The language of the Mafia (1992)

As captured by the writings of Leonardo Sciascia, depicted in hundreds of films and television programmes, and minutely described in newspaper reports, communication has always been one of the distinctive elements of the Mafia’s ‘Piovra’. There is not and could not be a form of criminal organisation rooted in the territory and among the people, producing a subculture animated by distinctive characteristics, which has not elaborated its code of communication: from the Japanese yakuza to the Neapolitan Camorra, from the Black Hand of the USA at the beginning of the century to the Sicilian Mafia, the history and the actions of the criminals are filled with rituals, traditions, symbolism, signs of belonging and signals which are more or less decodable.