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References
FBI debriefing report, “Narcotics Information: Black Mafia,” December 20, 1973, containing information received by the FBI from informant, p. 2.
See, for example, the MPD’s “Criminal Profile of John Brown,” p. 10, in which there are discussions of “heroin panics” and the like which necessitated the ability to adapt to changes in markets and networks.
On patron-client networks in organized crime, see Joseph L. Albini, The American Mafia: Genesis of a Legend (New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1971); Peter Reuter, Disorganized Crime: The Economics of the Invisible Hand (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1983); and Don Liddick, The Mob’s Daily Number: Organized Crime and the Numbers Gambling Industry (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1999), especially pp. 153–172.
Alan A. Block, “Organized Crime: History and Historiography,” in Robert J. Kelly, Ko-Lin Chin and Rufus Schatzberg (eds), Handbook of Organized Crime in the United States (Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1994), p. 49.
Alan A. Block, East Side-West Side: Organizing Crime in New York, 1930–1950 (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Books, 1983), p. 10. For an extension of Block’s model, see Jeffrey Scott McIllwain, “Organized Crime: A Social Network Approach,” Crime, Law and Social Change, vol. 32, no. 4 (1999), pp. 301–323.
Block, p. 256, similarly found “the most efficient ‘organized criminals’ were the most individualistic, the least committed to particular structures.”
R.T. Naylor, “Mafias, Myths, and Markets: On the Theory and Practice of Enterprise Crime,” Transnational Organized Crime, vol. 3, no. 3 (Autumn 1997), p. 11.
Ibid.
Mark H. Haller, “Bureaucracy and the Mafia: An Alternative View,” Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice, vol. 8, no. 1 (February 1992), pp. 2–3. On this point, and on others relating to the significance of membership in a crime group, see Mary McIntosh, The Organisation of Crime (London: MacMillan, 1975), especially pp. 24–25.
A good illustration of the endemic chaos in the “underworld” can be gleaned from former FBI agent Joseph D. Pistone (with Richard Woodley), Donnie Brasco: My Undercover Life in the Mafia (New York: Signet [Penguin], 1987).
William Chambliss, On the Take: From Petty Crooks to Presidents second edition (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1988), p. 168.
Philip Jenkins and Gary Potter, “The Politics and Mythology of Organized Crime: A Philadelphia Case Study,” Journal of Criminal Justice, vol. 15 (1987), p. 476.
Mark H. Haller, “Organized Crime in Urban Society: Chicago in the Twentieth Century,” Journal of Social History, Winter 1971–1972, p. 213.
Ibid.
Mark H. Haller, “The Bruno Family of Philadelphia: Organized Crime as a Regulatory Agency,” in Robert J. Kelly, Ko-Lin Chin and Rufus Schatzberg (eds.), Handbook of Organized Crime in the United States (Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1994), p. 155.
Annelise Graebner Anderson, The Business of Crime: A Cosa Nostra Family (Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution Press, 1979), p. 148.
For instance, the “Bruno Family war” started with the killing of leader Angelo Bruno on March 21, 1980 and ended in 1985 by which time 28 affiliates were dead, dozens were imprisoned and six “full-fledged members” were cooperating with the government as informants. Kitty Caparella and Joe O’Dowd, “Stanfa Family Eyed in Hit Try,” Philadelphia Daily News, March 5, 1992. Also see George Anastasia, Blood and Honor: Inside the Scarfo Mob — the Mafia’s Most Violent Family (New York: William Morrow and Co., 1991); and Mark H. Haller, Life Under Bruno: The Economics of an Organized Crime Family (St. David’s, PA: Pennsylvania Crime Commission, 1991).
See, for example, George Anastasia, The Goodfella Tapes (New York: Avon Books, 1998); Kitty Caparella,“The Straight Dope — Drugs in Philadelphia: Federal Enforcement — A New Drug War Pays Off in Court,” The Philadelphia Daily News, October 22, 1984; and Frank Friel and John Guinther, Breaking the Mob (New York: Warner Books, 1990).
See, for example, Associated Press, “Philadelphia Mob is Hurting but Still Alive, U.S. Says,” The New York Times, December 21, 2001. Joseph “Skinny Joey” Merlino is the latest “family boss” felled by prosecution. Merlino was convicted, along with his six top associates, for his involvement in bookmaking and loan-sharking businesses. Merlino was sentenced to fourteen years in prison in the summer of 2001 for racketeering. Thus, he joined the ranks of predecessors Ralph Natale, John Stanfa, and Nicodemo Scarfo. The organization was allegedly taken over by Joseph Ligambi in 1999 after Merlino was arrested. Ligambi served ten years in prison for the 1985 murder of Frank “Frankie Flowers” D’Alfonso. His conviction was overturned, thus nullifying his life sentence, and he was acquitted in the retrial. On January 17, 2002, Raymond “Long John” Martorano was shot as he drove near Eighth and Spruce Streets. Martorano was shot three times, once each in the abdomen, chest and right arm, and later died from his wounds on February 5, 2002. Preliminary investigations have centered on Ligambi’s possible role in the murder. The two leading theories are that Martorano was attempting to exert his influence on Ligambi’sgambling and extortion rackets and/or that two organized crime underlings were trying to impress Ligambi and thus murdered Martorano. See George Anastasia and Thomas J. Gibbons, Jr., “Mobster Shot in Center City,” The Philadelphia Inquirer, January 18, 2002; George Anastasia, Thomas J. Gibbons and Leonard Fleming, “Mobster Under Guard, May Lose Arm,” The Philadelphia Inquirer, January 19, 2002; George Anastasia and Thomas Gibbons, Jr., “Wiseguy Shot as Warning, Police Believe,” The Philadelphia Inquirer, January 20, 2002; Kitty Caparella, “Aged Mobster was ‘King of the Quadruple-Cross’,” Philadelphia Daily News, February 6, 2002; Kitty Caparella and Nicole Weisensee Egan, “Martorano Succumbs 19 Days After Hit,” Philadelphia Daily News, February 6, 2002; George Anastasia and Thomas J. Gibbons, Jr., “Martorano’s Death Raises Ante in Mob Hit,” The Philadelphia Inquirer, February 6, 2002; and George Anastasia, “N.J. Request Bars Reputed Mob Boss at Casinos,” The Philadelphia Inquirer, August 27, 2002.
Any study of international narcotics trafficking during the 1960s and 1970s should at least consider the following works on heroin and cocaine, respectively. Alfred W. McCoy, The Politics of Heroin: CIA Complicity in the Global Drug Trade (New York: Lawrence Hill Books, 1991); and Renssellaer W. Lee III, The White Labyrinth: Cocaine & Political Power (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 1990).
Michael D. Lyman and Gary W. Potter, Organized Crime second edition (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 2000), p. 247.
Robert M. Lombardo, “The Black Mafia: African-American organized crime in Chicago, 1890–1960,” Crime, Law and Social Change vol. 38, no. 1 (2002), pp. 33–65.
Alan A. Block, “Organized Crime: History and Historiography”; Frank Bovenkerk, “Organized Crime and Ethnic Minorities: Is There a Link?” Transnational Organized Crime, vol. 4 (1998), pp. 109–126; Jenkins and Potter; Lyman and Potter; Frederick T. Martens, “African-American Organized Crime, An Ignored Phenomenon,” Federal Probation, vol. 54, no. 4 (1990), pp. 43–50; and Rufus Schatzberg and Robert J. Kelly, African American Organized Crime: A Social History (New York: Garland, 1996).
Bovenkerk, p. 111.
Daniel Bell, The End of Ideology (Glencoe, IL: Free Press, 1988), pp. 127–150. For an international perspective, see Josine Junger-Tas, “Ethnic Minorities, Social Integration and Crime,” European Journal on Criminal Policy and Research, vol. 9, no. 1 (Spring 2001), pp. 5–29. Please note I state there is a possibility criminal actors perceive blocked paths to social mobility. A review of academic literature in this field often reveals a superficial understanding of, or explanation for, criminality. That is, scholars often view poverty as a powerful explanatory variable, while discounting other explanations for criminal behavior. On this matter, see James Q. Wilson, Thinking About Crime revised edition (New York: First Vintage Books [Random House], 1985). For example, Elijah Anderson, Streetwise: Race, Class, and Change in an Urban Community (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990), p.81, found the “social context of poverty becomes a fertile field for the growth of the drug culture.” He reprised this argument in Code of the Street: Decency, Violence, and the Moral Life of the Inner City (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1999). He (p. 36) states, “At the extreme of the street-oriented group are those who make up the criminal element. People in this class are profound casualties of the social and economic system.” Furthermore, he (pp. 133–134) states “the economic unraveling in so many of these communities puts people up against the wall and encourages them to do things that they would otherwise be morally reluctant to do.” Also see Elliot Liebow, Tally’s Corner: A Study of Streetcorner Negro Men (New York: Little, Brown and Company, 1967); and Jay MacLeod, Aín’t No Makin’ It: Aspirations & Attainment in a Low-Income Neighborhood (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1995). Importantly, these analyses largely ignore the fact that studies of organized crime have discovered gains in social lifestyle, the street status and ego benefits, the adrenaline “rush” and fascination associated with certain crimes, and other factors are often key motivations. See, for example, Mark H. Haller, “Organízed Crime in Urban Society: Chicago in the Twentieth Century,” Journal of Social History, Winter 1971–1972, pp. 210–234; Peter Klerks, “Motives and lifestyle of drug millionaires,” paper presented to the annual meeting of the American Society of Criminology, November 2000; and Peter Lupsha, “Individual Choice, Material Culture, and Organized Crime,” Criminology vol. 19, no. 1 (May 1981), pp. 3–24. Then there is the rationalization by offenders that others, particularly those in higher socioeconomic and authority positions, are engaging in equally dubious or worse activities. Furthermore, the hypothesis posited by some scholars emphasizing the strain experienced by members of the underclass discounts the large volume of criminal events involving wealthy offenders that cannot be explained by understanding the “social context of poverty.” For a summary of research on the similarities between “organized crime” and “white-collar” crime, see Sean Patrick Griffin, “Actors or Activities? On the Social Construction of ‘White-Collar’ Crime in the United States,” Crime, Law and Social Change, vol. 37, no. 3 (2002), pp. 245—276.
“Organízed Crime in Urban Society: Chicago in the Twentieth Century,” Haller, p. 216. Haller argued that these “occupations” shared a value system which idolized deal-makers.
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(2003). Conclusions. In: Philadelphia’s Black Mafia. Studies of Organized Crime, vol 2. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/0-306-48132-4_10
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