Organized crime: structures, operations, and societal impact

Organized Crime in America, Dennis Kenney and Jim Finckenauer note that the movie "The Godfather had more influence on the public mind and the minds of many public officials than did any library filled with scholarly works that argued for the true nature of organized crime" (Mario pp).

The scenes from "The Godfather" are among the most often recalled and parodied in screen history (Fox pp). Released in 1972, it won three Oscars, including Best picture, as did the sequel, "The Godfather Part II" two years later (Fox pp). Both movies have become legendary landmarks of American film history, however, when Mario Puzo wrote the novel, he had no intention of telling any real hard truths about the gangsters (Fox pp). Puzo, the son of illiterate Neapolitan immigrants, had grown up in Hell's Kitchen area of New York City, and saw writing as a way out of the working class Italian culture (Fox pp). In 1965, when his proposal for a novel was rejected, he wrote an intentionally commercial Mafia novel that included memories from his youth (Fox pp). It captured the American fancy, because in the late 1960's, the American underworld looked not that much different from the "upperworld" (Fox pp). In fact, in 1967, a writer named Nicholas Pileggi wrote a letter that was published in the Saturday Evening Post, stating, "The Mafia has been dependable, ubiquitous and a friend to those in need ... was far more a symbol of contemporary American society than an aberration" (Fox pp). Thus, Puzo's novel meshed perfectly with Pileggi's essay, and actually in the film, although the gangsters betray and kill, they only harm each other, and moreover, the movie offers no real sense of just what they do to make their money (Fox pp). However, there are references, such as when Tom says:

There's more money potential in narcotics than anything

else we're looking at. Now if we don't get into it, somebody else will. Maybe one of the Five Families, maybe all of them.

Now with the money they earn, they can buy more police and political power; then they come after us. Now we have the unions, we have the gambling; an' they're the best things to have. But narcotics is a thing of the future. An' if we don't get a piece of that action, we risk everything we have -- I mean not now, but ah ten years from now (Puzo pp).

And the Sollozzo character does refer to the connection between Corleone and the politicians, saying, "I need, Don Corleone, those politicians that you carry in your pocket, like so many nickels and dimes" (Puzo pp). However, throughout the film, the words, "Mafia" or "Costa Nostra" is never uttered, but rather milder terms such as "family" and "syndicate" are used (Fox pp).

According to police and senior magistrates, in 1984 organized crime in Italy, as embodied in the Mafia of Sicily and the camorra of Naples, represented a greater threat to the internal security of Italy than did political violence (Kassander pp). In early 1984, officials of the Sicilian regional government were forced to resign after the arrest of the deputy premier on charges of corruption and the disclosure that the premier was under investigation on similar charges (Kassander pp). The involvement of these and other Italian government officials in corruption cases illustrated the power and extent of organized crime (Kassander pp). The decisive factor in its spread was the drug trade, which operated primarily from the Rome area, where serious crime figures exceeded the national average (Kassander pp). Mafia involvement in the international narcotics market proved very serious, as opium derivates were brought to Sicily, processed into heroin, and smuggled throughout Europe and the United States (Kassander pp). Moreover, the expansion of the Sicilian banking system was also linked to Mafia involvement in narcotics (Kassander pp). During the 1970's, the number of Sicilian bank branches increased by 400% compared with the average 80% increase in the rest of Italy (Kassander pp). The Customs Police and the investigating magistrates probed the origin of Mafia accounts and strongly suspected that laundered money from the sale of narcotics was being invested in construction, tourism, and the economy in general (Kassander pp).

The term "organized crime" first came into regular use in 1919 among the members of the Chicago Crime Commission, referring not to criminal organizations but more of the "criminal class" (Lampe pp). By the early 1930's, organized crime referred to "gangsters and racketeers" who were organized in gangs, syndicates, and criminal organizations, led by master criminals who functioned as "powerful leaders," such as Al Capone (Lampe pp). By the later 1940's, the concept of organized crime had all but disappeared from public debate, however it returned in 1950 when a Senate Committee was established to "investigate organized crime in interstate commerce" (Lampe pp). The Committee concluded that numerous criminal groups throughout the country were tied together by "a sinister criminal organization known as the Mafia" (Lampe pp).