Here I share some excerpts from my books. CRIMINAL ANTHROPOLOGY and CRIMINAL ANTHROPOLOGY ANTHOLOGY are available on Amazon store.
Italian mobsters gergo
Every criminal gang create a gergo for talking within the group without being understood from external people. In Italy criminals have their own culture because they are an entire population that live hidden in the civil society. This created the contitions for the existence of a new language, identical at Italian language but totally divergent in meaning. The best way to understand this difference is talking about courage.
COURAGE.
Old criminal are not different from young bullies. For wicked people an act of courage consist in hitting people when these are weak and without defence, every time hidding their identity. Exactly the oppoosite of the courage meaning for honest people that face the difficulty in public context having care of comparing with adversary at their same level.
From this bifurcation, that generally begin at initiation proof time, start the distortion of language above mentioned.
RESPECT.
The word respect in Italy takes on a completely different connotation compared to the rest of the Western world.
In Italy, “getting respected” means knowing how to harm others without suffering consequences.
Those who are committed to making themselves respected don’t need to work because they can steal the fruit of other people’s activity undisturbed.
It seems to me that everyone is engaged in this activity nowadays in Italy.
It is important to not forget the real meaning of words. Respect for honest people is moral integrity and reliability.
TO MAKE ONE OWN BUSINESS.
For honest people “to make my own business” mean to respect other privacy without taking advantage of others private life details for blackmailing people. At the same time it is important to say that honest people have to defend their interest because, on the opposite, criminal impone you to not care of your interests when they eant to hit you. For italian criminal privacy is a privilege and they don’t have limit in violation of privacy because this is the worst form of prevarication.
HONOUR.
For honest people ” honour” means to do not wrong. For criminal the same word means to do evil without suffering consequences..
MAN OF WORD.
For honest people ” to be of word” means to guarantee with own life the truth of what he said. For criminals the same sentence means that nobody can say they are liars without suffering consequences.
INFAMOUS.
It is important to underline that nobody remember the real meaning of the word “infamous” in Italy. We must go back to chivalric values to remember that an imfamous behave is a vile and coward behave because italian criminal imposed to call “infamous” people that face them with courage.
TO BEHAVE WELL.
For honest people ” to behave well” means to not hurt others while for criminal means to be subdued to evil. Many times “to behave well” implies a sexual performance. Many times it means exactly to hurt people.
FAMILY.
Like for babygangs, the family in Italy is not determined by blood ties but from criminal connections.
FRIEND.
The criminal friend is one that is in ambiguous favor exchange relationship.
FRIEND OF A FRIEND.
Exactly like above but it is better not to know the friend’s name.
A FAVOR THAT CANNOT BE REFUSED.
This kind of favors are impositions from the clan”s boss, not at all “favors” but you must thanks him for “respect”.
WHAT I CAN DO, I DO.
Honest people imply a costructive meaning. On the other hand, criminals imply to damage, to sabotage, to retaliation.
JUSTICE.
For a criminal “to obtain justice” means to have money, to obtain vegeance or other personal gratification. Paradoxically every Italian criminal searchs continuosly justice!
I can’t know how things work in other western countries. Perhaps people can err out of necessity or sin and then go about their day-to-day lives facing the hardships posed by bitter criminals in the first place.
In Italy, on the other hand, those who take the wrong road take a crossroads that branches off from the road to justice.
It is very difficult to get back on the right path because in Italy criminals have affirmed their culture and the Italian criminal population does not allow betrayals or second thoughts.
From this bifurcation a completely different life starts with fickle and difficult to understand human values.
All of this results in this very particular linguistic problem.
Even if apparently an Italian criminal speaks the same language as his compatriots, in Italy every word takes on a double meaning that can only be understood by assuming unbridled wickedness and opportunism, but people are hardly distinguishable even if we are aware of this bifurcation in the meaning of words.
Probably at the root of everything is always the cowardice of unleashing one’s frustrations on the innocent. When we give up resisting criminal assaults, the latter have won by imposing their culture and therefore their language.
Take for example the word “respectability”. For a righteous man it means moral integrity and therefore also having nothing to recriminate, much less a wrong against another person.When a righteous person makes a mistake, as can happen to anyone, he does everything possible to make up for his mistake in the community and to compensate for the damage caused to others.
For a criminal, respectability means preventing anyone from telling about the crimes he has committed to avoid paying his wrong to the community and to his victims so that criminal can commit more. Language changes according to culture and even personal morality.
Different social groups adopt different linguistic registers. Criminals adopt their own particular language, impoverished in meaning, going so far as to completely reverse the meaning of the terms used.
Food for thought on Italian criminal culture 
Leave a comment