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MAFIA BROTHERHOODS
STUDIES IN CRIME AND PUBLIC POLICY
Michael Tonry and Norval Morris, General Editors
ITALIAN STYLE
Letizia Paoli
1
2003
1
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Printed in the United States of America
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for Michel and Maddalena
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Preface to the American Edition
he main aim of this book is to reconstruct the culture, structure, and action
T of the Sicilian Cosa Nostra and the Calabrian ’Ndrangheta. Not only are
these Italy’s most dangerous criminal organizations, but they have also profoundly
influenced the mafia phenomenon in North America. It was from the Sicilian Cosa
Nostra’s nineteenth-century forerunners that the Italian American mafia developed,
as millions of Italian immigrants settled in the United States, most of them com-
ing from southern Italy. Significantly, the largest and most influential Italian Amer-
ican mafia confederation is called Cosa Nostra as well. The Calabrian ’Ndrangheta
also has offshoots in the Anglo-Saxon world. In the early twentieth century,
’Ndrangheta groups were established in both Canada and Australia, and these are
still active now, maintaining close contacts with their Calabrian counterparts.
In order to depict the culture, structure, and action of these organized crime
groups, I consulted numerous sources, ranging from criminal cases to parliamen-
tary hearings, from archival and other standard secondary sources to interviews
with law enforcement officials, local politicians, and anti-mafia activists. The por-
trait given in this book, however, relies most heavily on the confessions and testi-
monies of former mafia members now cooperating with judicial authorities. As
my introduction explains, these statements have not been accepted uncritically but
have been taken seriously even when they seem to contradict the evil activities in
which most mafiosi engage. Cooperating mafia witnesses are, in fact, the most di-
rect source of information about the mafia, describing the mafia world not only
from the outside but also—as one defector put it—from within.
The picture emerging from the analysis of mafia witnesses’ statements supple-
ments and amends previous interpretations of the mafia in both Italy and the United
States. This will be presented in its entirety in the following pages. Here it suffices
to say that Italy’s mafia associations cannot be reduced to any of the most common
forms of sociability in the contemporary world: they are not mere blood families, nor
are they bureaucracies or enterprises. Cosa Nostra and the ’Ndrangheta are confed-
erations of mafia groups, which are called families by their members but are distinct
from the mafiosi’s blood families. Though consanguineous ties are sometimes very
important, especially in the Calabrian ’Ndrangheta, the bond uniting a mafia family
has a fictive, ritual nature and is reestablished with the ceremony of initiation of each
new member. Since mafiosi are required to regard their associates as brothers, mafia
families are—at least prescriptively, if not always effectively—brotherhoods. They
are, in particular, male fraternities, as women are excluded from participation.
As a nineteenth-century observer noted of Cosa Nostra’s forerunners, “Mu-
tual assistance was the basis of these associations, which were usually known as so-
cieties of mutual aid” (Cutrera [1900] 1988: 125). Unlike legitimate fraternal in-
surance companies, the members of a mafia family promise to help each other
even in crimes and must be ready to use violence if the group requests it. No
means are excluded, nor are the concrete goals and functions of mafia action pre-
determined or fixed over time. Since the consolidation of mafia groups in the late
nineteenth century, brotherhood ties have been exploited by mafia members —
and particularly by their chiefs—for the achievement of a wide variety of collec-
tive and personal goals. Though economic enrichment has become more and more
important in recent decades, it has never been—nor is it now—the exclusive or
even the main goal of southern Italian mafia families. Founded on a premodern
bond, these organizations are functionally diffuse and have remained so up to the
present. Because of their use of violence, they have had to protect themselves from
state repression with increasing degrees of secrecy and have thus never partici-
pated in the process of functional differentiation that has invested Western soci-
eties from the nineteenth century onward.
Although mafia families have often been considered business enterprises, one
of their key and long-underassessed functions has always been the exercise of a
political dominion over the communities in which they are settled. By providing
security and protection, they have often substituted themselves for the Italian
state, at the same time preventing the government’s effective consolidation in large
portions of the Italian South.
Brotherhood ties and multifunctionality—including the claim to exert a po-
litical dominion—are the main typifying characteristics of the Sicilian Cosa Nos-
tra and the Calabrian ’Ndrangheta, the two most powerful Italian mafia associa-
tions. As we will see in the following pages, these traits are at the same time the
source of their lasting success and of their most recent difficulties.
his book is a further working of the Ph.D. thesis I defended in June 1997 at
T the Department of Social and Political Sciences of the European University
Institute (EUI) in Florence (“The Pledge to Secrecy: Culture, Structure and Action
of Mafia Associations”). A first revised and updated version of my dissertation was
published in Italian in 2000 by Il Mulino under the title Fratelli di Mafia: Cosa Nostra
and ’Ndrangheta. In the following years, I wrote the current English manuscript, fur-
ther updating and refining my analysis of the Italian mafia phenomenon.
During the long gestation of this volume, I benefited from the help and sup-
port of a large number of people. In a sort of chronological order, I would like
first of all to thank Prof. Pino Arlacchi (Università di Sassari). His influence on
my work has been profound since the end of the 1980s, when I first attended his
seminars in the Department of Political Sciences at the University of Florence.
Since then he has consistently communicated his deep passion for and interest in
the study of the mafia and illicit economies, inspiring my own fascination with
these areas, culminating in this book.
Together with Arlacchi I served for about three years (1992–1995) as a con-
sultant to the Direzione Investigativa Antimafia (DIA), a police agency of the Ital-
ian Ministry of the Interior that specializes in the fight against organized crime.
Among other duties, I was in charge of writing the annual reports on organized
crime in Italy, which were presented to the Italian parliament by the Ministry of
the Interior. This was an invaluable experience, since it gave me the chance to lis-
ten to and closely analyze the “voices” inside the mafia world. There are too many
people to whom I am grateful at the Direzione Investigativa Antimafia to be men-
tioned by name. Extending my thanks to all those who helped me, I would par-
ticularly like to mention Prefect Gianni De Gennaro, the current chief of the Ital-
ian police; General of the Carabinieri Luigi Magliuolo, who, as head of the DIA
Preventive Investigations Department, was my direct contact person and was al-
ways very cooperative and affable; and Colonel of the Carabinieri Angiolo Pelle-
grini. Being at the time head of the DIA Reggio Calabria Operative Center, Pel-
legrini was a most generous host and an authoritative guide in the meanders of the
Calabrian ’Ndrangheta and helped me contact prosecutors and judges and collect
criminal cases. My deep gratitude also goes to Anna Maria Romano and Alessan-
dro Pelliccia, my closest assistants in those years, who were not only very efficient
in retrieving judicial, police, and other official documents but also instrumental in
creating a pleasant and friendly working atmosphere.
Notwithstanding their busy schedules, many prosecutors and judges of the
Direzione Nazionale Antimafia (DNA) and the courts and prosecutor’s offices of
several Italian cities found the time to answer my questions and explain the past
and current development of the different forms of crime that they had targeted.
While they are too numerous to be listed one by one, I would like to thank them
all for the time they gave me and the information they shared with me.
A special mention is due to several current and former members of the Di-
rezione Distrettuale Antimafia (DDA) of the Palermitan prosecutor’s office, who
were extremely cooperative in securing my access to criminal cases and shared
their analyses of Cosa Nostra with me: Dr. Ignazio De Francisci (the current
chief prosecutor at the Agrigento Court), Dr. Antonio Ingroia, Dr. Guido Lo
Forte (adjunct chief prosecutor in Palermo), Dr. Giancarlo Caselli (former chief
prosecutor in Palermo, now prosecutor general at the Turin Court of Appeals),
Dr. Piero Grasso (the current chief prosecutor in Palermo) and Dr. Alfonso
Sabella. My deepest thanks also goes to Dr. Salvatore Boemi, the adjunct chief
prosecutor and head of the Direzione Distrettuale Antimafia in Reggio Calabria,
and to Dr. Vincenzo Macrì, prosecutor at the DNA, for their precious help but
even more so for their civil courage and determination in the repression of the
Calabrian ‘Ndrangheta, a criminal organization that is still too often under-
assessed by the national government and public opinion alike.
Closing the list of my sources, I would finally like to thank all the activists
of grassroots anti-mafia movements, journalists, mayors and members of the local
governments, priests, and ordinary people who allowed me to interview them.
Gratitude, admiration, and friendship now inspire my relationship with some of
these courageous representatives of the civil society, in particular Pippo Cipriani
and Dr. Maria Maniscalco, the former mayors of (respectively) Corleone and San
Giuseppe Jato, and Dr. Augusto Cavadi, a Palermitan anti-mafia activist.
acknowledgments
x
This book would be very different if Prof. Bernhard Giesen (University of
Constance and Yale) had not been the supervisor of my Ph.D. thesis at the Eu-
ropean University Institute. Since 1994, when we first met, his suggestions and
criticism have been invaluable in helping me select useful theoretical tools with
which to analyze the empirical material gathered in the previous years. I am also
grateful to the late Prof. Susan Strange, my cosupervisor, whose occasionally sharp
criticism was very helpful in clarifying my arguments and focusing my research.
I would also like to thank the numerous scholars who discussed my research
hypotheses and read parts of or the whole text. Prof. Shmuel Eisenstadt (Hebrew
University of Jerusalem), Prof. Henner Hess (Universität Frankfurt), Prof. Nor-
val Morris (University of Chicago), and Dr. Umberto Santino (Centro Impastato,
Palermo), as well as Profs. Jane and Peter Schneider (City University and Fordham
University, New York), read my whole dissertation and offered most useful com-
ments and suggestions. Prof. Thomas Hauschild (Universität Tübingen) and
Prof. Fedele Ruggeri (Università di Pisa) commented on my analysis of mafia cul-
ture; Prof. Paolo Pezzino (Università di Pisa) competently reviewed my account
of nineteenth-century mafia groups and manifestations; Prof. Gianfranco Poggi
(Università di Trento), a member of my thesis defense jury, gave me precious hints
on the political dimension of mafia associations; Prof. Peter Reuter (University
of Maryland and RAND) insightfully commented on the chapters concerning
the organization and multifunctional nature of Southern Italian mafia consortia;
Prof. Francis Snyder (Université d’Aix–Marseille III), at the time a professor of
law at the European University Institute, advised me and encouraged me in my an-
thropological analysis of mafia legal orders.
I also had most productive discussions with Prof. Claus Eder (Freie Univer-
sität Berlin); Prof. Alois Hahn (Universität Trier); Prof. Hans-Jürgen Kerner
(Universität Tübingen), who hosted me at his Institute of Criminology in 1997;
Prof. Alessandro Pizzorno (European University Institute, Florence); Prof. Vin-
cenzo Ruggiero (Middlesex University, London); Prof. Louise Shelley (American
University, Washington, D.C.); Prof. Arpad Szakolczai (University of Ireland);
and Prof. Michael Tonry (Cambridge University). Dr. Paola Monzini (United
Nations Interregional Crime and Justice Research Institute and Gruppo Abele,
Turin), a friend and a former colleague of mine at the European University In-
stitute, intensively discussed with me my research hypotheses. Encouragement and
support were also given me by another friend and former colleague, Dr. Anja
Hänsch (Universität Göttingen): thanks to her knowledge of both the Italian and
German university systems and mentalities she helped me learn how to profit from
both cultural traditions.
The drafting of this volume took place mainly at the Max Planck Institute
for Foreign and International Criminal Law, in Freiburg, Germany, where I have
been working since 1998. It is here, in the Department of Criminology headed by
acknowledgments
xi
Hans-Jörg Albrecht, that I believe I have gained the kind of distance and per-
spective necessary to single out the essential characteristics of the two main Ital-
ian mafia associations. Many thanks are thus due to Prof. Albrecht for both the
stimulating effect of the new research projects he entrusted me and for granting
me the time to distill my analysis of the mafia.
Special gratitude goes to Nicky Owtram, lecturer at the European Univer-
sity Institute, who accurately revised the current manuscript and transformed my
English into a correct and easily readable text, and to Brigitte Schwab, the head
of the EUI Publications and Alumni Office, which granted me the funds to fi-
nance the manuscript revision. I am indebted to my assistant, Irina Mirimovitsch,
who helped me create the name and subject indexes, and to Dedi Felman, Christi
Stanforth, and Jennifer Rappaport at Oxford University Press for their competent
and friendly editorial support. I am also very grateful to Prefect Alessandro Pansa,
who provided me with valuable pictures from the archives of the Italian police,
and to Letizia Battaglia, who has been fighting the mafia in Palermo with the sole
but uncompromising weapons of her camera and civil courage for over the past
thirty years and allowed me to publish her beautiful, dramatic photos (Battaglia
1999).
Last but not least, I would like to thank the late Tommaso Buscetta, the first
and possibly most important of contemporary mafia defectors, who showed me
his trust by meeting me and discussing his life in the Sicilian Cosa Nostra.
In different ways, many of the people to whom I owe my gratitude have de-
voted their lives to the fight for justice against the mafia. I hope that—by improv-
ing our understanding of the Southern Italian mafia phenomenon — my book
may contribute to their endeavor.
acknowledgments
xii
Contents
Introduction 3
The Italian and American Mafia: A Comparison 3
The Italian Mafia: A New Paradigm 13
Conclusions 220
Notes 229
References 245
contents
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