The decline of the American Mafia

Public Interest, Summer, 1995 by Peter Reuter

Now, the local police can sell, at best, very partial protection, since state and federal agencies can all make cases against loansharks, drug dealers, or extortionists. To make matters worse for would-be sellers of local protective services, offering up your local protector is one of the few ways for criminals to get relief from long federal sentences. The market for local police corruption has certainly not disappeared, but it is much less systemic than in previous decades. What the recent Mollen Commission inquiry in New York City uncovered was a group of entrepreneurial police who stole drugs from dealers when they had the chance but then had to sell the stuff themselves. There was no criminal organization able and willing to take advantage of their corruption to develop control of some area or market.

Legal eagles and stumbling felons

Better federal enforcement. The FBI got out of pretentious pinstripes and into badly cut leisure suits in the late 1970s. Long-term undercover investigations, which Hoover had always rejected because of the difficulty of controlling the agents, became frequent. One of the first (UniRac, for "union racketeering") snared Anthony Scotto, a highly visible figure in the waterfront industry with close ties to the New York State political system and, as it turned out, a member in good standing of the Gambino family; that membership was scarcely surprising since he had married the daughter of Anthony Anastasia, of Murder, Inc., fame.

Federal prosecutors became much more sophisticated in their use of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) and the Continuing Criminal Enterprise (CCE) statutes. Instead of convicting dons for running gambling enterprises, which was the outcome of many investigations in the early 1970s, RICO allowed them to bring cases with more significant and substantive crimes. John Gotti, the putative Godfather, was sentenced for his involvement in a homicide. The list of charges on which the heads of the five New York families were convicted in 1986 (the "Commission" case, in which, for the first time, the defendants admitted that the Mafia existed and was directed by a commission of the leaders) included three murders.

The federal judiciary, with guidelines in hand, delivered long sentences. For example, taking the Times listing as definitive, each of the leaders of the five families in New York in 1985 has received a sentence of at least 15 years; most of them and their principal deputies are in prison for life sentences without parole.

The price of loyalty, the much-vaunted "omerta," has thus become a lot higher. Members who might serve three years rather than inform changed their minds when 15-year terms became common. John Gotti is serving a life sentence because Salvatore Gravano, his longtime deputy and an admitted participant in 19 murders, chose to testify and turn an expected life sentence into a more reasonable five years. The federal government now reports over 100 Mafiosi in its witness protection program, compared to just a handful 10 years ago.