Le vittime del racket. Imprenditori e commercianti alle prese con Cosa Nostra, ‘Ndrangheta e Camorra

This work proposes a research on a still unexplored psychical world: thoughts, emo-tions and real events experienced by racket victims of the three largest criminal organizations of the South of Italy: Mafia, Camorra and ‘Ndrangheta.The purpose is to understand the multi-faceted psycho-anthropological and social issues crimi-nal organizations have settled on, and particularly which psycho-relational dynamics and socio-cultural codes come into play in the complex and controversial relationship between victim and criminal system, between victim and support systems. With entrepreneurs and tradesmen victims of organized crime, we have analyzed lived experiences – in particular fear – and psy-chological problems they had to cope with; events and motivations which allowed them “breaking” the silence and asking for help; the representation of a support network before and after their possible pressing charges; the kind of help offered by support systems.Dignity and self respect, the defense of one’s own freedom and honor, deep values typical of south-ern cultures, those same values Mafia uses and radicalizes, turning them upside down and transforming them into tools to overpower and dominate, seem to be the main themes which lead the rebellion against victimization. Along with this, the strong support of anti-racket asso-ciations.