Mafia
Mafia, an Italian secret criminal society. The Mafia is active in the western provinces of Sicily. Similar organizations exist in Naples and Calabria. The term “Mafia” also commonly refers to certain organized-crime groups in the United States that involve a number of Americans of Sicilian ancestry. Because other Italian-Americans and other ethnic groups are also involved, however, law enforcement officials prefer to use such terms as “crime syndicate” or “mob” rather than “Mafia” when discussing organized crime in the United States.
The Mafia in Sicily is not highly centralized, but rather it is a loose federation of small groups, based largely on family ties. Each group usually operates in its own territory and avoids interfering with the activities of other groups, but on occasion conflict develops and bloody Mafia wars result. Members, who are called mafiosi, observe a code of silence called omeri, under which they swear to keep their activities secret. A member never appeals to legal authorities but is expected to avenge wrongs himself.
The Mafia was an outgrowth of the armies of private soldiers maintained by Sicilian nobles in the early 19th century to protect their estates and control the peasantry. In time these soldiers formed gangs, became smugglers and blackmailers, and hired themselves out as assassins and terrorists. Most historians date the actual formation of the Mafia to shortly after the unification of Italy in 1860. During the 1880's, some mafiosi immigrated to the United States and formed gangs, which by the 1920's had evolved into the highly organized crime syndicate.
The Mafia in Sicily was largely suppressed by Benito Mussolini in 1928, and more mafiosi then immigrated to the United States. The downfall of Mussolini brought a revival of the Mafia after World War II. Efforts by the Italian government to destroy the Mafia met little success, and by the early 1980's the Mafia had made Sicily a major center for the international drug trade.