Shrinks crack code of Mafia meltdown

Cartoon / Rod Emmerson

The mental health crisis facing Italy's real-life Tony Sopranos has been revealed by the psychiatrists who treat the messed up minds of mobsters and their families.

With record numbers of arrests putting hundreds more Mafiosi behind bars, depression, paranoia and existential crises all figure large among Italy's most dangerous criminals.

But, say the doctors, more worrying for the public is the lack of remorse or self-awareness they show.

One of the psychiatrists, Dr Gabriele Quattrone, the head of neuropsychiatry at a Reggio Calabria hospital, said his jailed patients complained of terrifying images - but not of the people they've dumped in cement mixers.

One mobster's sleep was haunted by thoughts of his terminally ill 12-year-old daughter. "I can't sleep because I hear the voice of my daughter," he lamented. "It's not fair that I can't see her. I can't accept that."

Another expert, sociologist Alessandra Dino of Palermo University, who has interviewed wives of Cosa Nostra turncoats and studied transcripts of informant evidence, said few mobsters had crises of conscience.

"They have a mechanism of neutrality, where deviance equals normality," he said. "Murder becomes philanthropic because it is somehow related to helping the group they belong to."

Palermo's University of Studies will soon offer a master's degree course in Mafia psychology. Students will study the psychological profiles of mobsters and their relatives, as well as informant testimony and wiretap evidence.

Investigators hope the growing insight into the mobsteris mind and its foibles will help them to crack the criminal clans. Alberto Cisterna, an anti-Mafia prosecutor in Rome, said "psychology figures a lot" in persuading clan members to give evidence.

- INDEPENDENT