The only compelling new information presented to me is the Calabrese testimony. Despite reading Family Secrets about three times, I'd never read that stat; I don't think it was in there.
Everything else is essentially in line with what I originally thought.
Sure I could be wrong. I guess it comes down to which statistics you want to believe.
For reasons I've already gone over I'm more inclined to believe the lower end stats from the early-mid 2000s.
Factor in everyone who's gone to jail since then, the very consistent, and drastic, decline of the mob since the 80s, the utter lack of any information on new Chicago mob members, the very minimal mob activity that's been reported on since the 90s, and I think I'm more right than not.
Do you admit I could be right?
Admittedly, when you have estimates ranging anywhere from 25 to 60 members, that can be confusing. That's why I take other factors into consideration. For one, the ongoing mob activity in Chicago as compared to families in other cities and how many members they have. Detroit, for example, still has about 25 or so total made members left and it doesn't have nearly as much mob activity as Chicago does. More comparable to Chicago's activity are families in New England and Philadelphia, each of which have about 50 members. And Chicago is said to still be stronger than they are. As I said before, because of the Outfits insular nature, we'll probably never be able to identify most of the made guys like we can in other families. But all things considered, I think it's more likely that it still has about 50 members than only half of that.
Mods should mind their own business and leave poster's profile signatures alone.
