The Camorra, of Naples, originated in the jails of the old kingdom of Naples during the rule of the Spaniards and Bourbons, being invented by the convicts to protect themselves against the greed of the prison authorities. Later it branched out and was organized outside. The same holds true in America, in the sense that convicts in prison plot and plan crimes before their release, and agree to continue their acquaintance and work on the outside. Boys and young men serving their first term are easy prey for older and wiser criminals.
Although the ideas of caste in prison are not the same, and are not formulated according to religious, financial, intellectual or aristocratic standards, nevertheless the principle is the same. In most societies the leaders are people with "blood," money, or privileges of some sort. In India the high caste Brahmin is born to his station, and no amount of money or intellectual attainment can make one if he is not born to it.
In prison the ethical standard is as simple as the cave dweller's, or as that of savage tribes. Caste among convicts is a sop to their vanity, to their outraged and primitive sense of justice; society made them outcasts, and they retaliate by creating a society of outcasts wherein they strive to become the leaders, the greatest, the bravest, the cleverest among the Pariahs; and like the Pariahs they consider other castes outside as lower than their own.
Convicts admire physical prowess and brute strength, fearlessness, "nerve"; they look up to those who commit deeds of violence, such as gang men, bandits, burglars; men who will take their chances at killing or being killed rather than be arrested.
Next to these in the order of caste come the more intelligent but less courageous types of crooks, such as confidence men, forgers, gamblers, dishonest bankers, embezzlers, lawyers, politicians. They represent the intellectual aristocracy of crime, to be approved of but not to be put on the same plane as the former.
To the third caste, even less brave, less cunning, belong the sneak thieves, the pickpockets, repeaters, bums; marking the border line on its downward course with such types as wife beaters, wandering tramps, bums, and dope fiends who steal only to satisfy their irresistible cravings for drugs. Those individuals who live on white slavery, professional degenerates, and their like, are ridiculed and nagged by the upper castes; the effeminate "sissies" are also a constant butt for the jests and abuse not only of convicts, but of keepers as well.
On the lowest rung of the social ladder stand the stool pigeons and the detectives who are so unlucky as to be sent to prison. These latter are hated, abominated, despised, by their fellow prisoners with all the intensity, ferocity, and implacable hatred of which such men are capable. It sometimes happens, in spite of the vigilance of the keepers, that they are murdered in prison. In the minds of the other convicts these stool pigeons and detectives are their most dangerous foes, because of the intimate knowledge they possess of the technique of crime, and because of the similarity of their ways of living.
VI
The one-legged, bull-faced negro in the hospital was watching my assistant, who, of his own volition, and without being ordered to do it, was laboriously polishing the brass chandeliers hanging from the ceiling.
"That boy ain't no thief," he remarked philosophically. "A thief is a thief 'cause he won't work, in or out of jail."