Mafia Brotherhoods: Organized Crime, Italian Style (Studies in Crime and Public Policy)

Secrecy is one of the defining characteristics of the Italian Mafia. Wiretaps, financial records, and the rare informant occasionally reveal its inner workings, but these impressions are all too often spotty and fleeting, hampering serious scholarship on this major form of criminal activity. During her years as a consultant to the Italian government agency responsible for combating organized crime, Letizia Paoli was given unparalleled insider access to the confessions by pentiti (literally, repentants), former Mafia operatives who had turned. This mafia ''''hard core'''' came primarily from the two largest and most influential Southern Italian mafia associations, known as Cosa Nostra and 'Ndrangheta, each composed of about one hundred mafia families. The sheer volume of these confessions, numbering in the hundreds, and the detail they contained, enabled the Italian government to effectively break up the Italian mafia in one of the dramatic law enforcement successes in modern times. It is on these same documents that Paoli draws to provide a clinically accurate portrait of mafia behavior, motivations, and structure. Puncturing academic notions of a modernized Mafia, Paoli argues that to view mafia associations as bureaucracies, illegal enterprises, or an industry specializing in private protection, is overly simplistic and often inaccurate. These conceptions do not adequately describe the range of functions in which the mafia engages, nor do they hint at the mafia's limitations. The mafia, Paoli demonstrates are essentially multifunctional ritual brotherhoods focused above all on retaining and consolidating their local political power base. It is precisely this myopia that has prevented these organizations from developing the skills needed to be a successful and lasting player in the entrepreneurial world of illegal global commerce. A truly interdisciplinary work of history, politics, economics, and sociology, Mafia Brotherhoods reveals in dramatic detail the true face of one of the world's most mythologized criminal organizations. Contents......Page 14 The Italian and American Mafia: A Comparison......Page 18 The Italian Mafia: A New Paradigm......Page 28 1. Mafia Associations and Ruling Bodies......Page 39 Families and Members......Page 41 Historical Background......Page 48 The Ruling Bodies of Single Families......Page 55 The Institutionalization of Superordinate Bodies of Coordination......Page 66 2. Status and Fraternization Contracts......Page 80 Rites of Passage......Page 82 Ritual Brotherhoods......Page 91 Mementos......Page 100 An Idealization of the Mafia Phenomenon?......Page 104 3. Secrecy and Violence......Page 124 Variations in Secrecy......Page 125 The Obligation of Silence......Page 131 The Escalation of Secrecy......Page 137 Alternative Legal Orders......Page 143 Mafia Consortia as Illegal States?......Page 153 4. Multiplicity of Goals and Functions......Page 164 Money versus Power......Page 167 Neither Enterprises . . .......Page 177 . . . Nor States......Page 187 5. Mafia, State, and Society......Page 201 Competition and Complementarity......Page 202 Mafia and Politics in Republican Italy......Page 214 A Difficult Liberation......Page 226 Conclusions......Page 243 Notes......Page 252 References......Page 268 B......Page 298 C......Page 299 D......Page 300 G......Page 301 L......Page 302 M......Page 303 P......Page 304 S......Page 305 Z......Page 306 C......Page 308 D......Page 309 N......Page 310 S......Page 311 V......Page 312 "During her years as a consultant to the Italian government agency responsible for combating organized crime, Letizia Paoli was given unparalleled insider access to the confessions by pentiti (literally, repentants), former mafia operatives who had turned. This mafia "hard core" came primarily from the two largest and most influential Southern Italian mafia associations, known as Cosa Nostra and 'Ndrangheta, each composed of about one hundred mafia families. The sheer volume of these confessions, numbering in the hundreds, and the detail they contained enabled the Italian government to effectively break up the Italian mafia in one of the most dramatic law enforcement successes in modern times. Paoli draws on these same documents to provide a clinically accurate portrait of mafia behavior, motivations, and structure."--Jacket Relying on previously undisclosed confessions of former mafia members now cooperating with the police, Letizia Paoli provides a clinically accurate portrait of mafia behavior, motivations, and structure in Italy. The mafia, Paoli demonstrates, are essentially multifunctional ritual brotherhoods focused above all on retaining and consolidating their local political power base. A truly interdisciplinary work of history, politics, economics, and sociology, Mafia Brotherhoods reveals in dramatic detail the true face of one of the world's most mythologized criminal organizations. Paoli Provides A Clinically Accurate Portrait Of Mafia Behaviour, Motivations And Structure. This Interdisciplinary Work Of History, Politics, Economics And Sociology, Reveals In Detail The True Face Of One Of The World's Most Mythologized Criminal Organizations. Mafia Associations And Ruling Bodies -- Status And Fraternization Contracts -- Secrecy And Violence -- Multiplicity Of Goals And Functions -- Mafia, State, And Society. By Letizia Paoli. Includes Bibliographical References And Index. Argues that to view mafia associations as bureaucracies, illegal enterprises, or an industry specializing in private protection, is overly simplistic and often inaccurate. This book demonstrates that the mafia are essentially multifunctional ritual brotherhoods, focused above all on retaining and consolidating their local political power base. With this statement Tommaso Buscetta began his deposition before the investigating judge (giudice istruttore) Giovanni Falcone on July 21, 1984.