Do you have a link to that or know where I can find it?PolackTony wrote: ↑Sun Feb 28, 2021 10:45 pm There was that 60s wiretap of Tommy Eboli and Miranda, where they stated that Chicago had only like 50 made guys.
This would fit my belief that the Chicago family was more of a mid-sized family by US membership standards, but like the traditional mafia each member was essentially a leader in his own right, contributing to some of the confusion over structure given that made membership in Chicago would mean overseeing significant criminal operations. In other US families of comparable size, membership still meant leadership but more in terms of organizational representation and "honor" than control over operations and a vast network of criminal associates like Chicago.
The Jewish informant DeRose, who was knowledgeable on organizational matters, felt the family had 150 members, which sounds reasonable to me, too, but Eboli and Miranda's word would go much farther even if it was a general estimate.
As we learn more, it appears the family membership sizes didn't drop off quite as sharply as we once thought they did, exceptions aside. Some US families like St. Louis, Dallas, Tampa, and NO simply didn't induct enough members over many decades to preserve a stable membership (staying close to the Sicilian village model they came from) but I have a sense that cities like Chicago and Detroit preserved mid-sized membership numbers, though they used membership to different ends.