A (literally 'head of ten',Schneider, ''Reversible Destiny'', p. 83 also called

caporegime A caporegime or capodecina, usually shortened to capo or informally referred to as "captain" or "skipper", is a rank used in the Mafia (both the Sicilian Mafia and Italian-American Mafia) for a ''made member'' of an Italian crime family who head ...

in the

American Mafia The American Mafia, commonly referred to in North America as the Italian American Mafia, the Mafia, or the Mob, is a highly organized Italian American criminal society and organized crime group. The organization is often referred to by its membe ...

) is the head of a , a branch within a

Sicilian Mafia The Sicilian Mafia, also simply known as the Mafia and frequently referred to as Cosa nostra (, ; "our thing") by its members, is an Italian Mafia-terrorist-type organized crime syndicate and criminal society originating in the region of Sicily a ...

family. In the larger families, a is selected by the head of the family and coordinates units of about ten people.Paoli, ''Mafia Brotherhoods'', p. 41 Mafia members are organized under the supervision of a who reports to the , the head of the Mafia family or

cosca A ''cosca'' (; pl. ''cosche'' in Italian and ''coschi'' in Sicilian), in Sicily, is a clan or Sicilian Mafia crime family led by a capo. The equivalent in the 'Ndrangheta in Calabria is the ndrina''. Etymology A ''cosca'' is the crown of s ...

. The term derives from ('ten'), suggesting that each would be in charge of ten men.Gambetta, ''The Sicilian Mafia'', p. 111 The term was mentioned as early as the 1880s in Sicily to describe the organisation of the Fratellanza, a Mafia-type organisation in

Agrigento Agrigento (; scn, Girgenti or ; grc, Ἀκράγας, translit=Akrágas; la, Agrigentum or ; ar, كركنت, Kirkant, or ''Jirjant'') is a city on the southern coast of Sicily, Italy and capital of the province of Agrigento. It was one of ...

, in the south of

Sicily (man) it, Siciliana (woman) , population_note = , population_blank1_title = , population_blank1 = , demographics_type1 = Ethnicity , demographics1_footnotes = , demographi ...

.Gambetta, ''The Sicilian Mafia'', p. 294 The Mafioso Melchiorre Allegra spoke of a in his 1937 testimony. He said a family split into groups of ten men each when it became unmanageably large.Twentyfive pages of Allegra’s testimony were published in 1962 in the newspaper ''

L'Ora ''L'Ora'' (English: ''The Hour'') was a Sicilian daily newspaper published in Palermo. The paper was founded in 1900 and stopped being published in 1992. In the 1950s-1980s the paper was known for its investigative reporting about the Sicilian Maf ...

'' by

Mauro De Mauro Mauro De Mauro (; 6 September 1921 – disappeared 16 September 1970) was an Italian investigative journalist. Originally a supporter of Benito Mussolini's Fascist regime, De Mauro eventually became a journalist with the left-leaning newspaper ...

. See
Testimony of Melchiorre Allegra
, ExLEGI website

References

*Gambetta, Diego (1993).
The Sicilian Mafia: The Business of Private Protection
', London: Harvard University Press, *Paoli, Letizia (2003). ''Mafia Brotherhoods: Organized Crime, Italian Style'', New York: Oxford University Press

*Schneider, Jane T. & Peter T. Schneider (2003).
Reversible Destiny: Mafia, Antimafia, and the Struggle for Palermo
', Berkeley: University of California Press {{Mafia Organized crime members by role Organized crime terminology