After the fall of the Bourbons and in the early days of the unification of Italy, when the new régime had not consolidated its power, the Camorra in Naples was more than ever formidable; they controlled such forces and were so strongly bound together that the ordinary laws were of little avail against them. People were afraid to complain when they were robbed, and the police hesitated to pursue the robbers. If any were taken red-handed and the case was clear against them, the judges often dared not convict or sentence them. It was some time before the energetic measures taken by the government were of any avail, for even when numerous arrests had been made, there was a definite danger in collecting these terrible creatures in the same gaol. The leading Camorrists in those days were miscreants foremost in the committal of every kind of crime; they were thieves, brigands and murderers, and the careers of one or two of the worst may be quoted in support of this statement. A prominent personage, leader and king, was Salvatore Crescenzo, who first entered the Vicaria in 1849, where he continued his violent misdeeds by wounding one fellow prisoner and killing another. After regaining his freedom in 1855, he returned to the active business of a Camorrist, was again captured and sent to gaol, but this time at a distance from Naples. After his next release, he took to politics and was for a time a member of the revolutionary police under Liborio Romano, but this was not in his line, and he again joined the Camorra and ended his life in the island of Ponza. A long list might be made out of men of the same type.