The authors focus their interest on the socially deviant mafia world, especially on the question of a psychopathic dimension of individuals in mafia. From the scientific point of view this continues to be an unknow world. In all these cases, individuals in mafia, their “feats”, their profiles seem to correspond to popular conceptions of the psychopath. Even less known is the women's role in criminal organizations. Their historical role in recent decades has gradually shifted and become more important than it was in the past.

The investigators' interest was focused on identifying the prevalence of the psychopathic dimension in mafia women.

So the authors examined a sample of 20 convicted mafia women coming from Campania and Calabria, the regions of Camorra and ‘Ndrangheta respectively, historical Italian criminal organizations. These women inherited their roles from previous bosses and successfully carried on the criminal business. The authors compared this sample of mafia women with a sample of female offenders with full criminal responsibility who were in common female prisons.

Like men of mafia, the women of mafia have a low prevalence of the psychopathic dimension.

Further research is necessary to identify the psychopathic dimension in larger samples of women, and then compare them with similar male samples.

作者将他们的兴趣集中在社会变态的黑手党世界上，尤其是黑手党中个人的心理变态维度问题。从科学的角度来看，这仍然是一个未知的世界。在所有这些案例中，黑手党中的个人、他们的“壮举”、他们的个人资料似乎都与精神病患者的流行概念相符。更鲜为人知的是妇女在犯罪组织中的作用。近几十年来，它们的历史作用逐渐转变，变得比过去更加重要。

调查人员的兴趣集中在确定黑手党妇女精神病方面的普遍性。

因此，作者检查了来自坎帕尼亚和卡拉布里亚、卡莫拉和恩德朗盖塔地区的 20 名被定罪的黑手党妇女样本，这两个地区分别是意大利历史犯罪组织。这些女性从前任老板那里继承了她们的角色，并成功地开展了犯罪活动。作者将这个黑手党妇女样本与在普通女子监狱中承担全部刑事责任的女性罪犯样本进行了比较。

与黑手党的男性一样，黑手党的女性在精神病方面的患病率很低。

需要进一步研究以确定较大女性样本中的精神病维度，然后将它们与类似的男性样本进行比较。