Godparent bonds can shield a wrongdoer from standard Mafia punishment

Evidence

Such surprising leniency for behavior that on countless other occasions has led to harsher punishments is explained by Contorno by the fact that Spadaro was also protected by Stefano Bontade, to whom he was compare (i.e., godfather to one of his children). — Diego Gambetta, The Sicilian Mafia The Business of…, 1025

Categorization

• XREF: Connects directly to the reader’s framing: godparent relationships (compare) function as a private-protection bond that substitutes for and overrides formal sanctions — a micro-instance of third-party enforcement shading into personal commitment.
• DEFINE: Clarifies ‘compare’ as the Mafia’s godparent institution, a quasi-kinship bond with enforcement consequences.