Rivista di Studi e Ricerche sulla criminalità organizzata
Monitoring Research Centre on Organized Crime – Department of International, Legal and Political-Historical Studies
Research on mafias and the fragmentation of scientific disciplines
The increasing fragmentation of scientific research represents a critical issue across multiple disciplinary domains. This article explores the phenomenon through the lens of mafia studies, highlighting how current academic validation logics—based on selective and sectoral criteria—hinder the development of interdisciplinary and transnational approaches. These recognition mechanisms, often rigidly normative, not only restrict the circulation and integration of knowledge, but also undermine the possibility of constructing a broad and shared cultural discourse.
Copyright (c) 2025 Rivista di Studi e Ricerche sulla criminalità organizzata https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0
The broad movements of criminal interests. Maps and emerging problems in the new global world
This article explores the evolving landscape of organized crime through a five-pronged analytical lens. It highlights (1) the increasing centrality of the Eastern Hemisphere in global criminal dynamics and (2) the rapid ascent of new criminal organizations. Particular attention is given to (3) the expanding role of mercenary companies, which blur the lines between illicit enterprise and armed conflict. The paper also examines (4) a significant geographical and productive shift in the drug trade, alongside (5) the emergence of fluid transnational alliances. These developments challenge traditional analytical frameworks and call for renewed scholarly engagement and interdisciplinary openness in the study of contemporary organized crime.
Piersanti Mattarella: “we need to create an anti-mafia conscience”. The speech to the Sicilian Regional Assembly in november 1979
The article summarizes the key points of Piersanti Mattarella’s address to the Sicilian Regional Assembly on November 20th, 1979, featured below. In his speech, Mattarella forcefully condemns Mafia violence and calls on the State to respond decisively. The introduction emphasizes his belief that the fight against the Mafia must go beyond repression and instead involve institutional reform, economic development, and government transparency — in other words, the pursuit of “good politics.”
The Mattarella murder: matrices and convergences. A dialogue between historiography and legal science to narrate the complexity of political crimes in Sicily
This article examines the circumstances and dynamics of the assassination of Piersanti Mattarella, President of the Sicilian Regional Government, who was killed in Palermo on 6 January 1980. Adopting a multidisciplinary framework, it juxtaposes classical sources (judicial memoirs, contemporary reportage) with the records of the second criminal trial concerning the masterminds of the Bologna massacre (2 August 1980). The study asks whether the complex nexus of interests underlying the killing should be understood as part of a broad subversive network or—consistent with the recent investigative orientation of the Palermo Public Prosecutor’s Office—reframed within a strictly Mafia context. Preliminary results demonstrate that the chosen interpretive lens shapes not only the historical narrative but also the design of operational countermeasures.
The role of tax assessment in the fight against criminal phenomena
The paper addresses the potential role that the assessment activity carried out by the Tax Administration can play in the fight against criminal phenomena. By reconstructing the main assessment tools at both national and international levels, the Author examines the possible contacts and the inter-institutional synergies that may be established between the Tax Administration and the Criminal Justice Authority.
After the Second World War, although Rome remained the political capital of Italy, Palermo took on a dominant role as the 'criminal' capital, concentrating mafia and business power, especially between the 1970s and 1990s. Mafia-style organized crime, fuelled by drug trafficking, gained increasing influence on a national scale, with Palermo as the epicentre of a criminal network that progressively involved finance, politics, economic crime, and deviant Freemasonry. The Sicilian city became, in fact, a place where legal and illegal businesses intertwined, pushing its dynamics to expand far beyond regional borders, even influencing Milan, the country's economic capital. The importance of Palermo emerged not only in the management of illicit trafficking but also in its connections with powerful financial and political circles. From this, it is clear that Palermo played the role of a center of control and alternative regulation compared to Rome.
Tra lavoro, crimine e memoria (pensando al futuro…)
About Mafia and Work. Reading a Sicilian CGIL’s document
The text introduces the document delivered by the Sicilian CGIL Secretariat to the Anti-Mafia Parliamentary Commission in October 1963. It traces the season of the popular struggles against the feud and for agrarian reform, emphasising the role of the left-wing forces and the violent reaction of the landowners and the Mafia.
Market, business and labour in the fight against mafia infiltration
This study aims to analyze the regulatory framework for combating mafia infiltration from a labor law perspective. Specifically, it seeks to highlight intersections and conflicts between certain labor law institutions and the relevant regulations, as well as their impact on the workforce. To this end, three measures will be examined: anti-mafia documentation, the Quality Agricultural Work Network, and subcontracting. The analysis reveals a paradox between the progressive liberalization of market regulation and the reliance on (merely) repressive responses, which are poorly aligned with labor law provisions. The study proposes a reading of anti-mafia regulations that better balances the diverse interests at stake.
A novel is like an axe that penetrates the chest and tears it open. Inter-view with Luca Galassi
The article features an interview with Luca Galassi, journalist and writer, and is part of a research project dedicated to the symbolic and social impact of the 1993 Mafia attacks against Italy's artistic heritage. In the contribution, the focus shifts from criminal responsibility to the damage inflicted on art and collective memory. In particular, the article reconstructs the birth of the video ‘The Cure’, which documents the restoration of the painting I Giocatori di Carte by Bartolomeo Manfredi, severely damaged in the 1993 Via dei Georgofili massacre. Finally, the article highlights the value of artistic recovery as a resilience to mafia violence and an act of civil commitment.
Mafia and Union. Once Upon a Time, America
The essay historically examines the relationship between the Mafia and labor unions in the United States, focusing on those personalities who contributed most, in the history of America in the 20th century, to countering the growing infiltration of organized crime into the union world. The analysis focuses on the contribution provided, between the 1930s and the 1960s, by Thomas Dewey, District Attorney in New York since 1935, and Bobby Kennedy, first as legal adviser for the first Senatorial Commission of Inquiry into organized crime and corruption in labor unions and later as head of the Justice Department in his brother John Fitzgerald Kennedy’s administration
“The Other” as a transformative presence for legality. An Action-Research experience inside and outside the prison: hypotheses for a sustainable model.
The results of an Action-Research experience promoted by the Regional School Office for Lombardy between the school and the services of the penal and precautionary enforcement of liberty for the realisation of innovative paths of education to legality will be presented. We will illustrate how two classes of adult students, outside and inside prison, have experimented - through literature, co-planning, university involvement, participatory methodologies - an effective model of education to legality as a form of active citizenship.
Hunger as protest. The "Fasting women" of Palermo
This article examines the unique role of women in the Italian anti-mafia movement, highlighting their emphasis on collective action and cooperation over individual recognition. Women’s involvement challenges stereotypical roles and extends the movement’s reach beyond personal experiences of victimization to include broader civic responsibilities. The study calls for a deeper recognition of women’s contributions, situating their activism within broader feminist movements for justice, equality and democratic reform.
Copyright (c) 2024 Rivista di Studi e Ricerche sulla criminalità organizzata https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0
The paper traces some stories of women who, before and after Giuseppa Di Sano, whose testimony against the mafia – included in the report of Palermo prefect Ermanno Sangiorgi in Palermo on 20 November 1898 – is reported in the document of History and Memory section, have had the strength to speak out against the mafia.
Giuseppa Di Sano: A Woman at the Origins of Civil Antimafia
The paper introduces the document concerning the testimony of Giuseppa Di Sano, attached to the one of prefect Ermanno Sangiorgi in Palermo on 20 November 1898. Pushed not only from mother love, but also for protecting her business activity and her dignity. she found the courage to suit the mafia for the killing of her daughter Emanuela.
Civic journalism narrating violence in Mexico. Interview with Marcela Turati
The paper, reporting the interview with Mexican journalist Marcela Turati, deals with issues related to the spread of extreme violence in Mexico since 2006 and the related institutional narration; the development of innovative forms of journalism as a reaction to the spreading of violence; and, finally, the engagement of local women journalists in defending human rights, as well as the feminist network sheltering them.
Rebels. Stories of women who challenged the mafia for love
The article traces some of the stories of women relatives of mafia victims reconstructed in Nando dalla Chiesa's book "Rebels. Stories of women who challenged the mafia for love” (Solferino, 2023), emphasizing their civic courage and emotional strength.
Women, mafias and theater experiences in prison. The scenic space as an opportunity for transformation
The article analyzes the experience of the Vigevano prison’s detained involved in the theater laboratory project envisaged in the "Educating yourself in legality" project. By exploring the self-reflexive practices and paths of biographical awareness of four detained-actresses, the article investigates the ways in which the theatrical activity contributed to the transformation of their daily practices, as well as of self-representation models.
Mafia violence against women: education on citizenship and legality in universities
Education on legality and citizenship rights is a central theme for all Italian universities that intersects with the broad debate that has recently concerned the definition of the “third mission” in our universities. The project “Roma Tre against the mafia”, sponsored by Libera and which includes in its first phase the naming of 12 departmental classrooms after innocent victims of the mafia, intends to be a contribution in this direction. Within this project, six classrooms have been dedicated to six women innocent victims of mafia violence, in the awareness that the criminal laws of mafia violence and those of patriarchy present a contiguity in the processes of oppression, annihilation and discrimination of women that must be further investigated. In fact, in mafia violence, women’s bodies become the object in some circumstances of unprecedented ferocity.
Women and the Mafia. Opening up to history
In the editorial, the editor analyzes the relationship between the Mafia and women in the social sciences, tracing the contents and peculiarities of the contributions that appear in the monographic issue.
Red Gold: The Assault on the Porphyry Quarries in Trentino
The paper analyses how the ’ndrangheta achieved to take root in the extraction of porphyry in Trentino to then extent its influence to other economic sectors and to the democratic life of the small municipality of Lona-Lases, up to the highest political and institutional exponents in the province. The results of the analysis highlights how preexisting conditions enabled ’ndrangheta to settle its first organized group (the so called “locale”) in Trentino-Alto Adige: the weaknesses and distortions which have characterized this economic sector since its birth and during its rapid development and the presence of an extended grey area.
How to poison a land. The trafficking and disposal of toxic and radioactive waste in Cam-pania in the deposition of Carmine Schiavone.
The article highlights the main points of the testimony given by Carmine Schiavone, former Casalesi boss, in 1997 to the Parliamentary Commission on the Waste Cycle and related illegal activities, declassified in 2013. It emerges a picture of the origins of hazardous waste illegal trafficking in Campania, with toxic drums buried in quarries, political and Masonic cover-ups and an increase in cancer cases in the area between the provinces of Naples and Caserta.
Victims of environmental violence: a profile of psychosocial damages
The article deals with the issue of environmental violence through the the environmental disaster caused by the ecomafie in Campania, in the so-called ‘Land of Fires’. The perspective offered by the autors, social psychologists, by highlighting the complex territorial and human phenomenology that this events show aims at enlarging the definition of environmental damage, usually referred to the biomedicalfield, including the damages to the quality of life inflicted on the community.
Natural resources, organized crime and armed conflict: the case of Sierra Leone and the Revolutionary United Front
This paper examines the interplay between natural resource exploitation, organized crime, and armed conflicts, focusing on the case of Sierra Leone and the Revolutionary United Front (RUF). The research highlights how the illicit diamond trade fueled RUF activities, prolonging the civil war and exacerbating both human rights violations and environmental degradation. The analysis aims to reconstruct the role of extractivism in the genesis and evolution of large-scale criminality, examining the phases before, during, and after the civil conflict.
Environmental crimes, mafias and waste. A multidisciplinary perspective
The article aims to provide a critical examination of the concept of environmental crime, analyzing the relationship between the mafia phenomenon and the environment through a multidisciplinary approach and the theoretical tools of green criminology and organized crime studies. Treating the Italian case in particular, the legal implications of the phenomenon will then be analyzed, with reference to the instruments of criminal law. Finally, the case of waste trafficking will be considered.
Crime and the environment: the importance of shared principles and values
The contribution aims to identify some emblematic tools in the fight against environmental crime. Starting from the analysis of the environmental asset as a constitutional value, it analyzes, first, the regulatory framework of reference in the light, in particular, of the recent constitutional reform and, subsequently, the critical issues that, on a daily basis, environmental protection must face. It also dwells on the peculiarities of environmental crime and eco-mafias, so as to be able to understand what the main limits are to prevention and contrast actions and, consequently, what are the possible and fundamental solution tools.
The myth of Homero and the (desperate) modernity of environmentalism
The article investigates the connection between organized crime and environmental destruction, highlighting how criminal organizations exploit illicit markets for natural resources on a global scale. Through the analysis of case studies from Italy to Latin America, the paper examines the illegal trafficking of hazardous waste, deforestation, and uncontrolled mining activities. Additionally, it emphasizes the growing criminalization of environmental activists, and the impunity enjoyed by those responsible for environmental devastation. The article underscores the need for a collective and ideal space for effective action in addressing environmental protection challenges and combating organized crime.
The editor's editorial describes the contents of the special issue dedicated to environmental crime and remembers the sociologist Bianca Beccalli, a former lecturer at the Faculty of Political Science who passed away recently.
What the Camorra is. The first part of the 1993 Report of the Parliamentary Anti-mafia Commission
The first part of the Report on the Camorra published by the Parliamentary Anti-Mafia Commission in 1993 is offered here. The article introduces the text by examining its salient points, focusing on the continuity features of the camorristic phenomenon and the exceptional level of dangerousness it assumed between the 1970s and 1990s.