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organized_crime_excellent_cadavers_.pptxOrganized Crime
In Italy:
Background, Significant Events & Effects
Organized crime represents one of the most serious threats to the internal security of Italy.
Common groups are
The Cosa Nostra in Sicily,
The Camorra of Naples, and
The ‘Ndrangheta of Calabria.
Organized crime wields economic, social and political power, thereby having a destructive effect on people and their institutions.
**In areas where the Mafia and other criminal organizations are the strongest, GDP growth rate is the lowest.**
The presence of organized crime has a destructive effect on entrepreneurship.
Background
Why is the presence of Organized Crime so significant in Italy?
Over 13 million Italians live in areas where the Mafia exerts its influence on everyday life
Businesses are expected to pay a ‘pizzo’ (protection money)
There is rarely any possibility of escaping payment.
Individuals who don’t comply find their businesses (and lives!) at risk.
People not able to meet demands might find their business partly or completely taken over by organized crime.
In 2009, $189 billion (135 billion Euros) in revenue and $109 billion (78 billion Euros) in profits were generated by organized crime organizations
Cosa Nostra, ‘Ndrangheta, Camorra’s origins – between 1500 - 1800
Societal need for structure (especially following chaos leading up to
Unification) offered protection where the state could not
“Cosa Nostra” (trans. “Our Thing”)
‘Mafia,’ ‘Mafioso’(trans. Bravado, boldness)
Mafia organizations characterized
by distinct forms of organization,
rituals, behaviors, etc.
A Brief History
Mussolini had almost eradicated the Mafia in the 1930s (through draconian methods of torture and execution).
The Mafia was re-instated in Sicily during WWII by the American Mafia in alliance with the US Armed Forces
-it was thought that its power could be used in the
struggle against the Nazi invasion/occupation.
This re-instatement allowed the Mafia to regain influence through the collection of ‘protection money’ as well as through greater involvement in urban/economic affairs.
The political and social unrest in the late 1960s and 1970s allowed the Mafia to seize the opportunity of becoming an independent force.
It was able to gain control of wholesale market of foods (vegetables, meat, etc.) as well as through cigarette smuggling, real estate, etc.
The Mafia also attempted to acquire a share of the vast resources that the state was sending to the South for economic development. (i.e. public works initiatives)
A Brief History (cont’d.)
The decisive factor in the spread of the Mafia was the drug trade (heroin trafficking).
Because of the Mafia, drug use became a huge problem, bigger even than domestic terror which plagued the country during the 1970s and 1980s.
Enormous profits from these drug deals afforded members of the Mafia much influence. Profits at stake brought about a whole new level of violence.
A Brief History (cont’d.)
Juvenile crime has dramatically increased in the past two decades, coinciding with the Mafia’s recruitment of youth from local gangs.
With unemployment at about 20% in the South, many young people either move North or turn to crime.
“Most Italians are upset with the presence of Mafia in Italy…” (Mignone, 97).
Organized crime has had extremely detrimental effects on Sicilian society and on Italian political life in the 1980s and 1990s.
The Mafia flourished through the beginning of the 1990s, despite overwhelming opposition and outrage of Italians.
The major problem/reason for their being able to flourish was due to the fact that the Mafia “lived” within the walls of government. It had infiltrated (or even controlled) key offices within regional governments
Widespread corruption
Serious attempts have been made by individual citizens to create a civic consciousness of the evils of the Mafia.
Danilo Dolci, Leonardo Sciascia 2 Italian writers
Documentary Excellent Cadavers (2005)
Book by Alexander Stille (1995)
Film by Marco Turco
Discusses the Mafia in Sicily as well as its effects on the country as a whole.
Also focuses on Giovanni Falcone & Paolo Borsellino – two anti-Mafia prosecutors who were assassinated by the Mafia
In 1992, a massive bomb explosion on the highway to the airport to Palermo killed Judge Giovanni Falcone, his wife, and three body guards.
Judge Falcone’s friend and colleague, Paolo Borsellino, and five members of his police escort were killed 57 days later by a bomb that the mafia planted near the home of Borsellino’s mother in Palermo.
Former mafia boss Salvatore Riina, who ordered the attacks, was arrested months later and is serving a life sentence. Other members of the Mafia involved in the assassinations have been brought to justice.
Before their deaths, Falcone and Borsellino helped to bring about the convictions of hundreds of Mafia ‘soldiers’ and ‘bosses’ in the unprecedented “maxi-trial” of the mid 1980s.
Falcone and Borsellino stand out for their honesty, discipline and professionalism. They ( as well as some of their colleagues that we are introduced to in the documentary) represent the possibility of a rational, modern approach to law and civic life.
Their attempts to fight the influence of the Mafia – and to curb violence that in the early 1980s was claiming three lives a week in Palermo – were often obstructed by longstanding traditions of red tape and outright corruption (as we will see in the documentary).
What exactly are ‘Excellent Cadavers?’
Excellent Cadavers is “a term used in Sicily to distinguish the assassination of prominent government officials from the hundreds of common criminals and ordinary citizens killed in the course of routine mafia business” (Stille, p. 6).
“The extent of mafia control of daily life in Sicily is something that people outside of Italy cannot quite fathom… In southern Italy [the Mafia] plays a central role in almost every phase of economic and political life. There are still many places in Sicily where people are forced to buy their water from private wells owned by the mafia – an almost feudal institution” (Stille, p. 10-11).
In the meantime, however, allegations of complicity on the part of politicians and members of the Italian Secret Service have arisen. Mystery and suspicion still surround the assassination of Falcone and Borsellino.
Journalists and prosecutors have been investigating a possible plot with ‘state complicity’ to eliminate the two judges; their inquiries have been regarded by some to have a ‘destabilizing effect’ on the power system of the Italian Republic.
Regardless, the triumphs of Falcone and Borsellino against the Mafia, the crime-fighting strategies and the methods they pioneered, and their heroic sacrifices, have had a profound and lasting impact on Italy and beyond.
“…the film undermines the notion that la cosa nostra only affects those within its ranks and instead represents the mafia as a self-serving entity that fanatically pursues wealth and political power. The movie serves as a necessary counterpoint to Hollywood gangster films by working against the stereotypes and myths that have characterized the genre and by refusing to allow viewers to identify with the film's mafiosi. This is a documentary that demonstrates that the majority of Sicilians resent the power the mob wields and one that humanizes the magistrates, law enforcement officials, and politicians who were threatened and oftentimes murdered when they tried to bring mob officials to justice.” (J. Cavallero, 2007)
Critiquing our view of organized crime
“Unlike the mafia of The Godfather, these gangsters do not operate as an alternative form of altruistic justice or an ideal family. Instead, they are in the business of intimidation, unconcerned about the plight of the poor, and existing to increase their own wealth by maintaining a crippling influence on the local, state, and national governments. “
(J. Cavallero, 2006)
Critiquing our view of organized crime
The Mafia Today
Areas in Italy most affected by high levels of violent crime have been the Southern regions heavily influenced by powerful criminal organizations:
-drug trade and gang feuds are common
More ‘high profile’ incidences- i.e. in Naples, high unemployment and waste management problems continue to affect the city; Italian media have attributed the city's waste disposal issues to the activity of the Camorra
(see: New York Times article “A Mafia Legacy Taints the Earth in Southern Italy” by Jim Yardley, 2014 http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/30/world/europe/beneath-southern-italy-a-deadly-mob-legacy.html?_ r=0 )
Naples, 2008
The Mafia Today (cont’d.)
Gomorrah by Robert Saviano (2006)
Describes the clandestine activities of the Camorra
Since the book’s publication, Saviano has been
threatened by several Neopolitan Camorra members
(or ‘godfathers’)
See: New York Times Book Review “Underworld” by
Rachel Donadio
http:// www.nytimes.com/2007/11/25/books/review/Donadio-t.html
