Women, criminal power, and violence: The case of the Casamonica Clan

Resumen

This study explores the role of women within the Casamonica group through an intersectional perspective integrating gender, ethnicity, and class, with particular attention to violence as both experienced and enacted. The Casamonica constitute a relevant case for the analysis of emerging indigenous mafia formations: a network of interconnected families of Romani origin primarily based in Rome and its surrounding areas, which has progressively acquired features typical of established criminal organizations. In recent years, both sociological scholarship and judicial discourse have increasingly framed the group within the category of mafia-type organizations. Drawing on the concept of the matrix of domination, the article examines how power relations are constructed, reproduced, and legitimized, emphasizing the centrality of gendered and private violence as mechanisms of social regulation. Within the group, women’s roles reflect patterns observed in organizations such as the Camorra and the ’Ndrangheta, while remaining deeply embedded in Romani cultural traditions. The analysis is situated within a broader framework that connects criminal relations, models of territorial infiltration, cross-cutting social relations, and forms of popular sovereignty. The study adopts a qualitative and intersectional methodology based on biographical and semi-structured interviews, alongside the analysis of judicial documents and court rulings. Women’s life histories are examined to investigate how notions of honor and the body emerge as products of inequality shaped by specific criminal relational models. Despite the heterogeneity of individual experiences, the findings reveal recurring patterns of legitimation structured around dynamics of continuity and discontinuity, imitation and contamination, and recognition and stigmatization. These dynamics are articulated across four analytical dimensions: structural, practical-disciplinary, interpersonal, and hegemonic. Together, they highlight the complex and ambivalent role of women in the reproduction and legitimization of mafia-type power.

Keywords: women, violence, criminal power.