differentiate such offenders from "real criminals" in the way he differentiates traffic offenders from "real criminals." 9 We do not argue that such "mom and pop" kind of pandering to the demands of the community is necessarily insidious, though by no means do we condone it. What is insidious is the fact that the providers cannot be individual entrepeneurs for long. The nature of their business is such, as we will show later, that they must join hands with others in the same business. Nowadays, moreover, free enterprise does not exist in the field of illicit services and goods-any "mom and pop" kind of small business soon takes in, voluntarily or involuntarily, a confederation man as a partner. By joining hands, the suppliers (a) cut costs, improve their markets, and pool capital, (b) gain monopolies on certain of the illicit services or on all of the illicit services provided in a specific geographic area, whether it be a neighborhood or a large city, (c) centralize the procedures for stimulating the agencies of law enforcement and administration of justice to overlook the illegal operations, and (d) accumulate vast wealth which can be used to attain even wider monopolies on illicit activities, and on legal businesses as well. In the long run, then, the "small operation" corrupts the traditional economic and political procedures designed to insure that citizens need not pay tribute to a criminal in order to conduct a legitimate business. The demand, and the profits, are too great to be left in the hands of "mom and pop" operators. As the Kefauver Committee reported about the demand for gambling services, "The creeping paralysis of law enforcement which results from a failure to enforce gambling laws, contributes in dealing with employees or competitors. If their firms crime." 10 Being outlawed, the big illicit businesses which have grown up to meet the demands of the public cannot be regulated by law. The executives of illicit firms cannot call upon legitimate government for help or protection in dealing with employees or competitors. If their firms are to survive, they must devise substitutes for the services ordinarily provided by government. The leaders of the American confederation have devised these substitutes, and in doing so they have transformed their business organization into an illicit government. Enforcing "the law" of this private government involves further violation of our criminal laws, and not just the laws outlawing the sale of illicit goods and services. Crimes of violence are committed for the purpose of maintaining "legal" order in the illicit government which is the confederation. The wealth acquired from millions of two-dollar bets made daily with what might appear to be "mom and pop" bookies is protected by perpetration of the most horrendous crimes known to man. The wealth thus protected and the coercive power amassed to protect it are then used to corrupt the very legal and economic order which gives the two-dollar bettors their freedom. The potential danger of an illicit government in the United States can be observed by examining the control the Mafia exercises in western Sicily. This illict government originated in peasant communities, where face-to "It is somewhat startling to learn that the syndicates are particularly happy with the consolidation of the nine police departments into the Suffolk County Police Department, as they feel that protection is easier to arrange through one agency than through many. The intensive campaign against gamblers instituted by this Department commencing January 1 had the astounding side effect in solving the recruitment problem of the syndicate, as our drive successfully stampeded the independents into the arms of the syndicate for protection, and the syndicate can now pick and choose which operators they wish to admit." Charles R. Thom, Commissioner of Police of Suffolk County, Statement Before It face relations between neighbors predominated. adapted, and continues to adapt, as Sicily becomes more industrialized and urbanized. At first it provided law and order where the official government failed to do so. It collected taxes, which were payments for protection against bandits. In the latter part of the nineteenth century, for example, one Mafia group governed a cluster of eleven mountain villages; the head and his assistants had a private police force of about 130 armed men. The leaders were well-established citizens, landowners and farmers, who supervised all aspects of local life, including agricultural and economic activities, family relations and public administration. Like contemporary rulers of organized crime units in the United States, the despots soon demanded absolute power. No one dared offend the chief's sense of honor. The lines between tax and extortion, and between peace enforcement and murder, became blurred, as they always do under despots. Today, "an overall inventory of Mafia activities leaves no doubt that it is a criminal organization, serving the interests of its membership at the expense of the larger population." " This illicit government has extended its influence from farms and peasant villages to the cities of western Sicily, where it now dominates commerce and government. Sicily has given the Mafia a place. The following three quotations show the extent to which all economic, professional, political and social life is dominated: 11 [In 1961] the mafioso was recognizable too by his uncanny success in everything he touched. The Mafia doctor got all the patients, and could always find a hospital bed in a hurry. The Mafia advocate had all the briefs he could handle, and his clients. usually won their cases. Government contracts always seemed to go to the contractor who was a man of respect, although his tenders were usually the highest and he paid lower wages than the trade union minimum. By tradition, members of the Mafia did not then seek election to Parliament, but everybody knew that the political boss who arranged for candidate's election was mafioso.12 a There are the cattle and pasture Mafie; citrus grove Mafie; water Mafie (who control scarce springs, wells, irrigation canals); building Mafie (if the builder does not pay, his scaffolding collapses and his bricklayers fall to their death); commerce Mafie; public works Mafie (who award contracts); wholesale fruit, vegetable, flower, and fish markets Mafie, and so forth. They all function more or less in the same way. They establish order, they prevent pilfering, each in its own territory, and provide protection from all sorts of threats, including the legal authorities, competitors, criminals, revenue agents, and rival Mafia organizations. They fix prices. They arrange contracts. They can see to it, in an emergency, that violators of their own laws are surely punished with death. This is rarely necessary. the New York State Commission of Investigation on April 22, 1960 (mimeographed), p. 2. 10 Special Committee to Investigate Organized Crime in Interstate Commerce (Kefauver Committee), Third Interim Report, U.S. Senate Report No. 307, 82nd Congress, 1951, p. 37. 11 Robert T. Anderson, "From Mafia to Cosa Nostra," American Journal of Sociology, 61: 302-310, November, 1965. At 304. 12 Norman Lewis, The Honored Society (New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons 1964), p. 84. [By 1945] a great gathering of vulturine chiefs had collected to wet their beaks at the expense of farmers, whose produce they bought dirt cheap on the spot and carried to market in the Mafia's own beautifully decorated carts or later, trucks. In the market only those whose place had been "guaranteed" by the Mafia were allowed to buy or sell at prices the Mafia fixed. The Mafia wetted its beak in the meat, fish, beer, and fruit businesses. It moved into the sulphur mines, controlled the output of rock salt, took over building contracts, "organized labor," cornered the plots in Sicily's cemeteries, put tobacco smuggling on a new and profitable basis through its domination of the Sicilian fishing fleets, and went in for tomb robbing in the ruins of the Greek settlement of Selimunte... The Mafia gave monopolies to shopkeepers in different trades and then invited them to put up their prices-at the same time, of course, creasing their Mafia contribution... The most obvious of the Mafia's criminal functions-and one that had been noted by the Bourbon attorney general back in the twenties of the last century-now became the normally accepted thing. The Mafia virtually replaced the police force, offering a form of arrangement with crime as a substitute for its suppression. When a theft, for instance, took place, whether of a mule, a jeweled pendant, or a motorcar, a Mafia intermediary was soon on the scene, offering reasonable terms for the recovery of the stolen object. . The Mafia intermediary, of course, wetted his beak at the expense of both parties. The situation was and is an everyday one in Sicily.1+ in The public demand for protection against Sicilian bandits, and for other services not provided by the established government, created an illicit government which, in the long run, exploited all its members and the very public that created it. The American demand for illicit goods and services has created an illicit government. DETERMINANTS OF NATIONAL AND LOCAL STRUCTURES The structure of the nationwide cartel and confederation which today operates the principal illicit businesses in America, and which is now striking at the foundations of legitimate business and government as well, came into being in 1931. Further, even the skeleton structure of the local units of the confederation, the "families" controlling illicit businesses in various metropolitan areas, came into being in 1931. These structures resemble the national and local structures of the Italian-Sicilian Mafia, but our organization is not merely the old world Mafia transplanted. The social, economic and political condi 13 Luigi Barzini, The Italians (New York: Atheneum 1964), pp. 259–260. tions of Sicily determined the shape of the Sicilian Mafia, and the social, economic and political conditions of the United States determined the shape of the American confederation. To use an analogy with legitimate business, in 1931 organized crime units across the United States formed into monopolistic corporations, and these corporations, in turn, linked themselves together in a monopolistic cartel. To use a political analogy, in 1931 the local units formed into feudal governments, and the rulers of these governments linked themselves together in a nation-wide confederation which itself constitutes a government. Feudalism was the system of political organization prevailing in Europe from the ninth to the fifteenth centuries. Basically agricultural, the system meant that a vassal held land belonging to a lord on condition of homage and service under arms. The servant deferred to the lord and in other ways paid homage to him; the lord, in turn, protected the servant. The system was "hereditary" in the sense that the lord had custody of the heirs' property. The structure of the Sicilian Mafia resembles that of ancient feudal kingdoms, and the Mafia probably is a lineal descendant of feudalism. The structure of the American confederation of crime resembles feudalism also, as it resembles the structure of the Sicilian Mafia. Like feudal lords and Sicilian Mafia chieftains, the rulers of American, geographically-based, "families" of criminals derive their authority from tradition in the form of homage and "respect." They allocate territory and a kind of license to do business in return for this homage. Nevertheless, the feudal local governments formed in 1931, and the confederation between them, are American innovations. Certain American criminals, law-enforcement officials, political figures, and plain citizens have known from the beginning that a nation-wide confederation was established in 1931. Some of them have denied the existence of the apparatus because they are members of it. Others have for over thirty years been trying to convince the American public that the nation-wide apparatus does in fact exist. We shall quote three such attempts to convince, occurring about a decade apart. In a series of articles appearing in 1939, the former attorney for an illicit New York organization, a man who had occupied a position of "corrupter" for the organization, but who later testified for the State, observed that a nation-wide alliance between criminal businesses in the United States was in operation. This was not the first time such an allegation was made, but it dramatically foreshadowed statements which have been made in more recent years. We quote at some length because we will later discuss the gangland war resulting in centralization of control: When I speak of the underworld now, I mean something far bigger than the Schultz mob. The Dutchman was one of the last independent barons to hold out against a general centralization of control which had been going on ever since Charlie Lucky 14 Lewis, op. cit., supra note 12, pp. 43-45. became leader of the Unione Siciliani in 1931 The "greasers" in the Unione were killed off, and the organization was no longer a loose, fraternal order of Sicilian blackhanders and alcohol cookers, but rather the framework for a system of alliances which were to govern the underworld. In Chicago, for instance, the Unione no longer fought the Capone mob, but pooled strength and worked with it. A man no longer had to be a Sicilian to be in the Unione. Into its highest councils came such men as Meyer Lansky and Bugs Siegel, leaders of a tremendously powerful mob, who were personal partners in the alcohol business with Lucky and Joe Adonis of Brooklyn. Originally the Unione had been a secret but legitimate fraternal organization, with chapters in various cities where there were Sicilian colonies. Some of them were operated openly, like any lodge. But it fell into the control of the criminal element, the Mafia, and with the coming of prohibition, which turned thousands of law-abiding Sicilians into bootleggers, alcohol cookers and vassals of warring mobs, it changed. It still numbers among its members many old-time Sicilians who are not gangsters, but anybody who goes into it today is a mobster, and an important one. In New York City the organization is split up territorially into districts, each led by a minor boss, known as the 'compare,' or godfather. . . I know that throughout the underworld the Unione Siciliana is accepted as a mysterious, all-pervasive reality, and that Lucky used it as the vehicle by which the underworld was drawn into co-operation on a national scale.15 More than a decade after this statement appeared in a popular magazine of the time, many members of the public (and some law enforcement officers) still had no notion that an illicit cartel performed some types of crime across the nation. If they heard of "the Mafia,” or “the syndicate," or "the outfit," or "the mob," they did not believe what they heard, or did not believe in its importance. They were shocked when in 1951 the Kefauver Committee was able to draw the following four conclusions from the testimony of the many witnesses who had appeared before it. (1) There is a Nation-wide crime syndicate known as the Mafia, whose tentacles are found in many large cities. It has international ramifications which appear most clearly in connection with the narcotics traffic. (2) Its leaders are usually found in control of the most lucrative rackets in their cities. (3) There are indications of a centralized direction and control of these rackets, but leadership appears to be in a group rather than in a single individual. (4) The Mafia is the cement that helps to bind the Costello-Adonis-Lansky syndicate of New York and the Accardo-Guzik-Fischetti syndicate of Chi 15 J. Richard Davis, "Things I Couldn't Tell Till Now," Collier's, July 22, July 29, August 5, August 12, August 19, and August 26, 1939. The quote is from pp. 35-36 of the August 19th issue. 16 Third Interim Report, op. cit., supra note 10, p. 150. See also Sid Feder and Burton B. Turkus, Murder, Inc. (New York: Permabooks, 1952), pp. 86-115. cago as well as smaller criminal gangs and individual criminals throughout the country. These groups have kept in touch with (Lucky) Luciano since his deportation from this country. 16 99 17 In the next decade, investigating bodies were able to overcome some of the handicaps of the Kefauver Committee, which "found it difficult to obtain reliable data concerning the extent of Mafia operation, the nature of Mafia organization, and the way it presently operates. While all such handicaps will not be overcome for some years to come, there no longer is any doubt that several regional organizations, rationally constructed for the control of the sale of illicit goods and services, are in operation. Neither is there any doubt that these regional organizations are linked together in a nation-wide cartel and confederation. In 1957 about seventy-five of the nation's leading illicit businessmen were discovered at a meeting in Apalachin, New York. They came from all parts of the country, and most of them had criminal records relating to the kind of offense customarily called "organized crime." Beside their illicit businesses, at least nine of them were in the coin-machine business; 16 were in the garment industry; 10 owned grocery stores; 17 owned bars or restaurants; 11 were in the olive oil and cheese importing business; nine were in the construction business. Others were involved in automobile agencies, coal companies, entertainment, funeral homes, ownership of horses and race tracks, linen and laundry enterprises, trucking, waterfront activities and bakeries. 18 No one has been able to prove the nature of the conspiracy involved, but no one believes that the men all just happened to drop in on the host at the same time. Two of the men attending the meeting had met at a somewhat similar meeting of criminals in Cleveland in 1928. The discovery of the Apalachin conference convinced many officials: that a nation-wide apparatus does in fact exist and that law-enforcement intelligence is inadequate; that the procedures for studying the organization controlling the sale of illicit goods and services in the United States, and governing the lives of the participants, are inadequate; and that the procedures for disseminating hard facts about organized crime to law-enforcement agencies and the public are inadequate. One response to the discovery of the Apalachin meeting was increased investigative action by the U.S. Attorney General, the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Internal Revenue Service, and several state and local agencies. In 1960 there were 17 attorneys in the Organized Crime and Racketeering Section of the United States Department of Justice; in 1963 there were 60. Beginning in about 1961 the investigating agencies began to receive information about the existence of the criminal confederation now commonly labelled "Cosa Nostra," a large-scale criminal organization complete with a board of directors and a hierarchial structure extending down to the street level of criminal activity. The McClellan Committee and a nation-wide television audience in 1963 heard Mr. Joseph Valachi, an active member of the confederation, describe the skeleton of the 17 Id. at p. 149. 18 Select Committee on Improper Activities in the Labor or Management Field, Final Report, U.S. Senate Report No. 1139, 86th Congress, 1960, pp. 487-488. structure of the organization, its operations, and its membership. These data, and supplementary data, enabled Senator (then Attorney General) Kennedy to testify as follows before the Committee: Because of intelligence gathered from Joseph Valachi and from informants we know that Cosa Nostra is run by a commission and that the leaders of Cosa Nostra in most major cities are responsible to the commission. We know that membership in the commission varies between 9 and 12 active members and we know who the active members of the commission are today. We know, for example, that in the past two years, at least three carefully planned commission meetings had to be called off because the leaders learned that we had uncovered their well-concealed plans and meeting places. We know that the commission makes major policy decisions for the organization, settles disputes among the families and allocates territories of criminal operations within the organization. For example, we now know that the meeting at Apalachin was called by a leading racketeer in an effort to resolve the problem created by the murder of Albert Anastasia. The racketeer was concerned that Anastasia had brought too many individuals not worthy of membership into the organization. To insure the security of the organization, the racketeer wanted these men removed. Of particular concern to this racketeer was that he had violated commission rules in causing the assault, the attempted assassination of Frank Costello, deposed New York rackets boss, and the murder of Anastasia. He wanted commission approval for these acts-which he received. We know that the commission now has before it the question of whether to intercede in the GalloProfaci family gangland war in New York. Gang wars produce factionalism, and continued factionalism in the underworld produces sources of information to law enforcement. Indications are that the gangland leaders will resolve the Gallo-Profaci fight. Such intelligence is important not only because it can help us know what to watch for, but because of the assistance it can provide in developing and prosecuting specific cases .. Thus we have been able to make inroads into the hierarchy, personnel, and operations of organized crime. It would be a serious mistake, however, to over-estimate the progress Federal and local law enforcement has made. A principal lesson provided by the disclosures of Joseph Valachi and other informants is that the job ahead is very large and very difficult.19 Now, three years later, and almost ten years since the Apalachin meeting, the job ahead is still "very large and very difficult." While law-enforcement officials now have detailed information about the criminal activities of individual men of Italian and Sicilian descent, and 19 Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations of the Committee on Government Operations (McClellan Committee), Organized Crime and Illicit Traffic in Narcotics, Part I, 1963, pp. 6-8. others, who are participating in illicit businesses and illicit governments, knowledge of the structure of their confederation remains fragmentary and impressionistic. Since the time of the Apalachin meeting, and especially since the McClellan Committee hearings, law-enforcement officers have shown conclusively that "families” of criminals of Italian and Sicilian descent either operate or control the operation of most of the illicit businesses— including gambling, usury, and the wholesaling of narcotics-in large American cities, and that these "families" are linked together in a nation-wide cartel and confederation. Nevertheless, some officials, and some plain citizens, remain unconvinced. THE STRUCTURAL SKELETON Since the McClellan Committee hearings, there has been a tendency to label the nation-wide cartel and confederation "Cosa Nostra" and then to identify what is known about its division of labor as the structure of "organized crime" in America. This tendency might be responsible for some of the misplaced skepticism about whether a dangerous organization exists. In the first place, calling the organization "Cosa Nostra" lets citizens believe that they are safe from organized criminals because their local bookie, lottery operator, or usurer is not of Italian or Sicilian descent. The term directs attention to membership rather than to the power to control and to make alliances. In the second place, using "Cosa Nostra" as a noun implies that the total economic and political structure involved is as readily identifiable as that of some other formal organization, such as the Elk's Lodge, the Los Angeles Police Department, or the Standard Oil Company. This is obviously not the case. We know very little. Our knowledge of the structure which makes "organized crime" organized is somewhat comparable to the knowledge of Standard Oil which could be gleaned from interviews with gasoline station attendants. Detailed knowledge of the formal and informal structures of the confederation of Sicilian-Italian "families" in the United States would represent one of the greatest criminological advances ever made, even if it were universally recognized that this knowledge was not synonymous with knowledge about all organized crime in America. Since we know so little, it is easy to make the assumption that there is nothing to know anything about. But we do know enough about the structure to conclude that it is indeed an organization. When there is a board of directors or governors, a president, a vicepresident, some works managers, foremen and lieutenants, and some workers and plain members, there is an organization. As the former Attorney General's testimony before the McClellan Committee indicated, the highest ruling body in the confederation is the "Commission." This body serves as a combination board of business directors, legislature, supreme court, and arbitration board, but most of its functions are judicial, as we will show later. Members look to the Commission as the ultimate authority on organizational disputes. It is made up of the rulers of the most powerful "families," which are located in large cities. At present, nine of the many such "families" are represented on the Commission. Three of the "families" represented are in New York City, one in Buffalo, one in Newark, one in Boston, and one each in Philadelphia, Detroit, and Chicago. The Commission is not a representative legislative assembly or an elected judicial body"families" in cities such as Baltimore, Dallas, Kansas City, Los Angeles, Pittsburgh, San Francisco, and Tampa do not have members on the Commission. The members of the council do not regard each other as equals. There are informal understandings which give one member authority over another, but the exact pecking order, if there is one, has not been determined. Beneath the Commission are 24 "families," each with its "Boss." The "family" is the most significant level of organization and the largest unit of criminal organization in which allegiance is owed to one man, the Boss. (Italian words often are used interchangeably with each of the English words designating a position in the division of labor. Rather than “Boss,” the words “Il Capo," "Don," and "Rappresentante" are used.) The Boss's primary function is to maintain order while at the same time maximizing profits. Subject to the possibility of being overruled by the Commission, his authority is absolute. He is the final arbiter in all matters relating to his branch of the confederation. Beneath each Boss of at least the larger "families," is an "Underboss" or "Sottocapo." This position is, essentially, that of vice-president and deputy director of the "family" unit. The man occupying the position often collects information for the Boss; he relays messages to him; and he passes his orders down to the men occupying positions below him in the hierarchy. He acts as Boss in the absence of the Boss. On the same level as the Underboss there is a position for a "Counselor" or adviser, referred to as "Consiglieri" or "Consulieri." The person occupying this position is a staff officer rather than a line officer. He is likely to be an elder member who is partially retired after a career in which he did not quite succeed in becoming a Boss. He gives advice to family members, including the Boss and Underboss, and he therefore enjoys considerable influence and power. Also at about the same level as the Underboss is a "Buffer" position. The top members of the "family" hierarchy, particularly the Boss, avoid direct communication with the lower-echelon personnel, the workers. They are insulated from the police. To obtain this insulation, all commands, information, money, and complaints generally flow back and forth through the Buffer, who is a trusted and clever go-between. However, the Buffer does not make decisions or assume any of the authority of his Boss, as the Underboss does. To reach the working level, a Boss usually goes through channels. For example, a Boss's decision on the settlement of a dispute involving the activities of the "runners" (ticket sellers) in a particular lottery game, passes first to his Buffer, then to the next level of rank, which is "Lieutenant" or "Capodecina" or "Caporegima." This position, considered from a business standpoint, is analo gous to works manager or sales manager. The person occupying it is the chief of an operating unit. The term "Lieutenant" gives the position a military flavor. Although "Capodecina" is translated as "head of ten," there apparently is no settled number of men supervised by any given Lieutenant. The number of such leaders in an organization varies with the size of the organization and with the specialized activities in that organization. The Lieutenant usually has one or two associates who work closely with him, serving as messengers and buffers. They carry orders, information, and money back and forth between the Lieutenant and the men belonging to his regime. They do not share the Lieutenant's administrative power. Beneath the Lieutenants there might be one or more "Section Chiefs." Messages and orders received from the Boss's buffer by the Lieutenant or his buffer are passed on to a Section Chief, who also may have a buffer. A Section Chief may be deputy lieutenant. He is in charge of a section of the Lieutenant's operations. In smaller "families," the position of Lieutenant and the position of Section Chief are combined. In general, the larger the regime the stronger the power of the Section Chief. Since it is against the law to consort for criminal purposes, it is advantageous to cut down the number of individuals who are directly responsible to any given line supervisor. About five "Soldiers," "Buttons," or just "members" report to each Section Chief or, if there is no Section Chief position, to a Lieutenant. The number of Soldiers in a "family" varies; some "families" have as many as 250 members, some as few as 20. A Soldier might operate an illicit enterprise for a Boss, on a commission basis, or he might "own" the enterprise and pay homage to the boss for "protection," the right to operate. Partnerships between two or more Soldiers, and between Soldiers and men higher up in the hierarchy, including Bosses, are common. An "enterprise" could be a usury operation, a dice game, a lottery, a bookie operation, a smuggling operation, or a vending machine company. Some Soldiers and most upper-echelon "family" members have interests in more than one business. "Family" membership ends at the Soldier level, and all members are of Italian or Sicilian descent. Between 2,000 and 4,000 men are members of "families" and, hence, of the confederation. But beneath the Soldiers. in the hierarchy of operations are large numbers of employees and commission agents who are not necessarily of Italian-Sicilian descent, although some of them are Italian-Sicilian aspirants. These are the persons carrying on most of the work "on the street." They have no "buffers" or other forms of insulation from the police. They are the relatively unskilled workmen who actually take bets, answer telephones, drive trucks, sell narcotics, etc. In Chicago, for example, the workers in a major lottery business who operated in a Negro neighborhood were Negroes; the bankers for the lottery were JapaneseAmericans; but the game, including the banking operation, was licensed, for a fee, by a "family" member. The entire operation, including the bankers, was more or less a "customer" of the Chicago "family," in the way |