Originally Posted By: johnnyboysala
Does anyone have a rough idea of the years mafia admittance was opened and closed? From the limited amount I know, Lucky seems to cosed the books in the 30s and they weren't reopened, except in special circumstances, until the 70s. I think i've read that they have closed and opened several times since then.

Just curious as I'd imagine admittance is a key mafia issue at the moment. On one hand RICO has wiped out whole generations and without new guys making up the numbers, the whole thing is threatened. On the other hand, admitting inexperienced new guys that haven’t been known to the family for generations and have had few tests of loyalty is just asking for trouble.Not that I know anything, but if it were up to me, I’d probabaly close the books and accept that in 2012 Cosa Nostra has to be a tight and lean operation to survive.

Apologies if this question has been answered before. You’ll not be surprised to learn searching the term “mafia books” isn’t very helpful, and “mafia admittance” just brings up a load of guys asking how to become gangsters….


There's no need to apologize for asking questions on here. The search engine can be a pain in the butt sometimes, especially when a search returns 400 or more results.

It is generally understood that the books were open in the late 1920s and closed sometime in or around 1931. The books were then opened again around 1954 and closed in 1958.
In the 1970s the books were open between 1975 and 1979. Since 1981/1982 the books have been open probably the whole time to our present day.
The time periods when the books were open, seems to only have applied the Families who sat on the Commission though. Because of a smaller pool of recriuts, the other Families, the ones out west, the Tampa Family, Kansas, Denver, Dallas, St Louis and so on were allowed to make members in between those time periods mentioned above. But they had to ask the Commission for permission.

The New York Families did make new members in between those time periods as well. But the new recruits were only a handful and regarded as "due to special circumstances". Off the top of my head, Jerry Catena and Gyp DeCarlo were made in the mid 1940s, Nino Gaggi in 1961, Pepe Sabato in 1966 along with Jimmy Napoli (although his son says 1976), Alphonse Persico (Carmine´s brother) in 1972 and Vinny "The Fish" Cafaro gave testimony of his induction happening in 1974. I´m sure there were others as well, but they were very few.

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