Finally, mafia firms are not equal-opportunity employers. Women are discriminated against without exception. Nor do the firms offer their employees the usual benefits, although there is the occasional pension or compensation for on-the-job hazards such as time spent in prison or disabilities incurred in shooting accidents or attempts to escape from the police (VS: I, 152). "It is customary," according to Buscetta, "that when a man of honor is arrested and does not have enough money, as in my case, the head of the family appoints a lawyer and covers other minor expenses that arise during detention" (TB: I, 94-95). Matters are not so clear-cut if it is the head of the family himself who runs into trouble. In the 1970s the mafia boss in the town of Vallelunga was sentenced to soggiorno obbligato in the North of Italy and was promptly abandoned by the family. He complained that since he was not receiving any economic assistance, he was forced to work, and as he was unskilled in any hut the mafioso trade, he had to "andare a zappare" (go dig in the fields). Unmoved, the family deposed him (AC: I, 54).

XREF: Connects to the broader economics-of-crime literature where criminal organizations are analyzed as firms with internal labor practices.

Diego Gambetta, The Sicilian Mafia The Busi…, loc. 181