...all the reThuglicans in their psuedo-La Casa Nostra glory:
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LA COSA NOSTRA IN THE UNITED STATES
by
James O. Finckenauer, Ph.D.
International Center
National Institute of Justice
Organizational Structure
La Cosa Nostra or LCN -- also known as the Mafia, the mob, the outfit, the office -- is a collection of Italian-American organized crime “families” that has been operating in the United States since the 1920s. For nearly three quarters of a century, beginning during the time of Prohibition and extending into the 1990s, the LCN was clearly the most prominent criminal organization in the U.S. Indeed, it was synonymous with organized crime. In recent years, the LCN has been severely crippled by law enforcement, and over the past decade has been challenged in a number of its criminal markets by other organized crime groups. Nevertheless, with respect to those criteria that best define the harm capacity of criminal organizations, it is still pre-eminent. The LCN has greater capacity to gain monopoly control over criminal markets, to use or threaten violence to maintain that control, and to corrupt law enforcement and the political system than does any of its competitors. As one eminent scholar has also pointed out, “no other criminal organization
has controlled labor unions, organized employer cartels, operated as a rationalizing force in major industries, and functioned as a bridge between the upperworld and the underworld” (Jacobs, 1999:128). It is this capacity that distinguishes the LCN from all other criminal organizations in the U.S.
Each of the so-called families that make up the LCN has roughly the same organizational structure. There is a boss who controls the family and makes executive decisions. There is an underboss who is second in command. There is a senior advisor or consigliere. And then there are a number of “capos” (capo-regimes) who supervise crews made up of “soldiers,” who are “made members” of Cosa Nostra. The capos and those above them receive shares of the proceeds from crimes committed by the soldiers and associates.
<MORE>
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/nij/international/lcn.html
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