John DeMatteo responded to my Report about Bill Dal Cerro's Letter in the Chicago Times about the Coppola family and the Godfather, expressing appreciation for seeing scholarly sources on organized crime for a change.

"For too long and too often I have seen Italian Americans repeating totally inaccurate statements on organized crime right out of the mass media.  What a shame! Che Vergogna! "

John was referring specifically to "Dal Cerro recommendations of Dr. Dwight Smith "Mafia Mystique" and Mark Haller "The History of Organized Crime".

DeMatteo went on further to recommend a remarkable source of information on this subject, not only because of it's wealth of information, but because of its complete accessibility on the Internet. "Organized Crime" is authored by Dr. Gary Potter of Eastern Kentucky State.

The first lesson is on the mafia.  In short, Potter points out that academics, scholars and some government officials say that there is no single dominate crime entity in this country, though Potter does suggests if we want to look for powerful organizations we should look at drugs and corporate America.

Potter notes that Dr. Cressy, chief government investigator responsible for the Cosa Nostra saga, now admits he had to compromise his role as a scientific investigator and be become somewhat of a publicist for federal law enforcement.

I might add to John's comments that Dr. Potter's Treatise is written in 17 Chapters/Units.

Some organizations may want to Download the entire treatise. This information is unusually valuable, and these type pages tend later to "disappear".

I found the following three Chapters most revealing.

Potter makes a strong case in Chapter 6, that the Italians may have gotten the notoriety, but never achieved the level of power nationally that the Jews enjoyed, after they pushed aside the Irish, with the help of the Italians. It also appears that the Jews moved into the high return, low risk Casino and Stock Fraud arenas, and left the higher risk, lower return "Street Biz" to the Italians.

Chapter 1: Organized crime and the "Mafia"
Chapter 5: Historical perspectives on Organized Crime
Chapter 6: The Development of Organized Crime and the Worlds of Meyer Lansky

"Organized Crime":Dr. G. Potter, Eastern Kentucky University, Dept Police Studies
http://www.policestudies.eku.edu/Potter/crj401_home.htm

What do you think?