Mafia

Mafia, hierarchically structured society of criminals of primarily Italian or Sicilian birth or extraction. The term applies to the traditional criminal organization in Sicily and also to a criminal organization in the United States.

Most scholars agree that the Mafia emerged in Sicily in the 19th century during Italy’s unification, but others suggest the organization arose during the late Middle Ages. In the latter interpretation, the Mafia possibly began as a secret organization dedicated to overthrowing the rule of the various foreign conquerors of the island—e.g., Saracens, Normans, and Spaniards. The Mafia owed its origins to and drew its members from the many small private armies, or mafie, that were hired by absentee landlords to protect their landed estates from bandits in the lawless conditions that prevailed over much of Sicily through the centuries. During the 18th and 19th centuries, the energetic ruffians in these private armies organized themselves and grew so powerful that they turned against the landowners and became the sole law on many of the estates, extorting money from the landowners in return for protecting the latter’s crops. The Mafia survived and outlasted Sicily’s successive foreign governments because the latter were often so despotic that they alienated the island’s inhabitants and made tolerable the Mafia’s peculiar system of private justice, which was regulated by a complicated moral code. This code was based on omertà—i.e., the obligation never, under any circumstances, to apply for justice to the legal authorities and never to assist in any way in the detection of crimes committed against oneself or others. The right to avenge wrongs was reserved for the victims and their families, and to break the code of silence was to incur reprisals from the Mafia. By about 1900 the various Mafia “families” and groups of families based in the villages of western Sicily had joined together in a loose confederation, and they controlled most of the economic activities in their respective localities.

In the early 1920s Benito Mussolini’s Fascist regime came close to eliminating the Mafia by arresting and trying thousands of suspected mafiosi and sentencing them to long jail terms. Following World War II, the American occupation authorities released many of the mafiosi from prison, and these men proceeded to revive the organization. The Mafia’s power remained somewhat weakened in the rural areas of central and western Sicily, however, and its activities henceforth were directed more to urban Palermo—and to industry, business, and construction, as well as the traditional extortion and smuggling. During the late 1970s the Mafia in Palermo became deeply involved in the refining and transshipment of heroin bound for the United States. The enormous profits sparked fierce competition between various clans within the Mafia, and the resulting spate of murders led to renewed governmental efforts to convict and imprison the Mafia’s leadership. In a 1987 “maxi-trial” 338 Sicilian mafiosi were convicted on a variety of charges.

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There were, in the groups that emigrated from Sicily and Italy in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, individuals who had been part of the Mafia and who, in their new countries (particularly the United States and parts of South America), set about reproducing the criminal patterns that they had left in Europe. By the early 1930s the organized Italian criminals in the United States had wrested control of various illegal activities from rival Irish, Jewish, and other gangs, and they proceeded, after a bloody nationwide conflict in 1930–31, to organize themselves into a loose alliance with a clearly defined higher leadership. After the repeal of Prohibition in 1933, the American Mafia abandoned its bootlegging operations and settled into gambling, labour racketeering, loan-sharking, narcotics distribution, and prostitution rings. It grew to be the largest and most powerful of the U.S. syndicated-crime organizations, and it reinvested the profits accruing from crime in the ownership of such legitimate businesses as hotels, restaurants, and entertainment ventures.

Investigations conducted by U.S. government agencies in the 1950s and ’60s revealed that the structure of the American Mafia was similar to that of its Sicilian prototype. (In the United States, the organization had adopted the name Cosa Nostra [Italian: “Our Affair”].) From the 1950s, Mafia operations were conducted by some 24 groups, or “families,” throughout the country. In most cities where syndicated crime operated, there was one family, but in New York City there were five: Gambino, Genovese, Lucchese, Colombo, and Bonanno. The heads of the most powerful families made up a commission whose main function was judicial. At the head of each family was a “boss,” or “don,” whose authority could be challenged only by the commission. Each don had an underboss, who functioned as a vice president or deputy director, and a consigliere, or counselor, who had considerable power and influence. Below the underboss were the caporegime, or lieutenants, who, acting as buffers between the lower echelon workers and the don himself, protected him from a too-direct association with the organization’s illicit operations. The lieutenants supervised squads of “soldiers,” who often had charge of one of the family’s legal operations (e.g., vending machines, food-products companies, or restaurants) or illegal operations involving prostitution, gambling, or narcotics.

By the late 20th century the Mafia’s role in U.S. organized crime seemed to be diminishing. Convictions of top officials, defections by members who became government witnesses, and murderous internal disputes thinned the ranks. In addition, the gradual breakup of insulated Italian-Sicilian communities and their assimilation into the larger American society effectively reduced the traditional breeding ground for prospective mafiosi. See also organized crime.