``wanted: mafia boss'' – essay on the personology of organized crime

Crime, Law & Social Change33: 225–242, 2000.© 2000Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.

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“Wanted: Mafia boss” – essay on the personology of organizedcrime

FRANK BOVENKERKUniversity of Utrecht, Law Faculty, Janskerkhof 16, Utrecht, The Netherlands

Abstract. Despite an abundance of mafia romanticism both in literary form and in socialscience the psychological study of personality of prominent organized crime figures is almostcompletely absent. Criminological attempts to understand how the mafia kingpin’s mind workshave failed so far because they are based on the mistaken view that underworld leadershipwould not require a certain level of skills and knowledge. Thus I have constructed a theoreticalportrait of a maffia boss using the Five Factor Personality Model that is also used for personalselection purposes. I then suggest that personality traits that predict leadership success in thelegitimate business world such as extraversion, controlled impulsiveness, a sense of adventure,megalomania, and Narcissistic Personality Disorder, are all equally suitable traits for a careerin organized crime.

‘I have a certain amount of experience, you know,’ Don Mariano went on. “Ilike to divide what we call humanity – and that is quite a mouthful, “humanity,”a beautiful windy word – into five categories: the people, the semi-people, thelittle people and, if you don’t mind, the suckers and the ducks. . . real people arefew and far between, the semi-people are a bit less rare. I would be very happyif humanity confined itself to this level. But no, it goes another step down tothe little people, they are like children who think they are already grown up,monkeys that make the same motions as adults. . . And then another step downthere are the suckers, there is a whole army of them. . . and at the bottom thequackers who really ought to live like ducks in a pond, because that is about asmuch meaning as their lives have, no more important than duck’s lives. . .’

Leonardo Sciascia,The Day of the Owl

Criminal sciences on underworld leadership

Aspects of organized crime have been studied by a large variety of disciplines:sociology, history, cultural anthropology, economy and political science. Sofar psychology is almost entirely absent.1 This is surprising because if theconcept of organized crime is something meaningful cross culturally andhistorically one would expect that the personality type of the people who areattracted to leadership positions would constitute one of its constant features.

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Is there something distinct in the psychological make-up of crime chieftainsso diverse as mafia capo Totò Riina in Sicily, Japan’s Boryokudan (Yakuza)organizer Kazuo Taoka, cartel leader Pablo Escobar in Medellin, Colombia,Turkey’s mafia baba Dündar Kilic, Burma’s war lord and king of heroinKhun Sa, La Cosa Nostra prominents in the US such as Lucky Luciano andMeyer Lansky and all the other infamous as well as illustrious godfathersin their respective countries? If there is, which personality characteristics orspecific combinations thereof are there that make crime bosses differ fromother professional groups or criminal types?

A quick scan through the forensic behavioral literature does not provideeven the slightest hint as to which direction to look in for evidence to rendercredibility to the supposition.2 The recent comprehensive textbook in “crim-inal profiling” edited by Brent Turvey3 offers descriptions of arsonists, serialrapists, individuals who practise cyberstalking and other uncanny individu-als, but not of any variety of organized criminals. Reports made by clinicalpsychiatrists about distinct criminal categories are typically about murderers,fraudsters and shoplifters, but not on gangsters. Mafia bosses seem to be tooprofessional or too little pathological to be interesting for behavioral scientiststo study.

Unexpectedly, the same holds true for mafia biographies. A whole seriesof such life histories that has been analyzed by Firestone (1993)4, revealsmuch about the subculture of the underworld and the organizational fea-tures of criminal groups but very little about the individual psychology ofits members. Mafia memoirs are full of romantic anecdotes and descriptionsof eccentric demeanor, but as psychological portraits most of them are sur-prisingly flat. Even a relatively simple question about the intelligence level ofcriminal bosses cannot be answered on the basis of these criminal life histor-ies. Many biographers, most of them journalists, relate in passing that theirprincipal character is unusually intelligent although not in the ConventionalMeaning of the term. Such remarks are either signs of surprise (how “shrewdand wise” is he shown to be!) or attempts to pump up the stature of theirleading figure. Lacey (1991) is about the only writer to belittle his subjectMeyer Lansky, “the little man”.5 But it is indeed hard to believe that thewizard of the mafia Lansky, gambling genious “The Brain” Arnold Rothsteinor the great organizer Luciano were not clever, but on the other hand the mobhas also brought forth unbelievable numskulls and uninhibited roughs whohave reached their position in the mafia only by their swank and daring.

It all depends of course on how intelligence is defined and what intelli-gence tests measure. The famous American gangster of the forties and fifties,Frank Costello, could hardly live with his tested IQ of 97 and turned to apsycho-analyst for help.6 Chicago boss Sam Giancana did not score higher

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than 71 on a verbal intelligence test and 93 non-verbal. He felt that suchtests are designed by people who have no idea of what life is like in theghetto and the underworld.7 According to his school records New York’sGambino family boss John Gotti had scored 110 on an IQ test, which wasin the average-intelligence range. Much later he claimed to have his IQ testedin prison and scored 140.8 Other mob bosses managed to not have their IQtested or their biographers have not been able to retrieve that information. Inany case, these are the only instances of concrete IQ information that I havefound in 70 such biographies that have appeared in the US, England, Italyand The Netherlands.

In the absence of precise information on personality types of organizedcrime, let us turn to the general academic literature in the fields of crim-inology and forensic psychiatry. Two influential studies in both fields havesomething explicit to say on organized crime. Firstly, Gottfredson and Hirs-chi deal with the matter in their pretentious textA General Theory of Crime(1990).9 The second study, dating back to 1976, was written by Yochelson andSamenow, two forensic psychologists, and is called no less pretentiouslyTheCriminal Personality.10 Yochelson and Samenow’s work has recently beenelaborated upon and is now known as the theory ofThe Criminal Lifestyle(Walters, 1990).11

The premiss of the first control theory, is that by nature, people are capableof anything. Before the causes of criminality can be comprehended, accordingto Gottfredson and Hirschi, it has to be clear why so many people donotengage in criminal conduct. In their opinion, the capacity to control criminalurges can be explained on the basis of self-control, in other words people’sability to forgo short-term gratification of their needs in order to benefit inthe long term. Self-control is an individual characteristic acquired at a youngage as a result of loving parents and other teaching authorities setting bordersfor a child’s behavior by serving a corrective function. If this self-controlhas been inadequately developed, there might well be a lifelong tendencytowards impulsiveness, a lack of diligence and perseverance, a low tolerancefor frustrations, egocentrism and an insensitivity to the suffering of others.Faulty self-control is expressed in a wide variety of criminal acts and thelack of criminal specialization. Gottfredson and Hirschi nonetheless devotea separate section in chapter 10 to organized crime, which they feel alsoinvolves people with inadequate self-control. “There is,” they write, “nothingin crime that requires the transmission of skills, or techniques, or knowledgefrom other people. On the contrary, it is the nature of crime that it can beinvented instantly, on the spot, by almost anyone, and its own reward is itsjustification”.12 This doesn’t sound very ‘organized’ indeed.

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The control theory presents any number of problems among which thetautological nature of their reasoning ranks high, since the definition of thecriminal tendency and of a low level of self-control contain the same terms.13

What the sentence quoted above says about the personality traits of peoplein organized crime is however surprisingly ignorant and only goes to showthat the authors were barely knowledgeable about the topic. Of course theomnivorous criminal does exist, but he does not stand much of a chance ofascending to a position of leadership in a criminal organization. It is clearfrom all the literature that the mafia is led by older and experienced people.The top mafiosi in Sicily and the United States are in their fifties, and it wasa long, hard struggle for them to get to the top.14 The work they do requiresample knowledge of international trade, financial markets and so forth.15 Itgoes against everything we know about the mafia to assume that anyone whowants to can simply engage in organized crime whenever he feels like it.

The second theory about the criminal lifestyle is based upon the premissthat there is a separate kind of human being, i.e. the criminal personality.The criminal lifestyle is generally characterized by an inadequate sense ofresponsibility, the inordinate pursuit of one’s own interests, the exploitationof personal relationships, and the perpetual violation of social and legal rules.The research conducted by Yochelson and Samenow supposedly demonstratesthat criminals differ from other people in that they have their own specialthinking process. The criminal personality systematically refuses to take re-sponsibility for his own wrongdoing, referring instead to external factors:“After all, there is no justice in society, is there?” On the basis of unfoundedoptimism “This time I’ll make it big” they tend to take foolish risks. Peoplelike this are unreliable, irresponsible, and unable to tell the truth.

This theoretical insight has evoked quite a bit of criticism. Some bizarrelines of reasoning formulated by prison psychologists are not inspired by thecriminal predisposition as much as by conduct that is functional in prisonas a survival technique. Take the convict at a Dutch penitentiary whose psy-chologist describes as “exhibiting an uncontrollable desire for freedom”. Asregards the topic at hand, it might be relevant to note that no predictionscan be derived from this theory that are specific to the personalities thatpopulate the world of organized crime. Nor indeed was that ever Yochelson’sand Samenow’s aim. Their theory is simply an effort to describe the entireprison population, which includes a vast range of very different personalities.However, Walters’ life style extension of the theory explicitly deals with thehigher echelons of well-established criminal groups such as La Cosa Nostra.The theory does not fit entirely, writes Walters (1990: 142) “since crime istreated by many of these persons as more of a business than a lifestyle”, but


yet he includes such individuals explicitly in his description of the class ofpeople engaged in serious criminal conduct.

More fundamental objections have to be raised to the two studies on thecontrol theory and the criminal lifestyle that pertain to a general flaw inreasoning in mainstream criminology. The approaches are both confrontedwith a problem of methodological individualism that would seem to havebeen inherent to the field of criminology ever since the end of the nineteenthcentury when Lombroso “discovered” that the delinquent personality was aseparate biological or psychological category. Whether criminal personalitiesare involved or merely individuals with poor self-control, the fact remains thatthe world is divided into people who commit crimes and people who don’t.Conventional criminological studies usually consist of systematic comparis-ons between people who get into trouble with the police and the courts, andpeople who don’t, people who wind up in prison and people who don’t. Thedifferences between the two are supposed to provide insight into the causesof crime. The recurrent conceptual error is that criminal conduct is viewedas being characteristic of certain individuals, although in reality it is certainconduct that is judged as being criminal. Whether certain forms of conductare judged as being punishable is based upon governmental decisions whichare in turn the result of a process of political negotiation. The taxonomy of theCode of Criminal Law is not congruent with the typology of the perpetrators.“It would be a miraculous coincidence if the state inadvertently defined ascriminal acts that were committed only by people with some unique bio-logy, personality, or anatomy” writes William Chambliss in his textbook oncriminology.16

Logically speaking, there can only be one exception to this non-correspon-dence, i.e. the assumption that a social class or type of people with certainpersonality characteristics are attracted to a certain mode of conductbecausethe very fact that it is punishable by law. A major sector of organized crime,the trade in forbidden goods and services, belongs to a category whose veryattraction is that it takes place in illegality and therefore offers large profits.So I do not agree with Gary Potter, who holds that “organized crime is simplyentrepreneurial activity that happens to be illegal”.17 The people who deal indrugs and prohibited arms or bring illegal aliens into the country have notmade a decision on the grounds of their enthusiasm about the quality of theproduct or based on their humanitarian concerns, they did so because oper-ating outside the law can be very profitable. A burglar won’t be happy thatbreaking and entering is against the law, and a pedophile might lament the factthat performing immoral acts with minors is taboo. The drug dealer, however,deliberately focuses on controlled substances. That is why organized crime is

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an area where questions about the right social antecedents and the appropriatepersonalityare relevant.

It is impossible to say though what type of personality is found in the areaof organized crime using a general aetiological theory based on the notion ofa fundamental biological or psychological difference between criminals andnon-criminals. But it is feasible to ask what type of personality feels attractedto the opportunities that are offered by the rackets. The explanation of theexistence of organized crime cannot be reduced to the occurrence of certainpersonality types but should be conceived as resulting from political and eco-nomic processes. Certain types of individuals do now emerge as leaders in theunderworld as they are now offered opportunities that they would otherwisenot have for developing their potential.

Finally, it is striking that all the features of individuals who can be definedas criminal on the basis of the control theory and can be attributed with acriminal personality are formulated in negative terms. Criminals are peoplewho donothave adequate self-control, who havenoperseverance and arenotable to cope with frustration; they are people who lie, deny and exaggerate. Infact, most psychological theories on crime take a deficiency approach. RonaldBlackburns comprehensive survey lists three “individually oriented theoriesof criminality”.18 Psychoanalytical theory explains criminality by some sortof superegolacunae that is usually attributed to what went wrong during(early) childhood. Eysenck’s Dimensional Theory of Personality, that hasbeen popular in post-war Europe and especially Britain, postulates biologicalroots of crime. Thus high scores of the Extraversion dimension (E) that wouldcharacterize some type of criminal personality is believed to stem from lowcortical arousability that leads tolesserresponsiveness to the possible painof punishment. Psychologists who have used Kohlberg’s well-known theoryof moral development explain criminality through developmentaldelay thathas been the consequence of restricted role-playing opportunities in the de-linquent’s background. The deficiency approach is the main reason why theusual criminological theories are useless for pinpointing the personalities thatthrive in organized crime. The top mafiosi did not get where they are todaybecause there is anything necessarily wrong with them, but because there arecertain things they do so well.

The five factor model of personality

As I have been unable to find any clues in the general criminological literat-ure on underworld leadership, I have little choice but to formulate my owntheoretical proposal. I turn to the mother sciences in the field, i.e. psycho-logy. What insight does it have to offer? A recent report by the American


Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) provides an unexpected point ofdeparture when consulting the science of psychology. The report describesthe twenty-five mafia families who rule the underworld in twenty Americanmetropolises.19 It is written for the DEA’s own personnel so they can see whois in charge of each criminal group at the moment, who acts as the underboss,who theconsigliereis and the top executives, the lieutenants, and the well-known soldiers. A number of the families are shown to have what is explicitlyreferred to in the report as a VACANCY.

A job opening at the mafia? A syndicate boss has died, perhaps even due tonatural causes, or is serving a long prison sentence. The American authoritiesare quite proud that so many criminals were incarcerated for lengthy periodsof time, especially in the eighties, which was made possible in part by theintroduction of the state’s witness and the witness protection program. Eventhe most hardened criminals are no longer as reluctant to break theomertà, theoath of silence. We can assume the DEA is realistic enough to understand thattemporarilybeheadingthe families will not eliminate the economic demandfor illegal goods and services, and that there are plenty of successors eagerto step in and fill the empty positions. In essence, a temporary deregulationof the organization is all the DEA can hope to achieve. For the rest, it is aquestion of waiting to see who will ascend to power next. Hopefully, Abad-insky (1999: 198) is wrong assuming that “a smarter and deadlier generationof youngsters who lack the traditional long-term street internship that permitcareful screening (. . .) for leadership” has replaced the old guard.20

How does the mafia go about filling its vacancies in a rational way? Doespsychological testing play a role in the appointment procedure? According tothe mafia literature, this problem is assumed to be solved by succession, but itis not always the case. The concept offamily is often a metaphor for a certainbond of solidarity and commitment, and may have little to do with actualblood ties. In a sociological sense, organized crime constitutes a vehicle ofupward mobility for poor boys. Virtually all the mafia dons are from thepoorest segments of society. Once the average organized crime boss fromthe local ghetto has established a stable position in the middle class, it is nothis intention to have his sons or grandsons follow in his footsteps. On thecontrary, numerous mafia dons have made it clear they want their childrento have nothing to do withla mala vita. “I tell you”, says Vincent Teresa, anotorious Boston mobster andpentito in the nineteen seventies, “If my sonshad ever wanted to go into the mob, I would have broken both his legs. I wantmy kids to go to school”.21

If the assumption is correct that a family’s younger generation is not aboutto take over, then a continuity problem arises. The question now is how theseorganizations are to fill their vacancies. Let us imagine we are the personnel

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manager for today’s mafia. What type of personality would be most suitablefor the job? What is the selection procedure supposed to be? The best person-nel policy can develop if there is an optimal availability of all the job seekerswho meet with the requirements. Organized crime is at a disadvantage here,since the personnel manager only has access to the illegal segment of thelabor market. In actual fact, he will preferably be expected to choose fromthe individuals who have climbed the career ladder within the organizationitself, the ones who can boast of a past performance of slyness, fearlessnessand reliability. “The mafia is not an equal opportunity employer,” writes mafiabiographer Nicholas Gage, meaning that the required loyalty is solely basedupon the primordial ties of the family, tribe or ethnic group.22 But if theorganization is to have a chance at survival, let alone success, then fromthe small number of remaining candidates, it will have to choose the verybest one. In the past, the procedure entailed archaic duels and cunning tricks,but if criminal organizations are to keep up with the times, their personneldepartment will have to be more professional. In the seventies, the Sicilianmafia underwent a metamorphosis from a feudal structure to a modern busi-ness organization.23 It should adopt modern personnel management. Unlikethe primitive Colombian gangsters who were its predecessors in Medellín,the Cali cartel was headed by modern, rational entrepreneurs.24 And unlikethe Medellín bosses like Escobar or Lehder, who shot their way to the top inthe old-fashioned way, betraying their rivals to the police or turning themagainst each other along the way, the Cali leaders worked according to asystematic plan. Not that the results were any less the horrific for it. Assoon as Gilberto and Michel Rodriguez’ new homes were completed, all theconstruction workers who built the secret hiding places and getaway exitsdisappeared from the face of the earth ÿ a technique taken from the peoplewho had the Egyptian pyramids built.

It is also crucial for criminal organizations founded on long-term planning– the southern Italian mafia, the Ndrangheta, and the Camorra are old, andsome American Cosa Nostra families date back four or five generations aswell – to select young men at an early stage and plan their career with them.How does the personnel department acquire the know how it needs to makethe right decisions in this respect? Under financial conditions that were veryenticing but not completely clear25 in the seventies several of the criminolo-gists specialized in organized crime were invited to attend a conference aboutthe future of the mafia on the premises of the University of Messina in Sicily.What did our hypothetical personnel manager learn from them?

He would have done well to examine the information that test psycholo-gists have accumulated as regards selecting suitable candidates for the worldof trade and industry, the military apparatus and the school system. The Big


Five Personality Questionnaire is one of the instruments widely used todayin these fields, and one that might serve our personnel manager’s purposesvery nicely as well. This test might help reveal some of the organized crimebosses’ personality features. The test is based upon a lexical paradigm inthe theory of personality that goes back to the ideas of Galton, who perusedthe dictionary to find terms to define the facets of the personality and classifythem according to their characteristic features. Individual differences betweenpeople are expressed in the language used to refer to them. The test that is nowused is based upon the empirically founded fact that people’s personality canbe defined as a composite score on five independent personality dimensions.26

The five dimensions are Neuroticism, Extraversion, Openness, Agreeablenessand Conscientiousness. Each dimension has a number of six aspects, whichthe scores can be measured on using a battery of standardized tests. Peoplewho score high on the scale of neuroticism are burdened by anxiety, shameand impulsiveness. People who can be classified as extravert are energetic,cheerful and dominant. Openness is characterized by creativity, independ-ence and fantasy, and agreeableness by a willingness to please, compassionand sincerity. Conscientious people act effectively, and are ambitious andcircumspect.

A respondent can have a high or a low score on each of the five dimen-sions. Someone with a low score on the extraversion dimension is apt to bean introvert, a person who is calm and self-possessed might well score lowon the neuroticism scale, and a low agreeableness score can mean a personis rough and cruel. Although there are differences of opinion among the psy-chologists who work with these scales, for example as to the connotations ofimpulsiveness, the test has now been generally accepted and is also takento be valid inter-culturally. The Five Factor Model (FFM) is viewed as arobust model, and the professionals who work with it claim it produces ahigh level of valid predictability as regards labor achievement levels. Thereis no need to be distracted here by whether conduct – including criminalconduct – is a matter of nature or nurture. The personality is simply viewedas a product of the interaction between an individual’s natural predispositionand the environment.27 The only relevant aspect here is that the test is reliablein the sense that the scores measured on the personality test are sufficientlyconstant.

A professional job description

The requirements a personnel manager wants his applicants to meet with haveto do with the job description. To draw up that description, first a precisedefinition of organized crime will have to be formulated as a basic point of

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departure. I will go from there and deduct what the job description requires.According to the definition used by the Parliamentary Inquiry Committeeon Criminal Investigation Methods in the Netherlands that serves my pur-pose as good as any definition, organized crime involves “groups primarilyfocused on illegal profits that systematically commit crimes with serious re-percussions for society and are capable of shielding these crimes relativelyeffectively, in particular by way of their willingness to use physical violenceor eliminate individuals by means of corruption.”28 The definition applieswell to traditional forms of organized crime. The various elements of thedefinition constitute the basis of what is needed for the job at the top. Besides(a) leadership qualities, the main points are (b) the ability to make profits, (c)the faculty to disregard the serious threat to society that stems from this typeof criminal acts, (d) the capacity to shield the activities by way of corruptionand (e) the willingness to use violence and intimidations if necessary.

How can these elements of the definition of organized crime be translatedinto a job description? (a) Leadership qualities and an ability to make profitsare also required for any legitimate manager or executive. This is preciselywhat enables us to use the testing experiences acquired in the legitimate worldof trade and industry. Large firms use the Big Five Personality Test to look forpeople who score high on the extraversion dimension and exhibit a certain de-gree of conscientiousness. These two features have proven to predict effectivefunctioning on the part of managers. It is not hard to imagine organized crimebosses as being extraverts, though it is harder to see them as conscientious.This is an aspect that not only pertains to the ability to successfully completebusiness transactions, it also has to do with the proper care for employees.Establishing close ties with employees is of more crucial importance to theorganized crime boss than to his legitimate counterpart. If the group gets intotrouble, he is the one who will be paying their legal fees and supporting theirfamilies.

In addition to being extravert and conscientious, a good leader has tohave the social and emotional capacity to hold up under stress. In the tax-onomy Hofstee and de Raad derived from the Big Five Personality Test,this requirement coincides with the cool, calm and collected cluster.29 If it issupplemented by a certain degree of intelligence, it produces a test cluster thatcan destine young men and women for a career in commerce or government.The next question is: Which of them will go all the way to the top? Surpris-ingly enough, no test has been devised to answer this question. Managingdirectors do not have themselves tested, all they do is require to have theirpersonnel tested. Test experts tend to feel that the higher managers are in theorganization, the less predictive value testing has. Some people are innovativeand score high on the openness factor, others take foolish risks or get too


caught up in the game. There are adventurous and charismatic managers,opportunists, and directors who generate a steady flow of ideas.30 It would betechnically quite feasible to compare the test scores of today’s top managerswith those of their classmates twenty years ago, but for reasons related toprotecting their respondents’ privacy, in many countries testing agencies haveto destroy all their test results after some time. So in the legitimate world ofcommerce and industry, there is no way of assessing the predictive value ofthese tests for a successful rise to the top, and there are no empirical data athand to predict who will lead the list in its illegitimate counterpart.

The definition of organized crime states (b) that it involves people focusedon illegal profits. Criminologists who study their behavior are indeed oftensurprised to see that people who have already amassed a fortune still go ontaking all the risks that their criminal activities entail.31 This unmitigatedpursuit of profits may well be part of the definition, but it is not a distinguish-ing feature of crime. Don’t doing legitimate business and playing the stockmarket also involve the thrill of profits? Organized crime does not detriment-ally affect the order of things in this sense, instead it confirms the existingeconomic system. It implies the promise that anyone can get rich. If notvia the conventional, legitimate ladder to the top, then via the underworld’sown upward social mobility route.32 According to the system of personalityfeatures, it is mainly the people who score low on altruism and even moreso on modesty who have a good chance of a successful career in organizedcrime.

And now (c) for the serious repercussions for society. Is this a feature thatdistinguishes the illegitimate from the legitimate world? It is not so easy todetermine the extent of harm that a given economic activity can cause. Organ-ized crime is viewed as being all the more serious if positions of economicpower are built up through illegal routes, if it disrupts the legal market, ifit leads to government corruption, or if counter-strategies are used againstthe police and courts. In practice, the drug trade has the top priority, sinceit is relatively easy to prove and is such a high profile issue in internationalpolitics. In addition, it involves the kind of crimes that are committed byperpetrators who are in the stereotype group of criminals, i.e. the ones thepolice and the courts are all too familiar with.

Of course the effects of drug abuse can be horrific for individual addicts,but this is still no reason for combating the drug trade to have such a highpriority. How harmful is the drug trade? The disadvantage as far as society isconcerned is not immediately obvious from the product itself. Tobacco andalcohol manufacturers are behind far more fatalities, disabling diseases andunproductive hours. In fact recent trials against the captains of the Americancigarette industry have shown that they were aware of the harm being done as

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far back as the seventies. In the New York Times, one Philip Morris directorsaid he would never allow his daughter to smoke, because smoking “is justfor the poor, the young, the black and the ignorant.”33

It is evident from the numerous publications on the ethics of big businessand the criminal activities conducted there that drawing a borderline betweenlegal and illegal is far from simple (Punch, 1996). Many authors reject thewhole idea that there is a difference between organized crime and corporatecrime (e.g. Smith, 1991) or even that there is a difference between businessand (economic) criminality (Ruggiero, 1996).34 In empirical reality, it oftenis a difficult distinction to make. In the business world, legal activities canturn into illegal ones, and they are often carried out at the same time and bythe same people. The only reason why the distinction has to be maintained isthat different concepts and theories have been developed for business crime.The same holds true for the personality of the manager. It is not that uncom-mon for legitimate executives to have to take measures that can be extremelydetrimental to society as a whole if the competitive position or the survival ofthe company is at stake.

Is there really that much of a difference between the people in charge oflegal and illegal businesses in this respect? Some of the largest companieshave been restructured by men who will go down in history as “execution-ers.” The director of the multinational corporation Philips referred to himselfin The Netherlands as being “reasonably aggressive” when he announced abattle plan in 1990 called Centurion. While carrying out the plan, Jan Timmerwas nicknamed “John the Butcher,” “the killer,” “the boxer” and “the bison”.Volkswagen (and formerly GM) director Lopez was called “the Stranglerof Ruedesheim.” President Jeltsin’s economic advisor Anatoli Chubais hasbeen known in Russia as “The Terminator”. Judging from the definition oforganized crime as involving groups primarily focused on illegal profits thatsystematically commit crimes with serious consequences for society, there isnot that much of a difference when it comes to the need for a certain type ofpersonality at the top.

(d) Organized crime shields its activities by way of a repertoire of counter-strategies against the authorities, especially corruption, intimidation and thethreat of personal violence. In general, mafia biographies recount the day-to-day lives of people who are nice and friendly. Of course this is only trueas long as they get their way. Corruption is based upon the ability to ma-nipulate people who have formal power. Thepadronebehaves in a graciousand charming manner, but his intentions are immoral and solely focused onhis own interests. An applicant who can turn on the charm this way wouldhave a high score on the extraversion dimension, particularly as regards thesociability aspect, but a low one on the agreeableness dimension, especially


for sincerity. The ability to intimidate other people emerges as soon as otherpeople do not meet with some request that was put in such friendly terms.The threat is always there, just beneath the surface. Some people have acertain natural authority. It is something Italians callprepotenza.35 Anyonewho has ever looked the Sicilian Totò Riina in the face, even on a magazinecover, understands why people just do what he wants them to. It is a look thatcan be acquired. As a youngster, Al Capone used to practice in front of themirror. A combination of a certain expressionless gaze and tensed musclesin the neck was enough to get others to obey.36 Abadinsky found an awfullooking individual in to-day’s underworld of Chicago (Taylor Street Crew),William (“Butch”) Petrocelli, who uses nothing more than the stare techniquein extortion.37 Now, the psychological test can be used to locate this abilityby looking for a high extraversion score, especially on the dominance aspect.

The willingness to use physical violence might, at first sight, well be themost exclusive feature of the type of traditional organized crime we are deal-ing with here. It follows from the very nature of the illegitimate business,since people who deal in illegal goods and services can not call upon theassistance and support of the authorities, and because they need to dissuadetheir personnel from cheating. They have to build up their own undergroundregulation system and base it on the fear of retribution. People who do notpay up on time are in for some very severe chastisement and the same goesfor squealing to the authorities. There is always the willingness to use viol-ence, but it is preferable not to have to do so, since it attracts attention andendangers the organization. For the boss it is better to develop a informationsystem on the reliability of business partners and to base his confidence inunderlings on primary bonds of the organization based on kinship, ethnicity,family, nationality or residence.38 It is generally better for him to be able todepend on a reputation than to have to resort to violence. But even as he is notlooking for it, he doesn’t avoid violence either. There is one typical event inthe early chapters of mafia biographies, when the boy emerges victorious aftera tough and exhausting battle with an opponent who was previously knownas the meanest and strongest guy around. Then comes the moment when hehas to commit his first murder to prove his loyalty to the organization. Themoral of the personal legend is clear: he is capable of ruthless behavior atany given moment. The personality feature entailed here is an inconsistencyin the system of the Big Five. The person has to be impulsive, but at the sametime he has to have total control over himself.

On second thoughts, the willingness to use violence may be less character-istic for organized crime than it seems. I have deliberately used the adjective“personal” because companies that in themselves operate quite legally andmanagers who have never harmed others in person can still be responsible

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for violence. Punch referred to a whole list of crimes against the environmentand employee accidents due to negligence, which account for more fatalitiesthan all the underworld liquidations.39 The division of labor is clear: upper-world leaders make those of the underworld do the dirty work. So there is adifference in what the two classes of managers actually do, but the relevantquestion is here is whether the direct responsibility for violence requires thesame personality structure. I hypothesize that it does not.

Narcissistic personality disorder

What makes mafia bosses move? Romantic portraits of the mafia and othersecret criminal societies entail a low-profile life style of all its members andspecifically their chieftains. Recent disclosures by Italianpentiti (repentants)about the history of the honored society seem to affirm this image. All Sicilyexperts believed that illustrious Don Calogero Vizzini, mayor of Villalba, andhis successor Guiseppe Genco Russo from Mussomeli run the important Cor-leone organization during the 1950s. But now that a relatively minor figure ofthe Catania mafia family Antonino Calderone has broken the code of silencefirst to the Police and later to criminologist Pino Arlacchi, it is suggested thatin reality an inconspicuous mr. Adrea Fazio, inhabitant of Trapani, has beenthe realcapo.40

Although there may be some truth to this secrecy tale in the past, suchmodesty does not make much sense and is definitely not confirmed by mostmodern organized crime biographies. Apart from simple greed, underworldbosses are also motivated by the drive to dominate and exercise authority.Letizia Paoli’s consultation of Italian turncoats’ testimonies has led her tobelieve that the political role of the mafia has been at least as important asthe economy. (Local) power is even more important than profit.41 Organizedcrime leaders have gained power and respect not through keeping quiet, butby openly putting forth their criminal enterprise and showing their immunityfor the law. It is the open confrontation with and defiance of state power thatcharacterizes organized crime most of all. Staying out of prison demonstratespower and influence.

The struggle for power is logically accompanied by an open display ofinfluence and richess. Organized crime dons of to-day maintain a high-profileand costly life style. They reside in renommé hotels, show their criminalfamily at sports contest and appear in society shows on television. They loveto show off their famous friends – (former) beauty queens and singers areuniversally popular among the mob – they buy social recognition by spon-soring sports and art and they love films about their adventurous lifes andwelcome biography authors. Sociologically speaking their deportment con-


stitutesnouveau richebehavior in the extreme. But seen from the vantagepoint of individual psychology, and that is what we are doing here, suchbehavior looks very much like a big exercise in compensation to overcomefeelings of inferiority. Social and ethnic disadvantage is remedied or someindividual weakness. It is remarkable how many kingpins of organized crimehave been extremely short men. Corleone mafia boss Totò Riina only meas-ures 1.57 m.; Meyer Lansky (who tried to compensate his shortness with highshoes) measured 1.64 m.; Turkey’sbabaKilic measured 1.65 m.

What justification of mafia conduct do the bosses come up with them-selves? Many biographies are very explicit about it. The main characters viewthemselves as superior beings who have every reason to look down upon theirinferiors. In itself, their moral mode is not a deviant one. Their knowledge ofthe Penal Code is better than the average citizen’s, and in a political sense theyare conservative. Prison guards who have worked with the most bloodthirstymafiosi are often surprised at their devout piety as they perform their daily re-ligious rites. The anomaly is resolved by their application of the neutralizationtechnique to view themselves as chosen. They are above ordinary people, andlike Robin Hood, they obey the laws of a higher order. For them, these lawsare tantamount to a personal assignment. InPoetry and Philosophy, a col-lection of his statements, Raffaele Cutolo, Camorra boss from Naples, says:“I am a divinity, for me no laws exist, because I am greater than a judge.”42

Many of his fellow bosses in crime feel much the same way. At the end oftheir lives, mafia dons often tell their biographers what a wonderfully excitinglife they have had. The combination of arrogance and grandiose fantasy doesnot fit easily into the five factor model of personality. Maybe the classificationas “adventurous”, which is an aspect of the extraversion dimension, wouldapply but it does not cover the full syndrome.

Do mafia chiefs suffer from some kind of pathology after all?43 The Amer-ican Psychiatric Association published a Diagnostic and Statistical Manual ofMental Disorders in 1980 and named it DSM-III. The underworld chieftain’sview of themselves and their place in the world would certainly fit into thecategory of narcissism that has a certain popularity among the mental healthprofessionals, notably those of psychoanalytic persuasion. Theodore Millonsupplemented the classification system of personality disorders in 1981; herewe find “the attitude of omnipotence and self-assurance, a feeling that therules of society do not apply to them and that they are above the respons-ibilities of shared living” being characteristic of the “narcissistic-antisocial(aggressive) mixed personality.”44 Characteristic for the narcissistic person-ality disorder is that the persons concerned “flout conventional rules (. . .)viewing them as naive or inapplicable to self”, display “an undisciplinedimagination and exhibit a preoccupation with immature fantasies of success,

240 FRANK BOVENKERK

beauty, or love” and that they are “minimally constrained by objective reality,take liberties with facts, and often lie to redeem self-illusions.” This seemsexactly the kind of pathology that may help to become successful among theleadership of organized crime.

Is this personality disorder typical for mafia dons only? It is amazing tosee how Maurice Punch comes up with the same personality characteristicsafter reading the biographies of business tycoons such as Rockefeller, Getty,Onassis, Disney and so on.45 He found an “obsessive thirst for power andthe frequent abuse of that power” and he cites Dixon who summarized thepsychological work on the relationship between personality and “disastrousdecisions” in the corporate world: “Those personality characteristics whichtake people to the top and establish them as all powerful decisionmakerstend to include (. . .) extremes of egocentricity, insincerity, dishonesty (. . .)pomposity and megalomanic delusions of grandeur.” Business leaders areeager to remove competitors. Are underworld leaders really a special classof persons?

Mafia boss wanted

Hypothetically, it is now possible to sum up the personality features that pre-dict effective functioning for a mafia don. In general, the candidates wouldhave to have a high score on the extraversion and a low one on the agree-ableness dimension. Organized crime would be at its most powerful and itsmost dangerous if dominant applicants were selected with a certain extent ofconscientiousness. They need to exhibit a carefully controlled impulsivenessand a sense of adventure, and megalomania and a feeling that they are wayabove the masses. Diagnosed Narcissistic Personality Disorder is not an ob-jection. Underworld circles do not seem to go in for bureaucratic procedures,but on the basis of this construction we would be able to provide them witha good description for the employment opening. The text of the ad has tospecify though that the applicant will have to take a psychological test. Ifthey cooperate, the validation of the test can begin. A sample of corporatemanagers should be persuaded to undergo the same test as a control group.

Notes

1. This is the abridged version of Duijker-lecture given by the author at Amsterdam Univer-sity on 19-3-1998.

2. Petrus van Duyne, “Mobsters are Human Too”, in: David Canter and Laurence Alison(eds.),Profiling in Policy and Practice, (Ashgate/Dartmouth, Aldershot etc., 1999), pp.


55–82, looks promising but deals with the question how the police should make profilesrather than putting it in practice.

3. Brent E. Turvey,Criminal Profiling. An Introduction to Behavioral Evidence Analysis,(San Diego: Academic Press, 1999).

4. Thomas A. Firestone, “Mafia Memoirs: What They Tell Us About Organized Crime”, in:Journal of Contemporary Criminal Law1993, 9: 197–220.

5. Robert Lacey,Little Man. Meyer Lansky and the Gangster Life, (Boston: Little, Brownand Company, 1991).

6. Leonard Katz,Uncle Frank: The Biography of Frank Costello, (New York: Pocket Books,1975), p. 228.

7. William Brashler,The Don, The Life and Death of Sam Giancana, (New York: Ballantine,1977), p. 95.

8. Gene Mustain and Jerry Capeci,Mob Star. The Story of John Gotti, (New York: Dell,1988).

9. Michael Gottfredson and Travis Hirschi,A General Theory of Crime, (Stanford, Califor-nia: Stanford University Press, 1990).

10. Samuel Yochelson and Stanton E. Samenow,The Criminal Personality, Volume I: A Pro-file for Change, (New York: Jason Aronson, 1976).

11. Glenn D. Walters,The Criminal Lifestyle, Patterns of Serious Criminal Conduct, (New-bury Park, California: Sage, 1990).

12. Gottfredson and Hirschi,op cit., p. 151.13. Akers, Ronald L.,Criminological Theories: Introductional Evaluation, (Los Angeles,

California: Roxbury Publ., 1994).14. Diego Gambetta,The Sicilian Mafia. The Business of Private Protection, (Cambridge,

Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1993), p. 104.15. Margaret E. Beare,Criminal Conspiracies. Organized Crime in Canada, (Scarborough:

Nelson Canada, 1996), p. 51.16. William J. Chambliss,Exploring Criminology, (New York: McMillan, 1988), p. 232.17. Gary W. Potter,Criminal Organizations. Vice, Racketeering and Politics in an American

City, (Prospect Heights, Illinois: Wareland, 1994), p. 124.18. Robert Blackburn,The Psychology of Criminal Conduct. Theory, Research and Practice,

(Chichester: John Wiley & Sons, 1995).19. U.S. Department of Justice,Traditional and Emerging Organized Crime Groups, (Miami,

Florida, 1996).20. Howard Abadinsky, “The Future of TraditionalOrganized Crime”, in S. Einstein and M.

Amir (eds.),Organized Crime: Uncertainties and Dilemmas, (Chicago: The University ofIllinois at Chicago, 1999), pp. 187–202.

21. Vincent Teresa,My Life in the Mafia, (Greenwich, Connecticut: Fawcett Cress, 1973).22. Nicholas Gage (ed.),Mafia, U.S.A., (New York: Dell Publishing Co., 1972).23. Pino Arlacchi,Mafia Business. The Mafia and the Spirit of Capitalism, (London: Verso,

1986.24. Francisco E. Thoumi,Political Economy and Illegal Drugs in Colombia, (Boulder, Col-

orado / London: Lynne Rienner Publ., 1995), pp. 133–134.25. Mafia control was not proven until the spring of 1998 when a large criminal investigation

was started into the murder of medicin professor Bottari.26. Costa and McCrae standardized his work and Hoekstra et al. translated the test into

Dutch: H.A. Hoekstra, J. Ormel and F. de Fruyt,Big Five persoonlijkheidsvragenlijsten,Handleiding(Big Five Personality Questionnaires, Manual), (Lisse: Swets & Zeitlinger,1996).

242 FRANK BOVENKERK

27. In my opinion, this interactionist approach also produces the most realistic model forcriminality. Cf. David Magnusson and Bertil Törestad, “The Individual as an Interact-ive Agent in the Environment,” in W.B. Walsh, K. Graig and R. Price (eds.),PersonEnvironment Psychology: Models and Perspectives, (Hillsdale, New Jersey: Erlbaum,1991).

28. C. Fijnaut et al.,Organized Crime in the Netherlands, (The Hague: Kluwer Law Interna-tional, 1998).

29. Willem K.B. Hofstee and Boele de Raad, “Persoonlijkheidsstructuur: de AB5C-taxonomievan Nederlands eigenschapstermen” (Personality Structure: The AB5C Taxonomy of DutchTerms for Features), in:Nederlands Tijdschrift voor de Psychologie1991, 46(6): 262–274.

30. A great deal has been written about managers. I consulted the following literature: DavidJ. Lawless,Organizational Behavior. The Psychology of Effective Management, (Engel-wood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall Inc., 1979); Gordon Donaldson and Jay W. Lorsch,Decision-Making at the Top: The Shaping of Strategic Direction, (New York: Basic BooksInc., 1983); Jay A. Conger et al.,Charismatic Leadership: The Elusive Factor in Organiz-ational Effectiveness, (San Francisco / London: Jossey-Bass Publ., 1988); Elizabeth Cellet al.,The Entrepreneurial Personality: Concepts, Cases and Categories, (London / NewYork: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1991).

31. Howard Abadinsky,Organized Crime, (Chicago, Illinois: Nelson-Hall, 1991). This bookeven refers to the desire for profits as the main feature of all organized crime.

32. Daniel Bell,The End of Ideology, (New York: Free Press, 1962), Chapter 7.33. De Volkskrant, 17 May, 1997.34. Maurice Punch,Dirty Business. Exploring Corporate Misconduct, (London: Sage, 1996);

Dwight C. Smith, “Wickersham to Sutherland to Katzenbach: Evolving an ‘Official’ Defin-ition of Organized Crime”, inCrime, Law and Social Change1991, 16(2): 135–154;Vincenzo Ruggiero,Organized and Corporate Crime in Europe, (Aldershot: DartmouthSocial-Legal Studies, 1996).

35. See Jane Schneider and Peter Schneider,Culture and Political Economy in Western Sicily,(New York: Academic Press, 1976), for the cultural codes in Sicily.

36. Robert J. Schoenberg,Mr. Capone, (New York: William Morrow and Co., 1992), p. 72.37. His book on the Chicago mob is forthcoming.38. Pino Arlacchi, “Some Observations on Illegal Markets”, in V. Ruggiero et al. (eds.),The

New European Criminology. Crime and Social Order in Europe, (London and New York:Routledge, 1999), pp. 203–215.

39. Maurice Punch,Suite Violence. Why Managers Murder and Corporations Kill, paperpresented at the ASC Conference in Chicago, 1996.

40. Pino Arlacchi,Leven in de mafia. Het verhaal van Antonino Calderone,(Amsterdam:Nijgh & Van Ditmar, 1993), p. 53.

41. Letizia Paoli, “The Pentiti’s Contribution to the Conceptualization of the Mafia Phe-nomenon”, in Vincenzo Ruggiero et al. (eds.),The New European Criminology. Crimeand Social Order in Europe, (London and New York: Routledge, 1999), pp. 264–286.

42. Claire Longrigg,Mafia Women, (London: Chatto & Windus, 1997), p. 13.43. This possibility has been suggested to me by psychologist professor Willem K.B. Hofstee.44. Theodore Millon,Disorders of Personality, DSM-III: Axis II, (New York: John Wiley &

Sons, 1981), p. 173.45. Punch, op cit., 1996, pp. 232–233.

``wanted: mafia boss'' – essay on the personology of organized crime

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