The neapolitan camorra: Crime and politics in post-war Naples (1950-92)

This thesis was submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and awarded by Brunel University, 15/05/2000.In the post-war period, Italy has been plagued by different forms of organised crime (such as the Sicilian Mafia, the Neapolitan Camorra, the Calabrian 'Ndrangheta and the Pugliese Sacra Corona Unita) which have managed in their individual ways to infiltrate both the State (in the form of political parties and local administrations) and society (businesses, cultural and voluntary organisations). In Campania, until 1991, the relationship between the Camorra and the local political elite (based on the exchange of votes for state contracts and protection) was tacitly accepted by the population and could not be studied by political scientists due to the lack of reliable source material. In 1991, a law was introduced which gave generous remission of sentences to criminals who became state-witness. Many members of the Camorra revealed important aspects of criminal, economic and political activities in Campania. This new material permitted a reexamination of the Camorra. This thesis on the Camorra hopes to fill a gap in the study of the relationship between politics and criminal organisations which so far has concentrated on the Sicilian Mafia. Part One is a general introduction and presents the theoretical model and methods adopted. The documentation available allowed us to adopt an agency-structure approach derived from Giddens's structuration theory (1984). This was complemented by Easton's systems analysis (1965) to understand the wider, macro-environment. We elaborated an 'interaction model' to analyse the changing nature of the Camorra's activities: from a simple social-criminal practice in the 1930s to a dynamic and secret cartel enacting a political-criminal practice in the 1980s. To test this model we applied it to case-studies of criminals using original judicial documents. In Part Two we look at the possible motives of people who join the Camorra. We analysed the agent's internal and external structure in both decades and concluded that the macro-environment as an influencing factor had changed more than the individual-agent. Part Three examines the lives of camorristi in the 1950s and 1980s in order to determine how far their criminal practice has been transformed. Part Four investigates the wider picture of system-interaction between the Camorra's social subsystem and the political system. Focussing on the relationship between camorristi and the political elite in the 1950s and 1980s we highlight the radical changes that occurred. This thesis presents a theoretical discussion of how to study organised crime and social behaviour in general and at the same time a detailed empirical study, in particular of the political role of a criminal organisation in a concrete historical situation, that of Naples over the last forty years.Brunel University; Italian Governmen

Facilitating the Italian Mafia: The Grey Zone of Complicity and Collusion

Despite structural and operational differences, Italian mafiasshare an ability to expand and infiltrate global economies whilstremaining rooted within their local territory. They are not onlythe product of specific socio-economic and political conditionsbut also of the extensive complicity on which they can count. It isthis fertile‘grey zone’of mafia relations with accomplices identi-fied as enablers, facilitators, sponsors and helpers that is ana-lysed here. Engaging with the existing literature and usinga range of new judicial sources, including evidence from mafiatrials, this article develops in-depth case studies to identify andexamine the hidden face of Italian mafia

Analyzing the Role of Women in Italian Mafias: the Case of the Neapolitan Camorra

Abstract Over the last twenty-five years, there has been a growing debate about the role of women in Italian Mafias. Using a qualitative approach, this article looks at the leadership roles of women in the Neapolitan Camorra covering the period 2000–2014. It argues that despite women’s high-ranking positions within mafia clans, their professional development is best explained not as a sign of Bfemale emancipation^ of Italian or Camorra women but rather as functional exploitation by the clan when resources are limited in times of crisis. Thus, conceptualizing Camorra women as a Breserve army^ can be a more useful analytical framework to explain the leadership positions of the women who come to occupy relevant positions in the traditionally men-dominated Camorra clans

Mythical numbers and the proceeds of organised crime: estimating mafia proceeds in Italy

Organised crime is a field vulnerable to mythical numbers, i.e. exaggerated estimates lacking empirical support, but acquiring acceptance through repetition. The figures on mafia proceeds in Italy are a striking example of this problem. This study proposes an estimation of mafia proceeds in Italy from nine criminal activities (sexual exploitation of women, illicit firearms trafficking, drug trafficking, counterfeiting, the illicit cigarette trade, illicit gambling, illicit waste disposal, loan sharking, and extortion racketeering) by region and type of mafia (Cosa Nostra, Camorra,\u2018Ndrangheta, Apulian mafias, and other mafias). The results estimate yearly mafia proceeds at approximately \u20ac10.7 bn (0.7% of the Italian GDP), discussing the impact on the regional and national economies and the differences among the types of mafias as to their geographical sources of revenue

In Memoriam P. A. Allum (22.7.1933–28.4.2022)

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Facilitating the Italian Mafia:The Grey Zone of Complicity and Collusion

Despite structural and operational differences, Italian mafias share an ability to expand and infiltrate global economies whilst remaining rooted within their local territory. They are not only the product of specific socio-economic and political conditions but also of the extensive complicity on which they can count. It is this fertile ‘grey zone’ of mafia relations with accomplices identified as enablers, facilitators, sponsors and helpers that is analysed here. Engaging with the existing literature and using a range of new judicial sources, including evidence from mafia trials, this article develops in-depth case studies to identify and examine the hidden face of Italian mafias.</p

The transformation of the Neapolitan Camorra: families, families and more families

The Neapolitan Camorra is commonly represented as a system of criminal groups stemming from the underclass – the so-called “plebe”, the wide mass of unemployed that historically characterises the city of Naples – with clear borders and identity, reinforced by rituals, hierarchies, leaderships, military functions and portions of territory under their control. This vision is reinforced by those scholars who adopt a theoretical perspective of criminology and functionalist sociology, who consider Camorra clans as close-knit and corporate groups, based on a specific subculture with distinguishing lifestyles, values and modes of behaviour. On the contrary, we argue that Camorra clans act as an extended-family business: large kinship networks, intertwined with economic activities, often connected, through marriage strategies, to other families who play a strategic role in the same sector. Clans are mostly based on open entrepreneurial-type networks which operate on an international scale and in several economic sectors. The purpose of this contribution is to analyse Camorra clans as an emergent phenomenon within social and economic spaces, strictly related to the violent regulation of legal and illegal markets. The long life and survival of the Orlando-Nuvoletta clan from Marano, a municipality to the north of Naples, represents an emblematic case study of the historical transformation of the family-organizational forms of the Camorra from the WWII to today