Structure and Composition
Cosa Nostra is not a monolithic organization, but rather a loose association of groups known alternately as "families", "cosche", "borgatas" or "clans" (despite the name, their members are generally not related by blood). Today, according to the Chief Prosecutor of Palermo, Francesco Messineo, there are 94 Mafia clans in Sicily subject to 29 mandamenti, with a total of at least 3,500 to 4,000 full members. Most are based in western Sicily, almost half of them in the province of Palermo.
Read more about this topic: Sicilian Mafia
Famous quotes containing the words structure and, structure and/or composition:
“Each structure and institution here was so primitive that you could at once refer it to its source; but our buildings commonly suggest neither their origin nor their purpose.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“... the structure of our public morality crashed to earth. Above its grave a tombstone read, “Be tolerant—even of evil.” Logically the next step would be to say to our commonwealth’s criminals, “I disagree that it’s all right to rob and murder, but naturally I respect your opinion.” Tolerance is only complacence when it makes no distinction between right and wrong.”
—Sarah Patton Boyle, U.S. civil rights activist and author. The Desegregated Heart, part 2, ch. 2 (1962)
“Modern Western thought will pass into history and be incorporated in it, will have its influence and its place, just as our body will pass into the composition of grass, of sheep, of cutlets, and of men. We do not like that kind of immortality, but what is to be done about it?”
—Alexander Herzen (1812–1870)