History Of The Mafia

The Sicilian Mafia and the Camorra (mafia group located in Naples) were both created in the mid-1800’s (FBI 2010). These are the two mafia groups we will focus on. The Sicilian Mafia was originally an underground secret society formed to unite the peasants as resistance fighters and vigilante justice to protect their families and friends. In the 1920’s these chivalrous groups developed into what we know as the mafia. The Camorra was originally a prison gang that took controlled the prison and collected fees from the prisoners and guards for keeping order. They continued to meet after leaving prison and spread throughout Naples. They are currently Italy’s largest organized crime group with over 7,000 members (FBI 2010).

These members were the ones who did the dirty work but despite that the Mafia had about 3000-4000 members. Also they had associates who were at the bottom where they weren’t full members. They started of making money by selling illegal rum and other alcohol during the prohibition in the early 1930’s. Soon after that the prohibition was repealed in 1933. The Mafia quickly extended its area of illegal crimes to gambling,drug trafficking, kickback and protection shakedowns, and even prostitution. They enjoyed a time of dominance where they set up casinos, hijacked trucks, and had members on almost every street in New York City. Soon the government cracked down on gambling and broke into casinos and destroyed over 1000 slot machines belonging to the Mafia. Also they found Lucky Luciano guilty of many illegal crimes after prostitutes testified against him in court. In 1936 Luciano was arrested and sentenced to 35 years in prison. His underboss Genovese was given authority but he fled to Italy. This led to a time of decline of the Mafia in the late

The New Mafia refers to style of mafia that became increasingly prevalent in the 1950s. Prior to the New Mafia, the Old Mafia ran their operations with a focus on achieving power in society. They often associated with those in political power, even to the extent of pledging their alliance with a powerful political party in Italy, the Christian Democratic Party (Abadinsky, 2017). In return, their pledge would essentially secure an unofficial position of power within the Italian government.

The Mafia was first developed in Sicily in feudal times to protect the estates of landlords who were out of town. The word Mafia, derived from the Sicilian word, Mafioso, means family. Today, Mafia is a name which describes a loose association of criminal groups. These groups can be bound together by blood, oath or sworn secrecy. Many people had considered the Sicilian Mafia as the most ruthless mobsters of the twentieth century.

The Mafia is involved with more crime then one can think. Back when there was prohibition who do you think was the booze smuggler, the Mafia. this is just a few crimes the Mafia commits. Mafia hitman Salvatore ``Sammy the Bull'' Gravano pleaded not guilty on Monday to charges that he helped operate and finance a multimillion dollar, statewide criminal drug deal in Arizona. A federal grand jury in Brooklyn indicted 19 individuals, including six with suspected ties to organized crime, on charges of stock fraud and money laundering. Sex probably rates higher than whiskey in desirability, and so organized crime moved into illegal prostitution. these are just a spoonful or what the Mafia does. Racketeering; fraud; car theft; robbery; armed assault; drug dealing; trafficking in weapons and radioactive material; trafficking in human beings and exploitation through prostitution; alien smuggling; smuggling of precious and antique goods; extortion for protection money; gambling; embezzling from industries and financial institutions up to infiltration and control of private and commercial banks; controlling of black markets. The Mafia is dangerous group of people and they should be put in jail.

The decade of the 1920s was full of deception, corruption, and degeneration. The very embodiment of these qualities was the institution of the Italian-American Mafia. The syndicate began in Sicily and spread to encompass United States politics and the national economy. The post war era left the nation in a recession and vulnerable to organized crime. Changes in the country's attitudes and outlooks on the future paved the way for organized crime on a large scale. People were too preoccupied with bootleg booze,

The Sicilian Mafia, La Cosa Nostra, The Italian Mob, The Italian Mafia, and The Mafia. These are five names for one of the most terrifying criminal organizations in the history of Europe. The name “Sicilian” originated from a small island just offshore of the Italian mainland, located in the Mediterranean Sea; Sicily Island. This is where over the course of many centuries, five major clans, or “families” led their own internal governments, usually run by the head of the family. “The Sicilian

The Mafia way of life may seem like a romantic updated version of the western movie played out on the streets of the big cities where the good guys and the wise guys who share the same instincts and values do battle before an enthralled public but it is actually very different. The Mafia is really just a group of uneducated thugs making money by victimizing the public. Initially, the Mafia was setup as a prominent supplier of bootlegged liquor, but it has spread into many different areas of crime. During this research paper I will discuss three aspects of the Mafia which are crime, structure and decline in leadership.

The Mafia was able to achieve this prolific infiltration of American society in part because of a mass exodus of mafioso from Sicily after a brutal crackdown by the Fascist regime. Before their emigration from Sicily the mafia contended itself at times as a governmental body that exists outside of the law, with sense of honor and with a code even if it be a bit twisted. As a result of this image some members of Sicilian society viewed the Mafia favorably, garnering them a mystical and romantic quality if you were lucky enough to not be involved in the unsavory nature of the organization. Mussolini sought to undercut this appeal of the Mafia, in a statement Benito said “Gentlemen, it is time that I showed the Mafia up to you...Let nobody speak of the nobility or chivalry of the Mafia, unless he really wishes to insult the whole of Sicily.” In conjunction with his statement Mussolinis crackdown ensued shortly thereafter bringing the likes of Charles “Lucky” Luciano, Joseph “Socks” Lanza, Vito Genovese, and many more to America.

In the early 1900’s Italian immigrant had few job opportunities and were forced into poverty. As most Italians saw the Mafia as an ideal opportunity to make some money for themselves and their families, it's no wonder the numbers of mafia members boomed, however,

The Italian Mafia in the U.S. can trace its origins all the way back to the Sicilian Mafia which was founded in Sicily during the 1800’s (Italian Organized Crime). After thousands of years of different armies with different nationalities conquering Italy and exploiting its people, the Sicilians became to be more clannish and family focused. Originally they were just resistance fighters that were protecting their friends and family. They were relied on for protection, justice, and survival. Nobody cared if they got money from it because it came from the oppressive authorities. Members of these groups were known as “Men of Honor” and they were well respected and even admired because they looked out for their family and kept silent sometimes even unto death. They didn’t become an organized crime group until the 1920’s however (Italian Organized Crime). It was around this same time that the US began to see what later became La Cosa Nostra or “our thing,” better known as the American Mafia which was aided by the “thousands of Italian organized crime figures, mostly Sicilian Mafiosi” who came to the United States illegally (Italian Organized Crime). The modern American Mafia is credited to Charles “Lucky” Luciano who came over in the 1920’s (Italian Organized Crime). Luciano structured La Cosa Nostra just like their Sicilian

Imagine living in a world where crime ruled. A world where gangsters were more powerful than politicians, owned the police, and ran the city in whatever way they felt. They robbed whom they wanted and killed when they didn't get their way. Now stop imagining and realize that this happened here in the United States of America in the 1920's. It was run by an organization made up mainly of Italians called the Mafia.

By contrast, the Sicilian Mafia was transformed during a revolution in the eighties by the Sicilian people. It was during the bloodthirsty reign of Salvatore Riina would started a Mafia War and murder campaign within Sicily that reached its peak during the 1990s. His reign was so ruthless he even broke traditional Mafia codes and is responsible for the many deaths of women and children. His murder campaign reached priests and politicians alike and created a chilling atmosphere in Sicily, often people feared to leave their homes unarmed. This sociopathic boss gave the Sicilian people a brutal wake up call about the Mafia and its power amongst civilians. It took the an actual revolution to soften the Mafia influence in Sicily and illustrate

The State of Italy was unified in the year 1861 after being ruled by the Spanish, French and Arabs. After the unification of Italy, and industry of violence was born out of Sicily. By this, many people had an idea of the mafia, but the Italian government was in denial thus aiding in the furtherance and continuation of the mafia. It is said that the “mafia” was actually developed from the year 1812 (Dickie, p 51). The state of Italy failed to establish a monopoly or a structure for the violence in Sicily, resulting in the mafia rising to power. Disorder, chaos and crime would eventually rule over the island as the juvenile Italian government attempted to set up itself. In the 1870s, Roman authorities even requested that Sicilian Mafia families help them by following perilous, autonomous criminal groups; in return, authorities would look the other route as the Mafia proceeded with its security squeezes of landowners. The administration trusted this course of action would be transitory, enduring sufficiently yearn for Rome to pick up control; rather, the Mafia tribes extended their

Speaking about criminality, it is necessary to say about Italian mafia. Based on the report of 2009 year, commissioned by Italy's parliamentary anti-mafia commission, it is possible to say that now it is silently prospering, moving on from spectacular crimes and massacres to business and politics, with a prudent dose of intimidation and violence in a bid to take over the fundamental role of the state. The highest concentration of people living under the shadow of the mafia, 95.9%, was in the province of Agrigento in Sicily, followed by Naples, at 95%. (Tom Kington, guardian.co.uk, 2009).