Editing Black Hand (extortion) (section)

==Not an overarching organization==
Accounts of a national “Black Hand Society” often combined unrelated crimes and organizations. Critchley quotes the contemporary assessment that the letter-writing branch had no “regular organization, outside the columns of the yellow press.” He finds no evidence of a higher command tying American Black Hand activity to the Mafia in Sicily or the Camorra as a whole.<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=2eCPAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA23 Critchley, ''Origin of Organized Crime'', pp. 23, 35].</ref>

This does not mean that organized Black Hand gangs never existed. Some local groups had leaders, branches, initiation practices, dues, bylaws or designated enforcers. Their existence demonstrates local organization—not a federation or nationwide Black Hand hierarchy.