Some stated that the Outfit had 150 members in the 1970s. Then the feds listed them at 50 in the early 1990s. Either those earlier numbers are inaccurate or they stopped making guys then and a lot of them died within that period.
I find it difficult to believe that the Outfit had only 60-75 made members at their peak when they had a city and a recruitment pool almost as big as New York. Plus they had control over the American West that included families of similar size such as LA or Milwaukee. Then again, 75 or so members at their peak correspond with a steady decline of the numbers from the 1990s up until now.
The earlier numbers were probably inflated due to bad intel. Also, they seemed to keep their making "ceremonies" localized for lack of a better term. Guys from other crews didn't have a lot of knowledge about who was made and who wasn't in other crews because they operated so independently. The collaboration that did happen occurred at high levels where most everyone was made.
