How is the DiGiovanni mafia structured?

Whilst this particular mob element in the city takes the name of one of the families involved, power is actually shared between the heads of five city families: DiGiovanni, Hagel, Giacomo, Bartelucci and Walker. Rumour has it that the heads of all of the families may report to one boss-of-bosses, but this has never been proved and it may well simply be that the five family heads run matters in association with each other.

Each family has its own specialism and area of expertise. Each family has a designated head, or boss, and under this boss each family has a number of caporegimes - the exact number for each family comes and goes. Basically, a caporegime is a person (be it man or woman) who leads a group of around 10 soldiers, carrying out work and orders of their family boss.

All caporegimes and soldiers for any of the above families are members of the family - whether by birth or by marriage (or, in the case of the Walkers, by 'adoption'). Anyone not a member of the family is not trusted with family business.

Non family members can be involved with mob work, but only at an 'associate' level - what this means is that they are basically 'hired help' - they'll get paid, and they may get repeat work, but they are considered within the family as nothing more than a 'tool' and they are not treated as true members.

A diagram illustrating the structure of the DiGiovannis can be found here