Genovese Crime Family vs. Big Circle Gang: A Comparison

Introduction

This paper compares and contrasts two organized crime groups active in America: an Italian group and an Asian group. The Genovese Crime Family and the Chinese Big Circle Gang are two notorious organizations that both call America home. Both are well known to law enforcement and many members of the public, and both are extremely active in American organized crime. These groups are similar in many ways — from their operations to their involvement in illegal activities such as drug trafficking. However, they differ enough that they could never combine into a unified criminal organization. They have different goals and outlooks, and they are organized in fundamentally different ways. Chinese gangs may represent the organized crime of the future, while Italian families are in decline and may represent its past.

The Genovese Crime Family

The Genovese Crime Family is one of the most noted Italian crime families in America, largely because one of their members, Joseph Valachi, testified before Congress in 1967, giving the American public an unprecedented look at gangland activities (Chin et al., 1994, p. 3). The family's origins are in Sicily, and family members — from the Morretto and Saietta families — immigrated to New York in the 1890s, where they began criminal activities. Their early activities consisted of gambling, extortion, and robbery. The gang went through several different leaders throughout the 20th century until Vito Genovese took it over in 1957 and led the group until his death in 1969. During Genovese's leadership, the family branched into illegal drug activity. Since 1969, the family has had numerous leaders and has lost much of its power and prestige; its main activities at present appear to be loansharking and illegal drug trafficking.

While most Asian gangs are not based on strict leadership and hierarchy, most Italian crime families are extremely regimented, with several levels of leadership that must be acknowledged and adhered to. As one author notes, "[T]he 'soldiers' of the Genovese family were divided into fourteen regimes (corresponding to the Sicilian decine), each of which was headed by a caporegime, who referred to either the consigliere [counselor] or the sottocapo [underboss]" (Paoli, 2003, p. 7). In addition, indoctrination and oath-taking are extremely important as an entrance into the family (Paoli, 2005, p. 234), while Chinese groups are less regimented and rely on local and national leadership — often members do not even know who their leaders are, because those leaders are located in foreign countries or other distant locations (Chin et al., 1994, p. 222).

Leadership and Internal Structure

Probably the biggest difference between Asian and Italian gangs is the power associated with leadership and the posturing that accompanies struggles for it. The Genovese family has had literally dozens of leaders, many of whom lost their position due to assassination by other members seeking to lead the group. Large organizations seem to promote this kind of internal violence, while there is little of it in Asian gangs. Asian gangs are much smaller, and the leader is often not even publicly known; as a result, they tend to be less volatile and more cohesive, which may be one reason they appear more successful than their Italian counterparts. The Italians are constantly fighting amongst themselves, which weakens the organization and its activities, while the Asians focus on completing their business effectively.

In a further twist, there are indications that the Genovese family has allied itself with the Russian Mafia in certain dealings, such as fuel distribution and retail sales along the East Coast of the United States (Chin et al., 1994, p. 260). Chinese gangs rarely team up with other organized crime groups, and when they do, it is with other Asian criminal organizations rather than those of different nationalities. The future of Italian gangs like the Genovese may lie in alliances such as these, since many of these families have lost much of their power and control over illegal activities. Asian gangs are becoming dominant in many areas of illegal enterprise, including drug and human trafficking.

Conclusion

While these two groups share many similarities, they have marked differences in how they are organized, what activities they engage in, and how they conduct business. It does not appear that these two groups could ever merge into one cohesive organization, because the differences between them are simply too great. Many of the great Italian Mafia families — including the Genovese family — have fallen into decline over the last decade, and it seems that Asian gangs are increasingly moving in to replace them.