Naming the threat: lay prototypes of organized crime in Italy and the US

Figures & data

Table 1. Expert Definitions of Organized Crime.

Authors	Features	Dimensions
Maltz (1985)	Corruption; Violence; sophistication; continuity; structure; discipline; multiple enterprises; legitimate businesses; bonding.	_
Hagan (2006)	Primary: Non-ideological; violence/threats of violence; illicit services/criminal enterprises, immunity, corruption, intimidation. Secondary: Structured hierarchy; rules/codes of secrecy; initiation/exclusive membership.	Activities; groups
Finckenauer (2005)	Ideology (or lack thereof); structure/organized hierarchy; continuity; violence/use of force or the threat of force; restricted membership/bonding; illegal enterprises; penetration of legitimate businesses; corruption	_
Varese (2017)	Structures: specialization; hierarchy; illegal enterprise; La Cosa Nostra; network and harm; Activities: monopoly; provision of illegal goods; illegal activities	Structure; activities
Abadinsky (2013)	Non-political goals; hierarchical; limited or exclusive membership; unique subculture; self-perpetuating; illegal violence; monopolistic; governed by explicit rules/regulations	_
von Lampe (2016)	___	Activities; structures; governance
Sergi (2017)	Control of the territory; ties with society; secrecy and trust; mobility	Structure; activities

Table 2. a. Features Obtained in Study 1a (Italy). b. Features Obtained in Study 1b (US).

Category (a: Italy)	Frequency	Centrality	Category (a: Italy)	Frequency	Centrality
Mafia	78	6.88	Damage to society	9	6.31
Collective undertaking	60	4.96	Planned and premeditated activities	9	5.1
Drug trafficking	39	6.46	Secrecy	9	5.49
Illegal activities	38	6.54	Southern Italy	9	5.36
Violence	33	6.26	Gangs	8	5.64
Corruption of police, politicians and/or other institutions	32	6.33	Boss (e.g. Riina, Provenzano etc)	7	6.77
Camorra	29	6.83	Dangerous	7	5.82
Hierarchical structure	27	5.95	Power	7	6.02
Financial gain	26	5.94	Money laundering	7	6.55
Extorsion	24	6.32	Terrorism	7	5.27
Murders	24	6.14	Prison	6	5.61
Ndrangheta	24	6.8	Antimafia heroes	6	6.08
Guns	22	6.11	Ignorance	6	5.03
Collusion with police, politicians and/or other institutions	20	6.12	Robberies	6	5.03
Evil	17	5.68	Merciless	5	6
Omertà	16	6.25	Control	5	5.59
Business	14	6.28	Blackmail	5	6.13
Control of the territory	14	6.28	Movies and TV shows	5	5.2
Fear	14	5.81	To harm others	5	6.01
Criminals	13	6.28	Politics	5	5.38
Prevarication	13	5.54	Exploitation	5	5.8
Family	11	4.9	Use of intimidation	5	6.49
Prostitution	11	5.41	Police	4	4.64
Arms trafficking	4	6.22	Ability to achieve objectives	2	4
Fraud	4	5.27	Casalesi	2	6.34
Pain	4	5.1	Connivance	2	5.14
Judicial bodies	4	4.92	Ethnic connotation	2	3.21
Death	4	5.75	Crime control	2	5.62
Enduring structures	4	4.32	Disgust	2	5.4
Human trafficking	3	5.67	Ingrained phenomenon	2	5.98
Revenge	3	5.68	Thief	2	4.47
Decay	3	5.53	Mafia Capitale	2	6.53
Honor	3	4.75	Pride	2	4.41
Presence in the world	3	5.2	Poverty	2	4.42
Sacra Corona Unita	3	6.02	Social problem	2	6.27
Bribes	3	6.17	Environmental crimes	2	5.58
Smuggling	2	6.17	Recruitment	2	5.1
Cosa Nostra	2	6.75	Blood	2	5.18
Theft	2	4.92	Submission of the weak	2	5.87
Italians	2	5.27	Massacres	2	5.84
Loyalty	2	4.17	Victim	2	5.17
Widespread	2	5.21
Kidnapping	2	5.45
Network	2	5.14
Yakuza	2	5.91
41bis	2	5.75
Category (b: US)	Frequency	Centrality	Category (b: US)	Frequency	Centrality
The mob	64	6.15	Evil	9	5.31
Planned and premeditated activities	58	5.94	Cartels	9	6.03
Collective undertaking	48	5.18	Smuggling	9	5.85
Hierarchical structures	46	5.63	Extortion	9	5.86
Drug trafficking	36	6.02	Fraud	8	5.8
Financial gain	36	5.73	Old school mafia	8	5.89
Gangs	30	5.88	Hard to defeat	7	5.06
Violence	29	5.99	Boss (e.g. Al Capone, Baby Face, Dillinger)	7	6.15
Movies and TV shows	26	4.93	Terrorism	7	4.82
Corruption of police, politicians and/or other institutions	22	5.73	Power	7	5.73
Large scale acts	21	4.96	Prostitution	7	4.64
Illegal activities	19	6.32	Intentional harm	6	5.59
Guns	16	5.76	Merciless	6	5.26
Murders	15	5.77	Russians	6	3.88
Theft	15	5.52	Human trafficking	6	5.6
Money laundering	15	6.09	Suits	6	3.78
Italians	14	4	Loyalty	6	4.95
Secrecy	13	5.62	Yakuza	6	4.96
Criminals	13	6.23	Blackmail	5	5.73
Protection racket	11	5.26	Clever	5	4.63
Dangerous	11	6.03	Gambling	5	5
Mafia	10	6.33	Collusion with police, politicians, and/or other institutions	5	5.57
Family	9	4.09	Tax evasion	4	5.6
Kidnapping	4	5.16	Wealth	3	5.18
Police	4	4.64	Network	3	5.34
Threat	4	5.77	Revenge	3	5.2
Underground	4	5.4	Habitual action	2	4.45
Manipulation	4	5.6	Professionals	2	4.66
Prison	4	5.27	Taking advantage of others	2	5.77
Black market	4	5.78	Greed	2	5.78
Sicilian	4	4.13	Execution	2	4.99
Hitmen	4	5.7	Loan sharks	2	5.24
Cybercrime	4	4.89	Systemic crime	2	5.77
Damage to society	4	5.67	Coordination	2	5.36
Brotherhood	3	4.65	Alcohol	2	4.39
Control	3	5.41	White people	2	3.96
Enforcers	3	5.38	Sunglasses	2	2.58
Betrayal	3	4.84	Lies	2	5.51
White collar	3	4.1	Respect	2	3.89
Men	3	4.82	New York	2	4.35
Front business	3	5.43	Cosa nostra	2	4.62
RICO	3	4.42	Opposing authority	2	5.24
Cohesion	3	4.74	Undercover	2	4.91
Arms trafficking	3	5.83
Business	3	4.82
FBI	3	4.57
Escaping authorities	3	5.52
Widespread	3	4.36

Note. The features are listed in the order of frequency. Features shared across countries are bolded.

Figure 1. a. Exploratory Graph Analysis of the features of organized crime in Study 2a (Italy). b. Exploratory Graph Analysis of the features of organized crime in Study 2b (US). Note. Thicker lines indicate larger partial correlations between variables conditioned on all the other variables in the dataset. See the online article for the color version of these figures.

Table 3. a. Summary of the Results of the Multilevel model in Study 2a (Italy). b. Summary of the Results of the Multilevel model in Study 2a (US).

Effect	Parameter	b	95 CI	SE	t ratio	p
	(Intercept)	5.65	5.49–5.80	.080	70.113	< .001*
Fixed	Frequency	0.02	0.01–0.03	.016	3.27	= .002*
	TV and Feature Films	0.04	−0.01–0.09	.030	1.41	=.160
	Video Games	0.01	−0.05–0.06	.030	0.11	=.920
	News	0.10	0.03–0.17	.040	2.67	=.008*
	SSS	0.01	−0.05–0.05	.026	0.08	=.933
	Age	−0.01	−0.01–0.01	.001	−0.25	=.807
	Gender	−0.03	−0.20–0.15	.090	−0.33	=.740
Random	Var(participants)	0.34
	Var(feature type)	0.44
	Nakagawa's R^2marginal / R^2conditional	0.03 / 0.36
Note. SSS = Subjective Social Status. Gender: 1 = man, 2 = woman. * indicates a significant association at the specified p-value.
Effect	Parameter	b	95 CI	SE	t ratio	p
	(Intercept)	5.22	5.05 - 5.38	.085	61.32	<.001*
Fixed	Frequency	0.02	0.01 - 0.03	.005	3.56	< .001*
	TV and Feature Films	0.12	0.03 - 0.20	.041	2.79	=.006*
	Video Games	−0.01	−0.07 - 0.07	.035	−0.57	=.954
	News	0.01	−0.08 - 0.10	.047	0.19	=.854
	SSS	−0.04	−0.11 - 0.01	0.03	−1.61	=.109
	Age	0.02	0.01 - 0.03	.001	3.68	<.001*
	Gender	0.24	0.02 - 0.46	0.11	2.110	= 0.04*
Random	Var(participants)	0.64
	Var(feature type)	0.41
	Nakagawa's R^2marginal / R^2conditional	0.05 / 0.42

Note. SSS = Subjective Social Status. Gender: 1 = men, 2 = woman. * indicates a significant association at the specified p-value.

Table 4. Features and descriptions used in Studies 3a and 3b.

Study	Criminal Entity	Description
Study 3a (Italy)	X (Central)	Entity X is headed by a Boss and is engaged in illegal actions and activities that include money laundering, drug trafficking and extortion. Entity X is known for episodes of corruption of politicians, magistrates and law enforcement agencies. Entity X uses intimidation to achieve its goals and represents a damage to society.
	Features	Boss; Money Laundering; Illegal Activities; Use di intimidation; Drug Trafficking; Corruption of police, politicians and/or other institutions; Extorsion; Damage to Society
	Y (Peripheral)	Entity Y has enduring structures, is made up of thieves, and is engaged in activities that generate poverty. Entity Y is known for its ability to achieve its objectives and, for this reason, is in the sights of the police. Entity Y is characterized by a strong ethnic connotation and its members consider loyalty and pride important.
	Features	Police; Thieve; Poverty; Pride; Durable Structures; Loyalty; Ability to achieve objectives; Ethnic connotation
Study 3b (US)	X (Central)	Entity X includes cartels and many famous gangsters. Entity X is engaged in illegal activities, including money laundering and drug trafficking. Entity X is known for its violence and is considered very dangerous. Entity X plans and premeditates activities carefully.
	Features	Illegal activities; Famous gangsters (e.g. Al Capone, Baby Face, Dilinger); Money laundering; Dangerous Cartels; Drug trafficking; Violence; Planned and premeditated activities
	Y (Peripheral)	Entity Y includes families of white people, and many Italians and/or Russians. Entity Y’s members often wear suits and sunglasses. Entity Y is known for the presence of white collars. Entity Y’s members consider respect important.
	Features	White collar; Family; Italians; White people; Respect; Russians; Suits; Sunglasses

Note. Descriptions in Italian were translated to English (descriptions in their original language are available at https://osf.io/sxt7u/).

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