{{Short description|Branch head within a Sicilian Mafia family}} A '''{{lang|it|capodecina}}''' (literally 'head of ten',<ref name=schneider83>Schneider, ''Reversible Destiny'', p. 83</ref> also called caporegime in the American Mafia) is the head of a {{lang|it|decina}}, a branch within a Sicilian Mafia family. In the larger families, a {{lang|it|capodecina}} is selected by the head of the family and coordinates units of about ten people.<ref name=paoli41>Paoli, ''Mafia Brotherhoods'', p. 41</ref>
Mafia members are organized under the supervision of a {{lang|it|capodecina}} who reports his activities to his superiors, who may be the consigliere or even the boss of the Mafia family himself. The term derives from {{lang|it|dieci}} ('ten'), suggesting that each would be in charge of ten men.<ref name=gambetta111>Gambetta, ''The Sicilian Mafia'', p. 111</ref> The term was mentioned as early as the 1880s in Sicily to describe the organisation of the Fratellanza, a Mafia-type organisation in Agrigento, in the south of Sicily.<ref name=gambetta294>Gambetta, ''The Sicilian Mafia'', p. 294</ref>
The Mafioso Melchiorre Allegra spoke of a {{lang|it|capo della decina}} in his 1937 testimony. He said a family split into groups of ten men each when it became unmanageably large.<ref name=gambetta294/>{{efn|Twentyfive pages of Allegra’s testimony were published in 1962 in the newspaper ''L'Ora'' by Mauro De Mauro. See: [http://www.exlegi.ox.ac.uk/resources/allegra.asp Testimony of Melchiorre Allegra] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120320184154/http://www.exlegi.ox.ac.uk/resources/allegra.asp |date=2012-03-20 }}, ExLEGI website}}
== Notes == {{notelist}}
== Citations == {{reflist|30em}}
== References == {{refbegin}} * {{cite book | last=Gambetta | first=Diego | date=February 1996 | orig-date=4 November 1993 | title=The Sicilian Mafia: The business of private protection | publisher=Harvard University Press | publication-place=Cambridge, Massachusetts | isbn=0-674-80742-1 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=y3bv3tqWftYC&pg=PA294}} * {{cite book | last=Paoli | first=Letizia | date=2003 | title=Mafia brotherhoods: Organized crime, Italian style | publication-place=New York City | publisher=Oxford University Press | isbn=0-19-515724-9}} ([http://www.organized-crime.de/revpao01mafiandrangheta.htm Review]) * {{cite book | last1=Schneider | first1=Jane C. | last2=Schneider | first2=Peter T. | date=13 March 2003 | title=Reversible destiny: Mafia, Antimafia, and the struggle for Palermo | publication-place=Berkeley, California | publisher=University of California Press | isbn=978-0-520-92949-4 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=hOLSyi8vxUoC}} {{refend}}
{{Mafia}}
Category:Organized crime members by role Category:Organized crime terminology