Yes, we know all too well from the movies and journalistic reports that the members of Cosa Nostra are ruthless, dangerous, tough, macho… But psychopaths? There we already entered a specific psychiatric diagnosis – common to many criminals – that includes traits such as lack of empathy, manipulation of others, impulsive behavior and narcissism.
To verify this empirically, a group of Italian psychologists and sociologists have conducted interviews with 30 prisoners, accused of belonging to organized crime, in a prison in Palermo , the capital of Sicily. Seven were serving sentences for murder, 17 for other violent crimes and the rest for various misdeeds: drug trafficking, extortion, fraud, etc.
The diagnosis was based on the Revised Hare Psychopathy Rating Scale (PCL-R), an internationally accepted standard, and compared with those obtained by 39 other non-mafia inmates, convicted of homicide, child abuse or robbery.
Well, none of the alleged gangsters tested “positive” for psychopathy, while 10% of the control group did . In addition, the mean scores in the Cosa Nostra group were significantly lower. As the investigators relate, these criminals expressed their concern for their children and relatives, to whom they never stopped calling or writing.
Among the other offenders, such an attachment rarely appeared. Apparently, the members of the Sicilian organized crime knew how to distinguish between their personal life and the services to the Family, to which they owed an absolute loyalty.
The scientists also found that the “mafiosi” used much less drugs, because they considered that they affected their performance as “soldiers” . In any case, the study ran into a legal problem that qualified the conclusions: in Italy it is forbidden to have a personal encounter with the bosses of the Mafia. So we do not know if those who give the orders are made of another paste and if they can be labeled as psychopaths.
