permits them to be successful in a given criminal endeavor. As far as contacts and networking are concerned, organized criminal networks such as the AIM are strongly based on access to a variety of suppliers and customers (Kleemans and de Poot 2008). Trust is critical within these types of relationships. When perpetrating a criminal endeavor that requires more than one offender, there is usually a great deal of financial and punitive risk involved. In turn, building relationships and trust takes time and as such they are key parts of an ongoing process (Abadinsky 1981). The functionality of organized criminal networks are also logistically complicated and often, transnational in character (Finklea 2010).

Regarding logistics, the AIM and similarly organized networks typically maintain connections and/or extended social networks into the legal realm in order to protect or hide their activities behind a façade of legitimacy (Finklea 2010). Groups such as the AIM and their extended social networks often include lawyers, to aid in their protection from law enforcement personal and accountants to hide the illegal profits that they make within a myriad of legal and illegitimate businesses. Regarding the transnational character of the AIM, many of the activities, with which they engage, require contacts working in concert from vast distances. For instance,

19 the AIM participates in smuggling, fraud, and money laundering (FBI 2010), and in order to successfully accomplish these acts and others like them, those involved in one place need trustworthy, experienced contacts in other places. This process is never static and that is why the continuous construction of organized criminal networks is an imperative part of their structured criminal opportunities (Steffensmeier and Ulmer 2005).

Structured and Personal Commitment

Tied to continuity is the idea of commitment. Drawing on insights from Becker (1960) and Johnson (1991), Steffensmeier and Ulmer (2005) put forward a threefold theory on commitment to crime including structured, personal and moral commitments. According to

Steffensmeier and Ulmer (2005), “the threefold typology of commitment helps to outline the mechanisms by which past actions create interests and allegiances that link to constraints and desires that shape current decision making and more long-range life choices” (173). Furthermore, the authors assert, there is an overlap between commitment to conformity and commitment to deviance. While the authors elaborated on structured, personal and moral commitments, only structured and personal commitments are discussed here.

First, structured commitments are both subjectively and objectively based. In this, opportunities flowing from criminal organizations are constrained by those that prohibit the initiation, continuation or termination of lines of action (Steffensmeier and Ulmer 2005).

Accordingly, these commitments are derived from a combination of the attractiveness of the given behavior and alternative behaviors, sunken individual costs or investments made and the social permissibility and reaction of given behaviors. Second, personal commitments are completely subjective; they reflect the individual desires of a person and the behaviors they view as acceptable. According to Steffensmeier and Ulmer (2005), these commitments flow from

20

“positive attitudes from lines of action, positive attitudes towards others with whom one engages in a line of action and self-definitions in terms of identities mobilized by lines of action” (175).

Stratification of the Criminal Underworld

Another important aspect of structured criminal opportunity has to do with the stratification of the criminal underworld and the variation of criminal opportunities available to those that occupy different levels therein (Steffensmeier and Ulmer 2005). There are a number of levels in Steffensmeier and Ulmer‟s model (2005: 218-19), but for the purposes of this research,

I will only elaborate on two; at the very top there are illicit business owners, racketeers and

Mafiosi, and near the very bottom, there are street level hustlers and snatch and grab thieves.

Unlike street level crime, which is open to all and in many cases could be achieved alone, organized crime is closed off to most potential offenders (Kleemans and De Poot 1998). Also, the rewards or monetary compensation for predatory crimes are usually far less than the reward that members of organized criminal networks receive.

Knowledge Bases

Tied to the stratification of both the underworld and the legal realm is the idea that criminal opportunity varies with regard to access to, “civil, preparatory, and technical knowledge useful for committing crime as well as access to (a) places, victims and suitable targets, (b) tools and hardware, and (c) contacts or networks facilitative for actual crime commission”

(Steffensmeier and Ulmer 2005: 29). First, civil knowledge refers to common sense knowledge and/or knowledge that just about everyone possesses. Depending on its functionality, this knowledge is often easily convertible to and in criminal activity. Second, preparatory knowledge, refers to a basic criminal knowledge. This entails “orientations and techniques of theft and hustling that are acquired by hanging around or being embedded in groups or settings

21 where general or specific forms of crime - take place” (2005: 30). Finally, technical knowledge refers to a special body of knowledge, gained over time, through hands on experience and by working with people from a given field and/or from working with persons in a various locations.

While knowledge about criminal endeavors, where it comes from and what it might entail is given explanation through social learning theory (Akers 1998; 2000), structural opportunity explains how that knowledge opens up criminal possibilities based on networks and what level one occupies within the stratified underworld or legal world.

LITERATURE REVIEW

Social Learning through Peers and Family Members

As described earlier, one form of differential association is peer association. In this regard, numerous studies have found that having deviant peers is linked to increases in deviant behavior (Adler and Adler 1983; Steffensmeier 1986; Akers, La Greca, Cochran and Sellers

1989; Adler 1993; Winfree et al 1994; Akers and Lee 1996; Akers 2000; Laub and Sampson

2003; Steffensmeier and Ulmer 2005). Social influence is a natural part of social association.

Recognized by social learning theory is the reciprocal relationship, between one‟s behavior, and their definitions of a specific act and their intimate associations. During his research on adolescent criminality, Mark Warr found that peer association precedes the development of deviant patterns (1993). This study also found, in cases where deviant patterns had been established prior to association with other deviant peers that deviance in terms of seriousness and frequent behavior only increased after the association had been made.

There is an abundance of research, which indicates that differential association or association within families and/or the primary groups has a significant impact on both conformity and deviant behavior (Steffensmeier 1986; Akers and Lee 1996; Farrington et al

22

1996; Akers 2000; Laub and Sampson 2003; Steffensmeier and Ulmer 2005; Kleemans and De

Poot 2008). Some studies have shown that general parental deviance serves to increase the likelihood of child deviance and crime (Adler 1993).

Social Learning and Generalized Crime

Besides how crime is learned within the nuclear family, a number of studies have used social learning theory to help explore and explain a plethora of topics including but not limited to, the way in which criminal behavior is learned within a community (Adler and Adler 1983;

Adler 1993) and within a number of cities (Tittle, Antonaccio and Botchkovar 2012). The theory has also been used to explain peer relations and influences and how people become gang affiliated (Winfree et al 1994) and involved in selling drugs (Warr 1993; Eliot and Menard 1996;

Pearson and Hobbs 2001). The theory has also been used to explore alcohol consumption by adolescents (Akers, Lonza-Kaduce and Radosevich 1979), and by the elderly (Akers et al 1989) as well as adolescent smoking (Akers and Lee 1996), amongst a number of other topics. All of the above mentioned studies have posted positive results for the variables associated with the leaning theory hypothesis.

Social Learning within Structured and Semi-Structured Networks

Little work has considered social learning processes and social learning theory as it is occurs and is mediated in differing social organizational contexts. Winfree et al (1994) looked at the social learning variables and gang membership, and found that both delinquency and gang membership in general are explained by variables such as definitions, differential reinforcements and differential association. Commenting on the results posted by Winfree et al (1994), Akers

(2000), claimed that “gang membership produces more frequent, intense and enduring, association with delinquent friends, exposure to delinquent models and definitions and

23 reinforcement for delinquent behavior” (87). Regarding loosely structured hierarchies and social networks, Steffensmeier and Ulmer (2005) exhibit how the social learning of deviant behavior by a potential offender is dependent on the occupied position of the offender within the stratified criminal underworld, and the vastness of their social and criminal contacts. In this way

Steffensmeier and Ulmer (2005) linked learning with structured criminal opportunity. However,

Sam, the main character and primary source of information in Steffensmeier and Ulmer (2005), did not retain membership in any structured organization, such as the AIM. In turn, his perspective and the perspective from which the authors report, comes from a person that had a vast network consisting of persons from both the legal and illegal worlds, as well as the perspective of one that usually conducted his criminal affairs alone. As such, the emphasis here is on social learning as it occurred in Sam‟s loosely connected social network and not some structured hierarchy. It appears as though no research has looked at the social learning process and how it occurs, allows for initiation and sustainability for members from within a structured criminal hierarchy such as the AIM.

Opportunity and Social Networking Structures

Social networks strongly contribute to the facilitation of crime (Calvo–Avrmengoi and

Zenou 2004). They also play a substantial role in the structured criminal opportunities for becoming involved in organized crime (Albini 1971; Prus and Irini 1980; Kleemans and Van de

Bunt 1999; Steffensmeier and Ulmer 2005; Kleemans and De Poot 2008). First, it should be emphasized that contacts are the most important part of one‟s criminal opportunity structure, since they provide the most immediate means for becoming involved in criminal activity. In

Steffensmeier and Ulmer (2005), the primary subject, Sam, a skilled thief and salesman, emphasized the importance of making contacts in the legitimate world and the underworld if one is in it for the long run. In one of his many portrayals of the world of fencing, he describes

24 having contacts with other thieves, business buyers, auctioneers and antiques second hand dealers, other fences and the lawyers, just to name a few. Regarding continuity in the criminal world, just because someone wants to remain involved in a given criminal field does mean that they objectively can. If these people do not meet persons, capable of providing continuous access to criminal opportunities, the potential offender‟s ambitious desires may not be fulfilled.

In describing some of the thieves and burglars that Sam had come across throughout his life, Steffensmeier and Ulmer (2005) claim that, while many of them wanted to “make it big time through criminal activities [they did not because they lacked] the criminal capital necessary for involvement on a more sustained and lucrative basis” (178). Other research concerning the world of hustling, drug dealing and continuity therein have produced similar findings (Adler and Adler

1983; Adler 1993). Establishing contacts in various fields and with various skill sets open up recruitment doors and broaden one‟s criminal opportunity structure.

Recruitment

There are two fundamental views, with regard to recruitment into organized crime syndicates. The first view is the traditional view of recruitment, which posits that criminal organizations bring outsiders into the network, under the precondition that they start their work therein by doing the low level, or dirty work (Kleemans and de Bunt 1999; Laub and Sampson

2003; Kleemans and De Poot 2008). In this view, the newly recruited offenders begin at the bottom of the chain and over time, they are given the opportunity to move up the ladder to more lucrative and prestigious jobs. In contrast, Kleemans and Van de Bunt (1999), accept the more contemporary snowball view of recruitment. In their study, Kleemans and Van de Bunt (1999) found that social networking and the knowledge that has been learned throughout a given criminal‟s tenure with an organization create a snowball effect. Regarding the snowball view,

25 offenders become involved with persons connected to organized crime groups and begin to work therein. As they accumulate contacts and a certain body of knowledge and skills required to be successful in a given criminal endeavor, which are at least partly provided for by the organization, they become less and less dependent on the organization itself for aid in committing crimes. Thus, they become self-established and the resources they have gained carry on with them as they begin to recruit persons from their own social network and the cycle repeats itself. A number of other studies have made similar findings (e.g. Adler and Adler 1983; Adler

1993; Steffensmeier 2005).

On a separate note, the nuclear family and/or primary social group ties play an indispensable role in one‟s criminal opportunity structure and their ability to become involved in both high volume crime and organized crime (Kleemans and De Poot 2008). Specifically,

Kleemans and de Poot (2008) found that crime is transferrable from children to parents.

Although other sources have found the opposite to be true; that crime is transferrable from parents to children (Farrington et al 1996; Laub and Sampson 2003). Either way, a person‟s opportunity for involvement in crime increase dramatically, when members of their family are involved and/or have criminal connections.

Often times, retaining employment within legitimate fields provide opportunities for involvement in organized crime and vice versa (Sutherland 1937; Sutherland 1949; Adler 1993;

Scheper-Hughes 2004; Steffensmeier and Ulmer 2005). Thus, when looking at structured criminal opportunities for involvement within organized crime networks, it is important to preview the paths blazed by persons that, if not for their legal occupation, would most likely not have become associated with organized crime. Similarly, it is important to look at paths blazed by those that started as criminals, and who went on to use their expertise of the criminal

26 underworld and whatever field or deviant activity that they participated to increase their opportunities and chances of success in legitimate occupations. This is a theme elaborated on in

Steffensmeier and Ulmer (2005), which vividly captures the connection of opportunities and the way in which they are structured between the criminal underworld and the realm of legitimacy.

Others, such as Kleemans and Van de Bunt (1999) and Kleemans and De Poot (2008), observed a pattern of movement from the legal world to the illegitimate world. Furthermore, Kleemans and De Poot (2008) found that legal occupations often overlap and in many cases are directly connected to illegal activities.

Opportunity through a Fluid, Loosely Structured Social Network vs. a Ridged Hierarchy

When looking at structural opportunities for deviance, it is important to distinguish whether opportunities are coming from a hieratically structured criminal organization or from within the confines of a potential offender‟s loosely structured social network or some mix of the two. The AIM has typically been described as a nationally, semi-structured organization (Albini

1971). Albini (1971) uses testimonial evidence provided by the McClellon hearings or the hearings of the Senate subcommittee on Organized Crime and Illicit Traffic in Narcotics in 1963 and Joseph Valachiviii, a one time member of the Genovese , to exhibit how the AIM is anything but a strict hierarchy. In this work, Albini (1971) asserts that Valachi‟s “so called organization was nothing more than a loosely structured system of power relationships” (230).

Through a number of contradictory testimonies from Valachi, Albini (1971) puts forward a compelling case and argument, which posits that the AIM is not a centralized syndicate, “but rather there a number of entities onto themselves and that its structure is better understood in terms of patron –client relationships within and between syndicates” (223). These syndicates fluctuate and depend upon power amassed at any given point of time. In this structure, the patron

27 is the person within the network, who has achieved a position of power that allows them to grant favors for those beneath them. Albini (1971) also explains that “the patron also serves as a client to those legal power sources, who could offer him protection in return for his pay-off or services” (258). Viewing the structure of the AIM in this manner has implications for the opportunities and external limitations for those involved in the AIM at various levels.

In assessing the threat posed by organized crime groups in the Netherlands, Fijnaut et al

(1998) emphasized the “fluidity of organized crime” and “opportunistic improvisions” rather than a structured hierarchy with fixed bosses (32). In this study, Fijnaut et al (1998) essentially found that small time drug dealing operators could come from nothing, to becoming very powerful overnight. Klerks (2001) expresses similar sentiments and discusses the implications of viewing organized crime in this manner. Klerks (2001) claims that “looking at criminal groups in terms of networks - means asking certain questions – such as, what constitutes the bonding mechanisms that tie people together in different constellations”(57)? Money would be the most obvious motivator among criminal offenders. In this regard, based on testimonial by their primary subject, Steffensmeier and Ulmer (2005) show that money is the ultimate motivator for members of the AIM and that accordingly, members of the AIM “make a buck- wherever possible – whenever the opportunity presents itself” (252). The testimony by Valachi discussed above, amounts to more proof of the fact. Although, according to Klerks (2001), money does not explain all activities. In his view, other social mechanisms, such as ethnic ties or growing up and being connected to a similar neighborhood are equally important. Coincidentally, these are also bonding mechanisms that tie members of the AIM together.

Ethnic ties are certainly a prerequisite for entrance into the AIM (Abadinsky 1981;

Volkman 1998). In this, to be a made member, the potential associate needs to be a pure of blood

28

Italian. Still, it is not entirely uncommon for persons without Italian blood to work for and within the AIM. It is common to come across stories of these mafia associates in the AIM literature.

One prominent figure in the AIM literature, Willie Boy Johnson, was primarily known for his dealings with and exposure of the criminal deeds of notorious , (Cummings and Volkman 1992). This “half-blood” was a strong arm for the Gambino family during the

1970‟s and 1980‟s (32). According to Klerks (2001), Johnson, was what “both the FBI and the

Americanized Italian Mafia refer to as a floater; someone who is assigned to a specific crew, yet loaned out to other crews for various assignments because of a particular specialty” (62). This statement exhibits how having certain skills, contacts and a solid reputation opens up a number of doors or criminal opportunities. It also exhibits that there was a degree of semblance and reciprocity between the various families.

METHODOLOGY

The first goal of this research is to answer the question; what interactive and normative definitions contribute to initiation and sustained involvement in the Americanized Italian Mafia?

To this end, a life history/case study synthesis is employed to explore how differentiated associations with intimate group associations exposed the subject to deviant definitions, which subsequently contributed to his initial and sustained involvement within the AIM. The second goal of this research is to answer the question; what structured criminal opportunities contribute to initiation and sustained involvement in the AIM? To this end, life history narratives were used to probe a variety of structured criminal opportunities that made crime, initiation and sustainability within the AIM possible. Another goal is to provide a grounded foundation for the development of a theory, which could be used as a framework for predicting initiation and sustainability within the Americanized Italian Mafia and other organized criminal syndicates.

29

Life History / Case Study Method

For this study, I employed a combination of the life history/case study method. It is a life history, in that I looked at what happened, and/or what contributed to initiation and sustained involvement in the AIM over a long stretch of time, and it is a case study, in that I looked at the learning processes, and how learned stimuli through deviant associations over time contributed to initiation and sustained involvement with the AIM. Few long-term, qualitative studies have used the life history method to study a small sample of offenders and ex-offenders (Sampson and

Laub 1993; Laub and Sampson 2003) and even less have used a single case study in this pursuit

(Jack-Roller and Snodgrass 1982; Steffensmeier and Ulmer 2005). As implied above, I studied one offender. The life experiences and the way in which the subject interpreted them enabled me to gain a clear picture of the structured criminal opportunities, social learning mechanisms and specific and general definitions that contributed to the subject becoming involved and sustaining membership within the AIM. In satisfying the assumptions of the life history/case history method, data was collected from one person or primary source, who offered an insider perspective on the subject matter. The perceptions of this subject act as the objective source of data in the pursuit of understanding these processes. To these ends, I believe that the life history methodology has two advantages.

First, life history narratives allow for the capturing and compartmentalization of long term processes that a snapshot and/or quantitative data could not. Of course, the processes of priority here concern social learning, which inevitably serves to reveal the normative and interactive definitions in question as well as the processes of becoming initially involved, sustaining membership and disengaging from association with the AIM. As such, life history

30 narratives allowed for the revelation of personal and situational contexts that contributed to the subject‟s behavior and perceptions of the larger social and environmental circumstances.

Second, life history narratives allow for the probing of continuity, a construct, which is vital for understanding any lengthy involvement in either legitimate or criminal pursuits. In this, life history narratives aid in the revelation of the “interconnectedness between life events and situations” (Laub and Sampson 2003: 58). The subject‟s narratives helped to shed light on structured criminal opportunities, available throughout the life-course and the intricacies associated with criminal continuity and change that ultimately contributed to the subject‟s initiation, sustainability and eventual disassociation or disengagement from the AIM.

Furthermore, according to Denzin (1989), the “life history- method - approach represents a major approach to the sensitizing concepts strategy of theory development” (208). By focusing on the respondent‟s subjective interpretations of experiences and the social psychological processes of social learning, the life history method allowed for the sensitizing of concepts such as initial involvement and the like. In other words, this methodology enabled me to “derive operationalizations from the subject‟s point of view, thus allowing for the subject‟s interpretations to be attached to a conceptual framework” (Denzin 1989: 208). Based on the subject‟s perceptions and interpretation of relevant themes, I was able to fashion an integrated theory and model that explains and predicts initiation and sustainability within the AIM and possibly other criminally organized syndicates.

Similar to other methodologies, life history narratives have their limitations. Life history narratives should be utilized cautiously, simply because memory is fallible and subjects may not and often do not remember events in the chronological sequence, with which they actually occurred (see Henry, Moffitt, Caspi and Langley and Silva 1994). Although, a particular strength

31 of the way in which I utilize this method is that I combined the life history narratives of one subject with two sets of court records to ascertain the validity of the narratives. As such, it is my belief that all of the narratives used in this study are accurate to the best of the subject‟s knowledge and from the subject‟s perspective. As discussed earlier, qualitative interviews provide a unique perspective, which is usually absent or at least lacking in most modern-day criminological research (Becker 1996).

Social Learning Theory and the Life History Methodology

Similar to the research done on most criminological theories, most of the research that has been done using social learning theory involved linear models based on secondary data

(Tittle et al 2012) and/or the analysis of primary survey data (Akers et al 1979; Winfree et al

1994; Akers 1998). While prior works have used social learning theory to study adolescent deviance, alcoholism, drug usage and other forms of delinquency (Akers et al 1989; Akers and

Lee 1996), social learning theory has not been used to study criminal involvement and sustainability within the AIM and/or any other organized crime groupix for that matter. Also, it should be mentioned that the life history/case study method may be the most appropriate method

(i.e. if only one method is to be applied) for studying behavior conducive to involvement and sustainability within an organized crime group such the AIM, which is learned and reinforced over time through group association. A hypothesis of social learning theory is that deviant association precedes deviant behavior. Even though previous researchers have been able to prove time and time again that a specific deviant behavior began after an association was made, the subject‟s preconceived internal ideas about the behavior prior to actually executing the behavior are usually ignored. In turn, the life history/case history method and the potential life-course scope of lines of questioning, allowed for the collection of rationalizations and specific

32 definitions about behavior held by the subject long before associations were made. Thus, in comparison to the studies listed above, which looked at social learning through a large number of cases and in a limited window of time, employment of the life history/case history method may be the more appropriate method for the study of this phenomena.

Still, longitudinal data collected in this fashion cannot fully reproduce the learning process encapsulated and hypothesized by social learning theory, especially if only one subject is interviewed. To fully capture the learning process, the researcher needs to assess the behavioral tendencies, knowledge base(s) and rationalizations of the learner‟s deviant associates, as well as their non-deviant associates. Moreover, if the researcher could not directly question the prospective learner‟s associates, they would have to directly observe interactions between the subject and their associates; people may not recognize that their behavior mimics the behavior of others. In sum, any longitudinal data that relies on a single source, will only capture one side of the story and could not be considered more than a partial test of social learning theory. In conclusion, the ideal way to study the social learning of a given behavior or several behaviors would be to employ a variety of quantitative and qualitative methods, because such a combination would help isolate different learning mechanisms.

Nonetheless, there is no data available that would enable the assessment of the behavior and rationalizations of any of the subject‟s previous deviant and/or non-deviant associations prior to becoming initiated into the AIM. The scope and longitudinal breadth of the data needed to fully test the social learning processes, experienced by the subject during the subject‟s personalized course(s) of association simply do not exist. Therefore, the best available method for studying the phenomena discussed above is a life history/case study hybrid methodology.

Through this methodology perceptions about learning experiences with deviant and non-deviant

33 associates will help reveal clues about which definitions were necessary to adopt and preform for the subject to become initiated and to sustain membership within the AIM.

Data, Interviews, and Overview of Analytical Approach

Given the nature of crime in general, and the subjectivity associated with the social learning process, ideographic causation was the primary vehicle from which answers to the research questions were obtained. As such, data for this study came from one respondent, and thus an emic perspective. Data came from 12 telephone interviews with primarily open ended questions. Each interview spanned between one, and one and one half hours long. The interviews were conducted once per week. They were tape recorded and immediately transcribed. I was the only person collecting this data and/or conducting the interviews. I was also the only person that transcribed the interviews. Other sources, from which data was drawn, included two sets of court records. The subject that had been interviewed during the course of this research, volunteered to participate in this case study. The subject retained membership within the AIM for nearly 37 years of his life and as such, the perspective that he offered was profound and incomparable.

As described above, the data collected during the 12 interviews act as the primary source of raw data for analysis. Two sets of court records were also consulted for added insights into the subject matter. This data has been analyzed based on the themes that emerged from within and the way in which the subject operationalizes concepts relevant to the research questions. I sought to discover what definitions about various behaviors, what knowledge bases, access to what social network contacts and what specific acts perpetrated by the subject, helped facilitate the subject‟s involvement and sustainability within organized crime in general, but specifically within the AIM. All names and most dates were changed to ensure the subject‟s anonymity (the subject was assigned the name, New York Jack). All of the data collected was considered and

34 color coded according to revealed themes. The coding process included three progressive steps;

(1) open coding or the initial classification of concepts and categories, (2) axial coding or the identification of core concepts and the subsequent reduction of initial categories, and (3) selective coding, which is the further minimization of core concepts to the central code of the study, from which all other codes and categories are related (Denzin 1989).

I used theoretical insights provided by Ronald Akers‟ (1998) social learning theory as well as insights pertaining to the structured criminal opportunities presented in Steffensmeier and

Ulmer (2005) to guide lines of questioning throughout the interviewing process. Based on the data collected, I have constructed two models that explain initiation and sustainability within the

AIM. Based on these models and previous research, I have developed a theoretical model that may aid in predicting initiation and sustainability within any organized crime group.

INITIATION: EMERGING THEMES FROM THE LIFE HISTORY NARRATIVES

The Youthful Life of New York Jack

New York Jack‟s life certainly fits the mold of the career or life-course persistent offender outlined in Laub and Sampson (2003). Even though Jack started participating in deviant activity at the young age of seven “setting - Christmas trees on fire”, he was not the product of a disorganized family or household. His parents were both hard workers, who instilled values supportive of conformity with regard to striving for academic excellence and working in a legitimate field. Both of Jack‟s parents were born in Brooklyn, New York, and for the most part could be considered well intentioned parents who did all they could to raise their children in a conventional fashion. Even though, the subject claimed that he was “very close with both of his parents”, and that they provided him with any and every perceived “materialistic necessity

35 including a private education”, it was not enough to keep the subject from seeking a life of excitement, which he found through interactions with a number of deviant associates.

Jack‟s father was a “very hard worker.” He was employed as a delivery man and truck driver for nearly 12 years. He was also a self-employed mechanic and general contractor, described by the subject as “good with his hands” and “wise and knowledgeable.” Jack‟s mother was also characterized as a “hard worker” that “worked till the day she died”. She was employed for “about 15 years” by a small lingerie company in New York. According to the subject, she was “always saving money.” Both of Jack‟s parents were characterized as “straight lace”, meaning that they were both conformists that did not participate in any illegitimate activities what-so-ever. The subject used this description several times to emphasize how both of his parents abstained from a number of common vices including drinking alcohol and gambling.

Also, Jack was close with both his sister and his brother. Both of Jack‟s siblings were described as being “good kids” that for the most part were “smart enough to stay away from trouble.” When I asked the subject to describe his siblings, he replied “my sister was an honor student and a home body.” On the other hand, when describing his relationship with his brother, the subject claimed;

“He was a lot younger. He was good with school stuff. He was usually a good kid, but he got a little nutty as he got older. Whenever he had problems with kids in the neighborhood, he would call me. He did that throughout his whole life, even when he was a man. He wanted to be a street kid, but it definitely was not up his alley.”

The subject‟s life narratives about his immediate family exemplify that New York Jack did not grow up in a deviant household, wherein deviant normative definitions were modeled regularly.

36

It seems as if both of his parents as well as both of his siblings, were invested in conforming norms and thus routine legitimacy.

With regard to disciplinary action for wrongs that the subject committed as a youth, neither parent was characterized as physically abusive. In fact, both parents were portrayed as fair and level headed. To this end the subject stated;

“My mother was the ruler of the house. - My father didn‟t say much, but when he did say something, that‟s the way it was. But my mother was the enforcer. She yelled a lot, ya know, just enough to get her point across, but she wasn‟t violent or anything like that. Neither one of them was like that.”

Similar to Boston Billy, one of many persistent life-course offenders discussed by Laub and Sampson (2003), the first warning sign that a life of conformity was insufficient for New

York Jack, was his poor school performance. However, it should be noted that Jack‟s academic failures and disinterest with all things school related began a long time before he became regularly associated with deviant models. Jack‟s troubles with school performance began when he was hit by a car at the age of seven. After the accident, the subject became bed ridden in a hospital for eight months, causing him to fall behind scholastically. Jack claimed that “the accident changed everything for me.” He went on to state;

“Before the accident, I was an 85 to 90 student in school and after that I was a 65 to 70 student, if that. Ya know, eight months in the hospital, it‟s not like today, where they send a tutor over to teach ya. There was no learning at all, just lying in a hospital bed. When the accident happened it was halfway through the school year. So I missed a lot of school. Then, before I was ready, they pushed me to the next grade, and I didn‟t know what was going in the last grade. Then, in the next grade they held me back. But it wasn‟t the fourth grade work that I was lacking with. It was the third grade stuff. So from that point on I was always behind. Now, I couldn‟t last two minutes in a spelling bee. That accident was a big deal for me. If that never happened, who knows, I could be working in an office somewhere.”

37

When Jack came home from the hospital, rather than attempting to catch up, he admitted to cutting school whenever he had the chance. Thus, compounding the problem of being behind in his school work and not testing out of the third grade was Jack‟s regular truancy.

Becoming Acclimated with the Italian Way of Doing Things

There are a number of persons involved with and/or commissioned by the AIM that cannot honestly make any claim to Italian ancestry. However, these persons usually take on lowly ranks such as associate(s) or runners. Only males who could trace both of their parents‟ lineages back to Italy are eligible for full-fledged membership within the AIM (see Appendix B).

According to Jack, “members of the [AIM] took pride in their Italian heritage.” He further asserted that a working “knowledge” and sympathy “for common and traditional Italian practices” is critical for anyone to become initiated or sustain membership with the AIM.

Both of Jack‟s parents were pure of blood Italians, making Jack a pure-bred Italian.

While his immediate family practiced a number of authentic Italian traditions inside and outside of their home, their practices were no less vulnerable to the influence of their surrounding cultural inputs (e.g. neighbors and immediate community), than any other practiced culture in any diverse city, anywhere in the world. The community, in which the subject had been raised was ethnically diverse, including a balanced proportion of Italian, Irish, Russian, German, Puerto

Rican and African American residents. In turn, the subject was exposed to a combination of cultural practices while living in Brooklyn. Separately, for the first 13 years of his life, Jack had been annually exposed to a less tainted Italian tutelage, when he visited his full blooded, Italian cousins and aunts on Long Island each summer. At the time, Long Island was scarcely populated and as a result, Jack‟s extended family had been relatively isolated from the sort of cultural melting pot that Jack had been exposed to in Brooklyn. The subject‟s experience in this time

38 oriented him with authentic Italian traditions, a general socialization within a purely Italian setting, and even with running legitimate businesses in a strictly Italian fashion from an Italian perspective. In this regard, the subject claimed;

“The whole family; me and all my cousins used to stay on the island, off route 110 in Huntington. I had a big family, a lot of aunts and uncles and cousins and we were all close. I didn‟t really hang out with outsiders, just my cousins - that‟s all. All of them were 100 percent Italian. Every one spoke Italian except me and my sister. Anyway, they had a big piece of property and they had a few garages there, and we would sleep over and hang out there. We would stay there every summer for most of the summer.” After being asked, how were your uncles and aunts with their kids with regard to academic performance and religiosity, and was there any push in any direction, the subject replied;

“I think there was a strong push towards school, but not religion. The family itself was more into running businesses. I learned a lot from them about Italian traditions and the ins and outs of running legitimate businesses.” Apparently, the subject‟s experiences with his extended family in Long Island oriented Jack with a number of normative definitions favorable to upholding Italian teachings.

Juvenile Delinquency and Developing a Credible Reputation When Jack was only 10, his parents became legally separated. Jack and his siblings moved with their mother from East New York to Ridgewood, New York. Up until this point, the subject rarely participated in deviant activities. In fact, the few deviant activities with which the subject admitted to participating had been limited to truancy, small fights from time to time, and setting a bundle of old Christmas trees on fire. However, after Jack moved to Ridgewood, Jack‟s criminal propensity increased significantly. It seems that, during this time period, Jack‟s mother‟s work schedule and other priorities associated with being a single parent contributed to her inability to provide the proper level of social control for Jack. This topic has received immense attention in the field of criminology; a number of studies have found that single parent

39 households are highly correlated with increases in adolescent deviance (Sampson and Laub

1993; Hemovich and Crano 2011; Amato and Keith 1991).

Shortly, after moving to Ridgewood, New York, the subject began to associate with a large group of boys and girls that regularly participated in deviant activity including shop lifting, vandalism and grand theft auto. At first, this large group did not refer to themselves as a gang.

However, the group eventually came to indulge the categorization; they called their gang the

Ridgewood Saints. According to the subject‟s narrative, “it was a territorial gang.” When asked to describe his gang and the types of activities that he participated while with or in the presence of other gang members, the subject replied;

“There was like 30 of us including guys and girls. Most of the guys were my age. Some guys were three, four, five, years older. Some were Italian, some were Irish, but most were German. We used to have gang wars. We would fight the Hallzy Bops, and the Blacks. – We hung out at Madison Street Park and we hung out at the freight yard, ya know, down by the railroad tracks in Ridgewood… We would drink beer and rob some of the freight cars and stuff.” In a separate interview, the subject acknowledged that his participation in deviant activities increased significantly after becoming associated with his gang. He admitted that after becoming associated with the gang he began to “stay out later”, “cut school more frequently” and

“shop-lift.” He also admitted to robbing his first car with two members of his gang. Although, it should be noted that the subject did claim that his participation in grand theft auto was “highly irregular” and that he probably would not have committed the crime if he was not associated with the group. This is highly suggestive evidence and support for the role of peer influenced behavior and the social learning process in progress. A number of studies found a correlation between peer influence and the onset of novel delinquency (Akers et al 1979; Warr 1993;

Winfree et al 1994; Akers and Lee 1996).

40

Similarly, the subject‟s experience with fighting, and thus violence increased dramatically after becoming a part of the gang. As implied earlier, the subject had some experience with fighting with other adolescent boys prior to becoming associated with the

Ridgewood Saints. However, after becoming associated with the group, Jack began fighting with other adolescents on a regular basis. It did not take long for Jack to amass a reputation as a fighter amongst his peers. In a conversation about reputation, Jack claimed;

“I had a reputation as a fighter. I was small but tough. Because I was small I always had to prove myself. I had a reputation for fighting in a lot of places. We would take the bus to other places and we had these - territorial fights. We would fight at pool halls, in front of movie theatres and that kind of shit. Because of my reputation I was the one that people would pick a fight with first.”

Later on, Jack referred to fighting as something that defined him in this time. He went on to claim; “fighting was who I was”, and that he felt that he had to keep up his reputation. This is further evidence of the social learning process in action. Specifically, it evidences how the subject‟s internalized interactive and normative definitions favorable to fighting and maintaining his social status within the group were self-reinforced via the subject‟s expectation of future rewards or the non-diminishing reward of maintaining one‟s reputation (see Akers 2000).

Association with gang members in this time period certainly instilled a level of pride and honor for Jack‟s social status within his group. Honor and pride for where Jack stood, with and in relation to his associates certainly contributed to his normative framework and skill set, which would eventually be used to maintain and/or sustain his future deviant association with the AIM and other loosely configured organized criminals.

Dealing with Conventional Authorities

When Jack was only 12 years old, his association with other delinquents from his gang made him a temporary suspect in a murder investigation. Needless to say, it was not long before

41 he had his first run-in or confrontation with a police officer. According to Jack, this first encounter was one of the most traumatic and “devastating” events of his life. After being asked to describe some of the youthful mischief that he participated in, the subject replied;

“We used to hang out on Madison Street. There were these apartment buildings over there. We used to hang out on the roof. I had a friend that lived there. One day my friend cut a piece of this rope that was holding this scaffolding off the side of the building. I didn‟t know that he did it at the time. So, the next day, some construction worker and his son were doing work on the side of the building. When the father and son went there, the father fell 4 stories to his death. The son held onto a window ledge. He lived.”

In rebuttal, I asked the subject if the police ever questioned him about it, and the subject replied;

“The cops came to my school and picked me up…. First you got to understand that these cops (modern law enforcement officers) were different from cops back then. Back then, they would pick you up by your ears and head. They picked me up by my jacket and put my face into this guy‟s face. Ya know the dead man‟s face. It was all black and blue and bleeding. They were trying to get me to talk about it, but I didn‟t even know about it. That same day my friend confessed to it. After all that I was devastated. I felt so bad about it all. That cop traumatized the shit out of me. That‟s the first time I was approach by the cops for anything.”

The above statements indicate that, from a very early age, the subject had a deep seeded resentment and distrust of legal authorities. Still, this is standard in the criminal domain; distrust of conventional authority has been found to be a typical rationalization for both common criminals involved in predatory crime as well as criminally organized groups that specialized in sophisticated criminal ventures (Farrington et al 1996; Winfree et al 1994). Nonetheless, the subject‟s mistrust of authority seems to have been a contributing factor to the subject‟s choosing a life of crime and subsequently an association with a group that shared in his sentiments.

42

Another normative definition, which has been called “typical” between and amongst criminals and criminal groups, is honor for the code of silence (Farrington et al 1996; Klerks

2001; Finklea 2010) or as Jack called it “omerta.” Similarly, the code of silence, or “the promise to never rat” as the subject conceptualizes it, has been theorized to be the cornerstone of the interactive framework, which guides the conduct of the AIM (Abadinsky 1981; Albini 1971).

Evidence from the life history narratives indicate that the subject was oriented with the code of silence or omerta prior to any formal introduction to any gangsters, and/or prior to meeting his mentor or anyone else from the AIM. For example, after being asked what he knew about the code of silence, prior to meeting any organized criminal contacts, Jack replied;

“I knew that people that were with the mafia were serious criminals. I knew that if you had a family member involved you shouldn‟t tell anyone or say anything!”

When discussing the deviant activities, in which Jack participated with some of his gang members, he admitted to committing a preponderance of crimes. When asked if he had ever been questioned by police in a follow up investigation or if he ever had any run-ins with the police, and if so was his adherence to the code of silence challenged, Jack remembered two occasions.

The first was elaborated on earlier. However, in reference to the second occasion, Jack asserted;

“The cops were doing a sting operation. They were watching to see who was robbing the freight cars. So when some of the guys that I was with opened the door, all the lights came on and all the kids scattered. So I ran over the tracks because it was a short cut to get into town. So then the police grabbed me. But don‟t forget I was much younger than the rest of them. I looked like a little kid. So I told them I was going to a birthday party and that I wasn‟t a part of that crew. They let me go they couldn‟t do anything. But they did take my name. Eventually, the FBI came to my school. I was in a Catholic school - in reference to the robbing of the freight cars. They were interviewing me, and Mother Superior and the priest told them that I was a good kid and I wouldn‟t do things like that. I knew that if I stayed quit everything would work out and it did. They left me alone after that.”

43

Youthful Employment

A number of studies have found a correlation between youthful offenders or juvenile delinquency and unemployment (Warr 1993; Winfree et al 1994). Unlike many youthful offenders, New York Jack worked in a number of jobs before he turned 18. To begin, when Jack was only nine years old, he assisted his father with making soda deliveries. According to Jack,

“sometimes my father would let me drive the truck.” Jack‟s ability to drive a truck, learned in this time, eventually served his criminal pursuits, as it provided him with his first opportunity to participate in a truck high jacking about 12 years later. Jack also had a newspaper route by the time he was 11. Jack moved up the company ladder quickly; by the time Jack was 12 he had already achieved the title of station master. He also worked for a butcher, slicing and packaging meats; a lawn manufacturing company as an assembly line technician; and a hamburger franchise, as a short order cook, all before he reached 16 years of age.

While, the subject was “strongly encouraged” to work by both of his parents, he was never asked or obligated by either of them to contribute to the family‟s finances. Jack claimed that he “always worked” and that he was “saving money to buy a car.” Despite Jack‟s investments in conforming normative and interactive definitions favorable to ascertaining money through legal means, he nevertheless sought ways to skim or steal money and/or other resources from each and every legitimate job that he worked. For instance, when discussing his responsibilities and job duties with the lawn manufacturing company, the subject claimed;

“I had to connect the bags to the actual lawn mowers by screwing these heavy steel caps into the top of each bag. Caps fell into my pocket all the time. At the time, I got good money for those things from a scrap yard.” The subject‟s sarcasm in the statement “caps fell into my pocket all the time” is fairly obvious. In applying the principles articulated in Akers‟ social learning theory, it seems as if the interactive

44 and normative definitions, held by Jack in favor of deviance or stealing the screws, superseded

Jack‟s cumulative interactive and normative definitions, unfavorable to perpetrating the act. In other words, the caps that Jack intentionally stole, illustrates that the subject was only interested in making money, rather than committing to any life of righteousness and conventionality.

Kinship Ties, Reputation and Becoming Initiated as an Associate

In the summer of 1964, Jack, his siblings and his mother moved from Ridgewood, New

York to Nassau County, Long Island. It did not take Jack long to find new, more localized deviant associates. In fact, the very day that Jack officially moved out to Long Island, he was introduced to Chris, a member of one of the five major AIM crime families discussed earlier, as well as a council member of the commission (see Appendix B). Unknown to Jack at the time,

Chris would come to be the subject‟s pizon, as well as the person that would eventually come to sponsor or vouch for the subject‟s initiation and association with the AIM.

The subject‟s previously discussed reputation as a fighter amongst his peers and gang affiliates preceded him with his primary family members as well. The day, 16 year old Jack moved to Long Island, his mother took him and his siblings to visit Jack‟s father‟s cousin.

According to Jack, “around this time [his] father‟s cousin had recently become married to Chris.”

The subject mentioned that he was “looking for some work” and that his aunt suggested that he meet Chris. According to Jack “she thought that Chris would be able to help find me work.”

When asked if his reputation as a fighter, and as a deviant adolescent in general prompted his father‟s cousin to insist on making an introduction, the subject claimed, “she knew me as a child for being a tough guy, and she more or less introduced me.” Obviously, Jack‟s kinship tie with his father‟s cousin provided him with the opportunity to meet Chris, an opportunity for involvement in organized crime that few aspiring criminals come across.

45

According to the life history narratives, the subject became friendly with Chris almost immediately. Chris lived within walking distance of Jack‟s new home. The geographical convenience made it possible for Jack to visit with Chris on a regular basis. Jack admired and in a small way idolized Chris. After being asked, what it was about him that you really admired, the subject replied;

“He was a boss. He was classy and extremely powerful. Everybody looked up to him. He made a ton of money. He was like the guy from the Bronx Tale. That‟s basically what he did. He would go to the bar and all those guys would be hanging around him. Accept my mentor had like triple the amount of guys hanging around him. And I was like the kid from the movie. He watched over me; protected me, told me what to do.” As is exemplified above, Jack felt both “protected” while in the presence of Chris, as well as willing to learn and or follow Chris‟ tutelage. More importantly, the above narrative exemplifies that Jack craved the power and respect that Chris commanded from others. After being asked, why was power important to you and why did you want it, Jack responded;

“I wanted the kind of power that my mentor had. He could snap his fingers and make the earth shake. - Power meant respect. It was always one of those things that drove me. Power meant strength, and the kind of power that he had… you can‟t buy with all the money in the world. Money was always important too. That and access to good opportunities [criminal opportunities and legitimate opportunities]. In fact I would say that they go hand and hand but for me, I saw power as a way to be independent and gain control at the same time.” There are a number of theories that could shed light on why the subject developed such an affinity with Chris (see Turner, Ellemers Spears and Doosje [1998] on self-identity theory and self-categorization theory), however, few seem to spell it out in a manner comparable to Albert

Bandura‟s take on social learning theory. In discussing models of causality, Bandura, a behavioral psychologist and renowned author, argues that individuals seek career role models, with whom they identify as similar to themselves regarding easily distinguishable and

46 identifiable characteristics (1977; 1986). Furthermore, the theory posits that the individual learner then assumes that the models‟ experiences and normative definitions would apply to their own life. In other words, people choose models to imitate based on the extent to which they identify with that model. Bandura (1986) writes, “evidence that dissimilar persons succeed from time to time does not necessarily persuade observers that they, too, can attain such outcomes from their efforts” (302). Jack shared an understanding and sympathy for Italian culture and the

Italian way of doing things with Chris. He saw Chris as “classy” and the type of guy that

“everyone looked up to.” Also, he saw the power that Chris possessed and he craved it. Last,

Jack saw Chris as a person that could help him become involved in lucrative criminal pursuits.

While Jack and Chris became very good friends, the Jack did not intimately become involved with organized crime or Chris‟ crime family. Jack admitted that “at first”, there was a

“feeling out period.” In this regard Jack claimed;

“There was like a probationary period, or feeling out period where he sort of felt me out, I think. At first, I would go to his house when he wasn‟t at his bar. I hung out with him all the time. He drove me out to Brooklyn from time to time. He would take me around, ya know. He introduced me to different people that he was meeting with. I guess it was slow, he took it easy with me at first. But he was a sophisticated guy and I learned a lot from him in those first two years. - After that, he [the subject‟s mentor] made me a bag man for this numbers racket.”

Later on, in that interview, the subject claimed that “once he trusted me with running numbers, I knew I was in. I mean we were friends, he was my pizon, but that‟s when I knew I was in.” In response, I asked, did your reputation as a fighter and/or as a street kid have any bearing on your mentor‟s decision to bring you in, and Jack replied;

“I‟m sure my reputation meant something because I was a fighter and a bit mischievous. But also, they [those associated with organized crime] are attracted to young, tough and up and coming guys. They look for guys that are dependable, - guys that are doing

47

what they say they are going to do, when they say they are going to do it. They look for guys that want to make money and aren‟t afraid to get their hands dirty [participate in illegal activities]. But most important… they look for trustworthy guys. I am sure that it all weighted in and helped in his decision to bring me in.”

As evidenced above, the subject‟s need to make money and his willingness to participate in illegal activities, in conjunction with his reputation as it pertained to his “tough” exterior, dependability and trustworthiness all contributed to his initiation with the AIM.

At this point, Jack‟s motivation for joining the organization seemed to be the only variable that has gone relatively ignored. While the subject did claim that he was attracted to his mentor‟s power and status, his commentaries still had not clearly explained what the subject intended on doing with that power. Thus, in revisiting motivation, I asked the subject what he thought joining the group would do for him and the subject replied;

“Back then, the mafia controlled everything. You couldn‟t get your hands dirty without stepping on someone‟s toes. Plus… they had their stuff together. When I was driving around with my mentor I saw that they had their hands in everything. I was a kid trying to make money... So, I guess my dealings with them gravitated around the opportunities that they controlled. I figured, why have problems with them? Why not get them on my side?”

Jack‟s sentiments in this regard, illuminate that the subject saw association with the AIM as a means for facilitating his personal involvement in illegal activities. In other words, Jack‟s primary motivation for joining the group concerned gaining access to criminal opportunities.

FACTORS CONTRIBUTING TO INITATION IN ORGANIZED CRIME

What structured criminal opportunities and what interactive and normative definitions contribute to initiation with the Americanized Italian Mafia? To inform themes relevant to answering this question, I solicit insights from both previous research as well as the subject‟s life history narratives.

48

Recruitment into Organized Crime

The life history narratives in conjunction with previous research reveal a great deal about what criminally organized persons and/or members of the AIM look for in new recruits. First, established members of a criminal organization seek persons that have prior criminal experience, and persons willing to participate, in future criminal activities (Abadinsky 1981; Fijnaut et al

1998; Klerks 2001; Kleemans and De Poot 2008). Ordinarily, established, organized criminals seek persons heavily invested in deviant lifestyles rather than persons invested in conformity and behaving in accordance with conventional normative and interactive definitions (Kleemans and

Van de Bunt 1999). Still, it should be emphasized that organized crime ventures, often straddle the legal/illegal line. Thus, considering that personnel from legitimate occupations and businesses are often commissioned by organized crime syndicates for shielding and/or enterprising purposes, it is possible that persons heavily invested in conformity and behaving in accordance with conventional normative and interactive definitions will be sought out by organized syndicates, if only on a commissioned basis.

Some of the crimes that Jack participated in with his youth gang, included larceny, grand theft auto, assault and battery. Also, Jack‟s participation in his mentor‟s numbers lottery, and his willingness to do “whatever Chris needed done” clearly illustrated his willingness to participate in criminal activity in the future. Regarding prior criminal experience and attitudes towards future criminal behavior, the life history narratives clearly exemplify that the subject satisfied what sponsors into organized crime networks seek in new recruits.

Second, it is not enough that persons are willing to participate in criminal activity; according to the subject, “they have to know to keep their mouth shut” and “they have to be good at what they do or possess a valued skill.” These sentiments are reiterated in Steffensmeier and

49

Ulmer‟s (2005). As such, recruiters or sponsors into organized criminal syndicates are usually deeply concerned about the potential recruit‟s previous track record or reputation as it pertains to their adherence to the code of silence or omerta, their previous criminal endeavors and technical and/or preparatory knowledge bases. As noted above, the criminal activities commonly perpetrated by organized criminals are sophisticated and in many instances highly technical, often requiring hands-on experience (Finklea 2010). One of many examples is the act of laundering assets and cash overseas. This is not the type of activity, with which many people have experience. While Jack lacked any real technical or seasoned preparatory knowledge, the life history narratives exhibit that Jack was familiar with the code of silence. His knowledge and prior adherence to the code, in tandem with his mentor‟s awareness of the fact certainly satisfied this second aspect of what recruiter look for in new recruits.

Third, and most importantly, criminal recruiters seek individuals with which they trust

(Adler and Adler 1983; Steffensmeier 1986; Kleemans and van de Bunt 1998; Klerks 2001;

Pearson and Hobbs 2001; Steffensmeier and Ulmer 2005; Kleemans and De Poot 2008). A potential recruit‟s reputation mediates a potential sponsor‟s trust levels in them. Trust is the foundation of any intimately involved relationship, but especially one that is criminal and/or deviant in nature. Criminals that operate within organized syndicate are heavily reliant on trust; many of the practiced activities require criminals acting in concert, usually from long distances

(Finklea 2010). In turn, trust as it pertains to potential recruits “doing what they say they will do when they say they will do it”, is a crucial point of interest for recruiters or sponsors into organized crime groups. While Jack‟s reputation contributed to him being introduced to his sponsor, it does not seem to have been enough on its own to solidify the level of trust required to bring Jack into the criminal organization. However, the two year probationary period with which

50

Jack spent with Chris, seems to have aided in establishing trust as well as Chris‟ decision to formally bring Jack into the organized crime family.

Fourth, affiliated organized criminals place a high value on a perspective recruit who is willing to learn and take orders and/or abide by a chain of command (Abadinsky 1981). Given the fact that the AIM is in many ways, a structured hierarchy (Klerks 2001), its functionality is heavily reliant on its constituent members following the orders of higher ranked members.

According to the subject, “when I first started hanging out with my mentor, he wanted me to shut my mouth and learn.” While Jack was “running numbers” for Chris, he had to deal with a number of persons that operate at various levels of the criminal underworld. In this time, Jack became accustomed to “dealing with some serious criminals that would have robbed [him] if they could have.” Still Jack asserted, “I didn‟t always like it, but I did what I was told.” Once again, the two year probationary period, in which the subject spent “riding around” with Chris, in tandem with Jack‟s fulfillment of his numbers lottery obligations, seems to have provided sufficient evidence of Jack‟s willingness to learn and follow orders. In turn, this willingness to learn and follow orders seems to have directly contributed to Chris‟ decision to formally bring

Jack into the organized crime family.

Fifth, according to New York Jack‟s life history narratives, established criminals and affiliated organized gangsters alike, seek out persons that are “tough and up and coming” and/or

“violent.” This speaks to a recruiter‟s criterion about seeking potential co-conspirators that are young, but not too young as well as physically capable of participating in violent activities.

Similarly, in discussing the manner in which the subject recruited common criminals who had been operating at the street level with predatory crime, the subject made a point to say that “you want guys that are violent but you can‟t have violence without control.” In this, it seems as if the

51 subject was attempting to convey that he sought criminals that can rationalize their personal use of violence, without emotional attachment. On the other hand, the subject could have been implying that he sought persons that could facilitate violent confrontations, but that violence was to be used on an as needed basis in the pursuit of achieving some mutually agreed upon deviant goal. Furthermore, he may have meant that the persons he sought had to be able to practice restraint throughout the extorting process, so as to avoid detection from law enforcement officers and or other witnesses; extortionx is a commonly practiced criminal activity by organized criminals (Finklea 2010). Regarding the act of extortion and the use of violence or threat thereof tempered by control, the subject stated;

“Rarely, does extortion require violence. Usually it‟s just the threat of violence. But sometimes, ya got to push people around to get your point across. That‟s why you need guys that don‟t have any problem with hurting people, but at the same time ya need guys that know how to keep their cool. Can‟t let emotions get involved.”

Jack‟s reputation as a fighter or “tough kid” seems to have satisfied this sponsorship criterion.

However, it is unclear if the subject ever exhibited his capacity to use violent or the threat thereof tempered by control in the presence of Chris.

Last, recruiters into organized crime syndicates seek persons with elevated levels of criminal or underworld social status. Females and usually command very little respect by criminals within the underworld, and as such typically maintain very low statuses therein (Steffensmeier and Ulmer 2005; Finklea 2010). Generally speaking, non-whites command very little respect within the criminal underworld, but especially from members of organized criminal syndicates. Furthermore, the majority of criminal syndicates, which operate in the US today, are composed of white, males (FBI 2010). The rank and file of the AIM is not very different. The distinguishing factor associated with members of the AIM is that every

52 member, made and/or close associate had be both male and pure-bred Italian. The subject‟s gender, ethnicity and cultural upbringing certainly satisfied this requirement.

What have We Learned about Initiation into the AIM?

The process of initiation into organized crime operates simultaneously at both the subjective, individual level (e.g. interactive and normative definitions) as well as at the objectively structured level (e.g. structured criminal opportunities). The process of initiation into a deviant association or criminally organized syndicate is not simply explainable through one‟s agency, will (Steffensmeier and Ulmer 2005) or orientations with definitions favorable to deviance nor is it explicated solely through structured criminal opportunistic contexts and/or institutional controls or social disorganization (Meier 1998; Laub and Sampson 2003).

As evidenced through the subject‟s dropping out of school in the ninth grade and pursuing blue collar and illegitimate means of sustenance thereafter, it seems that Jack‟s inability to “catch up” with his school work, resulted in his regular truancy and a commitment to take a less conventional path through life. This commitment to the road less traveled, in tandem with

Jack‟s mother‟s inability to provide proper supervision seems to have contributed to Jack‟s initiation with his deviant youth gang in Ridgewood, New York. During his tenure with the gang,

Jack had taken on and/or internalized a very specific set of interactive and normative definitions favorable to, adherence to the code of silence or omerta, distrust in conventional authorities as well as to the use of violence or threat thereof tempered by control. In this time, Jack‟s criminal propensity increased dramatically. A combination of Jack‟s internalized definitions and criminal deeds accomplished, bestowed upon Jack a reputation as a street kid, which preceded him with both his peers and primary family members. This reputation in conjunction with Jack‟s kinship ties provided him with the means to become formally introduced to a member of the AIM.

53

After meeting Chris, it became immediately apparent that this made member and/or member of the commission within the AIM had what the subject always craved; power and access to criminal opportunities. Viewing Chris as similar, Jack pursued establishing a friendship and tutelage with the Chris. Jack spent the next two years doing Chris‟ bidding and learning.

Jack referred to this time as a “probationary period”, where reciprocated trust was enabled to take shape. During this apprenticeship, Jack began to view the AIM as the gate keeper of criminal opportunities. Wanting to make money through criminal pursuits, Jack internalized the idea that the group provided the ideal opportunities. In summary, the subject‟s apprenticeship in conjunction with reciprocated trust fostered therein, Jack‟s social status, age and physical abilities, view of his mentor as similar, Italian upbringing and cultural knowledge, criminal and violent reputation, understanding and adherence to omerta, willingness to participate in criminal activity and his belief that the group provided the best criminal opportunities seem to be major contributing factors to Jack‟s sponsorship and initiation into the AIM.

Based on what sponsors into criminally organized syndicates seek in recruits and the life history narratives, it appears that the subject‟s initiation into the AIM was the result of a combination of a set of definitions favorable to adherence to Italian traditions, a personal commitment to participation in future criminal activity, adherence to omerta, distrust in conventional authorities, the use of violence or threat thereof tempered by control, the acquisition of power and access to criminal opportunities, a willingness to learn from his sponsor and seeing the AIM as the criminal opportunity gate keeper. Jack‟s initiation into the group was also the result of structured criminal opportunities including social standing, kinship ties and/or social networking, a reciprocated trust between potential sponsor and recruit, prior criminal experience and sponsorship.

54

A list of the interactive and normative definitions and the structured criminal opportunities that contributed to the subject‟s initiation into the AIM are as followed.

Interactive and Normative Definitions Favorable to… 1.) Adherence to Italian Traditions. 2.) Distrust of conventional authorities. 3.) Honor for omerta. 4.) Acquisition of power and access to criminal opportunities. 5.) Use of violence or threat thereof tempered by control. 6.) Willingness to learn from potential sponsor. 7.) Seeing the potential sponsor or initiating agent as similar. 8.) Seeing the AIM as the criminal opportunity gate keeper. Structured Criminal Opportunities 1.) Reputation and repertoire. 2.) Prior criminal experience. 3.) Age and physical capability. 4.) Kinship ties and/or social network. 5.) Probationary period 6.) Reciprocated trust. 7.) Social standing.

Below, I have included a model to help illustrate and explain the manner with which the definitions held by the subject, and the structured criminal opportunities available to the subject, worked together and how they contributed to Jack‟s initiation within the AIM.

Figure 1. Initiation within the Americanized Italian Mafia Model of Structured Criminal Opportunities and Interactive and Normative Definitions

Favored Interactive and Normative Definitions Structured Criminal Opportunities

Subjective Factors Subjective and Objective State of Being Fixed Objective Factors 1.) Distrust of Conventional Authorities 1.) Prior Criminal Experience 2.) Honor for Omerta 2.) Social Standing 3.) Acquisition of Power/Opportunity Reputation and Repertoire 3.) Age and Physical Capability 4.) Use of Violence or Threat thereof Tempered by Control 5.) Adherence to Italian Traditions Reciprocated Trust Unfixed Objective Factor 1.) Kinship Tie(s)/Social Network 6.) Willingness to Learn from Potential (Access to Human Resources) Sponsor 7.) Seeing Sponsor or Initiating Agent 2.) Probationary Period as Similar 8.) Seeing the AIM as the Criminal Opportunity Gate Keeper INITIATION (Sponsorship)

( = Reinforcing Relationship, = Contributing Factor(s))

55

STRUCTURE OF THE AMERICANIZED ITALIAN MAFIA

While there are a number of organized crime groups operating in the US, each group‟s structure and inner-workings are somewhat unique. For example, street gangs are usually loosely structured at best (Winfree et al 1994), while mafias such as the AIM are typically considered to be hieratically structured (Finklea 2010). Opportunity for sustained continuity in one‟s criminal career as facilitated by one‟s criminally organized associations is at least partly dependent on the structure of the association and/or organization with which one is affiliated (Abadinsky 1981;

Klerks 2001; Steffensmeier and Ulmer 2005; Kleemans and De Poot 2008). This is especially true for persons affiliated with a semi-hierarchal structured organization, such as the AIM. Those that maintain a high ranking within an organization, structured in this manner, are more likely to have more social capital within the organization and among organizational members. As such, they would be privy to more lucrative opportunities as facilitated through their richer social network and/or friends in high places. Therefore, a clear understanding of the structure of the

AIM‟s criminal organization is vital for the establishment of a framework, from which a discussion about criminal opportunity therein could commence. To this end, the Task Force on

Organized Crime (1967) was the first to trace the structured hierarchy of the Americanized

Italian Mafia (Task Force 1967: 7-8).

1.) The pinnacle or zenith of the pyramid-like structure of the AIM is the „Commission‟, the national ruling body of the AIM. The composition of this ruling body usually includes 9 to 12 bosses from the different families throughout the United States.” 2.) “Each family is headed by one man, the boss, whose primary functions are maintaining order and maximizing profits. Subject only to the possibility of being overruled by the national advisory group, his authority in all matters relating to the family is absolute.” 3.) “Beneath each boss is an , the vice president or deputy director of the family. He collects information for the boss. He relays messages to him and passes his instructions down to his underlings.” 4.) “On the same level as the underboss, but operating on a staff capacity, is the , who is a counselor or advisor. He gives advice to the boss and underboss and thereby enjoys considerable power.”

56

5.) “Below the level of the underboss are the , some of whom serve as buffers between the top members - and lower members. A caporegime, unlike the underboss does not make decisions or assume any of the authority of his boss. [Caporegime may serve in another capacity], as chiefs of operating units. The number of men supervised in each unit varies with the size and activities of particular families. The caporegime is analogous to a plant supervisor or sales manager.” 6.) “The lowest level member of a family is the soldati, the soldiers or bottom men who report to the caporegime. A soldier may operate in a particular enterprise (e.g. loan sharking, book making, lottery, dice game, a smuggling operation or other) or they may be on a commission basis, or they may own the enterprise and pay a portion of the profit to the organization, in return for the right to operate.” 7.) Beneath the soldiers – are large numbers of employees and commission agents who are not members of the family and are not necessarily of Italian decent. These are the people that do most of the work in the various enterprises.”

Based on the nature of organized crime and the secrecy necessary to maintain and sustain the functionality of the organization, guiding laws, as well as crime family policies and norms are not written (Albini 1971; Volkman 1998). As such, how do boss-made laws filter down to the bottom of the ranks? As exemplified in the ranking chart above, the caporegime acts as a buffer between members at the top and the soldati or soldiers and the various commissioned agents at the very bottom. Thus, when a law is created or declared by a member(s) of the commission, the capi or the under boss of a given family, which affects members at the bottom of the ranks it is the duty of the caporegime to communicate the order to close associates and associates (see

Appendix C) at the bottom on a need to know basis. Still, adherence to law is dependent on the subjective respect of the ordered for the one giving orders and the internalized norms and interactive definitions held by ground level agents and others that the law effects.

Evidence from the life history narratives, exemplify that not all boss-made law was respected and/or followed by lower ranking members (see Albini 1971). For instance, when I asked Jack, a low ranking close associate throughout his 37 year career with the AIM, if he had ever received an order from a higher ranking member, which he ignored or didn‟t follow through with, the subject replied;

57

“99 percent of the time, I did what I was told. But the one time I didn‟t was because of the order itself and because the order came from a place without power that I did not respect. This one time I was told that I couldn‟t pull this jewelry heist because, supposedly the jewelry store owner was like a cousin of a made member of my crime family. But I found out that this made member over heard me and two other guys talking about pulling the job off when I was hanging out at the bar in Brooklyn. So he was trying to pull the job off himself. So after I figured all this out, I decided that I was going to pull the job off anyway… I didn‟t have any respect for where the order came from. If the order would have come from my mentor, I wouldn‟t have even thought twice about it. I would have listened.”

Jack admitted that he was “fortunate enough that the guy that gave [him] the order was not really respected” by constituent members of Jack‟s family. In turn, it seems that central to the effectiveness of the chain of command in any organized criminal syndicate is the level of respect and/or fear held by members for where orders come from in the first place. Early on, Jack learned that knowing who was respected by constituent members, and where the power in the organization lay was critical for sustaining his membership therein. It just so happened that during the Jack‟s tenure with the AIM, a large amount of power resonated with Chris, the subject‟s mentor, who the subject respected and followed un-doubtingly anyway.

On one occasion, the subject remembered being given an order by his mentor to drive to a remote part of Long Island and escort a close associate of the crime family back to the crime family bar in Brooklyn. The subject claimed “I don‟t know what happened with this guy or why everyone was so pissed at him, but I had to go get him.” Jack went on to describe this close associate as a “monster” and “huge” and “very intimidating.” He emphasized that despite being afraid for his life, he picked the close associate up anyway. After being asked what he learned from this experience, the subject responded;

“I remember the day I brought that monster to the bar. I remember being by myself. That guy had enough respect for who was

58

sending for him to come ya know. So he knew to get in the car and do what he was told. I guess that‟s why they sent me by myself, to prove a point. It wasn‟t the size or age of the guy it was where the power was coming from.”

As evidenced above, Jack vicariously learned that when Chis gave a command, it was not to be taken lightly. He learned that “certain guys commanded respect” and that Chris‟ word and/or decisions were resolute. It appears that the power that Chris wielded came from a lifetime of experience as well as his rank atop the AIM‟s hierarchy.

Criminal Opportunities Facilitated through Structural Rank

Regarding criminal opportunities, and higher typically have access to the more copious legitimate and criminal opportunities (Albini 1971). However, those that occupy higher rankings within the AIM usually do not spend much time dealing with low ranking members or outside offenders who take part in street level predatory crime. In turn, their social networks and the criminal opportunities that come attached to their connections are, according to the subject, limited to “big, quality jobs.” On the other hand, low ranking, organizational members, such as close associates, associates and made members below the rank of a caporegime, typically have access to a greater quantity of opportunities to become involved in less lucrative, smaller scale, organized criminal activities and street level, predatory crimes. The reasoning is that these low ranking criminal associates do the majority of the foot and/or dirty work out in the streets, with non-affiliated persons, and as such, typically have far more extensive contacts with non-affiliated thieves, fences, and others that operate strictly within the criminal underworld and/or dichotomously within both the underworld and legitimate world.

According to the subject, “low ranking members need permission” from upper ranked members in order to become involved in a lucrative criminal venture that falls within the AIM‟s claimed territory. However, Jack seems to have been an exception to this typical opportunity

59 structure, because the subject, a soldati and close associate, was able to maintain a level of power equitable to a member of the commission, simply because of his very close friendship and sponsorship from Chris. The subject‟s ability to use Chris‟ name as a reference to power and permission, allowed him to bypass the typical restrictions placed on lowly ranked members. The subject‟s ability to use Chris‟ name gave Jack an extensive degree of autonomy, with regard to operating in various criminal domains and in both lucrative and small time criminal pursuits.

SUSTAINABILITY: EMERGING THEMES FROM THE LIFE HISTORY NARRATIVES

Getting Married and Moving to

Shortly after moving to Long Island, Jack met his soon to be wife. In describing her, Jack claimed, “she was a good girl. She worked and stayed out of trouble. Her mother and father were very strict with her. She was only allowed out when she was 18 or 19 on a first date.” They became very close in a short amount of time and it was not long before Jack thought about marriage. After consulting with Jack‟s mentor and pizon about the prospect, Jack was deflated when his mentor attempted to persuade him to remain unconstrained and free to work for the crime family. According to the subject;

“He didn‟t want me to get married. Before I got married, he said to me, „I‟ll get you a good job in Vegas‟. I guess he had very strong hooks in Vegas. I said, no I want to get married and then I asked him to be my best man at my wedding. He said ok. But he was upset that I was getting married and not listening to him. He wanted to groom me all the way around to do a lot of things and he knew by me getting married, it was going to be holding me back”.

In response, I asked the subject to elaborate on why Chris may have wanted to send you to Las

Vegas, and the subject claimed;

“He didn‟t want me to get married because he had a lot of plans for me. He wanted me to be free, to be able to go anywhere that he wanted me to go. He wanted me to come and go at night, because there was always a lot of night jobs and things like that. He didn‟t

60

want me to get married because then you become more vulnerable, especially, when you have a wife and kids. Ya know, if you get locked up [prison or jail], there is more of a chance of you becoming a rat [informing law enforcement authorities of a crime] because you are worried about your family more than keeping your mouth shut and doing time. That is why he tried to send me to Vegas. He did not want me to get married.” As evidenced above, Jack‟s mentor, Chris, planned on cultivating Jack‟s criminal talents for both

Jack‟s benefit and the benefit of the criminal organization. Despite Chris‟ attempts to guide Jack away from the institution of marriage, Jack insisted on following through. Soon after discussing the prospect with his mentor, the subject‟s soon to be wife became pregnant. When discussing his state of mind at the time, the subject asserted that “I wanted a fresh start. Then me and Janice got married and moved out to California right then and there. I guess I was just trying to do the right thing. I wanted to get a good job.” This seems to be evidence in support of what Laub and

Sampson (2003) were referring to when they asserted that turning points such as marriage often has the effect of providing a certain monotonous routine, which consequently contributes to the desistance process from crime for life-course offenders.

It should be noted, that the subject‟s moving to California in search of a legitimate means of survival did not change Jack‟s status or membership with his crime family. At this point, the subject was respected by constituent members of his crime family and according to the subject he was perceived as a “kid trying to fly straight.” The life history narratives indicate that Jack‟s membership with the group was secure if and when he was to return to New York. According to the subject, “My mentor told me that my place with him [and by extension the crime family] was reserved and that if I needed anything in California that all I had to do was send word and he would help.”

Despite the support that Jack‟s mentor offered and all of Jack‟s noble intentions, living a purely legitimate life in California seemed to be unsatisfying for Jack. Jack‟s attempt at leading a

61 legitimate life in California was thwarted by a contingency of issues, ranging from pertaining to the prospect of becoming a father and having to provide for his future baby, to helping his wife cope with home sickness. Before long, Jack was back in New York. Concerning his brief stay in California the subject had this to say;

“It took eight months for me to get a good job. When I did get a good job, it was with this [aircraft manufacturer]. I worked there for a year. It was a good job. Then my wife had a baby while I was at work. - My wife‟s father died, shortly after that and she got home sick and we ended up moving back. It was time to come back. I was making decent money out there, but it was just enough to survive. I wasn‟t going to be one of those guys that just survives. I realized, working like that [legitimately] you will make a living but you are always going to struggle. I always wanted better for my wife and kids and myself for that matter, so I said ya know something, this aint working. I‟m just going to be a regular asshole like this!”

Clearly, Jack‟s insufficient financial compensation left him unsatisfied with leading a purely legitimate lifestyle in California. In turn, the subject made a personal commitment (see

Steffensmeier and Ulmer 2005) to devoting more energy into criminal pursuits, rather than strictly conforming to conventional definitions. Apparently, Jack‟s motivation was the acquisition of a greater amount of financial security than could be attained through strictly legitimate means. This is not to say that Jack completely abandoned the notion of working in legitimate fields, but rather that Jack equated following a strictly conventional path with a lifelong struggle to make ends meet.

Hijacking, Wheeling and Dealing and Building a Reputation within the AIM

Shortly after Jack returned to New York, his criminal propensities increased dramatically.

He immediately became involved in more sophisticated criminal endeavors than he had prior to moving to California. A few days after Jack got settled in he visited Chris at his bar in Brooklyn.

Chris immediately assisted in introducing Jack to various criminal contacts. Many of these

62 contacts provided Jack with lucrative criminal opportunities. The first of many opportunities was facilitated through Mikey V., a longtime friend of Chris and distant, unofficially affiliated associate of Jack and Chris‟ crime family. For nearly 12 years, Mikey V. had been buying cars classified as “totaled” from various insurance company auctions and turning huge profits regularly. Mikey V. would assess the value of an auctioned vehicle and the investment necessary to repair the vehicle for resale. If and when Mikey saw a profit to be made, he would bid to purchase. Next, Mikey would pay some of his friends that specialized in grand theft auto, to rob and/or “strip” the parts he needed in order to finish the assembly of his new car so that he could resell them at a profit. Once, Mikey had the parts and the frame, according to Jack “it was only a matter of touch up paint.” Jack proved to be a fast learner in this enterprise, buying and selling

“two or three cars per month.”

As evidenced above, after becoming associated with Mikey V., Jack had become acquainted with the normative and interactive definitions necessary for success in this enterprise.

The monetary compensation acquired through this enterprise in tandem with his recent economic struggles in California reinforced Jack‟s favorable view of continuing in this enterprise. One of the major social learning hypotheses put forward by Akers et al (1979) states, association with deviant peers precedes deviant behavior. While it may not always be the case, a number of studies have found support for this basic premise (Akers et al 1989; Akers and Lee 1996; Akers

1998). Apparently, Jack‟s deviant behavior proceeded his association with deviant others, providing further evidence of the basic social learning theory hypothesis.

Around this time, Jack regularly attended a bar in Long Island, which happened to be a

“popular place for affiliated members and the general public.” Once again, Jack‟s criminal reputation preceded him with both regular mobified, as well as affiliated crime family, bar

63 regulars. Most people knew of the subject and his criminal abilities. Eventually, Jack became friendly with a group of wise guys that specialized in hijacking trucks. According to Jack, “one night, around one or two in the morning” Jack received a call from one of his new friends. Jack explained, that “they were going to hijack this trailer, and they asked me to drive. I had never driven a tractor trailer, but I did drive a regular truck when I worked for my father.” Jack agreed, and soon after participated in his first successful hijacking. While Jack had not reaped any tangible reward for his part in the hijacking, he was inspired to become involved with hijacking in the future because of what he learned that night (i.e. the techniques and possible rewards).

Soon after, Jack asked his mentor for permission to operate in the truck hijacking enterprise and was granted approval almost instantaneously. In fact, Jack‟s mentor offered to set up a “drop” or a place to leave the illegally seized merchandise, and Jack took full advantage.

One month later, Jack began recruiting members for a truck hijacking crew, who besides his own, had no formal or informal connection to any crime family or mafia, Italian or otherwise.

When asked what some of his other criterion were for inducting outside unaffiliated offenders into his crew, the subject replied;

“First of all, I wanted a trustworthy and capable crew. I looked for killers and guys that were violent. - I looked for guys that could use violence when it was necessary but at the same time, guys that could keep their temper under control. I looked for guys that were willing to get their hands dirty without asking too many questions… guys that had balls [courageous and/or brave] and guys that were loyal. That‟s really it.”

This evidences Jack‟s personal commitment to establishing a criminal crew as well as his desire to participate in hijacking on a long term basis. Opportunity flowing from personal commitment is not a novel topic in criminology (see Prus and Irini 1980; Steffensmeier and Ulmer 2005;

Kleemans and De Poot 2008). Also, one of the more frequently emerging themes within the

64 subject‟s life narratives concerns organized criminals‟ use or threat of violence, tempered by emotional and/or situational control. According to Jack, the usage of violence, “when necessary” and without “hesitation” seems to have been a prerequisite for admission into Jack‟s crew. The usage of violence or the threat thereof, through verbal and/or body language, was expected to come attached to the user‟s awareness of situational appropriateness and rationality and not emotional volatility. Thus, violence or the threat thereof was to be used as a means to an end

(e.g. usually in some criminal pursuit), and whether or not it was to be employed was dependent on subjective perceptions of structured determinants, as well as the necessity and perceived importance of achieving the initial end goal.

Within six months, Jack had recruited what he considered to be a “trustworthy and capable crew.” All together, the crew consisted of an ex-military, Vietnam veteran and

“experienced killer” named Mikey Junior; a “ruthless and intimidating” night club bouncer, named Robby; an ex-New York City police officer with “more criminal experience than most seasoned organized gangsters”, named Raphael and; a violent, yet “loyal” construction worker, named Anthony. Besides Mikey Jr., the son of Mikey V, Jack‟s newly established crew, remained independent of any crime family associations, with the exception of his own crime family. Jack‟s reasoning for establishing a crew without any AIM or mob related connection, besides his own, had to do with how profits made from stolen merchandise were to be split up. As Jack saw it, “if I got to pay tribute, I would rather do it only once [to his mentor]”, and I would prefer that if tribute was to be paid out, that it stays in-house [implying that resources remain within Jack‟s crime family rather than another criminal syndicate].” According to the life narratives, Jack maintained that;

“Every time I did a job, there was a tribute for my mentor. That means if four guys pulled the job off, there would be five

65

envelopes [with a portion of the take enclosed for each party]; one for each guy and one for my mentor. If one of my guys would have been connected… now you‟re talking about six cuts… nah.”

Albini (1971) describes how the payment of tribute was an invaluable part of maintaining the patron-client relationship that existed between Jack (client) and Chris (patron). The statements asserted above, illustrate Jack‟s loyalty to his mentor and crime family. The assertions also exemplify Jack‟s intentions on making good on paying tribute and contributing resources to his mentor and by extension his crime family.

Over the next couple of years, Jack and his crew high jacked over twenty trucks, in large part, to his utilization of what seemed like an endless list of criminal contacts. Included in his vast and increasingly diverse social network, Jack had what he called a finger guy or an insider that aids in some criminal pursuit who worked in the shipping department at JFK Airport in New

York City. Prior to each truck hijacking, Jack would meet with his finger guy and discuss the planning of a given operation. To this end the subject claimed;

“I would drive over to a diner near the airport and meet with, let‟s call him Charles, my inside guy. It would just be me and him. He would tell me that a particular truck was leaving there in about an hour or two hours or whatever. He would give me the plate number, and tell me what the truck looks like and what the driver looks like. He would tell me what the load was. We would go and wait for the truck to drive off and then he would call me and let me know. We would wait for the truck to get on say the Van Wick [an express way near the airport and point of origin] and then we would pull them over. Let‟s say that my guy didn‟t know what a truck was carrying or we couldn‟t get the information, we had a car that looked like a police car and one of my partners was a retired cop and a private detective. So we used him and this police car look-alike. We would pull over the truck and Raphael would flash his old badge and then ask the driver for the manifest. If we liked the load, we would throw him [the legitimate truck driver] in the backseat, if not we would let him go.”

66

As indicated above, the subject had a standard plan and a backup plan for each job. The back-up plan often required throwing the original driver of a truck “in the backseat.” When questioned about the purpose for throwing the driver in the “backseat” or why it was done under certain circumstances, Jack replied;

“If we liked the load, one of my guys would take the truck. We couldn‟t just leave the driver on the side of the road. He might call the cops. So we would kidnap the guy, ya know, throw him in the backseat. When we got the load to the drop [place where the merchandise would be temporarily stashed] we would blindfold the driver, drive somewhere remote and drop him off in the woods somewhere.”

Still, robbing the merchandise was only the first step in the process. The other step concerned “wheeling and dealing” (Steffensmeier and Ulmer 2005: 272) with auction houses, pawn store clerks, street vendors, and other criminal distributors from the criminal underworld, who relied upon profits made from black markets and stolen goods. Whether arranged, via his crime family or through Jack‟s past personal dealing, and thus his own merit, Jack had access to them all. Many of Jack‟s connections and/or potential buyers were diverse and well-rounded, catering to a variety of markets and middle distributors within the criminal underworld. In reference to the versatility of potential buyers, with which Jack had access to, he claimed;

“I had people that would buy everything and anything. Lots of these guys were affiliates of my family. Ya know, they weren‟t made members but… I had guys from all over the place. I had legit guys and serious crooks. Some of these guys I knew from old jobs that I pulled and some I knew from the neighborhood. I had guys that specifically sold women‟s clothing, electronics, all that.”

Evidently, Jack‟s extensive social network within the underworld, furnished him with the ability to plan and execute a number of lucrative transit heists, as well as sell entire loads of stolen merchandise in less than 24 hours. As described earlier, one‟s social network strongly contributes to the facilitation of crime (Calvo–Avrmengoi and Zenou 2004 Kleemans and De

67

Poot 2008). Moreover, as evidenced above, one‟s social network often plays a substantial role in the structured criminal opportunities for becoming involved in organized crime (Prus and Irini

1980; Kleemans and Van de Bunt 1999).

While Jack‟s participation in truck hijacking is the crime highlighted here, it should be mentioned that during this time period the subject and his crew participated in a number of other lucrative crimes including but not limited to, extortion, kidnapping, grand theft auto, interstate fraud, insurance fraud, racketeering and embezzlement. Regardless of whether or not the subject received help from his crime family, the subject claimed that he “always had an envelope [or tribute -a cut of the take or profits made from the illegally seized merchandise] for his mentor.”

In this time period, the subject gained a large degree of respect from members of his crime family for his resourceful contributions, which came through paid tribute to his mentor.

Simultaneously, he had amassed an extensive social network, which reached from New York to

Europe and from the criminal underworld to the legitimate conventional world.

Doing Time and Social Networking

In 1976, the subject orchestrated and engineered the hijacking of a truck that would eventually bring him face to face with the criminal justice system and formal charges. According to the previewed court transcripts, the subject and all of the members of his crew were convicted on charges of “theft from interstate shipment by extortion, possession of stolen property and conspiracy.” None of the offenders made any post arrest statements. Also, none of the conspirators agreed to any plea-bargain, which evidences each member‟s commitment to omerta.

Jack‟s sentence included three years to be served in prison followed by three years of probation.

While Jack was in prison, he expanded his already diverse and extensive criminal social network. According to the life history narratives, Jack claimed;

68

“While I was away - I met every wise guy; everyone you could imagine. When I was there, it was like the welcome committee. All the biggest guys were in then. Everybody was coming in while I was there. So I tried my best to help guys out, get them cigarettes - whatever they might need. I did it because they were like me. I ended up doing big things with a lot those guys when we got out. While I was there I also met my very good friend Benzo. He was straight off the boat from Italy. He was from the Sicilian Mafia. We got very friendly my whole term at MCC [the name of a penitentiary]. Coincidentally, when I got transferred to another penitentiary, so did he [to the same penitentiary].” During the subject‟s stay in prison, he extended his social network and criminal social capital with a number of highly respected and powerful ranked members of the AIM. According to the subject‟s testimonies, his ability to provide for AIM members in prison was “appreciated and recognized” by Jack‟s mentor and constituent family members. His actions in this regard seem to have provided Jack more credit and respect within both his official crime family as well as other AIM crime families. Upon release from prison, Jack would go on to partner with a number of the wise guys, with which he had become acquainted with while imprisoned.

Legitimate Employment throughout Adulthood

It is important to note that while jack was participating in hijacking and other criminal ventures, he simultaneously worked in a plethora of legitimate occupations and fields. To begin, shortly after Jack returned from California, he took a job working for an oil delivery company.

The subject remembers that “the pay was low” so he felt “ok” about stealing some oil from time to time. Specifically, he stated;

“Let‟s say I get a call to deliver 300 gallons of oil. Well I would put say 260 to 275 in their tank and call it a day. It was easy. No one ever checked their levels behind me. I had a guy that bought the stuff whenever I brought it to him. It was a beautiful thing.”

Jack‟s entrenched criminal network provided him with the ability to sell the stolen oil easily. The subject‟s rationalization here was similar to his rationalization for stealing screws from the lawn

69 manufacturer; both were about capitalizing on a criminal opportunity. This is evidence that the definitions that one internalizes or comes to approve of, are at least partially reinforced through the opportunities that one‟s associations are capable of providing (see Akers and Jenson 2006).

Soon after quitting his job with the oil company, the subject began working for Sunco

Oil. His job obligations consisted of trouble shooting and installing underground gas tanks at various Sunco gas stations in New York City. The subject claimed that he was “doing great [with the job, and that he had his] own truck and route, [but that he] had a lot of stress at that point and

[that he] almost had a nervous breakdown.” When asked to elaborate, Jack replied;

“Well, I was young. I had just been married, just a few years prior, my daughter was born handicapped, and then I had two boys right away. I had just bought my first house. I had like 40 gas stations to attend to. It was all mental. It was a lot for me. So after working there for like a year I quit.”

Unlike Jack‟s reasoning for leaving his job with the aircraft manufacturing company in

California or quitting his job with the oil delivery company, Jack asserted that, he had been “well compensated” for his work with the Sunco Company. In the end, the subject‟s work schedule, family priorities and financial obligations propelled Jack to quit this job. However, regarding legitimate employment, an emergent pattern is Jack‟s inability to commit to a legitimate life and/or legitimate means for providing for his family.

After his job with Sunco Oil, Jack did not reference working for another legitimate employer. From that point forward, all of the jobs that Jack worked had been created and sustained by the subject himself. Some of the legitimate businesses that the subject owned and operated included a home improvement company, a coffee delivery route, a coffee shop and catering café, and a bakery. Still, the subject‟s purposes for opening and running some of these businesses, was not to make a profit per se, but rather to cover the paper trail of the funds he had

70 made illegally, through hijacking trucks. Thus, the legitimate businesses that he owned and operated merely acted as shielding mechanisms, designed to help explain where large sums of money came from.

As discussed earlier, Jack was mandated to serve a three year prison sentence for which he served 27 months. According to court transcripts, as a part of his early “work release” agreement, Jack was obligated to prove that he was working for a legitimate employer and/or that he was making a living through legitimate means. To fulfill this requirement, Jack went into the general contracting business. In this Jack performed remodeling jobs, masonry and tile work and greenhouse installations. According to Jack; “the greenhouse installs is where the money was.” Lucrative legitimate funds made in this field enabled Jack to generate the capital needed to go onto or invest in bigger and more lucrative criminal ventures, namely loan sharking. The subject‟s reputation and intimidation tactics allowed him to thrive in this underground crediting service. According to the subject, “at any time I had 40k to 100k out on the streets bringing back three percent per week.” In turn, the subject‟s opportunity to become involved in this racket flowed from capital investments and thus structured commitments in terms of sunken costs (see

Steffensmeier and Ulmer 2005). Jack‟s personal commitments to the activity and the consequences that came attached were reified by the profits he made therein.

As alluded to earlier, most criminally organized ventures are sophisticated, requiring coordination between various criminal agents, and access to investment capital and/or other resources. Access to resources is an integral part of getting many sophisticated criminal operations up and running. This is a point stressed and emphasized on a number of occasions in

Steffensmeier and Ulmer (2005); concerning the primary subject of their research, Sam relied on investment capital and resources retained from previous criminal endeavors to sustain his

71 legitimate pawn shop business. Furthermore, a number of studies have found that access to resources and investment capital is a critical part of sustaining illegitimate operations (Prus and

Irini 1980; Adler and Adler 1983; Albanese 1985; Steffensmeier 1986; Fijnaut et al 1998;

Pearson and Hobbs 2001; Scheper-Hughes 2004; Finklea 2010).

Another important point worth readdressing is that of paid tribute. When Jack‟s business was profiting and when times were good for Jack, they were equally as kind to Chris; Jack always provided Chris with some sort of tribute. In fact, as busy as Jack had become in these times, he ritualistically visited his mentor three days per week at Chris‟ bar in Brooklyn. To this point, the subject claimed that “I had to stay on top of who had power and who was on the out and I had to check in with Chris from time to time just to say hello if nothing else.”

Autonomy and Associating with other AIM Crime Families

Shortly after Jack‟s loan sharking operation reached epic heights (around the time Jack was 37 years old), his mentor was trialed and convicted for a litany of offenses, which in turn sent him to prison for two life terms. This is where Jack‟s association with his original crime family began to deteriorate. According to the life history narratives, Jack asserted;

“After my mentor went to jail - with the commission, most of my dealings were kept low key. I was trying to do business by myself without letting them [the subject‟s original family and by extension, Chris‟ crime family] know. I was also hanging out with a lot guys from [a different crime family, though, still under the auspices of the AIM] and they wanted to make me a made member. So I was trying to keep away from [the subject‟s original crime family] at this time because my mentor was not there anymore. Now, these new bosses with [the subject‟s original family] could do anything they wanted with me. They could say we don‟t want you to do this or that or they could accuse you of doing this or that and then pull you into a meeting and put a gun to the back of your head. That‟s what they did with a lot of guys. Plus the new boss after my mentor was G.P.; I grew up with him. I never liked him. We used to fight like cats and dogs. I didn‟t trust him, so I had to pull back. But [the subject‟s original family]

72

would not release me. They had a claim on me. They knew I was an earner. They wanted me to report back to them. But I wouldn‟t do it. I stayed under the radar and I was doing my own thing, but, every once in a while, I would get sucked back in. All the bosses from [the subject‟s original family] would call me down. Then before ya know it, one boss flipped and became a rat [or police ]. So I said to myself, I‟m not going to see anybody anymore. - So after my mentor went away, the bosses kept changing from year to year, almost every year.”

The subject‟s above testimony illustrates Jack‟s awareness that he no longer had the necessary protection or permission, as commanded from a position of power within the organization, to successfully operate autonomously at the pinnacle of the stratified criminal underworld. As noted earlier, bosses and made members rarely needed permission to become involved in a given criminal enterprise because as permanently established members, they had the unquestioned backing and protection of their crime family associates. However, lowly members, such as associates and close associates did not have the same benefit of the doubt and unquestionable family and/or AIM backing without first getting approval from higher ups and/or sponsors. Still, throughout Jack‟s tenure with his crime family, his lowly status of close associate had been emboldened and projected by way of his ability to use his mentor‟s name; it gave him a license to do as he pleased without fear of outside intervention Without the ability to call on his mentor, Jack‟s autonomy and status within the underworld substantially diminished overnight.

This is evidenced by Jack‟s attempt to gain ranked status within a different crime family after his mentor was arrested and sent to prison. It seems that Jack believed that ranked status would have provided him with both protection and a renewed license to operate in the way that he had prior to his mentor‟s conviction; autonomously.

After Chris was imprisoned, not only did Jack lose operative flexibility within the criminal underworld, he also felt threatened and afraid for his life because of where the power

73 within his crime family lay. The subject had a long standing and unresolved quarrel with G. P. the new boss of the crime family. This new boss made it clear that Jack no longer had any highly ranked friends within the crime family. In the end, the subject‟s sour relationship with G.P. and his lack of autonomy pushed the subject away from the crime family.

Jack‟s fear for his life, coming from the new powerful head of his family, and his inability to work and operate in the organized crime sphere (i.e. the way he had prior to Chris‟ imprisonment) was compounded by his lack of trust for the new boss. As discussed in some detail earlier, the relationship that Jack had with Chris was mediated and/or fostered by a two year, “probationary period”, wherein reciprocated trust was permitted to develop. At any point in time, during those two years, either Jack or Chris could have ended the criminal apprenticeship, if for whatever reason, trust became illusive. However, after Jack‟s mentor became imprisoned,

Jack and G.P. lacked the luxury of a “two year probationary period.” To complicate the issue, all of Jack‟s previous dealings with G.P. were negative, making the development of any trusting relationship difficult from the start. The lack of reciprocated trust between Jack and the new boss, in tandem with Jack‟s vicariously learned experiences of how “bosses could do anything they wanted” and how he knew of a lot of gangsters that had been “accused of this or that” and then brought into a meeting and killed, deterred Jack from further association with the group.

At this point Jack began to regularly associate with three other crime families that fall under the auspices of the AIM. It did not take long for Jack to develop a reputation as “a go- between.” According to the subject;

“Guys would say „so and so, owes me some money‟ and then they would ask me „can you pick this or that up for me; what-ever you get we‟ll split‟. So that‟s what I did for a while. Doing that, I got to know all the big bosses of all of the families and I was heavily involved in arbitration… ya know… settling differences. We had lots of sit downs and I won every single sit down I ever had. I took

74

a lot of pride in my abilities to win sit downs.- So at that point I was making a lot of money and the last thing I wanted to do was pay tribute to G.P.. So I tried to fly low, ya know.”

Clearly, the subject‟s allegiance to his original crime family was all but compromised.

Still, the subject‟s original crime family had a claim on Jack; a claim that Jack would not be able to shake. In describing this “claim” and getting away from its yoke, the subject related it to a disgruntled baseball player attempting to become traded from a team that he did not enjoy playing for. He went on to assert that, “they knew I was an earner and they refused to let me go.

So I said, screw it. I just won‟t let them know what I‟m doing.”

Sophisticated Crimes, Prison and Disengagement from the AIM

For the next 10 years, through a plethora of business ventures, Jack developed a trusting relationship with three AIM families distinct from his original crime family. In this time frame, the subject participated in a number of crimes including real estate and insurance fraud, racketeering, armed robbery, bribery, extortion, tax evasion and interstate tax fraud. The subject grossed millions of dollars in this time and provided lavish accommodations for his then four children and wife. He invested much of the profits made through illegal means into legitimate businesses (i.e. for shielding purposes), all the while keeping as far away from his original crime family as possible. However, Jack would eventually become involved in an interstate tax manipulation scam and gasoline bootlegging enterprise, which would bring him back in close contact and routine business with his original crime family. When I asked Jack about how he had become involved in the gasoline business, he stated;

“These guys I knew… were doing things on their own, moving gas across state lines from to New York. They were making money on the tax that New York State attaches to every gallon sold at the pumps. They had two problems. First they had a problem with a certain family‟s crew… a serious problem, and the one Russian guy came to me for help because he wanted to break

75

away from them. So I went for a sit down with him and I won the sit down. This kid was a big earner for the Russians and so I made myself a partner [It seems like no favor goes unpaid]. Also, they didn‟t have the resources necessary to run the operation in the right way. So I told them that I could make it work and that from now on, they were going to do things my way. - I worked with all different families. Ya know, who had access to diesel fuel and who had access to tanker trucks that I needed. I worked different deals out with different people.”

As evidenced above, Jack‟s connections with a multiplicity of high ranking AIM bosses distinct from his original family, furnished him with the opportunity to extort partnership rights away from the described group of Russians via a sit down. After winning the sit down, as the subject so often had in the past, Jack was allocated with the responsibility of operating the business and paying tribute to a crime family distinct from his original family. Payment of tribute appears to be the primary reason Jack was given the autonomy that he possessed in this endeavor.

Eventually, Jack‟s original crime family became aware of Jack‟s involvement with the

Russians and the gasoline business. Despite the fact that Jack wanted nothing to do with his original crime family, they maintained a claim (i.e. an unwritten rule, that when someone is a member of an AIM crime family for a long period of time, they and their dealings become crime family property) on Jack and any illegitimate business that he operated. This claim on Jack allowed his original crime family to place a claim on Jack‟s dealings with the business. Soon after, Jack‟s original crime family stripped Jack‟s autonomy with regard to operating the day-to- day business activities. From this point forward, Jack retained a well-compensated, smaller role within the operation as a mediator between the leader of the Russian organization and Jack‟s original crime family. According to the subject, “none of that mattered to me. I was making a ton of money and everybody was happy. I didn‟t feel like someone was going to wack me, first chance they had.”

76

Once again, profits made in this illegal enterprise reached into the millions for all parties involved. According to court transcripts, the total lost to the state throughout the five year lifespan of the bootlegging operation surpassed 65 million dollars. In 2001, culminating a two year investigation by the FBI, the New York State Department of Taxation and Finance and the

Kings County District Attorney‟s Office, the subject was arrested and charged with four counts of racketeering, and interstate tax fraud.

According to Jack, the “evidence was unquestionable” and so undeniable that all of his co-conspirators were motivated to “cop a plea bargain.” Still, the court records indicate that none of the persons brought up on formal charges made any post arrest statements. According to the court records, while the subject did admit to his own role, there was no mention of the roles of other co-conspirators linked to Jack‟s crime family.

In sum, the subject honored the code of omerta until his final days with the organization.

Throughout the subject‟s tenure with the AIM, he had been well-conditioned by members of his crime family as well as by his associates to always adhere to this interactive norm despite the adverse consequences. Honor of the code of silence was a life or death matter. In response to the question; what punishment could be expected for snitching on someone within your family, the subject replied;

“You would have gotten killed! Even though I was very, very close with my mentor, if he thought I was a rat he would have killed me himself. That‟s how serious it is.” Shortly after Jack was arrested and sentenced, a 53 year old Jack made a commitment to desist from crime completely thereafter. When asked why he stopped at this point, the subject replied;

“After this last case, I‟m a two-time loser. If I get caught again I‟ll go away for life. So it was a deterrent thing but also because I‟m getting a little old to be out in the field. Also, organized crime has

77

been whittled down to a few assholes. Only a few guys are still out there. There are all new guys now. All the guys that I knew are dead or in jail. There might be one or two guys still left. The guys that are in charge now are young kids and I don‟t want no business with them. I have no respect for them. They have no real power anyway. Organized crime gangsters in general don‟t have the type of power that they used to have. Back in my day, they controlled everything. It‟s not like that anymore.”

The subject‟s above testimony reveals three clearly articulated reasons for Jack‟s choosing to permanently desist from crime, and effectively terminate his association with the AIM. First, criminal experiences and determinate sentencing policies played a role. The subject officially amassed two strikes or felonies on his record, which means that if the subject were to be convicted of one more felony, he would undoubtedly, face a lengthy mandatory prison sentence.

The subject also cited increasing age as a secondary reason for desistance. “Aging out” seems to be in line with Laub and Sampson‟s (2003) findings on life-course persistent offenders. Third,

Jack‟s lack of respect for his new bosses contributed to his disengagement from crime and the crime family. Jack regarded the new bosses of his crime family as “kids” without “real power.” It is likely that Jack equated his perceptions of his new bosses with a decrease of respect and power within the criminal underground.

In summary, despite devoting 37 years of his life to a general association with the LCN, the subject chose to terminate his connections because the expected rewards and/or punishments offered by the group for continuation paled in comparison to the alternatives. As such, the offered incentives were not enough to motivate the subject to define them or sustainability within the group as favorable. It is also important to note that once the subject cut off all relations and connections to his crime family, he simultaneously desisted from crime completely. This is in line with the subject‟s primary motivation for joining and sustaining his membership with the

78 group to begin with; he viewed his membership and/or connections to the organization as a means for becoming involved in lucrative criminal opportunities.

FACTORS CONTRIBUTING TO SUSTAINABILITY WITHIN THE AIM

Sustainability in organized crime and within the AIM is facilitated through both interactive and normative definitions favorable to involvement with lucrative deviant activities, as well as objectively structured criminal opportunities. Similar to the process of initiation, sustainability within a criminally organized syndicate is not simply explainable through one‟s agency, will (Steffensmeier and Ulmer 2005), or orientations with interactive and normative definitions favorable to deviance, nor is explicated solely through structured criminal opportunistic contexts and/or institutional controls (Meier 1998; Laub and Sampson 2003).

Interactive and Normative Definitions that Contributed to Sustainability

It appears that the subject held a number of interactive and normative definitions favorable to participation in deviant activities and group conformity, which contributed to his sustainability within the AIM. Over time, through dealings with various criminal associates, Jack developed a repertoire and reputation for his rationalizations and knowledge bases. In turn, definitions held by Jack and known by various co-offenders through a reflexive process contributed to Jack‟s access to objective criminal opportunities.

First and foremost, Jack‟s normative definition favorable to upholding or honoring for the code of silence or omerta contributed to his sustained involvement with the group. According to

Jack‟s narratives, “no one would do business with a guy that they thought was talking to the cops.” The majority of the activities practiced by organized crime groups and unaffiliated organized criminals require that criminals act in concert (Kleemans and Van de Bunt 1999;

Steffensmeier and Ulmer 2005; Finklea 2010). In order for criminals, both street level, predatory

79 offenders and organized offenders, to act in this capacity and successfully achieve their goals, their behavior must be cloaked in secrecy, so as to avoid detection by authorities; this necessary secrecy has been pointed out in a number of studies (Gage 1970; Adler and Adler 1983; Hagen

1983; Kleemans and de Poot 2008). As such, honor for omerta is critical for achieving success in any criminal venture, but more importantly, it is indispensable in furnishing the adherent with a credible, criminal reputation amongst other offenders. Furthermore, one‟s criminal reputation is critical to continuity in criminal fields.

Another set of interactive and normative definitions, which conformed to group norms and contributed to the subject‟s achievement of a plethora of lucrative, criminal goals, as well as sustainability within the AIM, concerns the use or threat of violence tempered by control.

According to the subject, “hurting people never made the take [illegally seized merchandise] any bigger. But sometimes people needed convincing, and then there couldn‟t be any hesitation.”

This is a theme that came up time and time again within the subject‟s narratives. In establishing a criminal crew to be used for the purposes of high jacking trucks, the subject specifically sought out offenders that internalized a set of interactive and normative definitions favorable to the use or threat of violence tempered by control. An ability to use or threaten violence through verbal and/or body language was expected to come attached to the user‟s awareness of situational appropriateness and rationality. Violence was only to be used as a means to an end (i.e. for the purposes of hijacking trucks and seizing the merchandise carried therein. Violence and/or the threat thereof, tempered by control appears to have been the key to the subject‟s successful extortion of a number of victims, and in turn, the successful completion of a number of lucrative criminal acts. It appears that the subject‟s internalization of rationalizations in favor of the use or

80 threat of violence, mediated by control aided the subject in capitalizing on a number of criminal opportunities, which subsequently contributed to the subject‟s sustainability within the AIM.

Two other interactive and normative definitions, which contributed to the subject‟s ability to consistently take advantage of lucrative, criminal opportunities and sustain his membership within the AIM, included definitions favorable to paying tribute to ranked AIM members and viewing the AIM as the lucrative criminal opportunity gate keeper. First, the subject learned very early (e.g. through his probationary period with his mentor) that paying tribute to those with power and/or rank within the AIM was necessary for garnering permission and assistance in various criminal prospects. According to Jack, paying tribute to a ranked figure could be equated with a “respectful gesture.” The act in itself illustrates the payer‟s acknowledgement that power rests with the receiver. It also emphasizes the payer‟s commitment to a fruitful relationship and the payer‟s expectation that if the receiver could, they would assist the payer with the payer‟s criminal needs, including but not limited to settling criminal disputes (i.e. through sit downs) pertaining to AIM claims on illegal enterprises. For instance, as the subject‟s narratives illuminate, opportunities to become involved in various criminal activities in the Metropolitan area of New York were, “for the most part, closed off to outsiders and claimed by [differentiated] members of the mafia [and that offenders in general] couldn‟t do anything without stepping on someone‟s toes.” Garnering support through highly ranked and respected members of the AIM via paid tribute appears to have given Jack a license or at least the idea, that he could step on the toes of whomever he liked, so long as they weren‟t AIM affiliated.

Inseparable from the rationalization favorable to paying tribute is the idea that the AIM is the lucrative criminal opportunity gate keeper. The subject‟s narratives, in conjunction with the previously presented delineation of the AIM structure, reveal that higher ranking members of the

81

AIM had access to the more lucrative criminal opportunities (Albini 1971; Albanese 1985).

Since Jack‟s primary motivation for association with the group had been oriented around the promise of access to future criminal opportunities, it only seems logical that the subject favorably viewed paying tribute to these powerful figures so that he might piggyback or ride their coattails and gain similar access to the tribute receiver‟s lucrative opportunities.

Structured Criminal Opportunities that Contributed to Sustainability

As discussed above, motivation for sustainability within the AIM was directly affected by the group‟s ability to provide and/or at least partially support the subject with lucrative criminal opportunities. Criminal opportunities provided by, or enriched through the group, and sustainability therein, run parallel or juxtaposed. In other words, mechanisms that contribute to sustainability simultaneously contributed to increases in criminal opportunities.

Opportunities for involvement in both legal and extralegal activities strongly influence one‟s ability to sustain membership within a criminal organization, such as the AIM. Besides the technical and preparatory knowledge bases (i.e. normative and interactive definitions), which guide routine criminal conduct, illicit and conventional opportunities to become involved in general crime as well as criminal activities within the AIM are dependent on the reinforcing relationship between one‟s kinship ties and/or social network (Kleemans and Van de Bunt 1999;

Klerks 2001; Steffensmeier and Ulmer 2005; Kleemans and de Poot 2008), rank and/or organizational status (Albini 1971; Albanese 1985), access to human and/or material resources

(Sutherland 1949; Prus and Irini 1980; Adler and Adler 1983; Steffensmeier 1986; Fijnaut et al

1998; Scheper-Hughes 2004; Finklea 2010), age and/or physical capabilities (Laub and Sampson

2003), structured commitment(s) and/or the availability of lines of action and autonomy.

82

Lucrative criminal opportunities, flowing from a structured criminal organization, are strongly dependent on structured commitments (e.g. investments, sunken costs etc.) and the availability of lines of action and autonomy (Steffensmeier and Ulmer 2005). Similarly, structured limitations and access to criminal opportunities, flowing from the criminal organization are crucial components for sustainability, as they significantly contribute to criminal continuity. Steffensmeier and Ulmer (2005) discuss two ways that structured commitments are constrained by external forces: (1) “Those that structure and influence choices between lines of action and; (2) those that restrict the termination of a given line of action” (174). As described earlier, one‟s rank and status within the AIM strongly affects their autonomy, and whether or not they are constrained by external forces including but not limited to those that structure and influence choices between and within lines of action. The life history narratives revealed that those that retain a rank lower than a made member, require sponsorship from a ranked member and/or permission to operate in a given field. In this, sponsorship acts as a type of status and a means of protection for the sponsored from members that might have a claim on the enterprise with which the sponsored seeks admittance. Clearly, both rank and status contribute to one‟s ability to participate in lucrative criminal activities and by extension; sustainability.

The creation and recreation of one‟s criminal contacts is pivotal for gaining access to lucrative criminal opportunities (Kleemans and Van de Bunt 1999; Klerks 2001; Calvo–

Avrmengoi and Zenou 2004; Steffensmeier and Ulmer 2005; Kleemans and De Poot 2008) and ensuring criminal continuity. Although, considering that many of the common criminal activities that members of the AIM participate requires assistance from persons that maintain legitimate employment, establishing contacts with those within the legitimate realm is equally as important to an organized criminal‟s continuity within the AIM. For example, Jack‟s differentiated

83 associations with his criminal crew and his finger guy from the airport (e.g. a contact from the legitimate realm) aided the subject in successfully engineering the high jacking of over 20 trucks.

However, many of these jobs or high jacking opportunities would not have been possible without the assistance of members from both the criminal underworld and the legitimate realm. Without the diversity we see within Jack‟s criminal network, it is fair to assume that Jack‟s opportunities as they pertained to high jacking trucks would have been seriously restricted.

Jack‟s construction and reconstruction of allegiances to highly ranked members of differentiated crime families within the AIM significantly contributed to his ability to access lucrative criminal opportunities. When Jack‟s mentor was arrested, Jack lost his reference to power (i.e. using his mentor‟s name) as well as much of his ability to operate unconstrained by ranked members of his crime family. Without a direct linkage to the top of the organization, he also lost his previously enjoyed access to lucrative criminal opportunities, which came from his original crime family. Still, while Jack was serving his first prison sentence, he formed a number of criminal relationships with high ranking members of various AIM crime families. These high ranking members provided Jack with alternative references to power, sponsorship, protections, permission to operate autonomously and most importantly, access to lucrative criminal opportunities. In sum, Jack‟s ability to operate within the criminal underworld was given new life through his extensive criminal network.

Another component, which significantly effected Jack‟s structured, lucrative criminal opportunities and thus sustainability within the AIM concerned his access to both material (i.e. monetary capital and/or tools) and human resources (Klerks 2001; Steffensmeier and Ulmer

2005; Finklea 2010). Prior to Chris‟ arrest and conviction, Jack had access to any and every material resource needed to capitalize on a potential criminal pursuit. Throughout his illustrious

84 career with the AIM and organized crime in general, Jack learned that access to both human and material resources in time and space, significantly contributed to his ability to become involved with lucrative criminal opportunities. For example, the subject noted that “without the money I made installing greenhouses and doing home improvements, I wouldn‟t have been able to get into the loan sharking business.” Evidently, Jack‟s entrance into the loan sharking business required his ability to have access to large sums of money. In turn, it appears that Jack‟s access to material resources strongly contributed to his ability to become involved in the lucrative loan sharking business and by extension, sustainability within the AIM.

After being arrested and “copping a plea bargain” at the age of 53, the subject decided to end his criminal career with the AIM. In recounting the reasons why he disengaged contact with the AIM, Jack cited age, his criminal experience and its long term, determinant sentencing implications, lack of respect for those that retained highly ranked positions within the organization, and the fact that his criminal network and criminal opportunity base had significantly diminished. Also, Jack no longer favorably viewed the organization as the lucrative criminal opportunity gate keeper.

Based on previous research and the life history narratives, it appears that the subject‟s ability to sustain his membership within the AIM was the result of a combination of a specific set of interactive and normative definitions favorable to adhering to Italian cultural practices, a commitment to participation in future criminal activity, adherence to the code of omerta, the use of violence or threat thereof tempered by control, payment of tribute (implicit reciprocated trust between client and patron) as well as seeing the AIM as the lucrative criminal opportunity gate keeper. The subject‟s sustainability within the group was also dependent on structured criminal opportunities including social standing, criminal experience and determinant sentencing, age and

85 physical capabilities, kinship ties and/or social networking within both the criminal underworld as well as the legal realm, rank and status within the organization, structured commitments to deviance, autonomy to pursue criminal goals, access to material and human resources, and most importantly, reputation and repertoire.

Below is a list of the interactive and normative definitions and structured criminal opportunities that contributed to the subject‟s ability to sustain his membership within the AIM.

Normative and Interactive Definitions Favorable to… 1.) Honor for omerta. 2.) Use of violence or threat thereof tempered by control. 3.) Adherence to Italian traditions. 4.) Personal commitment to participation in future criminal deviance. 5.) Paying tribute (implicit reciprocated trust). 6.) Seeing the AIM as the criminal opportunity gate keeper. Structured Criminal Opportunities 1.) Structured commitment to deviance. 2.) Reputation and repertoire. 3.) Kinship ties and/or social network. 4.) Autonomy to pursue criminal goals. 5.) Social standing. 6.) Organizational rank and/or status. 7.) Prior criminal experience. 8.) Access to resources. 9.) Age and physical capability.

I included a model of sustainability, below, in an attempt to help illustrate and explain the manner in which the subjective definitions held by the subject and the objective structured criminal opportunities available to the subject worked together at varying levels between the individual and a potential sponsor, and how the above list of factors contributed to the subject‟s sustainability within the AIM.

86

Figure 2. Sustainability within the Americanized Italian Mafia Model of Structured Criminal O Opportunities and Interactive and Normative Definitions

Favored Interactive and Normative Definitions Structured Criminal Opportunities

Subjective Factors Evolving Subjective and Objective Unfixed Objective Factors 1.) Honor Omerta State of Being 1.) Kinship Tie(s) & Evolving Social 2.) Use of Violence or Threat thereof Social Network Tempered by Control Reputation & Repertoire 2.) Rank/Status 3.) Adherence to Italian Traditions 3.) Structured Commitment to Future 4.) Personal Commitment to Deviance Participation in Future Criminal 4.) Autonomy to Pursue Criminal Goals Activity 5.) Access to Resources 5.) Paying Tribute (Implicit Fixed Objective Factors Reciprocated Trust) 1.) Social Standing 6.) Seeing the AIM as the Criminal 2.) Age and Physical Capability Opportunity Gate Keeper 3.) Prior Criminal Experience

SUSTAINABILITY

( = Reinforcing Relationship, = Contributing Factor(s))

DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS

Revisiting Initiation into the Americanized Italian Mafia

What, interactive and normative definitions contribute to initiation and sustainability within the AIM? Despite some overlap in model one and model two, it seems appropriate to answer this question in two parts. According to previously discussed research and the model explaining initiation into the AIM (see Figure 1), it appears that definitions in favor of honor for the code of silence and/or omerta, the use of violence or threat thereof tempered by control, distrust of conventional authorities, a willingness to learn from one‟s potential sponsor, seeing the potential sponsor or initiating agent as similar, adherence to Italian tradition and culture, a personal commitment to participation in future criminal deviance, the acquisition of power and access to criminal opportunities, and seeing the organization as the lucrative criminal opportunity gate keeper contribute to initiation within the AIM. On the other hand, according to previous research and the model explicating sustainability within the AIM, it seems that interactive and normative definitions in favor of honor for the code of silence and/or omerta, the use of violence or threat thereof tempered by control, payment of tribute, adherence to Italian tradition, a personal

87 commitment to participation in future criminal activity, and seeing the organization as the lucrative criminal opportunity gate keeper contribute to sustainability within the AIM.

Despite some overlap, definitions vary from one model to the next (i.e. initiation model to the sustainability model). My primary concern here is explaining the evolving differences and connective assumptions from one model to the next. To begin, while distrust of conventional authorities only appears in the initiation model, it is assumed that it remains an important rationalization and/or attitude throughout the person‟s involvement with the organized criminal network because of the nature of crime (e.g. reliance on secrecy). Next, definitions that favor a willingness to learn from one‟s sponsor, as well as seeing the sponsor or initiating agent as similar, are assumed to contribute to any initiated, yet unranked member‟s ability to sustain their membership within the organization. Also, definitions favorable to the acquisition of power and access to criminal opportunities are assumed to be important throughout the person‟s tenure within the organization. Last, considering that paying tribute comes after a business arrangement with a ranked member of the AIM is established and is thus indicative of a post initiation relationship, it is only logical that it is not included in the initiation model.

Revisiting Sustainability within the Americanized Italian Mafia

What structured criminal opportunities contribute to initiation and sustainability within the AIM? According to prior research and the model explicating initiation into the AIM (see

Figure 1), it appears that the structured criminal opportunities that promote and/or facilitate the objective possibility of initiation into the AIM include one‟s, reputation and repertoire, kinship ties and/or social network, social standing (i.e. race/gender), previous criminal experience, a probationary period or “feeling out period” mediated by reciprocated trust between sponsor and potential group member and sponsorship. On the other hand, according to previous research and

88 the life history narratives, factors that contribute to sustainability within the AIM include one‟s reputation and repertoire, kinship ties and/or social network, social standing, previous criminal experience, age and physical capabilities, structured commitment to future deviance, rank and/or status, autonomy and access to both human and material resources.

Many structured criminal opportunities contribute to both initiation and sustainability within the AIM. Although, the evolution of structured criminal opportunities from the initiation model to the sustainability model are of concern here. Prior to initiation within an organized criminal syndicate, there appears to be a probationary period or “feeling out period”, which is mediated and/or nursed by a reciprocated trust between potential sponsor and potential group member. Culminating a successful probationary period is the actual manifestation of sponsorship. These structured criminal opportunities are unique to the initiation model because sponsorship is operationalized juxtaposed to initiation.

Unlike the initiation model, the model explaining sustainability illustrates that structured commitments to future deviance, rank and/or status and autonomy to pursue criminal goals become important factors that structure one‟s criminal opportunities and thus assist in sustaining membership. Considering that, the subject‟s primary motivation for joining and sustaining his membership within the AIM was to gain access to lucrative criminal opportunities, any mechanism that promotes that ability, retains variable significance in the sustainability model.

Developing the Organized Crime Association Theory

There are many theories that provide possible explanations for both street level predatory crime and organized crime. Many of these theories are either offender focused theories, which specifically focus on offenders‟ personality traits and rationalizations for involvement in crime

(see Moffitt 1993) and/or situation focused theories, which specifically concentrate on

89 structured criminal opportunities (see Steffensmeier and Ulmer 2005; Kleemans and De Poot

2008). However, none have looked at both the rationalizations as well as the structured criminal opportunities that contribute to involvement and sustainability within organized crime or organized crime groups for that matter. My goal is to establish a theory that accounts for both, the subjective rationalizations and interactive definitions as well as the structured determinants that contribute to initiation and sustainability within the AIM. The life history narratives, have aided in the development of a model that is predictive of initiation and sustainability within the

Americanized Italian Mafia. Since I conducted interviews with only one person that retained membership within the AIM, it is a stretch to apply the model to all that have become initiated within the group, let alone apply the model to initiation and sustainability within other organized crime groups. Still I invite future researchers to apply the theoretical framework to follow, to any and all organized criminal syndicate.

Each of the definitions listed within both models could be separated and/or placed into one of four generalizable categories, which individually and cumulatively contribute to initiation and sustainability within an organized criminal syndicate. These categories include, (1) definitions in line with the group‟s cultural practices, (2) definitions in line with the group‟s structural practices, (3) definitions in line with the perception that the organization could assist the person in accomplishing their criminal goals and (4) definitions in line with a personal commitment to participation in future deviance. Note that the four categories and their titles were designed to capture all of the definitions that are included in the both models. They have also been designed with the intention of eliminating any language that directly links the AIM to any given category.

The interactive and normative definitions derived from the life history narratives and displayed in the previously discussed models, fit well within the above stated categories. First, it

90 appears that definitions in favor of upholding Italian traditions fit within the first category; definitions in line with the group‟s cultural practices. Second, the subject‟s definitional favor of honor for the code of silence and/or omerta, the use of violence or threat thereof tempered by control, distrust of conventional authorities, a willingness to learn from a potential sponsor, seeing a potential sponsor as similar, and paying tribute fit within the second category; definitions in line with the group‟s structured practices. Third, the subject‟s definitional favor of acquiring power, and accessing criminal opportunities, as well as seeing the organization as the lucrative criminal opportunity gate keeper fit within the third category; definitions in line with the perception that the organization could assist in accomplishing criminal goals. Last, as exhibited on a number of occasions throughout this paper, the subject‟s personal commitment to participate in future acts of deviance fit within the fourth category; definitions in line with a personal commitment to participation in future deviance. It should be noted that, both models

(i.e. initiation and sustainability) include definitions applicable to all four categories.

The social learning concepts and the general hypotheses, originally articulated by

Burgess and Akers (1966) and elaborated on throughout this paper have a profound bearing on the theoretical suppositions about the likelihood of initiation and sustainability within an organized crime group, to follow; they stress the importance of group reinforcement of definitions. I theorize that the likelihood of initiation and sustainability within a criminally organized syndicate is dependent on whether the person‟s interactive and normative definitions are in line with shared cultural and structured organizational practices (i.e. holding similar views to the group increases the likelihood), a personal commitment to take part in deviant activities in the future (i.e. the greater the commitment increases the likelihood), and a perception of the organization as a means to accomplish the potential member‟s criminal goals.

91

Each of the criminal opportunities discussed earlier could be separated into one of five generalizable categories, which individually and cumulatively contribute to the likelihood of initiation and sustainability or just sustainability within an organized criminal network. These categories include; criminal opportunities resulting from fixed objective factors; criminal opportunities resulting from reciprocated trust between the potential associate and more powerful or higher ranked persons; criminal opportunities resulting from access to a diversity of criminal and legitimate contacts; criminal opportunities resulting from the one‟s autonomy to pursue criminal goals; and criminal opportunities resulting from access to resources. Note that the five categories and their titles were designed to capture all of the structured criminal opportunities that are included in the two previously discussed models. They have also been designed with intention of eliminating any language that directly links the AIM to any given category.

The structured criminal opportunities derived from the life history narratives and displayed in the previously discussed models fit well within the above stated categories. It appears that one‟s social standing (e.g. race/gender), previous criminal experience, as well as age and physical capabilities fit well within the first category; criminal opportunities resulting from fixed objective factors. Second, one‟s reputation and repertoire, a probationary period mediated by reciprocated trust between sponsor and group member and the manifestation of sponsorship fit within the second category; criminal opportunities resulting from reciprocated trust between the potential associate and powerful or higher ranked members. Third, it seems that one‟s kinship ties and/or social network fit within the third category; criminal opportunities resulting from access to a diversity of criminal and legitimate contacts. Fourth, it appears that access to both human and material resources fit within the fourth category; criminal opportunities resulting from access to material resources. Last, it seems that rank and/or status, structured commitments

92 to future deviance and autonomy align with the fifth category; criminal opportunities resulting from one‟s autonomy to pursue criminal goals. It should be noted that while the first four categories seem to be predictive of both initiation and sustainability, the last category appears to be strictly predictive of sustainability.

Jack‟s primary motivation for joining and sustaining his membership within the AIM was to gain access to lucrative criminal opportunities. The moment Jack‟s access to his primary motivation became stifled by his original crime family he sought membership and association with a differentiated crime family. In this, Jack‟s allegiance to his original crime family was sacrificed when his perceptions of the objective possibility of attaining his criminal goals had been compromised. For this reason, I theorize that the likelihood of initiation and sustainability within the AIM is dependent on the new or sustaining member‟s ability to access criminal opportunities through the group. It is also dependent on fixed objective factors, including social standing (i.e. males and being white increase the likelihood), criminal experience (i.e. prior criminal experience increases the likelihood) as well as age and physical capability (i.e. the younger and more violent the person, the greater the likelihood). Also, I theorize that the likelihood of initiation and sustainability within a criminally organized association is dependent on reciprocated trust between the potential and/or sustaining associate and higher ranked and more powerful members of the association (i.e. the greater the trust between the associate and higher ranked person, the greater the likelihood of initiation and sustainability within the group).

Furthermore, I theorize that the likelihood of initiation and sustainability within a criminally organized association is dependent on access to a diversity of criminal and legitimate contacts

(i.e. the more diverse, the greater the likelihood). I theorize that the likelihood of initiation and sustainability within a criminally organized association is dependent on the person‟s access to

93 material resources (i.e. more access equates with a higher likelihood). Similarly, I theorize that the likelihood of sustainability within a criminally organized association is dependent on structured limitations placed on lines of action and thus autonomy to pursue criminal goals (i.e. the more autonomous the person, the greater the likelihood).

It is important that all of these structured variables contribute to, and do not diminish the person‟s ability to access lucrative criminal opportunities. For example, one will be more likely to accept initiation and sustain their membership within a criminally organized syndicate if they maintain a high status or rank therein (i.e. in comparison to others therein), and if their rank consistently assists the person in gaining access to lucrative criminal opportunities. This supposition is in line with the suppositions articulated by Akers (1998), as it incorporates social learning concepts, including association, definition and reinforcement.

In summary, the organized crime association theory put forward here conceptualizes initiation and sustainability within an organized criminal syndicate as the dependent variable. An assumed dependent variable is access to lucrative criminal opportunities coming from and/or through the organization. However, there is the problem of mobification and persons that are mobified (see Appendix C). The theory conceptualizes two sets of independent variables, which for the most part help predict the likelihood of both initiation and sustainability. The first set of independent variables are composed of subjective interactive and normative definitions, which are held by the potential or sustaining organizational member. They are viewed as favorable to upholding the dominant cultural and structural practices of the organization, participation in future criminal ventures, and a perception of the organization as the means to accomplish their criminal goals. According to the life history narratives, all four of these categories contributed to the subject‟s initiation and sustained involvement within the Americanized Italian Mafia.

94

The second set of independent variables are conceptualized as the structured criminal opportunities that persuade the potential member that they could objectively ascertain their criminal goals. These conceptualized variables include criminal opportunities resulting from, access to a diversity of criminal and legitimate contacts, fixed objective factors (i.e. social standing, criminal experience, as well as age and physical capability), reciprocated trust between the potential and/or sustaining associate and higher ranked and more powerful members of the association, autonomy to pursue criminal goals and access to both human and material resources.

According to the life history narratives, all of these categories contributed to the subject‟s initiation and sustained involvement within the Americanized Italian Mafia except for autonomy to pursue criminal goals, which was only shown to contribute to sustainability.

How could a theory predicated on a set of interviews with one person (Jack), who has experience with initiation and sustainability within one organized crime group (the AIM), be applied to a diversity of organized crime groups? Let‟s suppose a researcher is attempting to predict initiation and sustainability within an organized Mexican Cartel, and take definitions in line with cultural practices as an example. In order to apply this framework to the likelihood of initiation and sustainability within this Cartel, the researcher needs to uncover the dominant cultural practices of that organized criminal network and apply their subject‟s or preferably subjects‟ definitions to the group‟s relative practices. In attempting to predict sustainability with the Cartel, a researcher might find that machismo and an adherence to Catholicism are shared cultural practices amongst the majority of the members therein. The theory developed above would be disproven if a researcher finds that a person or persons were able to successfully become initiated and/or sustain their membership, despite holding cultural views counter to the majority of the group. In a separate example, the theory could be disproven if a perspective

95 researcher finds that structured lines of action and a lack of autonomy to pursue one‟s criminal goals have no bearing on a perspective organized criminal‟s ability to sustain their membership in a given organized criminal syndicate.

To help illustrate the articulated categories and specification discussed above, I constructed a model of the interactive and normative definitions and structured criminal opportunities theorized to be predictive of initiation and sustainability within any and all organized criminal syndicates.

Figure 3. Organized Crime Association Model of Structured Criminal Opportunities and Interactive and Normative Definitions

Interactive and Normative Definitions in Line with…

1.) Shared Cultural Practices 2.) Structured Organizational Practices 3.) Personal Commitment to Take Part in Deviance 4.) Perception that the Organization could Assist in Accomplishing One‟s Future Criminal Goals INITIATION

Structured Criminal Opportunities Resulting from…

1.) Fixed Objective Factors a.) Social Standing SUSTAINABILITY b.) Criminal Experience c.) Age and Physical Capability 2.) Reciprocated Trust between the Potential Associate and Powerful or Higher Ranked Members 3.) Access to Criminal and Legitimate Contacts 4.) Access to Material Resources 5.) Autonomy to Pursue Criminal Goals

( = Contributing to the Likelihood)

Summary of Findings

The main purpose of this work was to answer two questions; what interactive and normative definitions contribute to initiation and sustainability within the Americanized Italian

Mafia, and what structured criminal opportunities contribute to initiation and sustainability within the Americanized Italian Mafia? In reference to the latter, it appears that structured

96 criminal opportunities resulting from access to a diversity of criminal and legitimate contacts, fixed objective factors (i.e. social standing, criminal experience, as well as age and physical capability), reciprocated trust between the potential and/or sustaining associate and higher ranked and more powerful members of the association, and access to both human (i.e. kinship ties and or social networks) and material resources significantly contribute to sustainability within the AIM.

Also, autonomy to pursue criminal goals was shown to contribute to sustainability within the

AIM. In addressing the former question, it appears that definitions in line with the AIM‟s cultural practices, structured practices, the perception that the organization could assist in accomplishing one‟s future criminal goals and a personal commitment to participation in future deviance contribute to initiation and sustainability within the AIM.

A secondary goal was to fashion a theory that could be used to predict the likelihood of initiation and sustainability within the AIM and other organized crime networks. However, there is the issue of generalizability and its capacity to be applicable to other criminal networks, especially terrorist networks (i.e. for their typically unorganized and loosely structured network(s)). Despite the organized crime association theory‟s unproven and/or unfounded ability to be generalized to organized crime networks other than the AIM, the theory and its premises do stand on well documented and proven grounds. Many of the ideas and concepts elaborate on within the organized crime association theory are grounded in social learning concepts. For instance, one of the major premises of social learning theory is the idea that when a learner‟s internalized definitions about a specific behavior, is flowing in the same direction as positive reinforcements for the same behavior the likely result is the learner‟s outward display of that behavior under a given set of circumstances (Akers et al 1979; Akers and Lee 1996; Akers 1998;

Akers and Jenson 2006). Since the primary motivation for association within an organized

97 criminal syndicate is for a perspective criminal to gain access to lucrative criminal opportunities

(favored definitions) when a criminal network proves itself capable of providing the perspective criminal with lucrative criminal opportunities (reinforcement), the likely result will be the perspective criminal‟s attempt at initiation or sustained membership therein.

Beyond the scope of social learning theory, the organized crime association theory incorporates insights from Steffensmeier and Ulmer‟s (2005) structured criminal opportunity theory. Akers and Jenson (2006) write, “behaviorally – definitions – affect the commission of deviant or criminal behaviors by acting as internal discriminative stimuli in conjunction with external discriminative stimuli (place, time, presence or absence of others and so on) that provide cues or signals to the individual as to what kind of behavior he or she has the opportunity and expectation of exhibiting in the situation” (4). In other words, social learning theory emphasizes the substantial impact that associative reinforcements have on internalized definitions and outward displayed behaviors. While Akers and Jenson (2006) allude to the idea that definitions are mediated by external discriminative stimuli and opportunities, they make no attempt at specifying or generalizing what those definitions or opportunities might be. However, aided by structured criminal opportunity theory insights, the initiation and sustainability model representative of the organized crime association theory described above makes a number of suppositions about what those definitions and opportunities might entail.

Support for Social Learning Theory and Recommendations for Future Research

The social learning process is dynamic. Any study that seeks to understand it and/or explain how a given behavior is learned must do so under the cautioned notion that all of the behaviors exhibited and/or observed at a given point of time are the result and/or culmination of a lifetime of learned stimuli through a variety of differentiated associations and reinforcers.

98

Thus, regardless as to when the observation of the behavior(s), and/or research is conducted, previously learned stimuli are always relevant to the study at hand. As such, it seems that beyond an experimental design, a full life review through intense qualitative interviews and the life history methodology, is the best means for obtaining answers pertaining to a lifetime of learned stimuli in whatever context the researcher deems necessary and/or appropriate for their study.

This study has found support and evidence for all of the concepts relative to Akers‟ conception of social learning theory. First, regarding imitation (i.e. critical in the performance of novel behaviors) and the modeling of one‟s behavior after observed external stimuli, the life history narratives exhibit support; Jack‟s novel exposure to interactive and normative definitions favorable to hijacking trucks had come through personal experience and association with deviant others from the bar on Long Island. Despite the fact that Jack had not received any tangible reward for his participation in the hijacking of his first truck, he had been inspired to perform the behavior in the future. Therefore Jack‟s anticipation of future rewards superseded his previously experienced rewards, so much that, the promise of future rewards was enough to prompt the subject to commit to performing the said behavior in the future.

Second, the life history narratives evidence the lifelong scope and trajectory of learned behaviors and the idea that, definitional orientations about specific and general behaviors learned and reinforced in one association, are evolving and/or in a constant state of flux. As such, the person brings those orientations and expected rewards and punishments based on situational confines when the person differentially associates with others and encounters differentiated reinforcers. For instance, while associating with his youth gang, Jack took on rationalizations and attitudes favorable to the use of violence or threat thereof tempered by control. Jack viewed fighting, or the use of violence, as a means for both self-defense as well as cementing his

99 reputation within his youth gang. Later on, this favored definition reemerged within the subject‟s narratives, referencing the necessary means for extortion and successfully hijacking trucks.

While the reasoning for the favored use of violence or threat thereof tempered by control, changed over time in large part to situational context, the subject‟s attitude towards the definition and favor thereof remained the same.

Also, the life history narratives exhibit support, for the idea that deviant behavior proceeds association with deviant others. Upon returning to New York from California, the subject became re-acquainted with his crime family. Shortly after, the subject began participating in a host of criminal activities that he had not, prior to his initial move (e.g. hijacking trucks, working with car thieves and auction houses in the sale of remodeled vehicles and so on).

Even though, two sets of court records assisted in the confirmation and validation of the bulk of the information enclosed, it should be noted that the evidence found in support of social learning theory is at best the result of a partial test of social learning theory; the sum of the evidence is based on one subject‟s experiences and none of the evidence has been corroborated by any of the subject‟s deviant or conforming peers from any time period of the subject‟s life.

Closing Statements

It appears that no study has examined what subjective and objective factors contribute to initiation and sustainability within any organized crime network. Indeed, if results posted herein were to be verified by other researchers utilizing a larger sample size and looking at an organized crime group distinct from the Americanized Italian Mafia, there may be ample proof and grounds to claim that the organized crime association theory provides a diversified set of interactive statements, which when applied together are predictive of initiation and sustainability within organized crime groups. For now, Jack‟s life narratives and the findings enclosed represent a

100 substantial contribution to the field of criminology and the cumulative body of research on organized crime within the United States. Future research could also benefit by looking at how one‟s locale and macro-level structured contexts contribute to involvement and sustainability within a criminally organized syndicate. Research on this topic could prove beneficial in aiding in the formulation of law enforcement policies and tactics, which could subsequently aid in the fight against organized crime both home and abroad.

101

APPENDICES

Appendix A. Lineage of Dons within the Five Prominent AIM Families (Each don takes over when and where the last left off)

1.) GAMBINO FAMILY –

a.) Salvatore D'Aquila (murdered in 1928). b.) Frank Scalise (remained in power until 1931). c.) Vincent Mangano (remained in power through 1951). d.) Albert Anastasia (remained in power until 1957). e.) Carlo Gambino (remained in power until 1976). f.) Paul Castellano (murdered in 1985). g.) John Gotti (remained in power until he was sent to prison in 1992). h.) John Gotti Jr. (currently remains in power).

2.) GENOVESE FAMILY –

a.) Giuseppe "Joe the Boss" Masseria (murdered in 1931). b.) Charlie "Lucky" Luciano (remained in power until he moved to Italy in 1936). c.) (unknown). d.) (murdered in 1959). e.) "Three Man Ruling Council" - Tommy Eboli, Jerry Catena, Mike Miranda (until 1972). f.) Frank Funzi Tieri (remained in power until 1981). g.) Anthony "Fat Tony" Salerno (remained in power until he was sent to prison in 1987). h.) Dominick "Quiet Dom" Cirillo (currently residing boss).

3.) BONANNO FAMILY –

a.) Cola Schiro (remained in power until 1930). b.) (murdered in 1931). c.) Joe Bonanno (remained in power until 1964). d.) Frank LaBruzzo (remained in power until 1966). e.) Gaspare DiGregoria (remained in power until 1968). f.) Paul Sciacca (remained in power until 1969). g.) Ruling Council of "Rusty" Rastelli, Joe Zicarelli, Joe DiFillippi, and Natale Evolia- (remained in power until 1972). h.) Natale Evola (sole boss, remained in power until 1973). i.) "Rusty" Rastelli (remained in power until he became incarcerated in 1974). j.) (murdered in 1979). k.) "Rusty" Rastelli (regained power, out of jail until his death in 2001). l.) Joey Massino (Remains in power to this day).

4.) COLOMBO FAMILY -

a.) (retained power until 1962). b.) Joseph Magliocco (remained in power until 1963).

102 c.) Joe Colombo (murdered in 1978). d.) Joseph Yacovelli (remained in power 1973). e.) Joseph Brancato (remained in power 1973). f.) Thomas DiBella (remained in power until he became incarcerated in 1978). g.) Split into 2 factions - Mid 80's 1.) , 2.) Vic Orena, (Members of each faction began killing each other - "The Colombo War").

5.) LUCHESE FAMILY – a.) Gaetano Reina (retained power until 1930). b.) Gaetano Gagliano (remained in power until 1953). c.) Gaetano "Thomas" Luchese (remained in power until 1967). d.) (remained in power until he became incarcerated in 1974). e.) Anthony Corallo "Tony Ducks" (remained in power until his death in 1986). f.) Vittorio Amuso (currently runs family operations from prison). g.) Alphonse "Little Al" D'Arco (retained official power until the mid-1990s). h.) Joe DeFrede (Follows the lead of Vittorio; currently shares power with Vittorio Amuso).

(Information for this appendix retrieved from http://www.mafiamob.com/history.htm#l )

103

Appendix B. Structure of the Americanized Italian Mafia

1.) “The pinnacle or zenith of the pyramid like structure of the AIM is the „Commission‟, the national ruling body of the AIM. The composition of this ruling body usually includes 9 to 12 bosses from the different families throughout the United States.”

2.) “Each family is headed by one man, the boss, whose primary functions are maintaining order and maximizing profits. Subject only to the possibility of being overruled by the national advisory group, his authority in all matters relating to the family is absolute”.

3.) “Beneath each boss is an underboss, the vice president or deputy director of the family. He collects information for the boss. He relays messages to him and passes his instructions down to his underlings”.

4.) “On the same level as the underboss, but operating on a staff capacity, is the consigliere, who is a counselor or advisor. He gives advice to the boss and underboss and thereby enjoys considerable power”.

5.) “Below the level of the underboss are the caporegime, some of whom serve as buffers between the top members - and lower members. A caporegime, unlike the underboss does not make decisions or assume any of the authority of his boss. [Caporegime may serve in another capacity], as chiefs of operating units. The number of men supervised in each unit varies with the size and activities of particular families. The caporegime is analogous to a plant supervisor or sales manager”.

6.) “The lowest level member of a family is the soldati, the soldiers or bottom men who report to the caporegime. A soldier may operate in a particular enterprise (e.g. loan sharking, book making, lottery, dice game, a smuggling operation or other) or they may be on a commission basis, or they may own the enterprise and pay a portion of the profit to the organization, in return for the right to operate”.

7.) Beneath the soldiers – are large numbers of employees and commission agents who are not members of the family and are not necessarily of Italian decent. These are the people that do most of the work in the various enterprises” (Task Force on Organized Crime 1967: 7-8).

104

Appendix C. Glossary of Terms

Associate - An associate is anyone that works for the AIM on a short term basis. Besides abiding by the code of silence, omerta, and doing everything in their power to shield their activities and the activities that connect them to the criminal organization, they are not expected to adhere to the same customary norms that close associates, made members and higher ups are obligated to follow (e.g. remain clean shaven). Also, they are not privy to any of the inner workings or criminal plans derived within the AIM. They could be primary family members or extended family members of a made member or close associate that is affiliated with a given crime family.

Capi / Dons / Godfather(s) - This is the boss of bosses, president, executive or head of a given crime family that falls under the LCN umbrella. Sometimes the term is bestowed upon members of the highest ranking commission. According to the Task Force on Organized Crime (1967), “each family is headed by one man, the boss, whose primary functions are maintaining order and maximizing profits. Subject, only to the possibility of being overruled by the national advisory group (commission), the capi’s authority in all matters relating to the family is absolute”.

Caporegime - This is a rank within the Americanized Italian Mafia that enjoys considerable autonomy. This rank is just below that of an under boss. Any affiliate of the crime family that serves in this capacity is a made member. According to the Task Force on Crime (1967) affiliates that maintain this ranking “serve as buffers between the top members and lower members. A caporegime, unlike the underboss does not make decisions or assume any of the authority of his boss. [Caporegime may serve in another capacity], as chiefs of operating units. The number of men supervised in each unit varies with the size and activities of particular families. The caporegime is analogous to a plant supervisor or sales manager”.

Chased Him - This is an expression often used by the subject that denotes a time wherein the subject used intimidation and/or actual force to either scare or push a person or persons out or away from a business or other type of situation.

Civil Knowledge - Knowledge that most people have. It usually refers to “conventional kinds of knowledge that can easily be transferred or „sharpened‟ for criminal ends” (Steffensmeier and Ulmer 2005: 30).

Close Associate - This is someone that is being groomed for made membership within a crime family. They have limited power and are expected to act and behave in accordance with the norms that guide conduct within the AIM.

Crew - This is a small group or band of criminals that act in concert to perpetrate a specific and/or a number of criminal activities. One or more members of the crew are usually connected as a made member, close associate or associate or have contacts with one or more members of an organized criminal network or family. Essentially, most official and unofficial members of a crime family have close and trust worthy criminal

105 partners with which they usually work. Often times, these partners are not affiliated with a given crime family, but act on the orders of affiliated members.

Commission - According to the Task Force on Organized Crime (1967), this is “the pinnacle or zenith of the pyramid like structure of the AIM.” It is, “the national ruling body of the AIM. The composition of this ruling body usually includes nine to 12 bosses from the different families throughout the United States”. All of the members of this group are also made members. The subject‟s mentor, discussed throughout this work was on the commission.

Consigliere - This is a ranked, made member of a crime family. According to the Task Force on Organized Crime (1967), “this is a counselor or advisor to the under boss and/or boss of a given family within the auspices of LCN. “He gives advice to the boss and underboss and thereby enjoys considerable power”.

Don - See Capi.

Feds - This is a term used quite often by the subject in reference to federal law enforcement agents, specifically the FBI.

Finger Guy(s) - This is a person that may or may not be affiliated with any criminal crew or organized crime syndicate. However, they are usually not affiliated with any crime family. Also, they may be legitimately employed and aid in criminal ventures by providing criminals with insider information. In other words, they may aid in a criminal venture by providing the criminals with information about a potential target r crime that could not be obtained otherwise. They may work or operate in a legitimate occupation but they act as an informant or insider that aids criminals in some criminal pursuit.

Gangster(s) - see Wise Guy(s).

Godfather(s) - See Capi.

Goombata - See Lucca Bratzi.

Lucca Bratzi / Pizon / Goombata - This was a character from the movie, . Although, the subject for this research uses the character‟s name often when describing his very close friends, and/or one time trusted affiliates.

Made Member - According to Jack, “your run of the mill made members are like the lowest or second lowest on the totem pole [according to the hierarchal ranking within the AIM]. A made member may have 15 associates and close associates underneath him. The associates and close associates would kick up to the made members and they would kick up to the captain and the captain would kick up to the bosses.”

106

MAFIA - M.A.F.I.A. originated in the 13th century, as an acronym for the Italian saying, Morte Alla Francia Italia Anela", meaning, “death to the French is Italy‟s cry” (Albini 1971)

Mafiosi - This is Italian for mafia.

Mafusu - This is a Sicilian saying which translates to “beautiful and/or excellent” (Volkman 1998: 4)

Mobification and/or Mobified - This is a state of being. This is a person that either has weak or no connection with a mafia, yet pretends that they have solid connections. It is someone that is infatuated with and/or idealizes the lifestyle lived by mobsters and views the typical activities practiced by members as favorable, adventurous, interesting, provocative, alluring, and enticing and so on. This person may have an understanding of the code that guides conduct for group members, but knowledge in this regard is usually acquired through media outlets and second hand stories rather than from first-hand observations and experience. According to the subject, mobified persons “usually just want the respect and prestige that came along with being a wise guy. A lot of guys that had big legitimate businesses were getting money [grossing large sums of money] but they didn‟t have any respect. So then they would hang out with wise guys so they could act like a big shot”.

Omerta - This began as an oath to secrecy taken by insurgent Sicilian natives when the territory was occupied by the conquering Saracens in the ninth century. It has transformed into a code of silence, and it is the most important normative mechanism for made members, close associates and higher ups within the AIM. The code of silence prompts all affiliates to keep their criminal affairs and business with the mafia secret from their closest of friends and especially from detection from law enforcement authorities.

Pizon - See Lucca Bratzi.

Preparatory knowledge - According to Steffensmeier and Ulmer (2005), this type of knowledge refers to “familiarity orientations and techniques of theft and hustling that is acquired by „hanging around‟ or being embedded in groups or settings where general or specific forms of crime and vice routinely or periodically take place” (30).

Runner(s) - This is not an official member of the Americanized Italian Mafia. They are neither a close associate nor a made member. The subject uses this term frequently to describe persons that he paid or was in business with, whom served in minor capacities or in subservient roles. Usually, they picked up money or other commodities for the subject on a temporary basis.

Sit Down(s) - This is a private meeting between either low or high ranking members of the same crew or crime family or different families. It always involves at least one close associate or made member of a family. Sometimes there was two or more family

107 representatives present at these meetings. The reasons for such a meeting are diverse, and include everything from settling internal squabbles within and between members of the same or differentiated families to mapping out new business ventures, to allocating territorial supremacy and authority in some under handed market. These meetings usually take the form of a formal debate, wherein each side or various views are presented for all to hear. These arguments are judged by the higher ranking members and advocates for each side, based on their merit, logic and resource allocation. The subject provided a number of examples of fundamentally differentiated sit downs in differentiated contexts.

Soldati - The soldiers or „associate(s)‟ or bottom men who report to the caporegime. The subject of this research was a soldati and or close associate for the duration of his involvement with the AIM.

Straight Lace - This is a term frequently used by the subject, which refers to persons that typically internalize non deviant attitudes and rationalizations and as such, normally practice conforming behaviors.

Street Guy(s) / Street Kid(s) - This is a person that earns a living illegally. This person(s) is neither a novel thief nor a first time or petty offender. According to the subject, this distinction is descriptive of “hardened thieves. Guys that scheme and scam and rob for a living”.

Technical Knowledge - Technical knowledge has been described as “knowledge that is mainly or only acquired by way of access to people in specialized locations” (Steffensmeier and Ulmer 2005; 30). However, I see it as knowledge that is acquired through conversation or hands on practice with legitimate and illegitimate activities. This is what Akers (1998) was referring to, when he outlined his definition for the manner in which interactive definitions are learned, during the social learning process.

Wack or Wacked - This is a verb, meaning to kill. To wack someone, or have them wacked.

Wacked - The subject uses this term regularly to describe persons with extremely violent tendencies as well as, persons that suffer from cognitive disorders or other mentally debilitating impediments.

Wise Guy(s) and or Gangster(s)- These are affiliated members of the Americanized Italian Mafia. They may occupy the rank of an associate, but usually, the term is reserved for persons that have intimate dealings with the group and a life of crime. Therefore, the term is usually doled on those that occupy the rank of a close associate, made member or higher.

108

REFERENCES

Abadinsky, Howard. 1981. The Mafia in America: An Oral History. New York: Praeger.

Adler, Patricia A. 1993. Wheeling and Dealing: An Ethnography of an Upper Level Drug

Dealing and Smuggling Community Second Edition. New York: Columbia University

Press.

Adler, Patricia and Peter Adler. 1983. “Relations between Dealers: The Social Organization of

Illicit Drug Transactions”. Sociology and Social Research, 67:260-278.

Akers, Ronald L. 1979. “Theory and Ideology in Marxist Criminology”. Criminology, 16:527-

544.

Akers, Ronald L. 1998. Social Learning and Social Structure: A General Theory of Crime and

Deviance. Boston: Northwestern University Press.

Akers, Ronald L. 2000. Criminological Theories: Introduction, Evaluation and Application.

Third Edition. Los Angeles, California: Roxbury Publishing Company.

Akers, Ronald L., Marvin D. Krohn, Lon Lanza-Kaduce and Marcia Radosevich. (1979). “Social

Learning and Deviant Behavior: A Specific Test of General Theory”. American

Sociological Review, 44:636-655.

Akers, Ronald L., Anthony J. La Greca, John Cochran and Christine Sellers. 1989. “Social

Learning Theory and Alcohol Behavior among the Elderly”. Sociological Quarterly,

30:625-638.

Akers, Ronald L. and Gang Lee. 1996. “A Longitudinal Test of Social Learning Theory:

Adolescent Smoking”. Journal of Drug Issues, 26:317-343.

Akers, Ronald L. and Gary F. Jenson. 2006. "Empirical Status of Social Learning Theory: Past,

Present, and Future" in Taking Stock: The Status of Criminological Theory, Vol. 15,

109

“Advances in Criminological Theory", Pp. 37-76. Frances T. Cullen, John Paul Wright,

and Kristie R. Blevins (Editors). Transaction Publishing.

Albini, Joseph L. 1971. The : Genesis of a Legend. New York: Meredith

Corporation.

Albanese, Jay S. 1985. Organized Crime in America. Anderson Publishing Company.

Albanese, Jay S. 2004. “North American Organized Crime”. Global Crime, 6(1):8-18.

Amato, Paul R. and Bret Keith. 1991. “Parental divorce and the well-being of children: a meta-

analysis”. Psychological Bulletin, 110:26–46.

Bandura, Albert. 1977. Social learning theory. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice Hall.

Bandura, Albert. 1986. Social Foundations of Thought and Action: A Social Cognitive Theory.

Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall.

Black, Henry C., Joseph R. Nolan and M. J. Connolly. 1983. Black’s Law Dictionary: With

Pronunciations Abridged Fifth Edition. St. Paul Minnesota: West Publishing Company.

Becker, Howard S. 1960. “Notes on the Concept of Commitment”. American Journal of

Sociology, 66:32-36.

Becker, Howard S. 1996. “The Epistemology of Qualitative Research”. Pp. 53-71 Ethnography

and Human Development: Context and Meaning in Social Inquiry. Ed. Richard Jessor,

Ann Colby and Richard A. Sweder. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Bettenhausen, Kenneth and Keith Murnighan. 1985. “The emergence of norms in competitive

decision-making groups.” Administrative Science Quarterly, 30:350-372.

Burgess, Robert L. and Ronald L. Akers. 1966. “A Differential Association-Reinforcement

Theory of Criminal Behavior”. Social Problems, 14:363-383.

110

Cummings, John and Ernest Volkman. 1992. Goombata: The Improbable Rise and Fall of John

Gotti and His Gang. New York: Avon Books.

Denzin, Norman K. 1989. The Research Act: A Theoretical Introduction to Sociological

Methods Third Edition. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall.

Elliot, Delbert S. and Seth Menard. 1996. “Delinquent Friends and Delinquent behavior:

temporal and developmental patterns”. Pp. 28-61 in J. D. Hawkins, ed. Delinquency and

Crime: Current Theories. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Farrington, David P., Geoffrey Barnes and Sandra Lambert. 1996. “The concentration of

offending in families”. Legal and Criminological Psychology, 1:47-63.

Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI). 2010. The FBI Defines Organized Crime Threats.

Retrieved at http://www.fbi,gov/hq/cid/orgcrime/aboutocs.htm

Fijnaut, Cyrille, Frank Bovenkerk, Gerben Bruinsma and Henk Van de Bunt. 1998. Organized

Crime in the Netherlands. The Hague: Kluwer Law International.

Finkenauer, James O. 2005. “Problems of Definition: What is Organized Crime?” Trends in

Organized Crime, 8(3):63-82.

Finklea, Kristin M. 2010. “Organized Crime in the United States: Trends and Issues for

Congress”. Congressional Research Service (CRS) 7-5700; R40525. Retrieved at

www.crs.gov

Gage, Nicholas. 1970. The Mafia is not an Equal Opportunity Employer. New York: McGraw-

Hill Book Company.

Gottfredson, Michael R. and Travis Herschi. 1990. A General Theory of Crime. Stanford

University Press.

Hagan, Frank E. 1983. “The Organized Crime Continuum: A Further Specification of a New

111

Conceptual Model”. Criminal Justice Review, 8:52–57.

Hemovich, Venessa and William D. Crano. 2011. “Family Structure and Adolescent Drug

Use: An Exploration of Single-Parent Families”. PMC Publishing. Retrieved at

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3075408/

Henry, Bill, Terrie Moffitt, Avshalom Caspi, John Langley and Phil A. Silva. 1994. “On the

„Remembrance of Things Past‟: A Longitudinal Evaluation of the Retrospective

Method”. Psychological Assessment, 6:92-101.

Jack-Roller, The, and Jon Snodgrass. 1982. The Jack-Roller at Seventy: A Fifty Year Follow

Up. Lexington, Massachusetts: Lexington Books.

Jefferey, Ray C. 1990. Criminology. New Jersey: Prentice Hall.

Johnson, Michael P. 1991. “Commitment to Personal Relationships”. Pp. 118-125 in Advances in

Personal Relationships. Vol. 3. Edited by Williams Jones and Dan Perlman. London:

Jessica Kingsley.

Kleemans, Edward R. and Christianne J. De Poot. 2008. “Criminal Careers in Organized Crime

and Social Opportunity Structure”. European Journal of Criminology, 5:69-98.

Kleemans, Edward R. and Hank G. Van de Bunt. 1999. “The social embeddedness of organized

crime”. Transnational Organized Crime, 5:19-36.

Klerks, Peter. 2001. “The Network Paradigm Applied to Criminal Organization: Theoretical

nitpicking or a relevant doctrine for investigators? Recent developments in the

Netherlands”. Connections, 24(3):53-65.

Laub, John H. and Robert J. Sampson. 2003. Shared Beginnings, Divergent lives: Delinquent

boys to age 70, Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.

Mafia Mob. 2012. Retrieved http://www.mafiamob.com/history.htm#l.

112

Meier, Robert F. 1998. “Perspectives on the Concept of Social Control”. Annual Review of

Sociology, 8:35-55.

Moffitt, Terrie. 1993. “Adolescent limited and Life-Course-Persistent Anti-Social Behavior: A

Developmental Taxonomy”. Psychological Review, 100:674-700.

Pearson, Geoffrey and Dick Hobbs. 2001. Middle Market Drug Distribution. Home Office

Research Study Development and Statistical Directorate #227.

Prus, Robert and Styllianoss Irini. 1980. Hookers, Rounders and Desk Clerks. Toronto: Gage.

Sampson, Robert J. and John H. Laub. 1993. Crime in the Making: Pathways and Turning Points

through Life. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.

Scheper-Hughes, Nancy. 2004. “Parts Unknown: Undercover Ethnography of the Organ-

Trafficking Underworld”. Ethnography, 5:29-41.

Servadio, Gaia. 1976. Mafioso: A History of the Mafia from Its Origins to the Present Day. New

York: Stein and Day Publishers.

Skinner, B. F. 1953. Science and Human Behavior. New York: Macmillan.

Steffensmeier, Darrell. 1983. “Organization Properties and Sex-Segregation in the Underworld:

Building a Sociological Theory of Sex Differences in Crime”. Social Forces, 6:1010-

1032.

Steffensmeier, Darrell. 1986. The Fence: In the Shadows of Two Worlds. Totowa, New Jersey:

Rowman and Littlefield.

Steffensmeier, Darrell and Jeffery T. Ulmer. 2005. Confessions of a Dying Thief: Understanding

Criminal Careers and Illegal Enterprise. New Brunswick, New Jersey: Aldine

Transaction.

Sutherland, Edwin H. 1937. The Professional Thief. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

113

Sutherland, Edwin H. 1939. The Principles of Criminology, Third Edition. Philadelphia: J.B.

Lippincott.

Sutherland, Edwin H. 1947. The Principles of Criminology, Fourth Edition. Philadelphia: J.B.

Lippincott.

Sutherland, Edwin H. 1949. “White Collar Criminality”. American Sociological Review, 5:1-12.

Tarde, Gabriel. 1912. Penal Philosophy. Translated by R. Howell. Boston, Massachusetts: Little

Brown.

Talese, Gay. 1971. Honor Thy Father. New York: World.

Task Force on Organized Crime. 1967. Organized Crime. Washington D.C.: Government

Printing Office.

Tittle, Charles R., Olena Antonaccio and Ekaterina Botchkovar. 2012. “Social Learning,

Reinforcement and Crime: Evidence from Three European Cities”. Social Forces,

90(3):863-890.

Turner, John C., Naomi Ellemers, Russell Spears and Bertjan Doosje. 1998. "Some current

issues in research on social identity and self-categorization theories". Social identity. 6-

34.

United States Congress, House Government Operations, Legal and Monetary Affairs. 1968.

Federal Effort against Organized Crime: Report of Agency Operations. Committee Print,

90th Congress, Second Session.

United States Congress. Senate Committee on Government Operations. 1963. Organized Crime

and Illicit Traffic in Narcotics, Hearings before the Permanent Subcommittee on

Investigations. United States Senate. 88th Congress, 1st Session.

114

University of Michigan [UMICH]. 2012. History of the Mafia. Retrieved at

www.umich.edu/themafia/RevisedHistory.htm

Volkman, Ernest. 1998. Gangbusters: The Destruction of America’s Last Great Mafia Dynasty.

Avon Books Inc.

Warr, Mark. 1993. “Age, Peers and Delinquency”. Criminology, 31:17–40.

Winfree, Thomas L. Jr., Teresa Vigil-Backstrom and Larry G. Mays. 1994. “Social learning

theory, self-reported delinquency and youth gangs: a new twist on general theory of

crime and delinquency”. Youth and Society, 26:147-177.

115

END NOTES

i The most prevalent organized crime groups that are currently operating in the US come from

Africa, the Middle East, Italy, and Russia (Federal Bureau of Investigations 2010).

Africa, the Middle East, Italy and Russia (FBI 2010). ii There are currently, four main Italian organized crime groups operating in the US; the Sicilian mafia, from which La Costra Nostra was birthed or transplanted (there is some debate over this point), the Neapolitan mafia, the Ndrangheta, and the Unite Sacred Crown. iii For a comprehensive tutorial on the roots of La Cosa Nostra, what the phrase means, and how it should be used see Albini (1971). iv The Sicilian Vespers were Sicilian freedom fighters during the French occupation (see Albini

1971 and Servadio 1976). v The numbers lottery was a lottery similar to what we have today (i.e. persons picked a set of numbers and if their numbers came up, they would win the day‟s lottery). There were some differences. Rather than the random generation of numbers, which we see in today‟s lottery, the numbers lottery numbers were tied to the day‟s horse race winners at the Belmont race track in

New York. The winning lottery numbers corresponded with horse race winners and the winner of each race‟s number. For example, if the winner‟s number of the first horse race was nine, then nine was the first winning number of lottery. vi Talese claims that within his presentation, Maranzano declared that “the individual gangs would be commanded by a capo, or boss, under whom would be an underboss. Beneath the underboss would be caporegime, lieutenants who would supervise the squads of soldiers. Each unit would be known as a family and would operate within prescribed territorial areas. Over all, the family bosses would be a capo di tutti capi, a boss of all bosses” (1971: 191).

116

vii The norms that seem to have guided the Mafusu include a Sicilian xenophobia, a complete distrust in government authority, the development and reliance on an underground economy, and the idealization and canonizing of thieves and murderers. viii spent 30 years working within the . He eventually became a police informant (see Albini 1971). ix It should be noted that Winfree et al (1994) looked at the social learning process within a semi structured organization (i.e. street gang). x The definition of extortion is “the obtaining of property from another induced by wrongful use of actual or threatened force, violence or fear or under color of official right” (Black et al 1983).

117