I've said before that I go with total members. And the reason is because the number of active guys on the street is constantly in flux. Guys going in prison, coming out of prison. Some guys more or less inactive and retired. And so on. So, while you can get accurate estimates in terms of total figures, guessing currently active is harder.

Figuring associates is much harder than figuring members. When it comes to members, a guy is made or he is not. But the definition of an associate can vary widely, which in turn makes the associate estimates go up or down. Even official estimates will range somewhere between 3 associates for every member to 10 associates for every member. For each family it's often up to the local FBI SAC.

And by the way, the Genovese are closer to 200. Not 250.