What Is The Italian Mafia?
The Italian Mafia Is a network of organized-crime groups based in Italy and America, evolved over centuries in Sicily. Through the years Sicilians banded together in groups to protect themselves and carry out their own justice. They wanted to make their own type of government that they wanted to live by. Later on, by the 19th century, some of these groups emerged as private armies, or “mafie,” who extorted protection money from landowners and eventually became the violent criminal organization known today. The American Mafia, which rose to power in the 1920s, is a complete separate group in America from the Mafia in Italy, However both have traditions that they both use, such as omerta, a code of conduct and loyalty. (Origins of the Mafia)