Why the mafia is almost dead

We've talked about it time and time again but its true.
Look at every single documentary on any mob guy and they all start out the same:
" i grew up around it, they were the guys with the money and the guys that were respected. They hung in the clubs on the corner".
Who says that anymore ? No one ! There arent really any big italian hoods left with clubs on each corner. Italian kids today are in the suburbs surrounded by starbucks and Panera Bread. We keep hearing guys are more low key now and they dont want violence.. Truth is, there is no one really left to kill.
I was just in bensonhurst and almost everything is gone. Lots of chinese and some russian, a few italian left but its totally different. I remember 86th street as the guido capital of the world, it was funny. I loved it and had a lot of good times cruising back in the day.
Just killing some time but i doubt you will see another mob war in our life time.

Assilmination and L.E.

In the homeland and canada it's going on, as far as here "you think philly might be next?"

Maybe not in the US, but up north there is still more than enough going on for mobwatchers.

I doubt that it's "Dead", "Gone", "Barely alive/around", "the books are closed/have been closed for decades", etc. that you hear about in the media in the United States. I think that instead it's just very quiet-except for in NYC/PHL/NJ where apparently people in that business are way too open.

i have to agree with this. the role of the neighborhood wise guy who you could borrow some cash from and place a few bets with simply doesn't need to be filled any more. there is just no demand for it. not to mention the fact that so many italian americans nowadays are thoroughly upper middle class and are heading to university to work straight high paying jobs as accountants and corporate attorneys.

More or less true, IMO.

Long gone are the clubs on the street corner with wise guys hanging out and influencing young up and comers. You now rely on a kid that grew up in a half a million dollar house who's father is trying to show him the ropes and tech him how to be a criminal. Very difficult.

I think certain areas of staten island could be considered somewhat of a hub for mob crime or just general criminal activity amongst the residents. Specifically the south shore and great kills, a lot of drug activity in the area, people getting busted with guns. This happened recently.
3 stabbed outside great kills bar

Yeah, when people hear the words Staten Island they automatically think of Upper Middle Class Italians and mob guys with ornate homes. But Staten Island does have a seedy side as well. The Stapleton section of Staten Island is as bad as East New York or the South Bronx. And areas like that will always be prime drug dealing spots.

I posted up a lot of stories of people getting busted running pill rings on the south shore or in great kills, although theres a lot of italian names in these busts theres not really much indication to any mob ties.

I think the wu tang clan is from stapleton or park hill projects. But yeah you got both extremes on that island.

Yeah it's definitely not "almost dead." It will still be around for a while. They're just nowhere near the level they were at years ago.

Unfortunate what has become of LCN in America.

unfortunate? really? it's unfortunate that they're no longer capable of extracting billions of dollars a year by fixing construction bids and controlling unions through murder and violence? it's unfortunate that they're no longer flooding the streets with as much as much smack and cocaine that they used to?

come on.

I didn't mean it in that way but to be honest it didn't hurt the people that were on the inside.

Remember that the mafia is a changing organization that can adapt from the time changing. In Sicily they say "calati juncu ca passa la china" which means "decline cane, until the storm passes". I think some of them mobsters learned from the big indicments of the 80s and 90s and are more secretive. That is why the mafia still lasts today, because they can adapt and change.

That is maybe 1% . There are very few aspiring wiseguys today, plain and simple. Italy still has high unemployment so a gravitation towards crime is more expected. There are far too many legitimate opportunities here.
Another huge reason : years ago if a business was shaken down, victims were afraid to go to law enforcement because the mob had a rep for having cops and public officials on their pad. A victim would fear that a crooked cop may get wind of them complaining.
This is another reason why the mafia still exists in Italy: there is still alot of corruption.

One more mob war in philly and it's over. There aren't enough guys left to keep it going if they kill 10 and send 20 guys away again. It'll be like how Rochester and Cleveland went away.

That's a good thing. But there will always be young guys who can't or don't want to earn their life honestly, who want to make a lot of money right away. Especially with this economical crisis going on. In Italy most people work, but aren't declared. That is why it seems that there is a lot of unemployment. But most young guys can make a lot more money by being criminals.

True.

I'm agreeing with a lot of things here the DeCavalcante's will probably be the next to go (if they haven't already), then Philly and then Chicago and Detroit then New York will last for sometime possibly picking up the pieces here and there but will eventually bow out due to Italian's rising in the civilization ladder and then quite possibly an Italian President, everything must end but at least the Mafia won't go with a bang, they'll die silently

If history has taught us anything.... it is that everything that was new loses its novelty and that the old eventually becomes new again. IMO Organzied crime will never disappear, 50 years from now the GBB crew will be talking about the latest scams and schemes of the OC/LCN, it will look different but it will still be going on. I was digging through some old pictures with my Mom on Sunday looking for pics of some of the men my Grandpa worked along side in the Black Hand. Each time I would pull out a pic with one of these guys my Mom, who is 94, would look at me and take her right hand index finger press it against the tip of her nose and push it to the left, then she would say in Italian, "The Mafia is my Protector". I'm afraid as each generation passes away that we will get that much further away from our heritage, both the good and the bad and I have to say I'm very sad to see it slipping away. On a positve note I got a Franklin on the Italians kicking everybodys ass all over again during the next OC Renaissance, anybody want in?

I'm confused. You're sad to see the Mafia in America slipping away? You work in recovery and you sympathize with guys who deal in drugs?

Assimilation is what will change the face of the American mafia. Take it from a guy who's lived in the Bronx for over fifty years. These neighborhoods have changed so much that it will never be the same. No way, no how.

Will it go away completely? No. Because criminal minded people will always be here, and people will always want to gamble and borrow money. But with all due respect, if you think the Brooklyn that you left behind 25 years ago still exists, you're just being sentimental .

PB,

Not the Mafia but the italian traditions of strong family ties and neighborhoods, also good pasta and italian bread, this shit in Florida sucks.

Gotcha, buddy .

Try Tramonti on East Atlantic in Delray. Same owners as Angelo's of Mulberry. Not just in name, but also in quality .

The bread is an issue that just can't be resolved. It's the water .

Thanks for the restaurant tip PB. Your right about the water, this restaurant on Atlantic way out west near 441 at the Delray Marketplace, I think its called Renzi's or Ricca's something like that, I heard their advertisement on the radio and supposedly they ship their water down from the City to use in making their breads, heard of a couple other places doing the same thing. One can hope!

Yeah, I've heard of certain places trying that before. But it's not like you can depend on it. Especially in Florida where water emergencies happen all the time. But yeah, one can hope .

PB,

You have your finger on the pulse of what is going on in the old neighborhoods and I would guess with the older generations in and outside of that life as well. What are they saying about how the mafia has transformed and imploded from within over the years? While I don't share my Mom's view on the Mafia I can understand why she feels that way given what was happening during that time period 00's to 30's. My Grandpa and His Father being what they were shielded us from the crime and violence that they were committing against other ethnic groups and Italians associated with the life, but more importantly to my Mom the discrimination that was taking place at that time against the Italians and other immigrant groups that made life very difficult for all of us. My Mom will occasional talk about how the Mafia helped the community but rarely mention that my Great Grandpa was tossed out of a window in the Hotel Syracuse by a rival for not sharing the wealth and on two occasions rivals tried to kill my Grandpa.I really enjoyed how well that family dynamic was portrayed in the Godfather. Just wondering what your thoughts are and what hearing up there from the really old timers that are still around?

What sort of viewpoints does your mother have about la famiglia, or Italian OC?

Personally I think that all OC groups are best avoided being around or having anything to do with, or going into debt with...unless the person wants a premature violent death.

CAC,

I agree they are best avoided, no good can come from it.

i dont think it can be explained any other way than the fall of ethic nieghborhoods along with the meteoric rise of italian-americans. I am not talking about bullshit like national politicans, but the fact on average they are successful as any group. If you are smart, why join the mafia when you could be a finance guy or a lawyer?

Check your pm.


Exactly, Nicky. It's assimilation, ten times more than law enforcement, that's changing the face of the American mob.

I find it very interesting that the Outfit here in Chicago doesn't kill people anymore. Obviously a lot of the posters disagree with me, but I still wonder how you keep a large, clandestine criminal network under control without the use of murder.

For these guys to make a lot of money you have to have a lot of criminals kicking up and what on earth is there to stop them from making a deal if they have no fear of getting killed.

People say "well they still beat you up," well, who the f**k cares.

I think that is a pretty telling development and IMO speaks to greatly diminished activity.

I think it's possible they've become a little smarter and figured out ways to circumvent violence but at the end of the day I don't really see how a large-scale mob operation functions without murder.

My two cents.

I think you have answered your own question. Activity is way down over historical levels for the outfit. People that try to explain it (no indictments, no murders, no violence) by this super complex, ultra secrecy that even the best guys in NY could never get even close to, I have to laugh.

Plus to relate to the discussion above, the demographics and neighborhoods of chicago, is how should I say, not favorable to the outfit and its future.

Have you learned nothing from Cook County?

Totally agreed.

I have written longer posts saying the same things you guys are discussing here, but just don't want to repeat myself. But obviously demographics, just a changing world (college vs. the mob!), changing cities, better law enforcement, etc etc etc, the future IMO is not very bright for the mob.

well, I think that is the inherent cycle in ethnic based organized crime in foreign nations. After a few generations the bond of that shared ethnic background begins to fade. especially considering America's LCN's steadfast position on only making full blooded italians. perhaps if America suffers further economic windfall and the governmental systems that people are used to will no longer operate as expected, it will necessitate a sort of local unofficial "government" that the Sicilian mob has its roots (allegedly) in. I could see the American mafia taking advantage of such a situation.

Or if Italy suffers a similar fate to Spain and Greece causing a second Italian Diaspora, that may reinvigorate italian communities as migrant Italians settle in areas where other Italians go.

It's hard to say, it was a different world in the late 1800's and many western nations were still going through the growing pains of industrialization.

In Canada, however, I know the Rizzutos made no less than 2 non-Italians -- Thus it could be argued that within the next generation or two, the Montreal factions will begin to face the same issues as their American cohorts.

Italy is suffering the same fate of Spain and Greece.

Unemployment among 20-35 year-olds at 38.6%? Hello?

the Italian diaspora never "ended" either, it got its highs and lows, but it never stopped.
Emigration is up 12% since pre-recession times, meaning roughly btw 75-80 thousand italians moving out each year.

This has been discussed countless times around here: italians do not need to come to L'Ammerica to better their lives.
Wether they're crooks, doctors or anything in between.

Legal immigration in the US is a bureaucratic hellhole, why even bother with that if your nationality allows you to move everywhere around your continent and work paperwork-free in much better off nations less than a 4-hour flight away from home?

The recent ISTAT data shows that the top 3 destinations for Italian immigrants are Germany, Switzerland and the UK (yes, you do need a visa for Switzerland but it's not half as complicated as here).
Then the Netherlands, Austria, France followed.

Even Canada ranked higher than the US.



There's still much speculation about those two guys who (allegedly) got made.
Most think that what happened was an Outfit-like "promotion" for non-Italians.
I seriously doubt than someone so old-schooled like Vito would mess up something so secular and fundamental as the making ceremony.

With this being said, Canada won't face America's assimilation issues in a long time. if ever.

Italian immigration in Canada decreased substantially later compared to down south and these crime families (sicilians and calabrians alike) are still deeply rooted oversea.

Not to mention that Mr. Rico hasn't got up there yet, its absence should boost it too.

my 2 (euro) cents

I know, thats why I didnt specify america as a destination for contemporary italian immigrants.

Although im sure the u.s. is a relatively common location, even if its not among the top. I know argentina is like 45% ethnic Italians

Wasnt there a recording a few years back of one of thos3 non italisns trying to explain to some sicilian mafiosi that he was made? Details are sketchy, I do admit.

Argh sorry for 2x post and spelling. On my phone.

Because to be a lawyer you need money to go to college and you have to work hard. Some people just don't want to do that, they like the easy money, the lifestyle, women, "respect" ecc. Even in the 50's and 60's, when the mob was at its pic, smart Italian-Americans were assimilated enough to become lawyers, but not everyone did. I think the mob is less powerful today because of the aggressive busts of the 80s and 90s by the FBI. Before the 70s, a mobster could do almost everything and getting light sentences. Now with all the rats, RICO, all them bugs, fingerprints, it is less attractive to be a mobster because there is a higher risk to stay in jail for a very long time.

Anyone who says or thinks that RICO or any law enforcement effort has completely destroyed or severely weakened la famiglia, or LCN is delusional.

Agrees with Harry.

do chicago still deal with new york at all?

There's also too much competition in the criminal world nowadays for LCN to have any type of monopoly or stranglehold on crime like they did back in the earlier part of the 20th century.
The LCN's influence and reach has receded while other criminal organizations and gangs have emerged and grown into legitimate threats. And it's not just other typical organized crime entities like the Russian or Asian mobs but also the proliferations of various street gangs that have infested and overtaken many former Mafia strongholds.
Way too much competition and way too many rivals. The changing U.S demographics have helped speed the decline of the Mafia while fueling the rise of other ethnic criminal gangs and organizations.
I doubt the LCN is even the strongest in the Northeast anymore (maybe the most well known).

During Al Capone's day in Chicago, he basically ran the entire criminal underworld in the Windy City. Today? What does the outfit control -- a few streets/blocks?

You have some good points but I disagree. The reason it's not like it used to be is because of attrition and Rico, not other gangs.

All these other "mobs" like Albanians and Russians always seem to be over hyped and not as big as the media makes them out to be.

And I would say they are the most powerful organization in the northeast. Apart from drugs, they are still on top with Unions, bookmaking, and loansharking. The mob and street gangs are for the most part, never involved with each other and street gangs are surely not rivaling them.

No OC group will ever reach the heights LCN did in the states in it's hey day. The current political/law enforcement climate will not allow it. Plus the mafia took advantage of a huge opportunity with prohibition which allowed them to plant the seeds and grow. Doubt we will ever see an opportunity like that today unless they made the internet illegal or something that everyone uses.

Exactly. The '20s and 30's were the perfect era for them to get a foothold in the United States. That's not going to happen again. I'd go so far as to say that if it wasn't for prohibition, they would have come and gone like a lot of the other old ethnic gangs. But prohibition gave them the money and influence to branch out and become a National conglomerate. And to their credit (well, as much credit as I'm comfortable giving to a bunch of criminals), they exploited those opportunities to the fullest.

its not dead. 3 yrs ago they rounded up 127 mob guys. you no any day there gonna do it again. 7 yrs ago they rounded up 70 gambinos who are probably stronger today. shit the biggest 1 before that was the patriarca 24 guys in 1990. see the pattern. its not going away. yeah a lot of members won't be 100 percent Italian but people still want to belong to something besides a elk club.

No one said it was dead or going away anytime soon. But no offense, pmac. I think you're a good guy. But you're not Italian American and you're not from New York where you can see what's happened to these neighborhoods and the recruiting pool. It will never be the same because, by and large, Italian Americans don't need it anymore.

Maybe up there in New England, where there's still a lot of White poverty. But not down here. Italian Americans in New York City are among the most upwardly mobile ethnic groups in the entire country, so why turn to crime?

And sure, there are people out there who are just plain old criminal minded. But circumstances are what drive most people to crime. And circumstances for Italian Americans are better than ever. And that's a good thing

I like how people say Drug's ruined the mafia but it seems depsite bans they've always been selling it and adapting with the times.

They've been dealing drugs since day one. Anyone who wants to argue that has seen "The Godfather" too many times.

Agree, but it is impossible to see the Godfather too many times.

Touché .

Goodfellas is like that as well.

While every LCN family has decline due to attrition (many of them eradicated all together), the NY families have been the least affected. Obviously because they were much larger in size to begin with and still have the biggest recruiting pool, relatively speaking. As said in the recent Wall Street Journal article on the mob said, while their membership numbers are lower than they were years ago, it's not significantly so. It seems the 5 families have been able to keep their numbers relatively stable over the last 20 years at least; with the Genovese and Gambinos around 200 each and the others around 100 or so each. Attrition is more readily seen in the handful of small remaining families outside New York, who have a much smaller recruiting pool. I expect the day will come when the LCN will only exist within the extended NY metropolitan area.

I agree ivy , it pisses me off wen people say the gambino's we're decimated because of john gottis rule . No they weren't they r in better shape now than they have been for years , they have there full administration whole and there numbers r pretty much the same as they have been since the 70s like u stated

The numbers aren't that far off but I would certainly say their power is much reduced compared to the 1970's. But none of the NY families have been decimated. We saw many predictions, even by law enforcement, of this back in the 1990's. 20 years later, with the families still there, they have become much more careful about making such rosy predictions. It's a very slow process.

That's pretty much what I think I said, Ivy. They're not going away anytime soon, but that attrition has taken its toll and that's what has weakened them more than anything, including law enforcement.

But why, Dom? Why does it piss you off? Why do you need the Gambinos to be strong to get to sleep at night?

If Jack the Ripper was still alive and terrorizing England, would you want him to be stronger than ever with your four daughters living there?

My point is, you shouldn't be rooting for criminals to succeed in a country that you don't live in. Now you know I like you and you can pm me anytime you want. But that's just the way I see it .

Exactly. Even the Feds now realize that it's attrition more than prosecutions that will shrink the American mob. And attrition takes not just years, but generations .

I'm not particularly pissed off at the thought of the gambino's decline I'm far from a mob groupie , it just pisses me off wen people who r clueless about the mob who find it easy to lay the blame for the decline of the mob at john gottis door , it's ridiculous .

Well that makes a lot more sense, Dom .

Like I said, it's attrition that will eventually shrink them more than anything else. Not law enforcement. Not one lousy leader (like Gotti, for instance).

I think a lot of it is society in general , young guys wanna be rich yesterday , they don't give two fucks about taking orders from a bunch of old dudes . The traditional old values of respect are long gone , half of them r drug dealers because it doesn't require brains and it's the quickest way to get rich . It my thing these days not our thing

I dont think anyone lays the blame for the decline of the mob at John Gotti's door.

What I do think is that he personified a transition in the mobs behaviour which played an important part in the its decline. Or at least speeding it up.

John's flashy lifestyle marked the transition from the old school to the new, and with it put the mob in homes across America and on flashed on newspaper headlines. Forcing the Feds hand to act.

So no, JG isn't solely to blame, but neither is he innocent either.

That's right, Sonny. Gotti wasn't one hundred percent to blame. But he WAS the poster boy for what went wrong with the American mob in the '80s .

That makes sense sonny

LOL….I agree with you. I can't see rooting for one criminal organization over the other. A bunch of lowlife scumbags are lowlife scumbags regardless of what organization they are a part of. But for a lot of people, the 'Mafia' seems to be a fuzzier, kinder, more noble criminal organization that, falsely, has been advertised as being a collection of Robin Hood-like local knock-around guys who are basically good guys with just a little edge. I mean, they hang around the old neighborhood, they sip espresso and eat cannoli at the local deli, and they give a few bucks to the local down-and-outs -- what's not to love and admire, right? Plus, Hollywood has been glamorizing these guys for decades now, so a large part of the American public is aware of and fascinated by these local rogues who supposedly have a higher code of honor and conduct than your everyday, run-of-the-mill lowlife criminal.

It's all rather pathetic in my view. But that whole romanticized vision of the Mafia is hard to shake for some people, which is why so many seem to get offended when other criminal groups come along and, god forbid, steal some of the American Mafia's notoriety or press coverage.

Well put. But just for the record, Dom Woods isn't like that. There was just a breakwown in communication between the two of us. He's a bloody good Englishman .

But those other gangs and criminal organizations don't have to be as big as the LCN per se, they just have to exist and operate. The point being that there are a collection of other competing organizations out there vying for control or parity over many of the same vices on which the LCN thrives. For many decades, the LCN controlled vast parts of the drug trade in and around the Northeast area. What about today? The drug trade was highly lucrative; you don't give that up or disinvolve yourself from it without a good reason. And a large part of the the LCN moving away from the drug trade had to do with the fact that they could no longer keep the drug business firmly under their control. These aren't the Pizza Connection days anymore; too much competition and too much money involved for any one organization to control the drug game. And that's just one area, one example.
The neighborhoods that used to be predominately Italian have changed; as a result, LCN doesn't control or influence large parts of their former neighborhood strongholds. Too many hispanic, Asian, and South American residents now, many of whom have their own ties to ethnic organized crime.

And the gang thing -- compare the number of documented street gangs from say, 1950-1970 to the present day, and you will find an astronomical increase. It's no longer possible for a Mafia Don like an Al Capone to actually oversee and/or control crime in any one city or area; there's too many local gangs with way too many 'soldiers' to do that. And even though the LCN and your typical street gang operate on different criminal spheres, they are bound to interact and/or intersect at various times in the interest of making a dollar. Pornography, theft, hijacking, gun running -- there are many areas where the LCN's interests and those of street gangs are likely to collide. And do you honestly think an LCN capo or boss can simply waltz in and say, 'I'm part of LCN', so get out of my way because I'm in charge? All criminal activity here is controlled by me and my family!
I doubt that.

It's just a changing of the times. The LCN was a major powerhouse pre-1990; today it's still a force, but not even close to what it once was.

although far less powerful than the past it seems to be still the most powerful single crime group when compared with street gangs or even russians in the states

Thanks pal ha ha

Well, you had Jarrett in 1999, Chiaramonti in 2001, and Zizzo in 2006. I don't think the mob really has to drop the bodies like it used to. And today, it's riskier than ever with sophisticated law enforcement and, of course, the chance of a guy flipping and talking about it. It seems the mob uses it very selectively and often as a last resort.



The Mafia vs. street gangs (or the newer OC groups for that matter) is a subject that the media loves to play up but the truth is, people would be surprised at how little of an issue it is. Generally speaking, while they may all be crooks, members of the LCN and those in street gangs live and operate in very different worlds. And what overlap or connections there are tend to be respecting each other's territory and/or working for mutual profit. Drugs is by and large the activity that newer OC groups and gangs (street, prison, OMG) have taken over. This is because the LCN, due to geography, was never in a position to control cocaine or marijuana. Or even heroin later on when the Colombians and Mexicans began refining their own high-grade product. But this really hasn't affected the LCN as much as some may think, as it has always been more gambling-centered anyway and the families (especially in New York) continue to be rather diversified.

Also you can't forget internal conflicts as a factor too.