Crime boss

Al Capone, a crime boss during the Prohibition era

A crime boss, also known as a crime lord, Don, mob boss, kingpin, or godfather, is the leader of a criminal organization.

Description

A crime boss has absolute or nearly absolute control over the other members of the organization and is often greatly feared or respected for being willing to use criminal means to exert their influence and gain profits from the criminal endeavors in which the organization engages.

Some groups may only have as little as two ranks (a crime boss and their soldiers). Other groups have a more complex, structured organization with many ranks, and structure may vary with cultural background. Organized crime enterprises originating in Sicily differ in structure from those in mainland Italy. American groups may be structured differently from their European counterparts and Latino and African American gangs often have structures that vary from European gangs. The size of the criminal organization is also important, as regional or national gangs have much more complex hierarchies.

Sicilian Mafia

Structure of a mafia crime family

The boss in the Sicilian and Italian-American Mafia is the head of the crime family and the top decision maker. Only the boss can initiate an associate into the family, however, the boss can give permission to an underboss, consigliere or a captain, allowing them to become a made man. The boss can promote or demote family members at will, and has the sole power to sanction murders inside and outside the family. If the boss is incarcerated or incapacitated, they usually retain the title of "boss" but may appoint an acting boss who is responsible for running the crime family in his stead or on a more daily basis. In addition to "boss" and "acting boss", some families have at times officially or unofficially utilized the positions of front boss and street boss. A "front boss" is generally put into place to act ostensibly as the boss while drawing police attention away from the actual official boss operating behind the scenes. A "street boss" is often informally appointed or regarded by the official boss or by subordinates as the "hands-on", street-level, actively engaged proxy or stand-in for the official boss, usually coordinating, controlling, and managing street operations on behalf of an official boss who prefers to stay behind the scenes (either by choice or to avoid police scrutiny). "Street bosses" are often particularly influential or powerful caporegimes or underbosses, and the term is sometimes used interchangeably with "acting boss" or "front boss" depending on the circumstances. When a boss dies, the crime family members choose a new boss from inside the organization.[citation needed]

The typical structure within the Mafia in Sicily and America is usually as follows:

A boss will typically put up layers of insulation between himself and the family's operations. Whenever he issues orders, he does so either to his underboss, consigliere or capos. The orders are then passed down the line to the soldiers. This makes it difficult under most circumstances for law enforcement to directly implicate a boss in a crime, since he almost never directly gives orders to the soldiers.

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Definition of MOB BOSS".
  2. ↑ Sifakis, Carl (2006). The Mafia Encyclopedia. Infobase. ISBN 978-0-8160-6989-7.
  3. ↑ Pistone, Joseph D. The Way of the Wiseguy: The FBI's Most Famous Undercover Agent Cracks the Mob Mind. Philadelphia: Running Press, 2005. ISBN 0-7624-2384-6
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Manning, George A. Financial Investigation and Forensic Accounting. Boca Raton, Fla.: CRC Press, 2005. ISBN 0-8493-2223-5
  5. ↑ Albanese, Jay, Contemporary Issues in Organized Crime. Monsey, N.Y.: Criminal Justice Press, 1995. ISBN 1-881798-04-6
  6. ↑ DeStefano, Anthony M. (2015). Gangland New York The Places and Faces of Mob History. Lyons Press. ISBN 9781493018338. Retrieved 24 August 2022.
  7. ↑ Leonetti, Phil (2014). Mafia Prince. Running Press. ISBN 9780762456000. Retrieved 24 August 2022.
  8. ↑ Burnstein, Scott M. (2010). Family Affair Greed, Treachery, and Betrayal in the Chicago Mafia. Penguin. ISBN 9781101185575. Retrieved 24 August 2022.
  9. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 DeVico, Peter J. The Mafia Made Easy: The Anatomy and Culture of La Cosa Nostra. Tate Publishing, 2007. ISBN 1-60247-254-8
  10. ↑ Critchley, David (15 September 2008), The Origin of Organized Crime in America: The New York City Mafia, 1891–1931, Routledge, p. 195-198, ISBN 978-1-135-85493-5
  11. ↑ Sifakis, Carl (2006). The Mafia Encyclopedia. Infobase. ISBN 978-0-8160-6989-7.
  12. ↑ Raab, Selwyn. The Five Families: The Rise, Decline & Resurgence of America's Most Powerful Mafia Empire. New York: St. Martins Press, 2005.
  13. ↑ "Genovese Indictment Archived 22 July 2020 at the Wayback Machine" U.S. District Court. Southern District of New York.
  14. ↑ Maas, Peter. Underboss: Sammy the Bull Gravano's Story of Life in the Mafia. Paperback reissue. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1997. ISBN 0-06-109664-4
  15. ↑ DeStefano, Anthony M. King of the Godfathers: Big Joey Massino and the Fall of the Bonanno Crime Family. New York: Kensington Publishing Corp., 2008. ISBN 0-8065-2874-5
  16. 1 2 Nash, Robert Jay. World Encyclopedia of Organized Crime. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Da Capo Press, 1993. ISBN 0-306-80535-9